serita's second week!

serita again! because i'm the coolest! this may or may not be my last blog, depending on whether or not i have time after this weekend/before i come home. so i will go through this week because linnell has been bugging me to.

so monday linnell went to classes in the morning and i went to the auckland art gallery. there is a main gallery and a new gallery which are not in the same building, but are on two blocks right next to each other. it wasn't a very far walk but when i got to the main gallery, it said it was closed for renovation until 2010! i was a little angry but i went to the new gallery and that was open. there were only two exhibits there so i only spent like an hour and a half there. the first exhibit was a 50 year celebration of one of the first art shows solely for maori artists, and it featured 7 (i think) maori artists and told their history and stuff. one of them was a famous all blacks player, and his biography talked about how he was a symbol of the "everything guy" who was a sports figure and an artist all at once. the second exhibit was about earth and ecology and junk like that. there were some photos of whales on a beach decomposing and stuff and that was real gross. there was also an "arrangement" of junk like old office supplies and i was just like that's not art. but it was still cool to go see.

i came back to ih and waited until someone opened the gate for me because i had forgotten my cell phone to call linnell to let me in. someone did let me in after a few minutes and then linnell and i just hung out in her room until dinner. after dinner, we were going to roll training which i was really really dreading. we walked to the uni quad, and met everyone else there. we rode with hayden, isaac, and molly out to the northcote pool, which is on the north shore, over the harbour bridge. the pool is kind of under a big tent thing, not really inside. we got our bathing suits on and i wore one of the stolen polypro fleeces, and we got our boats and paddles and skirts, and linnell took me to squirrel, the one who taught her most of the times, and she started teaching me how to paddle. it turns out i am extremely uncomfortable being upside down inside my boat under water ha ha. i somewhat had fun though for the most part trying to learn. linnell came and taught me how to t rescue which she said would be more useful, which i suppose it is. it's where you're flipped over upside down and instead of rolling yourself up with your paddle, you hit your boat so people can hear you, and then they come over and you hold onto their boat to flip yourself back up. i can do it, but i don't like having to wait for someone else to realize i'm flipped over and then come over. i kept swimming out instead of waiting ha ha which made everyone laugh/yell at me. (not really yelling don't worry). so i started to dread this weekend more and more because a. it's going be extremely cold camping and b. i'm going to be doing a lot of swimming in the freezing rivers. but i have since come to terms with that. at the end of roll training i was getting a little tired/frustrated so linnell had colm teach me how to paddle right. then we got out and took really quick showers because the drains were clogged so the shower water was pooling disgustingly.

then we went to a bar and linnell had promised hot chocolate, but they didn't have it, because we did not go to sausalito's where they usually go, instead it was called 'slip in' and we went there because mo was there and he was leaving. a maori guy with dreadlocks who i think is named matt was also there and he and molly were discussing maori bc she has a test in that class and he is doing maori immersion at his school, and molly's favorite word is 'tupatupa' which means helicopter which is quite fun indeed. matt said there is a whole movement to re-invent new non-english sounding words for all the modern stuff, and everyone agreed that would be a really cool job, just inventing words. roll training made me super hungry so when we got back we ate quite a bit of snack food, and then went to bed.

tuesday, we went to the museum of transportation and technology (motat). it was about an hour walk away, which was not so fun, but it wasn't that bad, it was entirely flat/downhill once we got to k rd. we got there at 11ish, and there was a "voyager ride" at 11:30, so we walked around the farm implements building, and as we walked by something, a little boy (there were a lot of children on a field trip there) said "is that a jetski??" it was very funny. turns out it was an engine or water pump or something. at 11:30 we went on the voyager ride which was a "4d experience". basically we just went in and sat and watched and listened to a movie of a kind of video game roller coaster ride while we felt like we were riding along in the cart in the movie. it was kind of strange and we weren't really sure where we were supposed to be going, but it was fun. linnell guessed that it was just whatever the designers felt like putting in. there were little children in front of us who had some kind of mental problem, and they were really really excited, it was cute. after we got off we walked around the communications building and an old guy working there showed us four different phone systems nz has used which was pretty cool. there were a bunch of old school dial phones you could dial and call another one, and then watch all the connections happening in the switch board. linnell couldn't figure out why the phone didn't work, until we realized that she was turning the dial the wrong way and we thought she was retarded, but when the man was showing us stuff he told us that the dials are opposite in new zealand. and it's not like the roads where it's a british thing, just new zealand.

then we went to the victorian village for a while and ate our sandwiches for lunch. then we took the tram to the aviation center and saw a flying boat which was sooooooo cool. (on the brochure it said there were flying boat tours on the weekend and we took that to mean a tour IN the flying boat and were sad that we missed it, but after seeing the huge old boat with wings that was very much a museum exhibit we realized it probably meant tours OF the flying boat). the flying boats were part of the TEAL airline (which eventually became air new zealand) up to the 1960s, and they flew flying boats because there weren't runways long enough to accommodate the large planes needed to cross the big water gaps to and from nz, so they would just fly them into and out of the ocean or rivers.

we also found a flight simulator to play with but the tram came soon so we couldn't play on that for long. when we got back to the other motat site, we went in the discovery rooms which were like hands on things which was super fun. among other things we superimposed our faces with a 2-way mirror, built an archway we could stand on, experienced an earthquake, weighed ourselves, played on musical pipes, and played tangrams. we also went to the computers exhibit and linnell had fun looking at that while i played a game about dolphins against a kid in japan on a computer there. we looked quickly at a bicycle exhibit but were pretty bored and running out of time, so after a potty stop we walked back to uni. we went to the computer lab for half an hourish, and i fell asleep there while linnell played on the computer. then we went to computer science, and then went back to ih for dinner, and did homework/watched friends/read/did picture stuff for the rest of the night.

yesterday linnell had class all day, and we needed some more polypro for this weekend and so i walked down to queen street in the morning and looked at kathmandu, a store where linnell had $25 off anything, and they had 3 polypro for $50 which is a good deal, so i scoped things out and then went to another store and bought linnell's greenstone necklace to match the one she got me. then i went to albert park and read for a while and then we met for lunch. i convinced linnell we should go back to ih for lunch, so we did and i ate way too much. then we started walking to her next class, when i remembered we didn't have the kathmandu coupon, so i went back and got that and we met up after her class ended. we walked down to kathmandu and realized her coupon probably wouldn't work on the sale polypro but it was still a good deal so we each picked on out and got one for sophie who we talked to at lunch about it. we were right, our coupon didn't work, but we're thinking we'll get polypro gloves with that tomorrow.

then we walked back to linnell's other class, anthropology, and i read through that one. i came back to ih and linnell went to step class where sophie and ej met her, and when they got back to ih we all had dinner. everyone said they were going a bar called bluestone at 8, so linnell took a shower and we got ready and went out with sophie, ej, courtney, lucy, barret, brian, ace, cameron, and alex. since i'm legal here, linnell and i both got pineapple malibus, which were yummy! we played a game, categories, where you pick a category and you go around in the circle and everyone has to say something in that category and if you repeat or can't think of one, you have to drink and then pick a new category. it was lots of fun, although only the boys were actually doing the drinking part. also, linnell's camera stopped working, and would not turn on and the lens would not fold in. the batteries were charged, so there was no good reason, and after freaking out for awhile she just put it away in the sock. we came home pretty early and went to bed around 11, and either that night or the next morning when she tried her camera it worked again, although it seems like it makes a lot of noise putting the lens in and out now.

today we got up and went to the auckland museum. it was semi boring but semi interesting. the third floor of it is a war memorial/exhibit about the wars nz has been in, and there was a temporary exhibit i saw advertised for that was paintings by an army artist of iraq and i really wanted to see them, but the exhibit was closed today! not cool. we started on the bottom, looking at pacific artifacts, then maori artifacts, then some old childrens toys/school stuff (and a random elephant in that room).

the second floor (1st floor here) was all natural history stuff, most of which we bypassed on the way to the volcano exhibit which linnell had heard great things about. sure enough, the "what would happen if a volcano erupted in auckland harbour" exhibit was going, and we read some of the exhibit stuff while waiting for our turn, and then we went into this little cottage, and it was like someones living room, with a big glass "window" looking out on the harbour towards rangitoto. first the tv came on, and there was a news story about how there was increasing seismic activity and stuff, and like a geology prof was interviewed and stuff, and then we noticed that out the 'window' there was steam rising off the water, and then there was shaking of the whole house and the tv went black, and out the 'window' we saw this huge plume of smoke and ash and stuff and gradually a new volcano erupted between us and rangitoto and this huge cloud of black smoke came towards us until the shaking got very intense and all the lights went off. then the lights came back on and we could see a new island out in the harbour. very cool. after that linnell continued to be fascinated with all the volcano information (they had the actual fossils that show there were maori people on motutapu watching rangitoto erupt there!), and i went upstairs looking for army art, and after i didn't find any and she was finally done we did a brief walk thru of the wwII era nz village set up, and then made our way back down to the exit.

