update

this week was pretty busy. 

wednesday nights there is karaoke at shadows (the campus bar) and the kayaking club goes after their canoe polo practice, so i got ej and sophie to go and some guys sophie knows came too, and we watched other people sing only they were pretty good so we couldn't make fun. a couple people i knew from aucc were there but i was not brave and didn't go say hi or anything.

i e-mailed one of the microbiology profs (his name is silas villas-boas) a little while ago about volunteering in his lab, and then i went to see him last week and he said i'm welcome to come help if i want, although what he does is mostly biochem and not genetics, which scared me a little, but i figured hey why not. so thursday was my first day. i got there at 9:30 (and their lab building is SO much more secure than hutch is - at home you can just walk into any lab you want, everything is open during the week. here you have to have a swipe card to get past the reception area, and every time i go i have to call silas in his office and he has to physically come down and let me in.) 

but anyways he came and took me upstairs and gave me a brief tour of the lab and the surrounding micro labs where we can borrow stuff from. they have a communal kitchen area, where you send all your dirty glassware and get clean, which is nice in that they don't need a dishwasher in each lab, but it's kind of a pain to have to walk down the hall every time you need a flask or something. he gave me a text book (which i later saw he wrote) to read a little background, and a protocol from online, which i copied into step-by-step instructions for what i would be doing, and a paper to read later about what i'm going to be doing. 

then he showed me where the samples (ground up plant leaves) i would be extracting were, and left me to it. i was basically adding different chemicals (including chloroform) and vortexing and centrifuging stuff and it was not the most exciting thing ever. the people were nice enough, but i miss the sia lab SO much. and i'm not gonna lie lidza's anal organizing and labelling of everything would have been nice, because i had to keep asking where stuff was every time i needed something and i'm sure that got pretty annoying. i was doing that all day until i had to leave at 4:30 (still not done), and i said i'd be back friday morning to finish, since i don't have class till 2.

then i went to my first computer science lab, which initially had to be completed in the allotted 2 hour time slot which would not have been good for me since i am bad with time limits and not as good at programming as most of the class. then he changed it so we could hand it in within 48 hours for 80% credit, and then at the end of the 2 hours he said there would be no penalty for finishing within 48 hours so that was good. we had 3 problems to do, using dynamic programming (which is basically recursion only you store the answers to each thing you solve so you don't do the same calculations multiple times). to submit we had to use this program they use for cs programming competitions and as more and more people submitted it got slower and slower responding which was kind of annoying. anyway i wasn't done by 7 so i left.

on my way out of the cs building this lost looking asian man (who was probably 30) came up to me and was asking random questions about the cs labs and my major and stuff, and eventually i was like, um i have to go i'm going to miss dinner (i had already missed dinner, but sophie made me a pbj) and left, and i was going to take a shortcut and cut thru the science building to symonds st, and there was a security guy holding the door and when i went in he was like 'you have a swipe card right?' and i said yea because i thought he meant id card, and he was like 'ok just dont get locked in' so i went across the lobby and tried to open the other side, and they were all locked, apparently after 7 you need a special card to get in and out, so then i had to go find the security guard to let me out again. 

so as i'm going around the outside of the building (probably only about 30 seconds extra walking), i see the lost asian man again! and i smile and keep walking and he's like 'do you play tennis' (to be fair we were outside the gym) and i said 'no, sorry' and kept walking  and he said 'wait, do you want to keep in touch' and like, went to get his phone out, and i was like ummm i am really running late sorry and ran away. it was the strangest thing ever.

so friday i went back to the lab, although i was dreading it a little, but it was much better. it was someones birthday, so everyone went down to the lounge and had chocolate cake (although the girl whos birthday it was was sick and went home instead). and i met the other prof who shares the lab and i think his work is more what i want to do than silas's, but oh well. i guess silas has only been here like 6 months, and he has 2 or 3 grad students, a girl (undergrad) who worked with him over the summer and came for the cake, but i don't know how much she'll be around. then the other prof has a lab tec, and at least 4 phd students. they seemed surprised i do research at home as an undergrad. they only take 3 years for their phd here, but they have to get their masters first (i think thats 2 years), whereas we go longer for phd and just get a masters in the process.

after the lab i went back to the cs lab to work on that, went to class, worked more on the cs lab, went to another class, and then went to see the prof (not alexei, the cool one, right now we have this large american man, but he's nice) and he basically told me how to solve the third problem which turned out to be really easy and i'm retarded for spending so long on it (he did not tell me i'm retarded). there was another girl there with the same problem and we discussed how we couldn't think about anything else in class till we figured this out, and she also has not had as much comp sci as most of the guys in the class. so then i stopped freaking out about the lab after that and went to step class, then back to ih for dinner, and then back to campus to submit my lab. only it still didn't work. so i emailed the prof and left, only to discover he had responded while i was walking back, so i should have just stayed at the lab a little longer. oh well.

friday night this girl sophie knows (i think from tramping club) named sandra, who we went to a fitness class and stuff, was having an 80's party at her flat, which is down the street from ih (before the giant hill!), and kendall and i wanted to get dressed up all silly for it. sophie and her friend who was visiting from australia wanted to go to the bars after so they wouldn't get dressed funny, but we got ej to, although i ended up looking the most ridiculous since i was not planning on going anywhere after. we went to the party for awhile and it was fun, and we were standing in this doorway and some guy (wearing eyeliner - meaning he was either emo or gay) came up behind ej, and like, needed to get thru, and he like went to put his hand on her side to move her over and then somehow his hand was on her boob instead and we were like whattt just happened...so then later when we were leaving to go back to ih he was sitting outside as we left and went up to ej and was like 'hey baby' really creepy...and then as we were walking kendall was explaining to alex (a guy from france who lives in ih) that even if the guy was gay it's like a girl doing it, and it's still not ok, and proceeded to grab ej's boob herself, to demonstrate and we were like kendall what are you doing?! and she was like 'i'm just proving my point' and alex was like 'can i prove my point?' and it was really funny.

so then the rest of them went out to the bars and i found the usual ih guys (barret, brian, who we went north with, and cameron, ace and ollie, who are all 1st year kiwis) and they were going to watch 'once were warriors' which i had heard a lot about, it's about a modern inner city maori family in south auckland and so i got my pjs on and then we all watched that in cameron's room and it was extremely depressing, but really good, and it made me cry. 

saturday was my second kitesurfing lesson, and i had to take the train because the wind and tides were right to go to andrew's place south of auckland on manukau harbour. the lesson was at 1, so i took the train that arrived at 12:30, which left at 11:40 from britomart in auckland. i went early and stopped at campus to submit my lab (it finally worked!). the train station is really pretty, it's in this old post office building and looks all old and fancy on the outside, and the inside is really light and modern looking. i got the student 10-ride pass which has a 40% discount, so it costs the same as 6 rides, which is 3 round trips, which i will probably use going to kitesurfing lessons. my contacts had been being weird that morning, and i stupidly took one out after putting lotion on, which really messed them up, so i bought a bottle of contact soln before getting on the train which was a rip off, but it made them a little better.

i called andrew a little before arriving at papakura, and he said he'd come get me and to look for a brown and grey 4wd vehicle. when i got off the train, there were parking lots on both sides of the tracks and a big bridge over the top, so i just wandered around, but then a security guard asked me if i was ok and i said i was waiting for my ride, and after a little bit andrew pulled in and honked.

his house/farm/beach was like a 15 min ride, and when we got there most of the other people for the lessons had arrived. there was a lady about 30 who had had 2 lessons, and a girl who had had 1, a guy who had had a lot, and 2 guys who were complete beginners. Everyone was significantly older than me except the girl, who i thought looked about my age, but then i was talking to her and she said she had moved here 7 years ago from england with an ex-boyfriend and ended up just staying, so she must have been a bit older than i thought.

we all got wetsuits and harnesses and lifejackets and booties, and andrew packed all the equipment into his jeep thing, and then 4 of us rode and the 2 guys hung on thru the windows on the outside, and we drove thru the pastures down to the beach (andrew said he usually makes people walk but he had something wrong with his foot so he didn't want to. it would have been a long walk so that was lucky.) as it was we still had to walk a ways over some squishy sand/mud to get to the edge of the water. each kite is in a backpack sort of bag, and then you strap a board on the back so you can carry it all.

 

andrew left the 4 of us who had been before to set up kites on our own (and had us pick what size we thought we should use. the other girls had 8m ones but there were only 2 so i took a 6m). after getting everything set up he sat us down and talked for a really long time about how to do stuff that i was fairly sure i would not get to the point of needing, and then told us to go body drag for a bit and then we would come back and get boards. i had a lot of trouble keeping my kite in the air, i think it was less windy than orewa so i should have had a larger kite. it was nice not having huge waves everywhere though, and no pro kite surfers to worry about running into. after a bit andrew came and showed me how to relaunch my kite more easily, and gave me some tips and i played for a long time. the guy who had been a bunch of times just started on a board, but the 3 of us girls ended up not getting to try on the board all day, i'm not sure why.

as it started getting dusky andrew told us to bring in the kites, and i think the tide had gone out because it was  LONG walk back to the bags and stuff. i somehow injured my foot the first day i had gone, like pulled something or something, and by the end of that walk it was not feeling great. then we rode back up and everyone else left and andrew said i could come in the house for a minute before he took me back to the train, and i met his wife who is french and was really sweet, and she looked up the train timetable for me on her computer because i hadn't planned on staying that late (it was like 7:40 by that time). 

after a little bit andrew took me back to the train station and he told me about how the farm he grew up on (closer to manukau city, which was once a separate city but is now basically an auckland suburb due to urban sprawl, and is part of the dodgy south auckland area where there are tons of samoans and maori and lots of crime) anyway he said there were wild dogs that would attack their sheep so his dad would send him out with a gun in the dark to shoot the dogs and it sounded very dangerous. and he said some school had a hunting competition fundraiser where the kids would bring in various dead animals. sounds kinda like honeoye :P

apparently it only takes 25 min to drive to the city from there, but the train back was almost an hour, so i had obviously missed dinner and was starving, so i stopped at subway on the way back (and broke my not eating at american chains rule) and got a sandwich, and eventually got back to ih and just went to bed.