we had lunch (pbj as usual) on a bench by these little ponds with ducks and geese (which i had confused with swans) i picked out as we were walking there thru the domain (the big park the museum is in) then we wanted ice cream and we had seen signs for "tip top ice cream" in the dairies on the way over, but when we went in, it was like wrapped ice cream bar things, and no scoopable ice cream, so we went to a little bakery and linnell got a apple turn over and i got a chocolate fudge bar, so we walked and ate on the way back home.

at five linnell went to class and i went with ej, sophie, courtney, and danielle to get seats at kendall's kapa haka (maori performing arts) performance. we stopped at subway on the way there and it smelled super good but i restrained myself because i had brought a luna bar and there was supposed to be food after the performance. so we went and everyone said to get there early because the seats filled up very quickly but when we got there at 5:30 (half an hour early) almost all the seats were already taken. luckily we got the last row that was open and sat down and saved a seat for linnell. she got there a few minutes after it started and it was soo cool. the stage one (intro level) had probably like 40 people in it and they sang and the girls did poi for a few songs and then the boys came forward and did their haka, which is very fierce. some of them look kind of funny sticking out their tongues and bulging out their eyes, but it was still pretty intimidating. but it was super cool.

then stage three came out and there were like 16 of them, and they did pretty much the same thing, but more advanced. then they came out in two groups and each performed a song that their group choreographed. then afterwards they had food (some weird sandwiches and wraps, pumpkin soup which was veryyyy good, and banana bread with chocolate frosting, which linnell actually ate!) so we stood around and ate and talked about the performance and then we decided we were going to go to the ice bar so we walked back to ih so everyone could get warm stuff on.

after everyone was ready, we walked to the viaduct where the ice bar is. while walking there we saw this billboard of the back of a girl wearing a skirt, and the skirt was like, real material that blew in the wind, and as we watched it blew ALL the way up to reveal a lot of skin. it was pretty funny. linnell and i had coupons, yay! so we got into the bar and one drink for $25, which is a rip off but it was still worth it. so we paid and then we all got suited in our parkas and two sets of gloves, and linnell and danielle got boots because they were wearing flip flops. then we were told the rules (a max of 3 drinks, only 25 minutes spent in the actual ice bar, hold on to your drink with two hands because it's easy to drop) it was kinda funny because they make such a big deal of how the cold is so extreme and you will feel the alcohol more and don't use your camera/electronics because the cold will mess it up, etc, but -5 C is like 25 F, which is warmer than the majority of the winter in rochester, and i have never had any electronic problems, even taking pictures while snowboarding. anyway, then we got to go in! it was a lot smaller than we had imagined, but it was still really cool! everything is made out of ice, including the cups, and there are ice sculptures all over, and ice benches (that are covered with deer skin-which kendall pointed out had spots, meaning it was from babies!) and a bar made out of ice and cups made out of ice. they only serve drinks with smirnoff vodka (in all sorts of flavours tho) since it won't freeze, and they have fun names of drinks like santa's sleigh and frisky penguin (which is what linnell got) i got a pina coolada and then we looked at sculptures/sat down on the benches, got our picture taken by the guy who worked there (the real reason they don't want you to bring your own camera, so they can sell you photos. ej brought hers anyway, but we didn't take any photos in there with it) and were silly. we were all sucking the edges of our glasses, trying to eat them, with minor success. our 25 minutes was soon over, and linnell really wanted to drop her glass before we left just because it's fun, so she "accidently" tipped it off the table it was on, and it didn't even break! haha so then we went out and got our cold weather clothes taken off, and then looked at our photos. one was $25 so we decided to split it 6 ways and get it since we can make copies of it. we ended up getting 5 copies as well as a digital version online for the $25, so linnell and i are just sharing for now and we'll make copies later.

after that we decided to go to another bar, shadows (the auckland uni campus bar), which is where the haka "after party" was. we walked there and then ordered wedges (which always come with sour cream here) because linnell said they were sooo good and it would probably be my last chance. we went and sat down and while we were waiting for them, a whole bunch of police came in. they walked around for a few seconds, and then came over to our table (out of everyone we apparently looked the most sketchy or the least of-age) and asked to see our ids. so we gave them our passports and they shined their flashlights in our faces to see if we matched our photo, and it was a little intimidating but it was fine. the one who looked at mine said "wow you just turned a few months ago" haha. after they looked at our ids, they looked around for a few more minutes and then left. then our wedges came! they were very good, they're basically like potato wedges that mom makes without the crumbly stuff on the outside, and with sour cream and marinara sauce. yum. (normally they have breading/flavour too, these were not the best)

after we finished eating we decided we were pretty ready to go, so we left and walked home. right as we got to the bottom of the hill, we saw ace ollie, brian, lucy and everyone going out to "find a sketchy bar" and they told us that at least one of us had to come with them. while we were at the ice bar they had climbed up the crane at the construction site right next to ih, which is the third time brian and ollie have done it, and linnell really wants to cause the view must be amazing and she likes adventures. we all decided not join the sketchy bar hunt, although kendell and ej said if we had met them at the top of the hill, they probably would have gone but they did not want to climb all the way back up agian. ha ha proving our laziness is not only me and linnell. so then we came back and went to bed.

this morning nelly woke up to get us breakfast and is now working on her computer science/facebooking, and i'm doing this, then i have to fix her pants, for an exciting time. this afternoon we're going to classes, and tomorrow/sunday is kayaking. byeee

Sissy road trip!

so we're back to serita as the blogger today! linnell left off on friday, about how we were gonna be lazy. it turns out, we did not be lazy. ej imed linnell and asked her if we wanted to go bowling with everybody, and linnell wanted to. after a minor temper tantrum on my part, we went with ej, danielle, lucy, sam, nat, ollie, barret, will, and brian. barret kept saying he knew where we were going, and linnell didn't believe him, but we followed him anyways and it turned out he did know where he was going. we eventually got there and linnell paid for me as an incentive to go, which was very nice of her if i may say so. as we were going up (the bowling alley was on the 6th floor), the elevator closed on one of the boy's arms as they tried to make the doors stay open for more people to get in, and then it kind of bounced when we got out, which was quite worrisome. we arrived safely, and we got shoes, and there were some issues (them not having enough of her size for linnell for a while, people who asked for a 6 getting a 4 or a 4.5, and me trading with danielle for super huge ones) but we got our shoes sorted out and then went and bowled.

the first game it was the girls against the guys, except for danielle and sam switched, and everyones names were funnily spelled (by the asian people at the desk, not the boys being funny as we first thought). like linnell was lenne, danielle was daniella, barret was barren, ej was bj, and i was sarita, which is how most people spell it. linnell won our first game and then sam and danielle switched, since she had barely made it into double digits and the boys were doing somewhat better than us, and i won the second game on the girls side. barret was trying to mess people up all game, and he and the other boys were quite violent with lucy, and then after the games, linnell and i were standing near the big video game machines, and ollie and barret were wrestling for some reason he later tried to explain to us, and they were coming toward us and i got worried and tried to run, but linnell was not quick enough to move so i couldn't move and i got run over/into the game, which started to tip over. i was very scared i was going to get two fully grown boys on me as well, but luckily none of those things fell on me and all that got hurt was my ankle temporarily, but it was funny and i was okay, and everyone yelled at them for traumatizing me.

when we walked outside (via the stairs rather than the dodgy elevator) we saw a random shopping cart (or trolley as they call them here) on the ground, and ej gave linnell a very scary ride in that that involved going out in the street, and when they tried to go up the little rampy part back onto the sidewalk it tipped over, sending linnell rolling into the street (laughing). fortunately there were no cars (although a police man had been nearby earlier and had stopped and said something to the boys who were ahead of us. it turns out they had done something else obnoxious and the police man didn't care about the shopping cart). they then abandoned the cart in the street, so danielle got it for them, and we all went to burger king. linnell and i pilfered other people's fries and then lucy, ej, danielle, brian, linnell and i walked home together (everyone else got a ride with sam who has a car), again linnell arguing with brian about how to get home. we ended up going the longest way home, but it was okay. it was 1:30ish i think when we got home and we had to get up at 7 to get the car, so we went to bed asap.

in the morning, i slept through our alarm and linnell kept pushing sleep on it, so we ended up getting the car around 9 which worried me but it was fine. we also had found a coupon for a free gift from the car rental company which i reminded linnell to give them when she got the car, and it ended up being a bottle of wine! (odd combination with a rental car which you will presumably be driving, yes?) we got on the road, and i wanted to stop at the otara market again because i had seen a $2 ring there last week which i wanted to get as my souvenir for myself, but i had wanted to wait and see what else i would want so i didn't get it last week. we stopped at the market and were worried i wouldn't find it, but it was like the 3rd booth we walked by which was fantastic. we walked around quickly looking for good deals on the green stone necklace for me to get linnell, but the prices weren't great, so i decided to wait.