today i went to step class which i do not think helped my foot any, it is now a little swollen, and then worked on my linguistics paper all day. see, i do do homework! (i just don't write about every chapter i read, bc it's not super exciting). actually one fun linguistics story, so i may have mentioned this before, but here 'wh' is pronounced 'f' because of the original maori sounds, and in class on friday we talked about this billboard that was somehow making a pun on that, listing a bunch of place names beginning with 'whaka' which sounds something like 'fucker', but they took it down when people complained it was offensive. clever. ok back to work.

roadtrip to the far north

so thursday night was brian's 21st birthday (he's a guy from idaho in IH), and ace (one of the kiwi kids, who is from way out in the country) had told everyone about this game called possum (they spell it without the o here), where everyone takes a case of beer up in a tree, and the last one to fall out of their tree wins. now this has been a joke around ih since orientation, but they decided brian's birthday was a good day to actually try it out. so a bunch of the guys, along with sophie went to the domain (huge park in auckland, about 15 min from ih). kendall, alex (from france), and i went a bit later and after walking thru a pitch back trail with only our phones for light, we discovered a large group of very drunk boys puking everywhere (having each had 15+ beers in a fairly short time). sophie claims it was really funny and we just arrived at a bad time when the vomiting began, but i was pretty grossed out. i just climbed up in sophie's tree to stay clean until they were done, and after awhile we all went back to ih. while walking back through the dark trail ollie (kiwi kid) somehow managed to accidentally fall off a bridge into a stream, which was hilarious. he also somehow lost his jumper (sweater), but i took a picture of where he fell with my camera and we found it in the picture, so then he jumped back in to get that. the injury tally from the night included 4 limps as results of tree falls, and "a bit of skin" missing from ollie's hand. they were all so drunk they didn't care though. anyway, we eventually made it back to ih and some of them went to burger king but i went to bed.

then friday morning we were supposed to get the car at 9, so i got up at 8 (and went and banged on barret and brian's doors to wake them up). i was not ready when sophie and ej wanted to leave at 8:30, so i just left my packing for when we got back with the car. we walked down to beach road, by the railway campus where most of the rental car places are, but after walking the length of it, we couldn't find ace, so we asked someone at another car place and it turns out it was on the other side of where we had turned. we found it eventually, and the lady said we could take it till monday at 4 pm, and then if we wanted to keep it until tuesday we could just call ahead.

ej had volunteered to do the auckland city driving (bc she lives in ny so is used to traffic), but since i was the one renting the car i drove it back from the office to ih (without incident). the car was automatic, as requested, and the whole dash was digital. speedometer, gas gauge, everything was in this big window in the center of the dash. it was a little strange but we got used to it quickly. back at ih we took turns going in to get our stuff and the boys, and i quickly finished packing. then we headed up route 1, which is a motorway until orewa, a suburb on the outskirts of auckland with this really long pretty beach i always admire while driving by. there route 1 turns into just a regular 2 lane road, and slightly past there, we encountered tons of traffic going north, so we were going about 20-30 km/hr (the speed limit is 100) for quite a long time. sophie ej and i had each burned mix cds to listen to (i actually made 2 bc i couldn't cut my music choices down to just one cds worth), and we were just driving with the windows open and it was fun. however after the first stop, the cd player (and radio) stopped working, and all we could get was a weird crackling from the speakers.

when i had last called the kitesurfing place about going thursday, the guy had said they were "going up to ruakaka for the kitesurfing championships" so i did a little google research and found out that it was the new zealand nationals, and that rurakaka was on our route (up the east coast, and down the west), so we found our way there. we first ended up at what looked like an oil refinery right on the coast (we later found out it is in fact nz's only oil refinery), and when we pulled up to the gate and asked the man where to find the kitesurfing competition, he pointed behind us and said "that looks like them right over there" so we turned and found the beach, where a few people were launching kites. we watched for a bit, but according to the mc (who was announcing from the back of a dumptruck), the wind was not strong enough, so we left to go find lunch, where everyone else got fish and chips, and i ate my pbj i had made at ih before leaving.

when we got back to the beach an hour later there was more activity, including a competition for the first person to ride 100m without stopping, the winner of which got a new kite bag. a few guys tried, and made some progress. the organizer of the competition's dog was chasing anyone who was up and riding, and messed up a few. the beach was really pretty, and there were people kiting on land boards (like skateboard with foot straps and big wheels) and kite trikes, and wakeboarding behind the rescue boat, but by 4 the mc announced that there wouldn't be any competitions for the day, and they would try again tomorrow.

we headed out, and continued up route 1 along the east coast. we stopped in whangarei

(pronounced FANG-uh-rye, because in maori they had a sound that we don't have in english that is sort of between "f" and "wh", so when the missionaries came they transcribed it as wh, but now the official governmental approved maori pronunciation says to say it "f", and the old sound has been more or less lost)

anyway, whangarei is the largest city north of auckland, and we stopped there at the 'i-site' (tourist info center) and got lots of brochures. sophie had booked a hostel for 3 of us for friday night, and one for all 5 of us sunday, but neither of them had taken a credit card number so we were considering just camping out/sleeping in the car for at least some of the nights to save money. however, since we had no tent or camping gear beyond sleeping bags, we decided not to try that, at least the first night. we tried a lot of hostels in whangarei, but they had no room, so we eventually decided to drive all the way up to the one sophie booked, which i think may have been the northern-most hostel in nz.

while driving, ej had just told me that she could use a bathroom, when we saw a sign for the famous hundertwasser toilets in kawakawa. i had read about some high tech musical toilets in her guide book, and we were really excited, but it turns out those are different famous toilets on the other side of the northland, and these particular ones were designed by a famous architect, and now the whole decor of the town centers around their public toilets. so we all used them, and the guys got drinks at the grocery store, and we continued on.

we stopped again in paihia, which is the main tourist town in the bay of islands, which a lot of people had told us was nice. we got water at the grocery store there, and the boys looked for food but decided everything was too expensive. we also ran into a group of american girls, 2 of who i had met on the kayaking trip last weekend, which was cool.

by then it was around 8, so we called the hostel (north wind lodge backpackers in henderson bay)  to tell them we were still coming, and the lady said she had to stay until we got there so we tried to hurry. it was still 9:30 or 9:45 when we finally arrived (after an unpaved road for the last 10 min of the drive). the boys stayed in the car (since the reservation was for 3 of us, we weren't sure what the policy about extra people sleeping in the car in the parking lot was). us girls went in, and a really friendly older lady met us and asked us to take our shoes off, because the wood flooring had just been redone. she said she's just the mother-in-law there, and we felt bad for keeping her up late to check us in. she took us up to our room, which was huge and all ours, with one double bed and one single. the bathroom was attached to the room, and shared with another room similar to ours. there was also a full kitchen and lounge area and stuff. it was really nice and homey and it's too bad we didn't really have time to enjoy it.

we left my phone with the boys so we could text them, and got all our stuff, and started our nightly brochure reading. we decided to do a bus tour of the 90 mile beach and cape reinga (the absolute northern tip of nz), because the rental company specifically said not to drive on the beach with the car, and the lady at the hostel had told us the road to cape reinga is not paved and is quite dangerous. we found 2 tours that included both of those things as well as some kauri forest touring, sand tobogganing, and lunch. they were both booked for saturday, but the more expensive one ($65 vs $45) had room sunday for all 5 of us so we booked that. we also booked a hostel room for all 5 of us for saturday night in kaitaia, where the sunday tour left from. by the time the lady was gone for the night the boys didn't want to come in and use the bathroom or anything, so we just went to bed.

saturday morning we woke up and while i was out waking up the boys, a lady with a little girl came over to talk to us. she's the owner, and it turns out she's from about 3 minutes from where barret lives in calgery, alberta, canada. the weird thing was i didn't notice that she didn't have a kiwi accent while she was talking to us until she said she was from canada. her husband is from here, and he just became a canadian citizen, but they are hoping to move down here full time in the near future. i was quite nervous the whole time she was talking to us, because the boys weren't technically supposed to be there. the lady also took one look at brian and said 'you should put some sunscreen on you're going to burn like crazy as pale as you are' which was pretty funny.

i left the boys by the car, and went up and told the girls they had to sneak out, and i took their shoes to the bottom of the stairs for them so they could sneak out the back porch. i then went to ask the lady where we could go for breakfast because the boys were starving, having never really gotten dinner the night before (although brian had 6 slices of ej's loaf of bread with peanutbutter). when i went back to get my stuff the girls' shoes were gone, and when i got back to the car they said they said some lady (a guest, not the owner) talked to them and asked what they were doing jumping off the back of the porch and they were like 'oh just taking a walk'. so we got out of there before anyone asked any more questions about exactly how many of us there were.

we headed back south toward the bakery the owner told me would be open, even on easter saturday (the vast majority of businesses were closed for good friday, and then all of easter weekend), and in addition we were way up in the middle of nowhere. as we were turning off the dirt road we passed the mother in law, and were glad we had left before the two ladies discussed the three american girls versus the girl and 2 boys one of whom was from canada. we found the bakery, which had pies as promised (they have these little single serving pies with meat and cheese everywhere here). it was after 11 by then so we were all starving. i got a sausage roll, followed by a chocolate eclair, both of which were delicious.

then we decided to drive back toward the east, and just stop at a nice beach when we came to one. we also needed gas, but the first station we saw was 181c/liter, and near auckland it's only like 174, so we decided to wait till the next town. however the gas gauge was blinking by the next gas station, and it turned out the price there was 184, but we filled up anyway. we tried one beach by the gas station, but it was not very sandy, so we went on a little further.

we stopped at cable bay beach, which was pretty and cute, and fairly uncrowded. the sand was a cool pinkish seashell color, which it turns out is unique to that beach. we laid in the sun for awhile, and the boys boogie boarded with boards they had bought at the gas station. we explored the volcanic rocks that went out into the water, and played in the waves for awhile. 

by mid afternoon we had had enough sun and after changing, we headed for kaitaia, back to the west again. the boys had fiddled with the fuse box, and the music was working again, which made the drive much more enjoyable. kaitaia turned out to be a fairly large town, with a ton of little shops on the main street, beginning with a huge kfc, which the boys were very excited about, and us girls were not at all. after finding our hostel (at the kaitaia hotel/pirates backpackers/nero bar), we strolled back down the main street so the boys could get their kfc. the town seemed kind of run down and i was not a big fan, although part of that might be because everything was closed for easter. 

after kfc we went back and checked in, and our room had 2 sets of bunk beds, one with a double on the bottom. somehow sophie and i ended up sharing all the double beds this trip (because ej was sick with a cold so we didn't want to share with her, and the boys just straight up refused). we had our own bathroom "ensuite", which was actually kind of annoying because we all wanted to shower, and there was only 1, whereas if the bathroom had been down the hall there probably would have been many.

after we were all clean we decided since we had lots of time for the evening we would cook ourselves dinner in the hostel kitchen. so we went back down the street to the grocery store and got stuff to make tacos, and then came back and made them (delicious). after that we went back and hung out for awhile, and i hid the cadbury eggs we had gotten at the grocery store, and everyone found them. then we went to the bar attached to our hotel, which was empty, and the others got drinks but i didn't and we sat outside at a table on the sidewalk for awhile. the bartender told us there was live music at a bar down the street so eventually we wandered down there. the band was kind of pop-punky, and they did all cover songs, starting with justin timberlakes 'bringing sexy back' followed by some bob marley, and finishing up with 'what's my age again' by blink182. they weren't fabulous, but they were entertaining.

after they stopped playing ej was taking a picture of all of us, and this old, very drunk maori guy started talking to us, only we all had a lot of trouble understanding him due to the following reasons: a) his accent b) he was very drunk c) his false teeth, which somehow he accidentally spit out on the table while talking to us. after putting them back in he explained something about crayfish, brian (who for some reason could understand him better than the rest of us) said that's how he lost his teeth, fishing or something? he also hugged me and ej, and said to sophie 'you're so tiny, it's like you're from another planet'

so we were dying from not laughing at this crazy guy, and were trying to leave and he was like following us out, offering to let us stay at his flat and stuff (another lady there was laughing at him and shaking her head at us), and the guys like shook his hand and stuff, and barret was the last to leave and the guy like wouldn't let him go and someone else at the bar was like 'he wants you to touch noses with him' which is the maori greeting thing that you do while shaking hands, but barret did not know that and was really weirded out and it was hilarious.

as we were laughing hysterically about all of this and walking up the street to our hotel, we see this very jacked old guy wearing a green tank top carrying this giant cauldron down the street. we must have all been staring, because as he passed us he said "i've got a baby in here...i'm taking it home to eat for dinner" which caused us a whole new bout of laughter. we made it back and went to sleep after watching part of a movie on the one channel that came in on our tv in our room.

sunday morning we got up early so we could get to our tour by 9, and were all planning on having peanutbutter sandwiches with the end of ej's bread. i made myself a sandwich, and enjoyed it, but while making their own, the others discovered a lot of mold on the bread. i was very grossed out, but it was too late to do anything about it. we walked up the street to our tour, and our bus driver/tour guide was an older maori guy named dennis. our first stop was the ancient kauri kingdom place, which is basically a big gift shop with stuff made from 45,000 year old kauri trees, and a cafe and car wash. dennis told us we'd be coming back at the end of the day as well, so we didn't stay long.

our next stop was the gumdiggers park and buried kauri forest. the owner took us on a tour in the forest, which is mainly tea trees now. there are 2 kinds, i forgot one, and the other is manuka. the tea made from boiling the manuka leaves has all kinds of antibiotic properties, as does the honey made by bees who pollenate them. i've seen the manuka honey in gift shops and stuff, so that's pretty cool.

buried below the current forest are 2 entire kauri forests, which died due to large natural disasters, and were then covered by sand, which preserves the wood. the second forest is thought to have been killed by a giant tsunami from the tasman sea, caused by some sort of meteor or asteroid.

the kauri trees excrete this sap stuff, which hardens and forms kauri gum, which was once worth more than its weight in gold. we had heard this from various sources, but did not know WHY it was valuable or what it was used for. it turns out kauri gum is another name for amber, and was used in all kinds of varnishes and adhesives and stuff, until man-made products took over. a lot of yugoslavians/croatians (called dalmations?) came to dig for kauri gum in the buried forests and the term 'gumboots' was coined.

after that we had a long bus ride during which most of us fell asleep. we stopped once to see over this bay to the northernmost settlement in nz, only ej and i couldn't see anything ha ha. we kept driving north, and stopped for lunch at this cute little bay with a beach and campground. we got sandwiches and muffins, which were pretty good, probably because we were hungry. after that we drove a little further to the cape reinga parking lot, and then walked down the trail to the lighthouse at the very northern tip of nz. it was really pretty there, even though they're in the process of paving the road so there's a lot of construction. we ran into the same girls from the kayaking club again and took lots of pictures.

after cape reinga we drove back south, and into this sandy creekbed that the busses use as a roadway. we stopped to go sand tobogganing, which was less exciting than when i did it in australia, because we had these box shaped sleds that didn't go super fast, and also because i dragged my hands so i didn't go fast/flip over. after that we drove out onto the 90 mile beach, which is actually closer to 90 km (60 something miles). tons of tour buses drive on it (and lots of people in their cars), and dennis said it's actually considered a highway. we stopped and took lots of pictures and stuff, and then drove the length of the beach (more naptime). we stopped at the ancient kauri kingdom again on the way back so dennis could wash the bus off (the sand is very corrosive if left on cars). 

after the tour we stopped and got chinese takeaway for our easter dinner, and ate it on some benches in kaitaia. then we drove down the west coast, and all the way around the hokianga bay rather than paying $14 for the ferry across it. this seemed like a good idea until we discovered we had to drive for probably 45 min on a windey gravel road. we made it though, and found our way to the openoni lodge backpackers which is on an organic farm (we had booked earlier in the day for all 5 of us). as we were arriving another hostel that we had booked (and had only had room for 3 of us) but not given a credit card number called me and i apologized for not calling but we had no reception in the mountains while driving so it really was impossible, and the lady yelled at me for quite awhile, wasting my expensive phone minutes. finally she hung up and i felt really bad, but if that's a problem they should just take a credit card number as a deposit.

brian was hungry yet again, but we had missed dinner at the hostel (which costs $20 anyway) so he bought some eggs and bread from the owners and made himself some dinner. ej and i finished off the chinese leftovers, and i ended up with a stomach ache, which may also have been from the moldy bread that morning. we just hung out in our room and gossiped about all the ih kids (we had a 5 person room again, with sophie and me in the double bed yet again) and eventually we fell asleep.

monday we just got up when we woke up, and started to make our way back to auckland. we stopped along the way to see tane mahuta, "lord of the forest," the tallest kauri tree in nz, estimated to be 2000 years old. the boys really wanted mcdonalds for breakfast, but we did not find any, even in the larger towns we dove through. we then decided we would probably make it back for ih lunch, so we wouldn't stop, but then we encountered lots of slow traffic as soon as we got anywhere near auckland, so we gave up and stopped to eat at a little mediterranean cafe. as we were leaving that town, we saw a mcdonalds :)

we dropped all our stuff at ih, then all drove down to the rental car place and walked back. i just sort of veged by my computer doing a little work and lots of nothing for the rest of the day.

kitesurfing

so monday when we got back i called the kitesurfing place and left a message that i would be free all day tuesday, but when he hadn't responded by this morning i assumed there weren't lessons today, and went to foodtown to get more granola bars, laundry detergent, and stuff for the s'mores party which we will hopefully be having tomorrow night (they don't have s'mores, or even graham crackers here, so we're improvising with digestive cookies). while there i ran into praveen, one of the ras here at ih.

after foodtown i was going to meet sophie in albert park to catch up on all the reading we haven't done for classes, but just as i was walking into the park, my phone rang and it was andrew from oceanxtreme, and he said he could pick me up at 1:20 (it was like 12:30 then) so i said sure, and hurried back to ih to change. i grabbed a pbj on the way out, and then waited on the corner for awhile. eventually the blue and white oceanxtreme van pulled up, and i got in.

andrew, the instructor/owner was really cool, and said although usually he has lessons at his place, on the south side of manukau harbour (by the airport, south of auckland cbd), there was a group today at orewa (the beach i have admired every time i've driven north of the city). andrew said he has a smallish farm with beef cattle (no dairy) and some sheep, as well as the kite surfing business. he also said he the championships were 4 days long and they hadn't had any substantial wind until the 4th day, so the rest of the time everyone was just sort of hanging out waiting. that reminded me a lot of waiting for the hay to dry in summer. he also said he made it to the semi-finalists, but they didn't bother to have the run-off heats, so he's somewhere between the 5th and 8th best kitesurfer in nz. he asked me some stuff about what i'd learned/remembered from texas, and it turns out, not a lot. ha ha.

when we got to orewa we met the others, these 2 italian girls and their little brother, and a guy from the crew of the yacht their family is staying on (i'm not sure if it's theirs or they are just guests, but andrew had impression they had a lot of money). their english was pretty much perfect, it took me awhile to even realize they had an accent. howie, the yacht crew guy had taken lessons in the past with andrew, and was from new jersey. he took the little brother (about 10) regular surfing, and andrew first got us 3 girls flying trainer foil kites like we borrowed in south padre. after a little bit he set up one big kite (6 m), and then left us to set up the other two after watching him. we also got wetsuits, lifejackets, and harnesses.