we kept driving, stopping in matamata (aka hobbiton) for a pbj lunch and toilet break. we got to the zorbing place just outside rotorua in the early afternoon. the building looked like a trailer in someone's driveway, but when we went in we signed in on computers and stuff and it was more professional looking. after we signed in, we went and talked to the guy at the desk who asked if we were twins (the 10000th person here to ask that) and then we went and got our bathing suits on, because we couldn't do the suspended one because of wind levels or something, so we were doing the one where you go in together with warm water. we decided to both wear those white v neck tee shirts that we both have as we were apparently twins, although serita refused to do the no pants dance and insisted on wearing her capris as well). and since they recommended socks to prevent any toenail rippage, we wore 2 of the 3 pairs of socks we had for the trip. we went back in and got in the van and a guy drove us to the top of the mountain. when we got there, he had us put our toes in this pool "to test if it was warm enough to have in our zorbing ball" and it was freezing which worried me. he got one of the balls for us and had us go in a hole, head first. i went first and it was really warm water so it was fine. linnell penguined in as well and he told us we could try running if we wanted or just sit and enjoy. the ball really isn't as clear as we were expecting, you could see colors outside but definitely not shapes. we took off down the mountain and tried running, and succeeded for about 5 seconds. then we slipped and slid around the inside of the ball and into each other. i couldn't really control where my legs were going and it was just lots of fun. it seemed so much longer than when you watch other people go! when we got out of the ball at the bottom, there was a guy taking our pictures and we decided to put on dry clothes and then look and see if the pictures were good enough to buy. we changed (with only one towel for both of us which was a bit annoying) and then we went and waited by the photo desk. the guy there also asked if we were twins ha ha. we looked at the photos, and i really liked them, but it was 25 dollars for them, and since i owe linnell more money than i put in her account after this weekend, we decided not to get them.

we left and went down the road to Ngongotaha mountain, where linnell had read you could hike to the top and then luge down for 9 dollars. that seemed worth it, until we got there and discovered that contrary to the brocure, there were no scenic walking paths at all and the only way to the top was the $29 gondola. lame as. instead we went to the rotorua i sight (nz information centers) and looked for things to do, and then went to our microtel. the owners were really nice and they gave us a room with just one set of bunk beds so we were all by ourselves in the room, sharing the showers and toilets with several other tiny rooms in kind of a suite.

we had driven past a park with some thermal springs that are due to the earth's crust being very thin in this area, so the rocks in the ground are super hot from being so close to the earth's core, so they make the water and mud boil, giving off (very smelly) steam. so we walked back to those and investigated that. the whole town smells like sulfur pretty badly, but you get used to it for the most part. we looked at the bubbling/steaming mud pools which was super cool (there was some pretty big bubbling-ness) and took pictures, and then we found a really fun play ground (we've decided play grounds here are more cool than at home because they're more dangerous. they just have cooler toys). it had this really high spider web sort of thing made out of rope which we each took a turn climbing to the top. linnell had a fright when a little kid started jumping on the bottom while she was at the top, causing a lot of shaking. then we went over to a club rugby game that was nearby because we heard people drumming on the way over there and wanted to investigate that as well. it turned out to be a group of asian high schoolers sitting in a circle in a parking lot doing some sort of traditional drumming. it was pretty sweet as. then we went to the game and watched for a while and discussed how wimpy our football players are compared to the rugby players here. they are much more violent and have no padding at all.

after a while we walked back to our hostel and then drove the secret spot, because it was close by and free and i really wanted to go experience it. when we got there our bathing suits were still wet and therefore freezing so we changed extremely quickly in the middle of the road (it was a pretty low traffic road). then we went a tiny bit into the woods and there was the secret spot! (for those of you who don't remember what it is, it's where a cold river and a hot river meet, and so there is every temperature water that you want all in one.) we went in and and there were 3 guys that we approximated to be our age, and 2 old guys, and then another old guy who it turns out was completely naked. despite that, it was still super super cool and we sat in the varying degrees of water until it was pretty dark out. i was very scared of getting the water on my head because linnell told me some disease lives in the warm water (amoebal meningitis, but that's a risk in all natural hot springs). the naked guy kept putting his head under water deliberately, which made me dislike him more. linnell said people bring candles and put them in the holes of the rock walls, and i wished we had that. we ended up talking to the our ageish boys for a little while after everyone including the naked guy left. it turns out they were year 13 in college (high school) so that means they were approximately 17.

we decided to go after a while and we drove back and showered quickly and then walked to burger fuel! i had heard very very good things about their huge burgers and their kumara fries, but i had noooo idea what i was in for. linnell and i shared one of each and the fries were AMAZING especially with the aioli and the burger was delicioussss. on the way over there, we had walked by a gelato shop, and we decided to stop there on the way back. initially we set our price limit at 2 dollars, but somehow convinced ourselves that 3.70 for 2 scoops (the smallest size) was reasonable. that was also delicious, and both was worth every cent. we walked back to our hostel and went in the common room, which was a kitchen with some chairs and tables, and a big tv on the wall but no couch which the owners had warned us about because they had just ordered it and it had not arrived yet. linnell pretended to work on her homework, and we watched the end of "the holiday" and then "chasing liberty" came on!! (it is one of my favorite corny movies) i got very excited so we watched that while our feet pretty much froze off. while we were watching, a sketchy guy came in smelling quite a bit like alcohol, but left soon thankfully and we questioned whether or not he was staying at the hostel ha ha. when the movie was over, we went back to our room and stole some duvets from the empty room next door, so we each had two, and turned up the heat, and went to sleep very soon.

in the morning we woke up to a very hot room which was fantastic, and we hurriedly got ready because we realized we had to be at the waitomo caves 15 minutes earlier than we thought, and we had to drive for two hours to get there. we left and drove for a while, with me navigating the sketchy directions/map/roads for linnell. none of those things lined up with each other, and we turned onto a dirt road. it was EXTREMELY windey, with no people/houses, and we drove on it for a long time before we finally found an old guy on a four wheeler, who was lacking some teeth. as we pulled up, he informed us that he had 'just fell a tree up the road' so we might or might not be able to get thru. when we asked where the road actually lead he listed off some places, none of which were on our list of places on the way to waitomo. he did tell us how to get back to the main road to waitomo, which as it turns out was quite a ways back. when we were finally back on route, it was 10:15 which was when we were supposed to be in waitomo, but when we finally got some phone reception and called they said we could come on the tour at noon instead. we took a potty break in otrohanga, which i think is the town the hot pool boys warned us was rough, but seemed fine, and when we got to waitomo we were like an hour early, so we ate some lunch of pbj/luna bars/fruit flats, and basked in sun until it was time (by basked in the sun serita means sat in the car because she was a wimp and it was too cold out for her).

we went in and our tour group consisted of 3 our age guys from london, 3 our age girls from germany, two adult men, and an oldish american couple, plus our two guides. our guides were a guy named shannon, who at first we thought was like jokingish mean/sarcastic but he may or may not have been joking, and a girl named snappy, who had a carabiner as an earring, and just looked the epitome of hippy/hiker girl, but she was much nicer. we changed into our gear which consisted of our bathing suit, wet suit bootie sock things, a wet suit overalls, a fleece polypro shirt, a wet suit jacket, gum boots, and a helmet. the wet suit overalls were extremely difficult to put on, and we were lagging behind the rest of the group.

when we were finally all outfitted, we drove in a van to a little river place and since we were black water rafting, we each picked a tube (like an intertube) that our bum could fit through when we bent over. i couldn't decide which one to get so i ended up with a quite large one that later got stuck in some of the narrower passages, leading to the guides having to unstick me. shannon took us these docks on the side of the river and told us we were going to practice jumping off them backwards with our tubes on, to simulate how we were going to jump off the waterfalls. there was a higher platform which shannon joked about us jumping off, and because i'm gullible, and the first one to go, i was all ready to jump off that one, until it turned out we were jumping off the one that was like a foot above the water. we all jumped and i got soaked with my (ice cold) splash, and then we just climbed out of the water and rode in the van (which was a very cozy fit with 12 people and 12 tubes) a little farther up the road to the entrance to the caves.

we started out by walking on slippery rocks and shannon kept hurrying us which was not fun. then we got into the water which was absolutely freezing, and we walked and rafted for a while down the caves. the walls were sharp, and since our hands were so cold it felt like every time you touched the wall to push off, you got cut, but our hands aren't cut now so it's okay. a ways in we stopped and looked at the glow worms which was really cool. they are actually a larva, which eat their siblings which then glow in the form of feces in their intestines, and lures other insects toward it, and they then get caught in the sticky stringy stuff they dangle below the roof of the cave. after awhile the worms turn into some sort of fly that only lives a couple days and has no mouth or digestive system, so their whole goal is to lay a bunch of eggs, which hatch into larva and the first few eat the others, and so on.

shannon passed us chocolate fish, which are like easter marshmallow stuff in chocolate, they were delicious. i was first in line as we left that part of the cave, and snappy showed me with her flash light a baby eel. it was so cool. we kept rafting/walking/jumping off water falls. at one point we did this thing where we're in a straight line and hold the person behind us' feet, so we're all connected and don't have to paddle or anything. it's called the eel, and it was both of our favorite points because we just kind of floated along and weren't hurried or having to push off of sharp rocks or anything.