first we all went out and traded off with one of the kites, and one at a time went in with andrew to get the others. we took turns holding onto the back of the harness of the person flying the kite, and doing body drags. the basic move andrew taught us is vertical figure 8's, toward the side of the wind window. he said the figure 8's give more steady power than the dipping from 11 to 2 the way we learned. the wind was blowing in towards the beach, so we were sort of constantly trying to walk back out further into the surf (and by surf i mean large waves - andrew said at his place in the harbour it's flat water, but it's kind of good to practice in the waves, especially when we were just body dragging and didn't have to worry about a board).

there were tons of other kitesurfers, andrew said orewa is a really popular spot when the wind is right. and at first i thought it would be hard to avoid tangling lines but i guess they all had enough control to not get too close to us. eventually the other girls took their kites in, and andrew came and got me to take mine in also. they were tired and cold and had to get back to the boat for dinner, but andrew said if i didn't mind staying he wanted to get in and play for a bit, which was fine with me. 

so he set up all his gear, and then launched my kite for me, and i went and did more body dragging. he also showed us earlier how to body drag upwind, which is the only way to get back to your board if you lose it, so it's important to know how to do. basically you fly the kite in a steady spot to one side, near the side of the wind window around 2ish oclock, and you have to fly it with only your top hand. then you point your bottom arm in front of you at about 15 degrees, and point your feet behind you on the same angle, and it steers you upwind, kind of like a rudder. i'm not sure i completely had the hang of it, but i was getting better by the end.

andrew also told us that there were shellfish in the water that we could pick up, squeeze, and something would pop out that we could eat (raw). he found one and told me to try it, and i had a tiny nibble but i got mostly salt water, and while focusing on that lost control of my kite so we did not try that again.

when it was getting dusky out he had me walk my kite up to the beach (as he was doing the same) and he caught mine while his was still flying, and then i caught his. we folded everything up and i changed, and then we drove back and he dropped me at ih. i only had $60 with me in cash because i figured he would take credit card, but he didn't and said that if i wanted the discounted 3 or 5 lesson package i had to pay upfront, so i ran inside and got all the cash i had, as well as borrowed everything ej and sophie had, and ended up with $490. he said i could pay the rest for the 5 lesson package ($600 total) the next time, which will be saturday, provided the wind is blowing.

now i have tons of reading to catch up on, so i'm gonna get on that!

fulljames!

this trip was so much fun (so this is probably going to be long)

so thursday night ross (the guy in charge of the trip) emailed us all a list with all the car assignments and phone numbers, and i was riding with someone called campbell and at least one other person. i arrived at the meeting place with my backpack and bag of food around 6, and saw large groups of people, so i went up to one of the aucc members i semi-know and asked where to find campbell's car and he was like oh this is campbell, who took me over to his van where there was a kiwi guy named paul, an asian girl named yawen, and a girl from canada named rachel who i had randomly met at the international student orientation. the "party buses" were leaving around the same time and they were all decked out in the pirate theme of the weekend.

we first stopped at yawen's house in the suburbs to get her stuff, because she had randomly decided to come at the last minute. there, her mom gave us a bunch of little mandarin oranges and then we stopped so everyone else could get groceries, which were a lot cheaper at the grocery store out in the suburbs than downtown. campbell bought eggs and stuff and said he would make omelets for us on his camp stove. he also told us girls we could sleep in his tent and he would sleep in the van, because none of us had one.

the drive was 3.5 or 4 hours, and we were blasting paul simon as we left auckland which was a lot of fun. the cd player skipped every time we went over a bump, which became progressively more often the further we got from the city, but i continued to giggle every time. campbell told us how he worked for 10 years as a stunt man in movies, until he broke his femur really bad. now he's going back to school to be a director. he was in a bunch of famous movies including all 3 lord of the rings movies, where he was an orc, and a soldier, and a horseman and stuff. he said in one scene he's the orc firing a cannon, and through cgi, is also 2 of the soldiers being shot at.

we stopped at a pub where the party busses were but didn't stay long because we wanted to arrive before it got super late. after that all us girls in the back fell asleep, and i guess campbell basically got to hear paul's life story for 2+ hours. i think campbell kept trying to turn the music up so he would stop talking, only i kept waking up to hear paul yelling over the music ha ha. when we stopped campbell told us girls that someone else was going to have to sit in the front on the way home.

when we finally got to the campground it was 11 or later, so it was dark, but keri (the president of the club) and some others met us at the gate waving a pirate flag directed us in. we parked between where the portapotties and where the marquee (party tent and bar) was going to be. fabulous location right?

so when we get out of the car, we discovered paul was stumbling drunk, or as they say here, "pissed". we hadn't really been paying attention, but i guess he had been drinking the whole time in the car (that's allowed here, as long as the driver is sober). he also had lost his phone during one of the many times he had to get out to pee, but campbell said he thought it was close to the campsite and he would look in the morning. paul was looking for his friend nick, who is actually in the club but rode on the party bus (paul just came long for the trip, as did a lot of people. i would say less than half the people there were auckland uni students). 

so campbell helped us set up his tent, and then paul was laying on the ground giggling so we set his up for him too. we also found adrienne, a girl who lives in IH and knows rachel too, and natasha, the friend i made last week, and some of them made ramen with adrienne's little camp stove (i had had dinner at IH before leaving so i was ok). adrienne decided to join us in our tent since she didn't have one either, which was a pretty tight fit, but it was freezing there so we figured the more bodies the better.

we just kinda hung out for awhile, and a guy came up to us and asked where campbell was and we weren't sure and he said he was looking for a guy named paul and we were like ooooh you're nick and we directed him into paul's tent and the two of them proceeded to stumble around drunk together while we laughed at them. we also welcomed the party busses when they arrived with 'arrrg' pirate cheers (and a large group mooning, which i did not participate in). speaking of the moon, there are SO many more stars visible here, it's amazing. campbell showed us the southern cross, and we found orion's belt, but no one here seems to know any other constellations besides that.

we went to bed pretty early, probably a little after midnight, and i was wearing my sweat pants, thermal top, sweatshirt, northface, and my sleeping bag which is fairly warm, and i was still pretty cold all night. the no pillow issue did not help the sleeping situation either.

however when we woke up in the morning, the sun was beating down on the tent and it was back to the usual high 70's daytime temps. we gradually got dressed in our togs (bathing suits) and campbell made us omlettes which were delicious. the people in charge had a microphone, and they called a group meeting at 10ish and everyone just kinda gathered. they told us there would be 2 runs of the river (which is called waikato, i just looked it up) for the day, and since there were so many beginners we'd have to split and whoever didn't get to kayak could go rafting. we all crammed on the buses and rode a ways down the dirt road to further upriver where we launched. our campsite was right by the last and largest rapid of the run (fulljames), and we were warned when we arrived not to go past the yellow caution tape they had put up because there was a cliff someone had fallen off and died from in the past.

anyway, when we had all assembled i did not end up with a kayak, so i was happy rafting first, which the kayakers describe as boring, so i figured it would be less scary for the first time anyway. first they said to go on the water everyone had to have a life jacket and a helmet, but there weren't enough helmets so they said the rafters didn't need one after all. i went in the largest raft, which was supposed to have 8 people but we ended up with like 17. our raft guide was a guy named isaac, who ironically looked like he should belong to hanson. he said he was certified for grade 2 (this river) and he definitely knew what he was doing. there weren't enough paddles for everyone so i just sat in the middle. our raft was "self-bailing" meaning it had holes on the bottom to let excess water out (in our case, it let a lot in as well). isaac would yell things like 'paddle forward' 'left side paddle' 'paddle backward' and 'attack the kayakers' (only the instructors, we were nice to the beginners). there was lots of splashing both with the kayakers and the other rafts, and all the rafts were trying to steal peopel from each other and other pirate-type fun. the water wasn't too cold, and most of us had polypro thermal tops, which is nice bc it doesn't suck the heat out while wet like cotton does, and it dries really fast.

we stopped at this rusty old bridge along the river and all jumped off it, which was fun, and there were all these hot pools, where the rocks are hot from geothermal activity, and make the water at the edges of the river like a hot tub. some of them were actually boiling, which we avoided. the rapids were really not very intense at all, probably less exciting than the grizzly run ride at darien lake, until the last one, which was a bit rougher and really fun. there were more hot rocks where we landed, and we had to carry the raft all the way back up the hill to the campsite (everyone lifts it up and we carry it on our heads, which is how we got it down to the water at the beginning too. that was painful because we were barefoot and there were blackberry bushes which made most of our feet bleed. on the way back up all the rocks were sharp, and some of them were really hot, so our feet were pretty abused by the time we got back to camp.

after lunch everyone loaded all the gear back on the trailer and we all got in the van to go back up river. this time i got a kayak (although some people still didn't, including yawen and natasha, who just rafted again). the spray skirt i got did not have good elastic in the waist, so i just tied a knot in the cord, because it fit my boat right which is the important part. i also got a bright pink helmet, and for the rest of the day the instructors called me pink because they couldn't remember my name (i told them that was fine as long as they rescued me quickly when i tipped over).

we dragged the kayaks down to the water (more feet pain) and i was informed by the experts that the boat i had is really heavy and hard to steer, but if i could paddle it i could paddle anything. i was just glad to have one at all. once in the water we just split into little groups with 2 instructors and a few beginners each. i was going to go with colm, the guy who was teaching me at roll training in the pool, but then another group was leaving first and they wanted me with them, so i enquired who would be the fastest to get to me when i flipped over, and was told that toni, one of the instructors of the second group was the second fastest kayaker under 21 in the country. ha ha so i told colm i was sorry but he could teach me at the pool again but i was going with toni and nick.

there were 4 of us with the 2 instructors, but 2 of the guys sort of knew what they were doing (one of them was isaac from the raft, who can roll and everything. he nearly gave nick a heart attack because he was practicing rolling and nick didn't know he could so he like flew over to help him and then didn't need to). so that left 2 of us real beginners, me and a guy named brenden who was even worse than me. we first practiced eddying in and out, which means getting out of the current to the still water on the sides. to do that you have to lift your upstream knee, and aim upriver of where you want to go. while practicing that i flipped once, but toni lived up to her rep and got to me really fast and just flipped me back, i didn't even have to t-rescue.

it took us quite awhile to make it down the river, at least 3 hours probably more. the rapids were a little scary, but i made it through all of them unscathed. we stopped at more hot pools right before some fairly big (for me) rapids and relaxed, and then colm who was also there with his group was like ok everyone, we are going to jump in the rapids, swim across, climb that giant rock, jump off it back into the rapids, swim back to this side, then get in the kayaks and get going. i thought he was kidding. he was not. ha ha and when i did not want to go he made me (we were wearing life jackets and helmets so it was not really dangerous). it was actually really fun and made me less worried about the rapids, because even if i flipped and had to swim it was obviously fine. 

by the time we made it to fulljames i was pretty tired, but i followed nick and made it safely through, and landed on the hot-rock beach area again (when i say beach i do not mean nice sand. i mean hard pointy rocks, some of them boiling hot). i got a guy to temp up with me to carry our boats up, because it's easier if there are 2 people standing between 2 boats, one holding the front and one the back.

when i finally got to the top i was ready to sleep, but my clothes and shoes were in one of the buses, which i discovered was locked. in addition i could not untie all the knots in the spray skirt, and thus was stuck in it. this guy i had talked to earlier was watching me try to get into the van so i went over and was like how do i get this off and he got his jack knife, i thought to cut it, but it had this big pokey attachment which he used to undo the knots for probably close to an hour (there had been a lot of knots in the cord before, i just somehow made a huge one all scrambled up with the rest of them, making it impossible to get off). eventually it got dark so he couldn't see anymore, so he gave up and just cut it. by that time the buses were open so i got my clothes and changed, and went back to our tent, where everyone had saved me some sausages and capsicum (bell peppers)) that campbell had made for everyone. they were delicious. 

during the day people had put up the impressive tiki bar (made from old pallets) and the marquee, which was a big tent with a speaker system and lights powered by a generator. so by the time i was warm and dry and fed the party had more or less begun, and our little group (me, natasha, rachel, yawen, adrienne, and another kiwi girl named kate) hung around and chatted, and we discovered that they don't have s'mores here (or graham crackers), but natasha had marshmallows, so we roasted them over adrienne's little gas stove. they were kind of a different texture, and some were strawberry flavoured, which i guess is the typical package of marshmallows here. we were trying to describe graham crackers, and struggling, until a guy came over who said he and his american girlfriend had spent a long time trying to make s'mores here and the closest thing is digestive cookies (like the hob nobs from london, only without chocolate on them). so we decided we would have a s'mores party in auckland sometime.

the dance party in the tent consisted of a few people awkwardly dancing for awhile so we avoided that. someone had a flaming baton/torch thing they were twirling, and then campbell was doing flame blowing (by spitting kerosine out of his mouth) which was pretty cool. there was a presidental/vp strip tease in the dance tent, which i guess is a yearly tradition, and that brought loads of people in there, but it was crowded and turned into a 'everyone take off your shirt' party so we left and found a campfire, which we sat by for several hours. that was fun, we talked to a bunch of the exec/instructor/hard-core kayaking members and it was nice and warm. eventually we drifted off to bed, which was cold and not very comfortable again, but we were exhausted so it didn't matter too much.

sunday we woke up sweltering again, and we made pasta for breakfast because rachel and adrienne had brought it and we hadn't eaten it yet. i just had a sausage. there was another meeting, and they said we were doing one more run, and to pack up our stuff and clean up ALL the garbage, including bottle caps, so we did that and were ready pretty quickly so we pick up tons of beer bottles and stuff. then we all took the busses back to the launch one more time, and everyone who hadn't kayaked got first dibs, so adrienne and i just rafted again. i was excited to get a paddle in the scramble for equipment, and i forgot to get a lifejacket which was stupid because you're not allowed to do anything without a lifejacket. i was very sad and asked 3 different people where to find one and things weren't looking good until craig came back saying 'where's the sad looking girl who needs a lifejacket' and i was then very happy. 

i was in the big red raft again, and there were tons of people so it was pretty full of water, but remained floating. we had even more intense splashing/people stealing wars with the other rafts, and sort of left the kayakers behind. i managed to stay in the raft the whole time. there are these jet boats that do tours up and down the river, and twice they went by and sprayed us and got us completely soaking wet, but it was warm and sunny for the most part. campbell said the jet boats have like jetski engines, so they have to keep moving or they sink, and once they sunk one at the fulljames rapid and had to get a crane to fish it out.

at one point we kidnapped keri from her boat, and she told us the reason we were so full of water was because the bottom part of the raft was not inflated. she also wanted some of the girls to come back with her because i guess her boat was all guys and really boring. then we threw her overboard and made her swim back, and she looked really sad so we tried to rescue her again but her boat got to her first. there was this weird indian guy who taught us this really funny sailor sing-along song which i do not remember now, but that was fun. we were looking for hot pools, but the river was a lot higher than on saturday (there was talk that the dam had been released) so all the ones we went to before were now underwater. we eventually found some, and stayed there awhile, but the kayakers still did not catch up to us. i was kinda glad i went on the easier kayaking day, but it would have been fun to go again and not be as nervous since i knew i could make it through safely. as we were going over the giant last rapid they told us to avoid the big rock from yesterday which was now underwater, and as we went over one of the girls in the raft somehow fell out and landed right on the rock, but she was fine, other than losing her shoes.

after we got back i went back to take pictures of the kayakers coming over fulljames and just sat in the sun for awhile. natasha made it safely, and yawen went through floating, without her boat, but she had fun. campbell had taken rachel in a double kayak which would have been really fun because he knows what he's doing so if they flipped he just rolled them back. eventually when everyone was back they had a prize awarding with fun gifts for funny stories from the trip. many of them should not be repeated, but the prizes were good stuff, like polypro and umbrellas and camping supplies. ross got a whole tent for organizing the trip, and one girl got a cookbook and spatula because she cooked for a lot of people, and colm got thermal because he had given all his clothes to a beginner who was cold and wet in the river.

our van was one of the first to leave, and we took nick and adrienne back with us so it was a little crowded, but i sat in front so i was comfy. rachel really wanted to see lake taupo, which was really close, so we first stopped at the huka falls, which i think i saw when i was here with p2p, but it was really pretty. the water is moving crazy fast, and campbell said it's illegal to kayak over the falls bc it's so dangerous, but that people still do, including many members of the aucc. it was all the more impressive after being so terrified of our tiny little rapids on saturday.

then we went to lake taupo, which i think is one of the largest lakes in the southern hemisphere and is really nice resort town. we got takeaway (i got a cheese burger) and ate by the lake. we left by 7:30, and made it back to auckland by 11. we dropped everyone at home so it was midnight by the time we got to IH, where i didn't even bother to shower (keep in mind there had been no running water at the campground for the past 3 days) before falling asleep.

today in computer science they told us we have a programming lab to do next week that we have to finish within 2 hours, so i need to do the practice assignments for that, and we have to get our plans sorted out for easter break, which begins this friday. ej and sophie made tentative plans to go to the bay of islands, up north, and we're going to rent a car, which i have to do because i'm the only one who's 21. however when i called the one place they said they have none left, so it's looking like this is going to be just like planning for the south island. we'll figure it out though.

tonight there is roll training for kayaking club, which i'd liek to do, followed by a st. patty's day pub crawl, and most of my friends are going to the pub crawl (even the ones not in the club) but i feel like i should be doing some work at some point, especially if i go kite surfing tomorrow like i'm supposed to. we shall see.

uneventful week

this week has not been too eventful.

monday night kendall and i went to roll practice for kayaking, which was at the northcote college (aka high school) pool, a suburb on the north shore. originally 2 other girls from IH had wanted to come, so when i emailed the guy i had said 4, but we figured it didn't matter, based on the lack of organization for any aucc events.

so we showed up at the quad at 6:30 like we had been told, and saw lee and a bunch of other american kids sitting at a table, and sure enough they were going as well. some of the instructors (exec members) showed up and told us to find a car, so kendall and i went with another ies girl molly, and another american jen, with a guy named nick.

when we got there, ross (my guide from the first day) was complaining about how many of us there were, and we were eventually split up into 2 groups. kendall and i waited, with a couple other girls, and watched everyone else. since there were so many beginners they were teaching us paddling and t-rescuing, rather than even trying to teach us to roll independently. 2 of the girls who had been in the club for awhile (kelly and sophie) already were working on rolling by where we were sitting though, and they made it look pretty effortless. then kelly got out and was like who want's a kayak, so i went over and took off my warm layer (it's an outdoor pool, and by the time it was dark it was pretty chilly). she gave me her spray skirt (we weren't using life jackets or helmets), and i got in and she was like "ok you roll over and tap 3 times (that's the signal for help) and i'll roll you back" so i did, only when she tried to roll me back she couldn't! so after a few tries i just went out the bottom and she was like 'i'm so sorry!' but it was fine.

so i got back in at the edge, and she took me over to a "real" instructor, colm. he had me do some basic paddling, and then had me hold on to the side of the pool and practice flipping my hips (with the boat) over and back. the most important part is to just flip your hips, without pushing with your arms, and keep your ear in the water until the very end. this is because a) it's easier that way (your head is heavy and adds to the amount of weight you have to shift) and b)

because in a real t-rescue you're pushing off another kayak, not the side of the pool, and you don't want to sink them.