a little before the end, they told us to turn off our head lamps and we "played a game called find your own way out of the caves in the dark". it wasn't too hard, because the glow-worms on the ceiling showed the path of the river, only i was the first person in the line (well the two people before me were super fast and i didn't see where they went) so i was basically leading us, and i'm a very slow paddler it turns out, so i was feeling very rushed. we got out safely and were all incredibly freezing. we drove back and got all our gear off and then i got in the advertised hot showers, which turned out to be freezing cold showers. linnell went out to the car to get comfy pants (and stealthily left her polypro fleece in the car because we need them for kayaking and her polypro got lost at roll training). we got dressed quite quickly, and then went in and had our included soup and bagel which were delicioussssss and warm! we also nabbed another bagel for our ride home, and then headed out (with serita's fleece stashed in our stuff as well. i feel slightly guilty for being a klepto, but i'm planning on giving the fleeces to someone else who is going blackwater rafting so they can return them after we're done with kayaking. it's more borrowing than stealing, and for $95 each i don't feel too terrible).

the car was nice and warm and i was suddenly quite sleepy, so i napped a bit while linnell drove. we stopped and got gas in otara and hoped the digital gas meter would still read full when we got to the car rental place, and as linnell was saying "okay let's try to save gas as much as we can" she got back on the motorway in the wrong direction ha ha. she was quite angry with herself, but we made it with the car still on the full bar, so we were fine. we were a bit angry about how much gas cost (we ended up spending $80 this weekend on gas. we are up to $2/liter so i don't want to hear whining about $4/gallon!) but it's okay. we left the car at the rental place, and we walked up the steep hill to ih, eating our bagel. when we got back, we ate a little dinner (or a lot, whatever) and then took showers and did laundry. then i packed stuff i didn't need this week and some of linnell's stuff to bring home, and organized what we were going to need for camping next weekend. then we went to the ih dvd library and were going to get the movie "one were warriors" which is apparently a classic nz movie, but they didn't have it as linnell had promised me, so we got whale rider and independence day instead and now linnell's watching whale rider because she needs it for a linguistics project, and i'm doing this/listening to that.

(this is actually getting posted on tuesday, after we have been to roll training and motat, but that will be in another post)
tootles

hiking adventures with serita

serita is lazy so this blog will be brought to you by yours truly

monday she came to my classes with me (pacific linguistics and comp sci) and was not super entertained. that afternoon we don't remember what we did so it probably wasn't very exciting. i think i went to the gym and she unpacked her bags maybe?

tuesday we decided to go to rangitoto, a volcanic island in the hauraki gulf, a 25 min ferry ride from downtown. most everyone else i know has been there at least once already (kendall's been 3 times). the first ferry left at 9:15 am, and we managed to just miss it, so then we wandered around the viaduct area in touristy stores until the next one at 10:30. the last ferry back left at 3:30, which we needed to catch because a) i had class at 5 and b) there is other way off the island and no buildings there (except a few old historic bachs, which are sort of little vacation cottages). it was kind of grey and drizzley while we were walking around, and we seriously considered waiting to go another day, but decided to go for it, which was a good choice because the sun came out while we were on the ferry, and it was beautiful for the rest of the day.

after arriving we started following the main trail to the summit, which is supposed to take about an hour, but we took a detour on the wilson's park path, which sort of went around the back side. i managed to fall once and scraped my knees on the black lava rock (which serita thinks looks like a plowed field from a distance) but other than that there were no disasters. when we emerged from our detour we found a boardwalk with stairs all the way up to the summit. when we got there it was around noon so we had lunch (pbj of course). there were a bunch of girls, probably about middle school age, there on a school field trip, and they were SO excited that we were american it was really cute (i have not gotten that reaction anywhere else here, because most places i go there are tons of other americans). they asked us if we knew anyone famous and if there were cheerleaders and gangs at our school.

after lunch we went back down the boardwalk to go see the lava caves, which everyone says are really cool, although they all recommended a flashlight which we of course forgot. we first went in one with a small crawl-size entrance, with a larger area within. we were using the flash from my camera to light our way, which sort of worked, but serita got scared when she saw red rocks that she decided looked like blood, and there were red roots hanging from the ceiling, so we went back out. a little further on we found a big cave that you could walk thru standing upright. at first we thought it had an opening at the other end bc we saw light, but that turned out to just be a hole in the ceiling. by that time we decided we should start heading back to be sure we caught the ferry. there were some confusing signs showing a possible path around the outside of the island but the map said that way took too long, so we went back up the boardwalk to the summit, took some more pictures.

from the top we could see the auckland sky line, the north shore, and a bunch of the hauraki gulf islands, including waiheke, brown's island (which is a little grassy volcano that serita loved), and motutapu. motutapu is connected via a causeway and has a campground and farm animals, but also no permanent residents as far as i know. there is evidence of maori settlement on most of the islands, and they have found footprints in the ash on motutapu that show there were people standing there watching as rangitoto erupted 600 years ago. pretty crazy. anyway, then we headed down the main summit trail, which i had heard described as steep, with loose volcanic rock, but it was really not bad at all. we were kind of hurrying, but we got there with plenty of time so we took a little detour at the bottom and did the kidney fern walk. the whole island is covered in forest, and we saw all kinds of cool plants. the only animals are birds (and probably some bugs and stuff).

we reached the ferry landing by 3, and as we were sitting waiting the field trip girls came over and took pictures with us and talked to us more, and i'm pretty sure they were sneaking pictures of us on the ferry back. ha ha. on the ride back these 2 people who we had take our picture and we took theirs at the top sat with us. the girl was from west auckland and the guy was from england and they had met in australia and were just doing a day trip while the guy was visiting new zealand. he's traveling for 7 months, spending the first 3 or 4 in australia, then 6 weeks here, and then going to southeast asia (i've met a lot of backpackers who are either going there or have already been, and they all say good things, especially how cheap everything is).

we got back to auckland around 4, and had to go back to IH (half an hour walk), shower, and get back to campus for class at 5 (another 15 min walk). i thought the free city circuit bus would be faster than walking, only we waited for awhile and everyone had to switch buses due to the 2 presumably homeless people sleeping in the back of the first one. we finally made it back, i had a speed shower and was off to computer science, which serita decided she did not need to attend.

wednesday i have classes every other hour from 10-5, and then step class at 5:30. serita went shopping on queen street in the morning, and we met by the library for lunch at 1. it was a little chilly so we went to the sheltered quad area, where we saw signs for a free vegetarian lunch, so we followed the signs up to the 3rd floor and got some cous-cous like indian stuff and some oddly textured peanutbutter fudge which we then had in addition to our packed sandwiches. after lunch serita came to my nz lingusitics and pacific anthropology classes, again not very exciting. she just does her puzzles the whole time tho. she decided not to pay $10 to get into the gym for step class, so she went back to ih and we had dinner when i got back. generally she comes to dinner and i just get a lot of food on my tray and she has some, and also a sandwich usually.

thursday we went to one tree hill, which is a grassy volcanic cone park that's far enough away so we took the bus. we missed the first bus we could have taken bc we were just sitting in the bus stop shelter and you have to stand up and signal the driver if you want them to stop. we caught the second bus successfully, and it was about a 30 min ride. upon entering the park we first used the bathrooms by the planetarium and then started toward the summit. on the way we saw signs for the cornwall park (which is adjacent to one tree hill) information centre, so we kept following them and ended up in cornwall park on the other side of the volcano. cornwall park contains a working farm, not as a tourist attraction of any kind, you just kind of walk by the cows and sheep and stuff. the gates all have grating that you drive/walk over that the animals can't, and the fences have steps you can climb over or gates. it was really pretty, and after getting heaps of brochures from the info centre we found a bench and read them and looked at the map.

we decided to go the rest of the way around to the start of the summit walk again, going thru most of cornwall park on the way. it was quite pretty and the walking was very easy compared with rangitoto. these ladies from a korean church group accosted us and gave us these little booklets about "god's 4 fingered glove" which actually has 5 fingers, and the story had quite a few language errors and was a big hard to follow. we ran away from anyone else who looked lik epart of that group, and when it looked like one was coming for us serita said "just pull your pants down" as a means of scaring her away. instead i politely told her i already had a book.

the climb up one tree hill was steep but not too long, and it was all a road that people can drive their cars all the way to the top. there were signs about not disturbing the archaeological sites on the way, and when we saw some rocks down in the crater organized in some sort of pattern we figured that's what that was. however as we moved a little further around, we realized they were just organised in like, smilie faces and saying 'samoa' and stuff like that. so not so ancient. ha ha.

at the top we took pictures by the obelisk (there used to be a single tree up there, the source of the one tree hill name, but fairly recently (80s or 90s i think) someone cut it down as some a political statement of some sort, so now there is a big statue and stuff. instead of going back down the roadway, we went thru a gate and meandered down the back side of the mountain (there are various little foot paths throughout). we found our way back to the cornwall park cafe/info centre after climbing over a fence, and read/napped in the sun for awhile there. then we got kiddie ice cream for $1.50 (the "single" size was over $3 and i'm not sure how much more ice cream you would get, since we got a real single scoop).