then he had me flip all the way over, and use his arm to push back. i kept freaking out and just pushing really hard to get my head above the water but once i slowed down and thought through the steps it was better. we also 'borrowed' the front of someone else's kayak to try for real, and it's a lot easier with that than with his arm. then i was like 'wouldn't it take longer for someone to get to me in the river in real life though' and he said yeah, but the average person (resting) can hold their breath for a minute and a half, and even with the flailing around underwater i should be ok for 30 seconds at least. so he gradually started waiting longer and longer before giving me his hand, which was pretty traumatizing and did not go too well. the first time i was freaking out by 8 seconds, and when he made me go for 10 that was about my limit. i think the problem is either i blow out so i don't get water up my nose, which then uses up a lot of my air, or else i get water up my nose, which is just really painful. then at the end he told me to go under as long as possible, and then do a wet exit (detaching the skirt and just going out the bottom). i did not wait more than 5 seconds, before giving up, but oh well there will be more practice.

after everyone was out of the pool and dry, everyone decided on a pub to go to (what they do every week after roll training), and everyone eventually ended up at this little cafe/bar place that was cute. a lot of us just had free water, and some people got beer and potato wedges and kendall and i split a piece of chocolate cake. everyone was just kinda hanging out, and planning for the big trip this coming weekend to fulljames. also while we were there james, one of the ones in charge collected money from everyone for pool rent, and molly and i finally paid our $20 membership to really join the club. eventually we left (the place was basically closing), and nick dropped us back at school. we were again exhausted, and showered and went to bed.

the rest of this week i've just been going to classes and going to bed early for the most part. last night the girls (ej sophie and kendall) went to margaritas like we did last wed, but i was exhausted so i stayed in and watched a movie with some other kids. halfway thru it stopped working, but that was fine and we just went to bed.

tuesday i officially signed up with ross to go to fulljames, and i bought some bread and peanutbutter and granola bars for the trip. walking back from the grocer store was probably the sweatiest i have ever been in my life while not working out.

today i went to buy a polypro thermal shirt (recommended for kayaking this weekend-side note, i'm mad i didn't bring my thermal leggings bc those would have been nice too. oh well) and also some long board shorts to wear over my bathing suit. i went to r&r sport, a place far down k' road that people had recommended for camping gear, and got a shirt for $32, and then on queen street i went by kathmandu, where we had gotten our sleeping bags really cheap. against my better judgement i went in, and sure enough their polypro shirts were on sale, under $20. i didn't think i could return stuff at r&r though, so i just kept going. billabong and quicksilver and all those brands have stores on queen street, but they didn't have many girl's long board shorts. i eventually ended up at the mall/shopping center where the warehouse is, and there's a store called amazon with all those surf-brands in one place. they also did not have many girl board shorts, so i gave in and tried on some boys, and eventually decided on a pair that aren't TOO manly.

i took the free city circuit shuttle back to campus, which was nice, and on my way back sophie called me and told me she was at kathmandu and that they had cheap thermal and i explained that i had been there and was mad already. then i went back to my room, had lunch (surprisingly good spring rolls) and then went to the 'power hour' aerobics class at the gym. i was much better at the step-coordination than last week so that was good. after showering i called r&r and explained my situation, and dumbly told them teh reason i wanted to return was bc i had found it cheaper elsewhere, and the guy was like 'welllll we don't usually do that' and i was like ok it's fine. 

but after thinking about it i decided to walk back over there and try in person, and when i got there i was sent to the manager, who remembered my phone call, but when i looked very sad he was like it's really not the store policy but since you came all the way over here i will. and i said thank you a million times and told him i would be back with more business and he was like 'that's kinda the idea' so then i quickly went back to kathmandu, got the cheaper shirt, and then went to computer science tutorial at 5 (my only class of the day).

we had to work in pairs, so i was just with the guy next to me, who's name i never got, and the problems were kinda hard but we eventually got some done. we're learning about sequence alignment in class, and were told to come up with our own algorithm to solve the problem, which was kinda overwhelming. we eventually came up with one that would work, but would take exponentially bad time, and the tutor said that it would work but it wasn't really what he was looking for. we eventually figured out more or less what he wanted us to say.

out of 7 problems i think most of the class finished 1 or 2. it doesn't seem like i'm at a huge cs disadvantage, although we haven't done any actual coding yet. but i understand most of what's going on, and all the cs majors seem extraordinarily concerned with not knowing any bio. so i have told them (the 2 who i have talked to/worked with) that i will help them with the bio if they help me with the cs. a good deal i think, since the bio knowledge required is pretty minimal. i was worried bc normally i have class during the tutorial time, and that seems like where we actually practice working stuff out, but the tutor said he's putting everything online, and we didn't really get that much done in the alloted time anyway.

after that i had dinner with alex (from france) and hannah and lucy (from nz) and now i'm doing this. also this morning i emailed a microbiology professor about volunteering in his lab, with a slightly modified cover letter and resume from dr. quivey. there are 2 that really sound interesting. this one is doing a bunch of stuff, the most fun of which is looking for bacteria that produce natural food colorants. the other lab i will email if this one says no is doing stuff that is remarkably similar to dr. sia (ie, mitochondrial dna mutagenesis and repair). i figured i'd go out on a limb first.

i also did my laundry again today, so that's now hanging all over my room. i need to pack for fulljames now, except nothing's dry yet. maybe i will cough up another $2 for the dryer. ick.

classes and kayaking and stuffs

sooo it's been almost a week since i updated. bad news. well maybe good news, that will probably make me be more concise. karen said this looks like someone preparing to have their memory erased. anyways, here goes.

so classes haven't been too hard thus far, although it's only been a week. i dropped bio and am taking linguistics of the pacific with sophie and emily and a bunch of other americans instead. the prof of that is canadian, and both of the ones in my anthro of the pacific that have spoken so far are american. my language & identity in nz class has a kiwi prof, but she does not know how to use powerpoint. the day i was 10 min late from skyping she was still trying to figure it out when i got there, and ended up just going through each slide in the edit mode because she didn't know how to make it a slideshow. both the linguistics classes sound more artsy and less science-y than the linguistics classes i've taken at home. but oh well. i just need to pass, so it's ok if my essays are not fabulous.

wednesday, thursday, and friday i went to fitness classes at the gym. the first one was just step aerobics, which was fun, even tho i did not remember the choreography very well. the second one was step for the first half, and then stuff with free weights, also pretty fun. the one on friday that kendall and i went to however, was called BEGINNER tae power fit, and the instructor was this really  jacked guy from like, switzerland or something, who started by making us run suicides back and forth across the room, and then running laps. then he just started telling us to do like jabs and uppercuts and stuff so we just sort of randomly punched, and it was really intense and i can't imagine what the non-beginner version is like. i may not go back to that one.

friday was the "s party" at ih. they really like their theme parties here. everyone was supposed to dress as something beginning with s. sophie was originally going to be herself, but then decided to be sudoku, and drew a puzzle on a piece of cardboard that she hung around her neck. i decided to be a sailor with my striped shirt and made a hat out of newspaper (which i went out and bought for $1.60 just for that). ej and kendall didn't know what to be, and we spent quite a while thinking. we considered being the spice girls, but we couldn't find enough girls (we also suggested we dress the boys up as the spice girls but that did not go over well). kendall decided to be sporty spice and i loaned her my black comfy capris and a tank top, and ej was "six" and just wore her pjs and pigtails. the party was in the big common room in the basement, and they had drinks (alcoholic for sale, non for free) and snacks and pizza, and a strobe light and music. some people had really good costumes. 3 of the girls were sheep, and they glued hundreds of cotton balls to their shirts. cameron was a soldier, including a cap gun which the boys were entertained by all night. brian and ollie were surfers, with just their togs and towels, and ace was a soccer player, but by the end of night he lost his shirt and became a surfer too. there was a sandwich (a group costume), a sketchy 70's gym teacher, a stoplight, snow white, a spartan, a stewardess, and a lot of other fun stuff. i stayed till midnight and then went to bed, and i think everyone else did soon after.

also on friday kendall told me she joined the canoeing club (aucc), and they were having day-trip orientation things this weekend. sophie joined the tramping club, which had a 2-night camping trip this weekend. we had been told joining clubs was a good way to meet kiwis and get involved on campus, and i decided i would rather do kayaking since i a) don't have much hiking equipment and b) can do that anywhere, on my own. so i went to the aucc booth at the student union quad area (quad as in rectangular courtyard between buildings, not grassy like at home), but i didn't have money with me to pay the $20 membership fee, so they said i could just do it online. i also stopped at the ski and snowboard booth, but they said the season doesn't start till mid june, so it's not worth joining for less than a month. i'm a little sad i brought my snowpants and warm coat now. but oh well.

so when i went back and signed up for aucc online, there was no place to like, put in a credit card number or anything, but kendall said i could probably just show up on saturday morning. so i did, and it was fine, everything was very relaxed. all the people with cars just took as many people as they could, and kendall and i found a group at the very last minute which was lucky, because there were a  LOT of us on saturday. we went with this french guy, quentin who is a mechanical engineering grad student and in the club, and a german exchange student, and then kendall, me, and lee who is also doing ies and is from ur. quentin had the trailer with all the kayaks behind his car, and we drove for about an hour north of auckland, to the puhoi river, which is really flat and small and nice. the town of puhoi was really cute, there was a pub, a general store, and a library which is about 1/3 the size of the allen's hill one. 

there were so many of us beginners that they split us into 2 groups, so 1 group paddled halfway, then everyone drove down and met us and we switched. kendall and i got in the first group. they taught us some basics before we got in, like you put your spray skirt on first, then your life jacket (which are really cool and have like, skeletons on them), and how to get in and basic paddling. my kayak seat was not attached, and the spray skirt did not fit the boat, but they said i would be fine without it. we broke up into 3 groups of 8 students with 2 instructors each, kendall and i were with a guy named ross and a girl named katrina teaching us, and some german and kiwi kids learning too. i asked why it was called the canoeing club when they go kayaking and ross said because it was originally canoes in the 60's when it started.

there were these 2 kiwi kids in the group in front of us who i was sort of talking to before we left, a girl and a guy. the guy, i think his name was like rommy or something was SO bad it was hilarous. he could not go in a straight line, and ran into a bush, and eventually the instructor, kerri, ended up towing him. at the dock where we were switching everyone was waiting and they all threw mud at us and tipped us out, but the water was nice and the mud more or less came off. deborah, a girl from IH who is from saratoga springs dibsed my boat, and then pulled the end down to flip me, only the boat just sort of filled with water and started sinking ha ha. i made it out (covered in mud), and after a lot of jumping off the dock and mud throwing the others left and we all drove back to the pub where we started.

they set up a "barbie" with "saucies" and everyone just laid out in the sun on the grass and hung out for a long time. it was lots of fun. the 2 kiwi kids from before and another girl, natasha, who was in our group sat with us and some other american kids and it was lots of fun. natasha has red hair and really pale skin, and is a first year and is living at home. the other 2 are third years, and the girl is studying law, which here means you are already in law school, and just go for 6 years straight. she is samoan and apologized for sitting with her toes pointing at us because i guess that's really rude in the samoan culture. most of us got ice cream at the general store, and a lot of people got beer from the pub and it was just really picturesque and cute. 

they taught us about their politics, and i learned about how our primaries work too from some of the other americans. they have the labor party and the nationalist party, which are roughly equivalent to the democrats and republicans respectively, although more left-wing in general. helen clark is from the labor party, but there's an election this year and nationalist is probably going to take over. they also have some thing where they like, vote twice, once for a delegate and once for a party or something? it sounded much simpler than all our electoral college crap.

eventually the second group got back and ate, and then we all drove back to auckland. we were supposed to be following another car with kerri, the president, and her brother in it, so we could leave the trailer with the kayaks at their house, but quentin did not see them get off, so then we drove around the suburbs (the north shore i think) for awhile, and they met us and we followed the rest of the way to their house, where alex's (the brother) car died right when we got there so he was kind of concerned with that. kerri invited us in for cool drinks. their house is really cute, there are palm trees all around, and within sight of a beach. kerri said their parents had been going sailing in their yacht for 3 weeks but would be home soon. she said there used to be a ferry that took 15 min to get to uni, but it went bankrupt so now it's a 40 min bus ride. that seems to be pretty normal for all the kids who live at home. they also told us to come to the aucc toga party that night, but it was at someone's house and no one seemed to know how to get there.

so when we finally got back we had missed ih dinner, so we showered and lee came back and met us here and we went down k' road to find some food. we went to this little vegetarian indian restaurant and i got a $6 'snack' which was the perfect amount of rice and curry bean stuff. then we went back and found ej who also did not feel like going out, and decided to watch good will hunting which she had borrowed from the ih library. however, the dvds here are region 4, and our computers only play region 1 (although you can reset macs a total of 4 times to play different regions). so we first looked in all 4 common rooms in ih for an available tv, but they were all being used, so we re-set my computer and watched it here. i fell asleep quite a few times, and it was over by 11:30, so we all went to bed exhausted.

then today i was supposed to go kitesurfing (i called the company that has the rec center lesson, and they said i could do the 5 lesson package, and that i would get a text saturday night about where to go depending on the weather conditions). however i never got a text, so when i woke up around 9 i called, and the guy said there was no wind so we weren't going, and he must have put my number in wrong or something. so i will reschedule when i know what my weekend plans are. since i wasn't doing that today, i decided to go to the second aucc kayaking practice at a nearby lake. kendall did not want to go today, so i went down to the quad bravely alone. natasha was there so i sat with her. there were significantly fewer people, most of whom were now and hadn't gone saturday. again, the leaders just went around and asked who had cars and assigned 4 people to each one. i went with natasha, another kiwi girl who's name i never heard, a sweedish girl named ulrika (i think), and a girl from florida named keatin. 

the leaders just told us what motorway exit to get off for lake pupuke, and to just drive around the lake until we saw everyone, so we did, only there turned out to be about 4 parks on the lake, and no one we recognized at any of them. we drove around one and a half times before finding everyone at the first place we stopped originally (they were just late). it wasn't a big deal tho, and we had fun driving. 

they split us up into 2 groups again, letting the people who hadn't gone saturday go first. there were only like 8 of us in the second group, so we just laid out in the sun (with lots of sunscreen - i wore spf 15 on my face and 30 on my body saturday, and my face got burnt). natasha and i sat with alex (kerri's brother), who is a first year at aut, and travis, a kid from california. all the leaders were complaining about someone named colm (craig, who is pretty crazy said to travis, who was watching the phones 'if it rings and it sounds like colin but not quite answer and tell him he's late). so right before we went colm arrived and was like 'yeah i had no idea i was supposed to be bringing all the instructor's boats and my phone was off' so then he was picked upon for the rest of the day. (the 'instructors' are pretty hardcore, most of them have their own gear and stuff, although i think a lot of them started in aucc as beginners too).

so we got the wet lifejackets and skirts from the first group (very cold), and got all situated, and they pushed us off the shore into the lake which was fun. we practiced paddling forward and backward and turning (i actually can't go straight very well but they said that doesn't matter too much when you're in rapids anyway). at the end they told us we were going to practice t-rescue, which is when if you flip over, you can right yourself by holding onto someone else's kayak (the basic exit is to just peel off your spray skirt and fall out the bottom, but then you have to swim to shore and start over). most people did it, but when it was my turn i flipped all the way over before i was supposed to, and then freaked out a little, and just fell out the bottom. it wasn't a big deal though because they  made everyone do that anyway to get out at the end. there is rolling practice, where you learn to right yourself without help tomorrow night in a high school pool so i may go to that.

after we got out we loaded all the boats back on the trailer, and then natasha took us back. it turns out keatin and travis both live in the empire apartment building, which is literally right outside our door. keatin and i were going to go grocery shopping, but then i decided to go to the gym instead. then i came back and showered and had dinner, and now i'm considering doing some reading for class.

beginning of classes

classes started yesterday, on monday, and i had molecular cell bio at 9 am (and every other day except wed at 9) so i got up at 7:30, showered, and got breakfast and a bag lunch (cookie, apple, and make your own sandwich) downstairs, and left half an hour to get to class. it actually only took about 15 min, which will be nice when i am running late like i usually am.

there are a bunch of lecture halls in the basement of the library, and i was wandering lost when sophie saw me and showed me where to go. i sat down in a row next to some random asian girls, and was soon surrounded by asian people not speaking english. the class is big, about 350 people. the professor seems nice, but the class is primarily focused on mammalian and human cells, which don't interest me as much as bacteria, and the students are assumed to have taken a developmental bio class last year, which i have not. there is also a 2 hour lab, in addition to 4 hours of class every week.

after that i went to the international office to switch out of the 2 maori language classes i was signed up for (gael said they would probably be hard even tho they are intro level, since all kiwi kids know some basic maori) and sign up for computational biology and anthropology of pacific peoples instead. after waiting in a huge line for almost an hour, i found out i actually had to do that in a different office. so i went there, and told the 4 other ies girls in line behind me they were in the wrong place. there, they put me in the anthro class, and gave me a form to have the cs department fill out saying i had enough prerequisites to take the class.

so then i went to the science building office, and was sent to a lady in the cs department, who sent me to another guy in the cs department, who looked at my transcript and asked me whether i had learned some cs stuff from last year, most of which i remembered the names of but i think i'm going to have to review a lot. he said i should be fine, and showed me the website with the lectures from the prereq class so if there was anything i had not learned i could find it there. then i went to return that paperwork to the office but there was a line and by that time i had to go to class again so i just left.

i found my way to the correct room for computational biology after a lot of lost wandering, and it was a lot smaller than mol. bio, about 45 students. the prof, who i emailed last semester is really young, maybe 30, and he said he's not going to be around for awhile after this week because his first son was just born. he went here in the 90's, then did a post doc at oxford, and is now teaching here again, as well as running a bioinformatics software company he started. pretty cool guy. basically everyone in that class is a cs major, and he had a show of hands of who had not done any bio since high school, which was most of the class. so i'm probably going to be way ahead on bio and a little behind on comp sci there, but that should be fine since that's my only hard class. i stayed after class and asked him what he thought and he said i'd probably be fine, and this other girl who was behind me was like freaking out that it would be too hard, and when he said there's about a 70% pass rate she really freaked out, but he said that's normal, and i don't know what the pass rate at home is to compare. it sounds like a lot of fun so i'm not too worried.

after that i went back and turned in my paperwork, and i saw cameron and barret (kids from IH) while walking. then i came back to my room and was really sweaty from all the hills here and my room was sweltering so i just did computer stuff for awhile. i went to dinner at 6:30 with sophie ej and kendall, and emily, the other ies girl sat with us and we talked about our trips and classes and stuff. sophie and kendall are in the linguistics of pacific languages class that i kind of wanted to do, and when i told them about bio they said to drop it and take that instead. so after dinner i emailed dr. marquis (my advisor) to make sure computational biology would count toward my major, and decided if he said yeah i would drop bio, because why waste the time and effort if i don't need to?

there was an ih 'quiz night' in the cafeteria at 7:30 and we decided to go for lack of anything else to do. we sat down with cameron, alex (who's from france), barret, and brian, but we had to be in teams of 5 so it was alex, cameron, ej, sophie, and me. there were all kinds of random questions, from naming the cd and artist from album art, to greek mythology questions (which cameron knew everything about), to word puzzles (which i was pretty awesome at) to geography. cameron lived in france for a year, so he and alex kept conversing in french, and i was pretty impressed with how much i understood. we were very competitive, but despite our best efforts we did not win, but barret and brian's team did so they gave us some of the chocolate they won after. we then decided to teach them the snowball game from chrristchurch, so we all hung out in sophie's room and played 2 rounds of that, and then i went to bed.