after that we headed back around to the one tree hill side entrance, where serita really wanted to swing on the playground. however we saw this really cool playground thing where you sit on a swing hanging from a wire/zip line thing that is slightly angled so you go flying down to the end and bounce off some tires. it was actually kind of scary, and we did it several times, and then let a little boy and his mom both have a turn. we eventually found our way to a bus stop by 3, and the bus i had written down came at 3:30 so we just sat in the sun there for awhile. the bus was slightly late, although i think we may have been at a different stop than the one i'd written down but it came eventually and we successfully hailed it and paid our fare. when we got back to symonds street and went to get off my backpack got stuck in the seat but luckily serita rescued me (although she has been claiming about her injury from that since).

it was around 4:15 then and i had class again at 5, so again we speed showered and went to class, where they announced we have an extra week for the project, and they also gave us the pseudo code for the first part of it which is very exciting. then we came back and had dinner and i got a lot of work done on my project finally with the new helpful instructions.

today i went to the gym in the morning and worked on my project some more and serita went shopping on k' road, and then met me at the library and came to nz linguistics with me. the prof is super disorganized (like most other linguistics profs i've had) and basically told us for our assignment where we have to listen to someone speaking and decide if they are a new zealander or not, we can use any video or audio recording we can find, which makes it a lot easier if we already know the answer and just have to describe speech characteristics. after that i went to work on that in the language lab and serita went back to IH. i went to anthropology and we had another prof talking about ethnomusicology which was actually interesting for once, and then i went to step class which was quite intense, and then we had dinner which was less than spectacular. we considered going out tonight but sophie, kendall, and courtney are gone on a trip, and i think everyone else is just hanging out in ih tonight which is fine with me.

tomorrow i'm getting our rental car at 8:15 and we are going to rotorua to go zorbing and possibly luging, and then sunday we are going blackwater rafting in the waitomo caves. very exciting!

First Weekend With Serita!!!!

Hi everybody!! This is Serita, I'm going to be a guest blogger for the next three weekends! (although Linnell has already told me she's going to be editing and adding). So I will start with the beginning of my trip here.

After I was slightly close to missing my first plane out of Buffalo, everything went smoothly until I got to Detroit, except for the turbulence and bumpy landing (which actually doesn't bother me, I just like to complain). So I got to my Detroit gate with plenty of time, and boarded and found my seat and then we just sat for about a half hour. There was a baby behind me crying, and its grandmother was trying to calm it down, but she was speaking a African? language or something that was very harsh sounding, so when she tried to soothe the baby, it got scared and cried harder. So after about a half hour, the captain came on the loudspeaker and said that the plane was missing some phalanges, i mean fasteners, and that they would try to fix them, but that the work order wasn't off until 8 pm, and we couldn't get another plane to take us instead, so basically I was going to miss my flight out of lax. So I called Dad and he told me it probably was better to not fly a broken plane (thank you for the wisdom) and then I spoke with the airline reps when I got off the plane and I was super nice to them because everyone in front of me was yelling at them and I felt bad. So we were nice to each other and I made them laugh which made me happy. So then I went and got ice cream and waited until we finally left at like 7:30 or 8ish. When I got to lax there was practically no one by my gate or any other northwestern gate, so i talked to the only guy at my gate and he was helpful and told me to go to the next gate down which was an air nz flight leaving for auckland in like 10 minutes. so i did and the lady there was extremely mean to me and so i went back to the nw gate and the guy wasn't there and so i had a slight meltdown and called dad. when i was talking to him, the guy came back and helped me while i was on the phone with dad. he booked me on a flight leaving in about an hour for brisbane and told me how to get to the international terminal which he said would be about a 5 min walk. the directions he gave me were not actually correct so i asked some other people for help who told me it would take 20 min to walk, so i finally found a bus that would take me. it was just me and the bus driver and another lady and we all had a lively conversation about what we were doing/where we were going. i got to the terminal and found my gate (again by asking some guy. who was really nice) and was extremely happy to get on my flight and settle in. it was around then that i figured out that brisbane was not actually in spain, as dad had told me, but in australia 1. because the flight attendants had australian accents 2. because quantas is an australian/new zealand airline 3. because it would extremely ridiculous to fly from la to spain to nz, and 4. because brisbane is not a spanish name. i laughed quite a bit to myself about that one. the quantas flight was fabuloso!! i got delicious food and there were personal tvs where i could listen to music, watch tv, watch movies (i watched ps i love you and cried a few times, luckily everyone else was asleep and did not see me weeping at a the movie. i actually didn't really like the movie but that's okay i had wanted to see it for a while). i could also play games on the tv and watch our flight movement. i also had 3 novels to read, game books, a website to work on, food to eat, and sleeping to do, so i was quite content and even a bit overwhelmed with what to do first. we landed in brisbane and i accidentally went to customs because that's where everyone else was going ha ha. after they told me where to go for "transits" i wandered around that airport for a while but no one was really there because it was pretty early in the morning (like 6:30). i worked on the badgers website there for a while and it's looking quite snazzy if i do say so myself, although i do need pictures and quotes and rates and stuff. i also was listening to dane cook and was laughing to myself in the middle of the airport, which may have led to people thinking i'm crazy. oh well. so then i got on my flight to auckland where i also got delicious food, including chocolate ice cream! when i landed in auckland i was super excited and went to get my bags and when they didn't come for a while, i realized missing my original flight meant they probably wouldn't be with this one. so i went to the desk and talked with them for a quite a while about getting my bags back so then i went and followed linnell's very specific details about how to find the bus, and i rode to the stop she told me to get off at. while i was on the bus, i talked to the guy next to me about nz and stuff and he told me he's planning a trip to us next year. when i went to get off the bus, the bus driver didn't see me because it was really full, and started to leave the stop and everyone said "nooo someone else is getting off" so the driver slammed on the brakes and i went flying forward and it was a bit messy. haha i was glad i didn't have two huge other bags to lug around though so i called linnell and she came out and we reunited yay!

linnell's edit: so i was not so successful in getting my work done before serita got here, especially the comp sci project which i still have no idea how to do. but i was quite happy not to get up at 5:30 to meet serita's ungodly early bus friday afternoon, and i left her a text to call me and i'd leave class when she got off the bus. so throughout both of my classes that afternoon i had my phone out waiting for her call, which really turned into me playing sudoku on it and not so much paying attention. and as i was going back to ih at 5 and she still hadn't called, i saw a blue and yellow bus (the airbus is also blue and yellow) stopped at the stop i told her to get off at wayyy up the hill and i considered going up there to see if it was her but decided not to, and it turns out it was a different blue and yellow bus, so a good choice. around the time i was writing another text to make sure she was even in auckland, i got a call from an 027 (nz telecom cell phone) number which i answered and it turned out to be serita so i ran up the hill and across the street (not at an intersection) and found her but without any big suitcases. apparently the number that shows up on our phones when we call each other is not the number we dial, but it's the same every time so we just stored them anyway. back to serita.

we went back to her room and had many stories to tell each other and stuff. i was very gross feeling and smelly after years of traveling, so i took a shower (while linnell ate dinner and made me a sandwich), and then we met everybody else to go to the rugby game (it was the auckland blues vs the wellington hurricanes). apparently you're not allowed to take bottles into the stadium, so ollie and ace had fashioned "wine bellies"/"wine babies" by attaching the bag that boxed wine comes in to themselves under their sweatshirts (jumpers). they and the others (mostly boys) were running around being silly, and then left without us because we were waiting for sophie and ej and alex. finally the 5 of us left, and we walked around for a while trying to find the free bus that would take us to the game. we finally saw it and ran to get it and then rode to the game, where there were zillions of people. alex went and bought his ticket and then we went and found our seats in the "party stands" (which were supposed to have live music or something, which we did not see. possibly because we arrived after kickoff) with everybody who had left before us, and kendall joined us eventually. (another note from linnell that i forgot to add before: while we were walking in i looked up and saw this kid staring at me, and then he waved, and after staring back at him for an eternity i realized he's in my anthro tutorial (and had worked together on group exercises before) so i finally smiled back and he said 'you are in my class aren't you?' and i said 'yeah sorry' and then we continued walking the same speed but i didn't know what else to say and it was extremely awkward but everyone thought it was quite humorous afterward)

the game was really fun, a bit nippy, but lots of fun. there were sooooo many people and lots of very enthused fans. there were little kids sitting behind us with their dad and all the kids knew all the players names and stuff, it was really cute. the blues won by 3 points (19-16) i think and when the game was over, it took us foreverrr to leave the stadium because there were just so many people leaving all at once. i was getting quiiteee sleepy by now, and as we walked with the gillions of people walking away from the stadium i was pretty much sleep walking. we got on a bus pretty quickly and rode back to the civic center, the stop closest to ih, and when we got off linnell had to of course talk to her friends (by talked she means, tried to hurry them up). i stood/slept and eventually we made it back to her room, where i happily crashed onto the box spring that i call my bed because i am too lazy to climb up to the top of linnell's closet where would be an ideal place to put the top mattress.

so saturday we woke up early and showered and packed and linnell went and got the rental car and so then us two, danielle, ej, and sophie started our road trip to taupo. we stopped at the otara market in south auckland on the way there and spent a few hours walking around. south auckland is where all the pacific islanders and maori live, and when we stopped to ask for directions sophie asked about the 'cultural market' and the guy was like 'you mean the flea market?' and we decided maybe telling them we were coming to see their 'culture' was not the best idea. i was good and only bought a present for kevin for graduation, and nothing for myself, and linnell bought a polkadot hoodie which was only $20, as opposed to $120 in auckland, and a pair of paua shell earrings. we kept driving for a while and then stopped in tirau for lunch. it was a really cute town and every store has some sort of decoration made of corrugated metal, which was actually really cool looking. we had our pbj sandwiches and got ice cream and then kept driving.

we got to taupo around 4ish and so we found our hostel, the rainbow lodge, which was nice, and we put our bags in the 6 person room we were sharing with a guy we met later, and danielle stayed to do homework and the rest of us went mini golfing. it was 10 dollars and i wasn't gonna play to save money but then everyone else said they weren't going to if i didn't and i didn't wanna ruin the fun and i figured it was 10 dollars so why not. so we played and it was lots of fun but a bit chilly. ej wanted to all pick golfer names for the score card, and she was tiger woods, but then we didn't know any other golferes. sophie ended up being happy gilmore, linnell was venus williams, and serita was mia hamm. ironically tiger woods won and happy gilmore got second (the real and pretend golfers). serita did not hit any people with the ball so that was an improvement over her last mini golf experience. there was a couple who had to wait for us on every hole because some of us are not so skilled at getting the ball in the hole. sophie got a hole in one on the last hole which meant she won a free round of golf, but she didn't collect cause she said she wouldn't use it.

after that we picked up danielle and went to pak n save and got provisions for dinner. linnell and i got pasta and cheese sauce mix and bulk candy (after sampling a lot of the bulk candy, we saw a sign that said "sampling is considered shoplifting and will be treated as such" so then we made a fast exit from that area) for a total of 3.10 and so we all went back to our hostel and made dinner which was delicious. we were going to get a dvd from the hostel's library but someone was already using the movie room, so linnell and i played cards in the lounge and everyone else read and did homework in the room. linnell and i went to get ready for bed in there somewhere and had quite an adventure with a sink that was pretty much in the wall, which is not conducive to washing your face, especially if you're linnell and suck at containing water in normal sinks. i was falling asleep at like 9 pm so nel and i went back and i went to sleep immediately.

after about 12 hours of sleep for me, we got up at 9 am, showered, and had pbj for breakfast. today was the day of our super secret adventure! (which contrary to popular belief was only a secret from the parentals so they didn't spend a month worrying, not a surprise for serita) and everyone was very excited/nervous. the company we were going with sent a van to pick us up from our hostel, so we got on and there were two guys also going with us from canada (with the strongest canadian accent linnell has ever heard, i usually don't think canadians sound any different, but they definitely said 'aboot' and stuff like that) who had just graduated from college and were on a 4 month trip to australia/nz/southeast asia. i told linnell we should do that too, perhaps to italy? or south america? anyways, we got to the place and got a talk about buying dvds/photos of our adventure and then we went and got suited and harnessed up and met each of our partner/instructor guys. while we were getting harnessed, most people's partners were doing it, but i had some guy that was getting trained, which slightly worried me. ej's partner checked it though as my trainee was doing it, so i felt better about it. then we all headed out toward an airplane, and as we did, my partner, mikey, who had disappeared came back out, and walked with me. as we were walking, he noticed that i was NOT harnessed up correctly at all and re did it all, and kept saying "bloody frenchmen" (apparently the trainee is french). i felt much better about my harnessing about that, and we got on the plane, and everyone else got to sit on long benches, straddling them with the instructor behind the instructee, but we had to sit on the floor. as we took off, all the partners were joking around and it was just lots of fun. linnell's guy was singing the song from the jungle book movie, and showed her how you could see all the way to the east coast (hawke's bay) and the north (bay of plenty), and lake rotorua and of course lake taupo, and huka falls and the waikato river and a racetrack, among other things. all the other girls were semi-nervous but for some reason i wasn't at all. mikey had a watch with the altitude on it and we watched how high we were going. he complained about everyone else getting a bench and us getting the crappy floor AND having to go first (sitting on the floor made it much harder for him to connect our harnesses) but we got connected and he told me to hold up my legs when he stood up so he was basically carrying me on his front, and to lean my head against his shoulder and to hold onto my harness near my shoulders so when he stood up i did and they opened the door of the airplane and...we jumped!!!!! :D

linnell said that watching me drop out the window of the airplane was what scared her the most and made her nervous, so i'm not sure if going first was bad or good. so we flew down really really fast for 6000 ft, during which time my goggles somehow came off so my eyelids were like peeled back haha. also, i couldn't close my mouth, and it was hard to breathe, and my ears popped (all in all, not a great feeling, but so worth it) at 6000 ft above the ground, mikey opened our parachute and suddenly we were just kind of sitting in the air, which was amazing! (all of my past symptoms were gone except the popped ears which i still have one popped ear, which i like to complain about to linnell which annoys her quite a bit :) ) so we just looked around at the amazing view and mikey showed me where a guy hit the ground last year with no parachute but managed to survive, and he let me fly the parachute which was soo cool (linnell did not get to fly hers, but when she asked, her instructor, andy, made them fly in loops and twirl and stuff, and they watched the others jump and open their parachutes above which was really cool to watch, and we saw a sheep that someone had painted its butt red), and then we landed. as we were landing near the tower, mikey said "oops lost control for a minute there" haha and i hoped he was kidding. we landed by me picking my feet up and him doing the work, and basically sitting/sliding to a stop. he was trying to hit the camera guy as we landed, and we were pretty close. when we landed, he noticed my goggles were gone and said "hm, i've never seen that happen before!" we watched everyone else land which was really cool and then the camera guy took a video of us celebrating (which was going to be played in reverse, so he had us throw our hats up and fall on the ground, so in the final version we jump up and our hats fly on) and we went back inside. as we were unsuiting and stuff, we saw another group about to go with our same partners. i asked mikey how many times a day he goes, and he said 7-10, which is insane. that has to be a pretty freakin' sweet job.

we looked at our "exit photos" which are taken 3 seconds before we jump, and mine is absolutely hilarious, so i bought it, and linnell got her's too, even tho they were kind of a rip off ($20), much better than the $149 or $179 videos. then we watched the video and sophie and ej got it (they had paid $179 extra to have a personal camera guy jump with them in addition to the instructor and record the whole thing) and then we paid, and they drove us back to our hostel. we ate lunch there before we left (pbj again) and then drove home, which was fun/nothing too exciting.

we got back at 4ish and linnell went to the gym and i showered and then she came back and went to dinner and made me pbj for dinner again (at this point i was pretty ready for my bags to come with something to eat besides pbj, although linnell does make a mean sandwich) we did laundry and sat around and were silly last night and i fell asleep pretty early again.

today we got up and went to linguistics (very boring old hard to follow professor) and comp sci (pretty attractive young prof) and linnell did class things (although she is completely lost in comp sci at this piont) and i did my puzzle book. neither prof said anything about me being there, so good to go. we walked around campus in between classes and then came back and ate pbj for lunch.

also when we got back, my bags were in the office of ih!!! yay!! so now i have shower stuff and clothes and my converter so my own computer and camera dock and all kinds of fun stuff. so i organized and linnell wasted time on facebook all afternoon. while i was organizing, i found/linnell remembered to give me the second part of my birthday present. it's this necklace (that i actually asked linnell about at the otara market) and it's this symbol that's a twisty thing, that represents two friends intertwined or something, and it's made out of green stone, which you're supposed to buy for other people and not yourself, but you wear it before you give it, so part of your soul goes into it (it's a horcrux basically :) ) so now nelly's at the gym and i'm watching the office finale/doing this. later we're eating dinner and then going to roll training, which will be interesting.

yay for my first weekend in new zealand!!

relatively uneventful weekend

so my plan for this weekend was to get lots of work done so i am free to play with serita for the next 3 weeks. kendall went to the coromandel peninsula with people, and sophie and ej went to the waitomo caves, so hypothetically i shouldn't have had much to distract me.

i finished my anthropology essay about tongan politics and material culture on thursday so my tutor could edit it, and she said the main thing to fix was spelling (because my spell checker does not do nz spelling, and things like jewelry and fiber are spelled jewellery and fibre). my second comp sci lab was on tuesday and was relatively easy (it turned out we didn't have to know the fancy algorithm they taught us in class, which i spent 2/3 of the time trying to do, and then when i gave up and tried the easy way just to see, it worked). i also got some of my midterm test grades back, the anthro one i got about a 75 on (which i think is a b), which is fine with me, and comp sci i was real scared for, and the 2 kids i sit with who are really smart and way better at comp sci than i am both got 28/50, but then i ended up getting a 41! so that was exciting. and my linguistics essay that i did a while ago with an interview of a bilingual new zealander (i used a girl from the canoeing club i met at fuljames) i would have gotten a 19.5/20 (a+) except i am retarded and thought it was due the friday after it was actually due (it said 1 may 4 pm on the sheet, and i just saw "may 4". i'm glad i realized this before i send the prof a confusued email though) so i ended up with an 18.5. which is also fine with me.