(also, this is old but on sunday night we hung out in cameron's room and they were playing all these youtube videos that the urtv kids like, so then i showed them a bunch of urtv videos, some of which they actually thought were funny.) 

today i decided to go to one more bio lecture before making my final decision (dr. marquis said computational bio is fine), so i went, only it's in a different room on tuesday, but i was early enough so it didn't matter. it was slightly more interesting, but not enough to make me want to get up that early every day. so i'm dropping that this afternoon, meaning on tuesday and thursday i don't have class till 5. i don't know what to do with all this free time! i may email some bio profs and see if i can volunteer in a lab or something.

i then went to the gym after bio, and came back here and had lunch with the usual 3 girls as well as courtney, who is also from the us and made friends with kendall while we were gone, and praveen, one of the ra's who i always say hi to (he's actually the only ra i know, and is not mine). 

now i'm going to go switch my classes and do some other errands, hopefully it won't start raining again, since it was pouring earlier. ha ha fun fact, karen just imed me and said it's 63 there, which is exactly what my widget says it is here. pretty impressive for early march!

christchurch

so we got to christchurch around 8, and i had called riley on wednesday, and got a girl's voicemail, but then he texted me that talking is too expensive, and he had told us to text him when we got there, so we followed his directions, and got there, and he came outside and we told him about ejs ticket and various other things and he was like ok let's just go inside, so we just parked on the street, and took all our stuff into his flat, which is sort of like anderson but way nicer, they have 2 showers and 2 toilets and a huge common room with a full kitchen. i guess most of the dorms in that area are traditional dorms and he just got really lucky. he lives with all kiwis, 4 boys and 1 girl. there was a big 80's party that night, so everyone was running around wearing ridiculous fluorescent colored outfits.

we all showered, since we had kayaked and hiked a glacier since our last showers. then riley's friend shane asked if we could drive him home from the liquor store, so we went to the atm and got him, and came back to riley's flat, and riley was just explaining that they would have to drink in his room because they are not allowed to drink in the common room and not allowed to have glass bottles (but cans, and drinking alone in your room is fine) when his ra came in and made them pour their un-drunk beers down the sink. so then we went to shanes, in ilam (pronounced eye-lam, not ee-lam) village, where most of the ies kids live. i had a black tanktop and nothing to wear over it so riley went to some girl's room he knows and borrowed a cute purple sweater for me.

the ilam apartments are nice too, about the same setup as riley's at university hall. we sat around there for a bit, and their friend jessie came over, and then we went to get the free bus to go downtown (the university of canterbury is in the suburbs, it's very much like UR). a bunch of the other ies kids from rochester were going to meet us there, but went to a different bus stop, and then we saw the bus with them on it go flying by and for some reason it didn't stop at our stop. so after some more waiting this bus pulled up with all these flashing colored lights and loud dance music. it was hilarious, and after some deliberation we got on with all the drunk kiwi kids. that bus took us to some bar, that was not downtown where we wanted to go, so we got off and walked (and by walked i mean at riley speed, so basically jogging for everyone else) to the regular bus stop near there, and on the way found a shopping cart which riley pushed me in.

while waiting for the bus another one just went by with a 'not in service' sign, only there were people on there, including some of the other ies kids, who pointed and laughed which was really funny. finally a bus came and we paid our $2.50, and eventually got to the downtown bar area, which is really cute, it's all cobblestones and no cars, and there is this giant fireplace and big couches and stuff. 

first we went to this jazz club one of riley's flatmates was raving about, i think it's called fat eddie's, and since it was thursday, it wasn't very full at all (i guess it's super popular other nights). we went to the bathroom and then ej and i wanted to get what she had gotten at the pub during ies orientation, pineapple malibu, which tastes really yummy, not at all like alcohol. so she asked the bartender and he made it for her for $8, and i got one also. the boys and jessie and sophie got beer, gross. so we went upstairs and sat on these big comfy couches and just hung out for awhile, and some other ies kids showed up, and eventually we left to go to another place, i think called mickey finn's, where there was live music. they had free water there, which i had about 4 glasses of, and we played pool, first it was ej and me against riley and jessie, and i got a total of 1 ball in all game. although we were losing pitifully, they accidentally hit the 8 ball in at the end, so we won! then others played another game, and more rochester kids who i vaguely know arrived and we hung out for awhile, and then we were really exhausted so we went looking for a cab, there were 8 of us i think, and micah, one of the kids from rochester was looking for this big 12 person cab but we never found it so eventually we split up, and sophie, ej, riley and i went back to his flat, where the three of us slept on his floor in our new sleeping bags.

we set our alarms for 7 on friday, so we could return the rental car as soon as possible, because the lady in queenstown said the earlier we returned it the cheaper it would be (because the price she gave us was more than $100 more than the man in auckland had quoted), so riley and i went and let the girls sleep, and it turned out to be like $370, still way more than the man had said, but there's not much we can do about it now. then we took the bus back and slept till noon. riley was playing golf at 1, so he got ready and left, and we gradually got ready and took the bus to the cathederal square, the main touristey area. we walked around and shopped all afternoon, i bought 2 tank tops and a sweater, and presents for serita and jennifer, and decided i needed to stop spending money. riley met us for dinner at the main bus terminal, which is fun, it's kinda like an airport, and after wandering around forever and not finding any cheap food, we took the bus partway back to UC, and got off and found this cute little indian restaurant called taste of bengal, where the man cooked each of our things individually. the food was amazing (and i don't think it was just because we were starving).

after that we went back to riley's and then went over to shane's again, only it had been raining all day so the walk was a bit less enjoyable. we played oh hell for awhile in shane's room, and then went out to the dining area and played this game called snowball with 2 of the other kids who live there. it's kind of a combination of telephone pictionary, and it's really funny. we went back around midnight, because we had to get up fairly early for our tour the next morning. we weren't too thrilled about it, because we didn't want to spend another $100 and we could've just hung out with the ies kids, but we couldn't get a refund for cancelling within 2 days. 

the tour was called the christchurch big 5, and included the international antarctic center, willowbanks nature reserve (both of which i visited with p2p), a wildlife cruise, a ride on the christchurch gondola, and a tram ride. unfortunately the city busy we were taking to the meeting point was late, but we called and they said to get on another bus leaving at 10, so we did, and while waiting the tram people looked at our vouchers and gave us tram tickets. then we found our bus, which took us to the antarctic center (and i'm pretty sure we were the only ones under the age of 60 on the bus). at the center (i mean centre), the lady at the desk included a hagglund ride in our ticket, even tho i don't think we were supposed to. we walked around fairly quickly, and watched the little blue penguins being fed. then we went on the ride, which is the amphibious vehicle they use in antarctica. it was fun, we went up really steep hills, around curves, over a big crevice, and through a lake. 

after that we got on another bus to willowbanks, which was not that exciting, we walked around and saw a lot of birds and some other animals, and went in a dark building to see kiwis, but it was so dark we couldn't really see them. then we were planning on eating lunch there, but when we came back to the entrance a bus driver was like 'hurry we have to meet another bus at 1', even tho they had told us to meet at 1 there, not 12:40. so we got on the bus, and met another bus at the square, which took us past the gondola, to lyttelton, the port of christchurch which is over a mountain, which you have to take a tunnel to go through. the town is really cute, but it was raining (all day) and we were starving by that point. luckily the boat had a snack bar and we each got chips for $2, and they gave us free hot chocolate. we saw some dolphins (the main focus) and some birds and a sunken ship, and then sophie was feeling seasick so we sat with her inside (it was raining anyway so i was happy to be inside) and all 3 of us fell asleep ha ha. 

after that, the bus driver told us that we wouldn't see anything from the gondola (we could not see the top of it through the fog) and that we could probably get a refund, or if we wanted to he would drop us there. we said it was ok, and stayed on the bus back to the square, where we texted riley and got on the tram, where we each got another ticket. riley was playing basketball but said he'd meet us as soon as he could, so we rode the tram all the way around twice. we got off at this building with all these art shops (which used to be part of the university of canterbury until it moved out to the suburb of ilam) but they were closing on 10 minutes and things were expensive so we just wandered and got free fudge samples at the chocolate shop.

we also saw a chinese lantern festival in a park that we went by which looked identical to the on in auckland we went to the previous weekend. we then went to wait for riley at the bus terminal and he got there right after we did. we told him about the lantern festival, and how there was really good really cheap food at ours, and then i gave him my second trolly ticket, and we did another loop. riley really wanted to see if the prime minister was at their lantern festival like she was at ours, but we did not see her. we did find all the food though, and i got some noodles and a pancake thing, and we stood under a tree and ate. then we took the tram the rest of the way around, and stopped at kfc for $1 milkshakes on the way back to the bus. 

when we got back to riley's we were tired and wet and decided to just watch a movie. for awhile we were just hanging out in riley's room and his flat-mates addi, casey, and ben were in and out, and they are hilarous. casey, who is in the room next door told us some story of like, how to leave a bar by bashing the mug over your head so the handle breaks off, and then holding the handle up to your head like a phone? and then he showed us this explosive white powder he makes from like isopropyl alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, and i am now slightly concerned for riley's safety living next door to that. casey also had a light up candy cane in his room, which he said he can plug in his subwoofer so it lights up with the music, and a collection of hats, including a real police hat which he stole while being interrogated about "drunk walking". 

when we asked why there are so many kfcs here, casey told us "because that's all the maoris eat...that's why the maori women have beards, because the chickens are so pumped full of hormones" and we died laughing. they call the maori people "black" here, and they sort of fill the role of black people in the us.

eventually we watched juno out in the common room, which was really good, although i fell asleep through part of it. then we got all packed, and went to bed. in the morning our cab, super shuttle, came right on time, and we had plenty of extra time at the airport. we had a minor freak-out when we tried to check in at the domestic terminal and our flight was not listed, but the lady at the desk told us it was at the international terminal, because it was coming from japan and just stopping in christchurch on the way to auckland. that was a little annoying because you can take liquids on domestic flights but not international, so we all had to put all our toiletries in ej's checked suitcase, but other than that everything went fine. the flight was really nice because it was international, so we all had personal tvs, and i had all 3 seats to myself again. we took the airbus back to school and arrived around 11 am. the end.