so anyways i have my anthro paper, and a linguistics paper about languages in fiji, and a big comp sci project, and that's everything until finals. so i was gonna get both essays done this weekend. the anthro one is done at least :)

at some point, i think it was thursday, i decided to go to the engineering library to work on my paper for a change of scenery. the engineering library has k'nex to play with and is just generally bright and fun so i like it better than the real library. however i discovered that for some reason my plug converter does not fit in the outlets there right, which is especially annoying because my battery now lasts less than half an hour. however the plugs at the regular library do work so it's not really a big deal. just ironic that the engineers have the bad plugs.

saturday i got up early and went to morning step class, and then did paper writing/talked to serita/wasted time on facebook and playing sudoku etc all day. after dinner i decided to be social and went with courtney, lucy, and ollie (who has what he calls "the sneezles" and we made fun of him all night about that) to the liquor store. after that we all hung out in lucy's room with brian and barret and hannah and some other ih kids who wandered in and out. we played some card games and never have i ever and i got to be the dj for awhile. it wasn't too exciting.

today (sunday) i went kitesurfing again, so i took the train and texted andrew when i got to papakura, and it turned out he and minot were shoe shopping just down the street, so i met them there, and after using the bathroom in the grocery store across the street we went back to their house where they had a quick lunch and i had some pineapple juice. the only other student for the day was an english guy also named andrew who works on the same yacht as howie, who i had met at 2 earlier lessons.

andrew (instructor) said the pastures were too wet to drive down to the beach this time, so after getting wetsuits and booties and everything we strapped the boards to the backpacks the kites go in, and carried everything down. the walk wasn't nearly as far as i thought it was going to be. after pumping our kites up and laying our lines and everything, andrew (instructor) told me to have andrew (student) launch my kite and to tell him what to do as if he were my grandmother (the grandmother jokes continued all day, especially when he went off to pee in the bushes). however it started raining just after my kite was in the air, and with rain comes big gusts of wind, so i was a little freaked out at the beginning, and i had an 8m kite today instead of hte 6 i'd used before, so it was pulling that much harder. but they helped me de-power my kite (there is an adjustable strap to adjust the length of the front lines which tips the kite forward or back more, which gives it less or more power) and i made it safely into the water (it's way more dangerous to be strapped to a kite on land than in the water, because the water is much softer if you take off and smash back down on it).

by the time i was all situated and ready to put my board on, the rain had gone, as had most of the wind. we spent a while fighting just to keep the kites in the air, and andrew was about to cancel the lesson for lack of wind, when it changed direction from sw to directly west, and picked up a bit. winds from the south tend to be gustier here because they are coming up over lots of land, whereas from the west into manukau harbour it's nice and steady from the tasman sea.

anyways, so once the wind changed my kite was behaving better, although it was quite powerful which was a little scary at the beginning but i got used to it. i actually got up and riding pretty well to the right (the way i usually wakeboard) and i experienced what andrew likes to explain as 'you go faster which gives the kite more power which makes you go faster which gives you more power...' and on and on, and at first i would get scared and just sort of sit/fall down to stop, and he told me to slow down you edge up wind, which i did with some success. i have more trouble even getting up to the left, but i did a few times that way pretty well too, although i never got past the sitting down to stop phase that tway.

student andrew and i were both pretty much at the same level, and moving down wind at about the same rate, so instructor andrew just let us keep going further and further downwind while the wind was good and we were in the same area. however, when we finally stopped and had to walk all the way back up the beach, we were more than a kilometer away, and slogging through knee to hip deep water carrying a board and a kite was quite exhausting. when we got close to where we started we had another little try, but the wind was dying down and we were pretty tired so we just packed up and hiked up the hill thru the pasture back to andrew's.

after changing and stuff instructor andrew asked if student andrew was going back to town and could drop me at the train station and he said sure, but then he ended up just bringing me all the way back to ih because it was on his way. it turns out he lived in the empire building next door for awhile when they couldn't stay on the yacht. he said he's been working on boats for 4 years, the past 2 on this one which is privately owned, and is better than charters where you just meet people for 2 weeks and then never see them again. they have been in auckland for 4 or 5 months i think, and are leaving in june to go to fiji and tonga. he said whenever the owner wants he just flies to meet them wherever the boat is, and they just do what they want the rest of the time. howie has bought 2 kites, and andrew just bought a harness from instructor andrew for $100 so now they can go take turns kiting off the boat. he has also been snowboarding at the indoor snow park north of auckland that i've seen, and i guess it's actually really cool and not nearly as expensive as i thought it would be. anyway, he dropped me off at ih and it was only 6:45 so i grabbed some quick dinner, showered, and now i'm going to get working on my fiji essay.

ps happy mothers day!

news flash!

i rolled!!!

i was even considering not going to roll training but i'm so glad i did. fiona (from ireland) worked with me one on one and she started by holding the paddle how it should be at the end of the sweep stroke, and just had me do hip flicks up, which was really helpful i think, because all the other times i'm so concentrated on the arms part i'm already overwhelmed by the time i get to that part.

after that (and a break to get the water out of my nose cause i'm dumb and forgot my nose plug) she did a little guiding of my paddle, and sort of helped me get it so i wasn't diving the paddle, which is my usual problem. after that, i just sort of could do it! it's a little jerky, but once i started i could do it most of the times i tried. fiona tried shoving my boat around as if i were in the river, and i even did it with no goggles several times! she told me to go do it when nobody was watching me and just bang loud if i needed a t-rescue, but i never even needed one! yay!

now i can't wait for another trip so i can try it in the river!

wairoa

so at roll training last monday, molly and i were asking colm about the possible trip he had suggested the week before, but we had heard nothing about, and he said someone has to organize it or it wouldn't happen, so molly agreed to.

and speaking of roll training, it's getting a little depressing because several beginners can now roll, and i have been to almost all the practices and still cannot. well, each time the instructors tell me i have rolled on my own when i think they are helping guide my paddle, but i'm not so sure. and sometimes i can flip myself back over by bracing the paddle against the bottom of the pool, which is sort of satisfying but it's a really bad habit because there is no pool floor in the river when you actually need to be able to roll.

anyways, so the original weekend trip plan was go leave friday night or saturday morning, and do the kaituna river (which has a 7m water fall) and all us beginners would raft that, and then kayak the wairoa on sunday. the wairoa is dam controlled and i guess they release it sundays during the summer and occasionally in spring and fall, and this sunday was the last release until next spring. however first molly could not find a raft guide who could do the kaituna on saturday, and then it turns out the self-bailing raft is broken anyway making that impossible. and there was a big graduation party on friday night, so the plan turned into, leave saturday afternoon, sleep at james's house in tauranga that night, and then just do wairoa on sunday.

molly's biggest job was to make the car list, where everyone emails her when they can leave, whether they have a car (with or without roof racks to carry boats) and whether they have boats, etc, and she makes a list of who is riding with who and with which gear. friday night she imed me and said after 5 hours and 2 mental breakdowns and a lot of help from the execs, she had produced a car list (but it didn't get sent out till saturday morning). i was very impressed with her nonetheless.

i was in the car with "speedy" aka ben, who kendall rode with to the last trip. he's called speedy because apparently he takes forever getting ready (not because of his kayaking speed or lack thereof). also with us was alex, who is keri (the president)'s little brother who is also a beginner, and courtney from ih was supposed to, but she ended up making other plans when she didn't hear from molly for so long.

speedy and alex picked me up outside ih at 5, and then we went to the gear shed where all the club kayaks and gear are kept, in the suburbs, and after having some difficulties with the combination lock on the door, i got my pick of gear: boat, spray deck, life jacket, helmet, and paddle. i got the same boat i had the second day at aniwhenua, which was easier to stay upright in but harder to paddle. and after a bit of searching i found one of the good spray decks (made out of wetsuit material, rather than canvasy sort of material that most of the club decks are, so it keeps the water out better and fits tighter) which was exciting. alex didn't have to get any gear because keri wasn't going so he got to use all her good stuff. i closed the door to the shed while the guys were tying the boats to the roof racks, only i couldn't find the lock so assumed one of them had it, but it turns out it was hanging on in the wall. luckily speedy remembered as we were driving away and we went back and locked up.

james (the club vp)'s parents live in tauranga, which is a little over 2 hours east (and a little south) of auckland, and since he has a flat in the city now his parents are always thrilled to have the club come stay there. speedy couldn't remember where to turn off the main road so we stopped at a gas station and he went in to ask if they knew where james rae's house was (which i thought was hilarious, but it turns out james used to work there so it's slightly more likely that they would actually know). they didn't, but speedy found the address in the phone book (it's called snodgrass road ha ha) and we arrived around the same time as several other cars. we went in and just hung out in the living room for awhile, and james's mom made some sort of fruit crumble with whipped cream which was amazing.

after awhile they were like ok lets go get settled outside, and molly was like 'what, outside?! i thought we were sleeping at james's house!' (all night it was an ongoing joke whenever molly did not know something that was going on because she planned the trip and all) and i was a bit concerned as well, but it turns out they have this whole little separate cottage in the garden, with a whole bunch of mattresses which we put on the floor.

i told everyone that my sleeping bag was actually intended for children, and was told that that would be a problem if i got cold and wanted the hood part up, so then i proceeded to demonstrate (standing up) that i could in fact still get the hood on (with a lot of struggling). that somehow turned into colm and me having hopping races over all the mattresses all bundled up like cocoons in our sleeping bags. that turned into sleeping bag darts and sleeping bag ping pong, which turned into regular ping pong which was a little cut throat so i retired. the last van of people arrived at some point and james brought out a guitar from his house which was passed around between the various musical people in the group. and i was looking at people's pictures from graduation and the party the night before and their graduation robes have like, fur trimmed hoods, which colm explained is because traditionally they sit in a hall with a big fireplace at the front, and the more important you are the closer to the front you sit (like professors and stuff), so the lowly undergrads are so from the fire that they need the fur for warmth. also no one seemed to have a good reason why they graduate in may after finishing school in december of the previous year. they also told me about "tall poppy syndrome" which i guess is a real issue in nz (i had actually heard something about it before) where if you're good at something people are really mean to you and "cut you down" except i guess it's ok to be really good at rugby and possibly other sports. it sounds like a more extreme version of high school!)

gradually people were getting sleepy (i thought it was relatively early, like midnight maybe, but i was told today it was probably around 2 we went to bed) and we went to the little bathroom area of the cottage (the "door" to the toilet part is actually just the door to the outside pulled open, with a nice window in it ha ha) and i turned on the laundry sink to wash my face which proceeded to spray all over me and i was laughed at by speedy who happened to be the only one there. everyone settled down and went to sleep pretty quickly.

the next morning someone's alarm went off and we all gradually woke up sometime between 8 and 9. we slowly got ready and there were some english muffins in the house (but no big home cooked breakfast has speedy had hinted we might get). we started moving out around 9:30 and there were jokes made about making it to the river by 10 to see it fill up (apparently that never happens with aucc). sure enough, we stopped at a bakery on the way and took quite awhile sorting out who was leaving whose car where and which boats and which people they were carrying. that was all especially confusing because there were 3 groups of people, the pros (aka instructors) doing the grade 4, the seconders (second years, that is) doing the grade 3, and us beginners doing the graded 2, all of which had different get in and get out spots.

we all congregated at the top of the grade 4 section first, where there was bridge over a large rocky waterfall with a sign that said 'people die jumping off this bridge. don't do it'. we watched one kayaker go thru the rocky waterfall successfully (not an aucc person, there were lots of other people there too. and some rafters as well). we all got dressed for the river there, and i managed to mooch some polypro leggings, a second top, and a paddling jacket from other people. a lot of people had wet suits, or full-on dry tops (which are sort of windbreaker material but completely waterproof, and have like really tight rubber gaskety parts around the wrists neck and waist, so you actually stay dry. the jacket i got was similar but with just velcro to tighten instead of gaskets). kayaking is a lot easier when it's warm out and you just sun dry when you get wet in the river.

then the grade 2 and 3 people left and i was crowded in the back of toni's van with probably about 8 kayaks and kelly and ivan (as well as 4 people in the front seat). luckily the different get in/out spots were just up and down the road from each other (which is always deceiving because it seems much longer on the river). kelly, who is a seconder, was telling me how for the grade 2, you actually have to walk (carrying your kayak) all the way from the get out up to the get in.

sure enough, it was kind of a long walk, with lots of scrabbling over rocks and thru brush, although it would not have been bad at all without a heavy boat cutting into your shoulder the whole time. it was just me, alex, gina, who is a friend of toni's (instructor) who plays canoe polo but had never been on a river before, and this guy named jeff who said this was the second time he's paddled in 3 years, although i think he must have done more in the past, after watching him, and then 2 instructors, isaac (who looks like he is from hanson) and ivan (who is norwegian and whose real name is oyvind but he just says ivan because no one can say it right). they showed us the infamous bog rock, which i have heard from several people how this girl last year got trapped in the hole after the rock and spend 90 seconds underwater. they stressed to go to the right of it. after all the horror stories it was actually pretty unimpressive looking, the rock itself isn't even above water.

eventually we made it to the get in, where we did just that. my fancy deck was really hard to get onto my boat, it took 3 of us to stretch it far enough, but it was like, perfectly water tight after that. we paddled upriver a little ways, to the "play wave" which is basically a wave at the end of some rapids, which all the pros like to paddle up to over and over and do tricks in. we hung out just below that waiting for the grade 3 and 4-ers to get to us. we practiced eddying in and out back and forth across the river, beginning in the slowly moving flat water and gradually moving up into faster moving and rougher water closer to the wave. they tried to teach us to 'fairy glide' which is where you go across facing upstream the whole time, which i was not very good at. i flipped i think 3 times, but was t-rescued without any trauma each time. i'm not gonna lie, the difficulty of putting my deck on was a big factor in my reluctance to bail and swim (and also i guess i've gotten way better at holding my breath under water. i never get water up my nose anymore, and can wait quite awhile for someone to get to me now). the only difficulty was ivan's boat was new and really slippery, so a couple times he would go to t-rescue me and would have to guide my hand to the handle so i could grab on to flip up. it all worked out though, and although the water was cold as long as i kept paddling i stayed warm.

after what felt like forever the instructors began to arrive and we watched them play in the wave for awhile, during which time i got cold just sitting there. i was really excited because the dry-jacket had a zipper pouch to put a museli bar in like the instructors always do, so i ate that. molly was with ross in the duo again, like last trip. i really need to get in on that. she gets to go thru all the scary/fun stuff and he knows how to roll so you're totally safe. however, apparently every time they flip (including going thru the wave) molly freaks out and bails, even as ross is rolling back up. he was actually upright before she hit the water the time i saw. ha ha.

so after awhile we moved on down the river, with plenty of instructors for us beginners. at the first rapid i was following speedy, and told him to be ready to t-rescue me, and sure enough i flipped, and it took awhile for me to float downriver (upside down) to him so he could t-rescue me, but i made it. as it turns out i had gone by bog rock (on the right side) upside down, which i was actually really relieved to find out because i was dreading it after the 90 seconds under water story. after that, i made it thru the rest of the rapids successfully, until the grade 2 get out (there was more grade 3 after).

alex and fiona, who is from ireland and i guess had a bad swim at the beginning got out there, and just after that spot was another rapids with a significant drop, but there were 4 instructors with me and they said the rapid was only a 2 and just to follow the lead and they would be right there. after a bit of indecision i decided i'd rather paddle more and carry my boat less, so i went ahead, and made it thru the steep part fine (which was actually really fun), until i found myself stuck in a bush on the side of the river (still right side up though!). it would not have been a big deal at all except for the fact that i still on the side of the rapids, so in order to get out of the bush i had to eddy out into rapids bigger than the ones i wasn't very good at at the beginning. i stayed in my little protected bush area for a bit and speedy was just on the downstream side of me and was cheering me on so after determining there was no alternative i went for it, flipped as expected, and t-rescued off speedy. we paddled a little further on flat water, and isaac and i got out under the road bridge. then we climbed up the side of the bank (with our boats on our shoulders again), crossed under the bridge bent over dragging our boats, climbed over a barbed wire fence, and walked a ways down the road to the parking lot/get out where everyone else would be arriving. i am SO glad i had water shoes, one of my best $8 purchases ever.

now it had been on and off raining all day, which obviously didn't matter in the river, but while standing around waiting for the others (who had their car keys which we needed to get all our dry clothes) to get off the river we got pretty cold. we watched them go over a 'rock garden' which is rapids with a ton of rocks everywhere, it's actually looks kinda similar to skiing moguls. it looked pretty cool (/very hard) and everyone made it safely. i guess nick swam over the big waterfall before, and was a little beat up, and gina, who toni had taken thru the grade 3 at the end, had a bleeding hand, but i guess toni somehow got "worked" worse than gina did (which is weird because toni is REALLY good). they also said on the top part they had seen one (commercial) raft flip and they had had to rescue a bunch of the rafters, and then later they found a raft floating upside down with no sign of people, so they had hauled it out and left it on the bank for them. it was funny because kelly's sister laura was visiting (and stayed with us the night before) and was on one of those rafts, but when we got out she was safe and dry and waiting for us.

after getting dry clothes on and having some food (my pjb!) everyone gradually headed out. unfortunately speedy had had the music on in his car, which drained the battery enough so it wouldn't start, but toni came and gave us a jump with her van. i got to sit in front and be dj on the way home, and speedy had some mix cds of all nz artists, one of which had a bunch of bic runga songs including the 'good morning baby' song from my p2p trip that i have been on a mission to find, so i was real excited about that. right after we left alex's parents called and said traffic on the main road back was going about 10 km/h (same as the last sunday when we were coming back from rotorua), so we took a different route and ended up ahead of kelly, who left 30-40 min before us but took the main road. we dropped alex at home on the north shore, and keri came out and said hi (she had hurt her back and had a lot of homework to do so she couldn't come) and then speedy brought me back (he said he'd take my boat back to the gear shed some day when it wasn't raining, which i was very grateful for). although it was only 7:15 when we got back, it felt like 10. now it actually is 11:30 so i am going to bed!