Akaroa and Banks Peninsula

6 friends and I headed southeast to Akaroa/The Banks Peninsula on Saturday morning for a 24 hour trip. All of us piled into the car for the 1 and a half hour drive.

Everyone piled in the car

Akaroa Bay

The view from the drive

The view from the drive overlooking the bay

The bay from the car ride to Akaroa

The view from the top of the crater rim

After a delicious lunch at a local restaurant we finally found the hidden information centre where we were to meet out guide and host for the weekend. She was a woman in her 50s named Shireen who drove us over the top of the volcanic crater and to the bay where her and her husband watch over and protect a colony of penguins. On the drive over we stopped for an hour-long hike down to the shore of one side of the bay. The view was amazing, especially since it was such a beautiful sunny day.

Hiking to the edge of the bay

At the edge of the bay

Again.

Looking down the edge

After our short hike we were driven to the top of the valley and dropped off. On the way we saw a sign for Mikalas Mistake. We’d seen lots of places here called “mistakes” and somehow became convinced that the word mistake could be a noun. So I asked Shireen what the definition of the word mistake was. After a little hesitation she told me it was when someone attempted to do something but did not do it correctly. It was a little embarrassing but pretty amusing to all of us. From the drop off point we hiked for 2 hours through the valley to the bottom of the bay where we were staying for the night in a cottage in the penguin colony. Before we were dropped off Shireen made an off-hand comment about the river overflowing the day before and the path being a little wet. This was an extreme underexaggeration. Walking the path was like walking through a stream and it was ridiculously slippery and muddy. Only Anna and I were able to make it through without slipping in mud. Unfortunately, we were 2 of the only people who brought a change of pants to wear that night/the next day. The hike was a blast and very different from the first hike of the day. It was like we were in a whole different part of the country, but really we were only a few miles away. We saw some huge waterfalls and some really pretty trees and plants.

Michael falling in
A pretty waterfall
Example of the stream we hiked through

The view from our cottage
Our cottage

Mike: washing the mud off his rain coat from his fall

Friend on the farm

After arriving at the cottage we unloaded our stuff and then met Shireen for our evening tour of the penguin colony. She showed us the nests that they build for the penguins and the traps they set for the predators, which are mostly ferrets. She opened up several of the nests by removing the wooden block on top and we were able to see the mating pair of penguins huddled together. Walking further along the coast we were extremely lucky to spot a pair of the rarest type of penguin in the world only a few meters away. She only knows of 3 pairs living in the area. (On our hike back, one of the penguins happened to be on the path so we took the most dangerous detour around the path to avoid disturbing it. Shireen, who had earlier told us she had a bum hip and a broken toe, led the way with all of us scrambling after. It felt like one wrong step and we’d roll down the steep slope and eventually onto the rocks in the ocean. It became obvious to me that no one really sues here because we did not sign a waiver of any sort and she sent us off/led us on somewhat dangerous paths and adventures!)

On our tour of the penguin colony she proudly explained to us how she was the most successful of anyone at trapping ferrets. She gave us the run down of her daily routine, which included going out with her gun and killing a rabbit. She would then skin the rabbit but keep the blood on her hands all day. As she’d walk around to the traps she’d run her bloody hands and the rabbit fur on the trap then leave a little bit of cut up rabbit on top. It was kind of creepy how she described it with such pride. (One year she caught 60 ferrets on her ‘run’ of traps while her husband only caught 7, and the conservation only caught 19.) I was a little disturbed, as you might have guessed.

The penguins in their nest that are part of the colony
The pair of very rare penguins

After all of us had had enough of watching the penguins we began to head back. We stopped at a small hut and she gave us the option to wait until the sun set and watch the penguins hop onto the rocks form the water or go back to our cottage with fire and dinner! We were all quite excited to go back until Michael announced for all of us that it would be great to wait and watch the birds! After freezing for another 10 minutes we finally went back. Although it was very cold, seeing penguins in the wild was a really cool/rare experience. We ate dinner in the hut and started the fire around 6. We all talked about how we didn’t have much to do and we’d probably end up happily going to sleep by 9. Well, 7 hours later we all reluctantly went to bed after one of the most fun and funniest nights I think we’d all had in a long time. We played almost every game imaginable including, card tricks, telling riddles, spoons, the game of things, lots of charades, bingo, “say ‘ello to mate, mate” (Everyone loved it, Kate!) and lots more that I can’t even remember. I haven’t laughed so hard or much in a really long time.

Charades probably
So happy to have the fire going

Improvised Game Of Things

The next morning we woke up and fed Shireen’s baby lamb who was only about a week old. Everyone was talking about sheep and wool and eating sheep. Anna was pretty adamant that the “lamb” you eat isn’t really baby sheep it’s just what they call the meat. Anyways, she was pretty upset when Shireen informed her that they kill the sheep after 4 months for eating. She ensured us that if they didn’t do this than sheep would be extinct because it’s the only reason they’re raised…I’m not sure that made Anna feel better. It made me happy I’m a vegetarian though!

The trip back wasn’t even close to as beautiful as the day before because it was a little cloudy and rainy. We were all thankful that we had such a nice day previously. Overall, it was an amazing trip and it makes me so excited to see even more of the country!

Surfing!

Before we headed out!

Although the weather was rainy and cold I finally managed to convince everyone that it was still a great idea to go surfing for the afternoon in a town called New Brighton about an hour away. By 12 o’clock everyone was awake and motivated and we took the metrobus out to the town. Anna, Carly, Alex, Michael and I found a small surf shop called Sisco Surfgirl. Anna, Carly and Alex decided to get a lesson with their rental while I decided I could remember how to do it from the lessons that Rachel and I got a VERY long time ago. (Rachel, remember when you fell off and our instructor cheered and said “Wipe-out, dude!” haha) Michael had just taken a lesson last week so I figured at the least he could give me a private one! Michael and I headed out into the rough seas with our foam, fake surfboards attempting to successfully ride the waves. The water was surprisingly not cold, considering that it’s the middle of winter. Although, I think that the booties, gloves and hoods were very helpful in keeping us warm. Once I finally made it out far enough into the water to catch a wave I realized that surfing was not as easy as I remembered it! Michael gave me some good tips and I eventually started to catch on. It was so tiring. My arms were dying after 30 minutes of holding the board above the waves, pushing (or failing to push) myself up to a standing position, and walking the surfboard back up the beach when the current had pushed us to the pier.

Michael was the perfect companion though, because he was more than willing to take so called “60 second breaks” with me and sit on our boards in the sand. After about 5 minutes we’d venture back into the waves again. Carly, Anna and Alex eventually came out and their instructor helped me catch a few waves in-between helping them, which was really nice! While enjoying our breaks on the beach it was hilarious to watch the other girls on the water because the waves that we were catching that felt so huge to us while we were in the water looked absolutely pathetic from the shore. Everyone had a blast and I’m so glad we went. After about an hour and a half we were all freezing and exhausted so we headed back to the surf shop. It was such a fun experience and I would love to go again soon – maybe when it’s a bit sunnier/warmer. Michael and I are going to try to secretly become really good and impress everyone...I think I’ll need a lot of practice.

Afterwards

Classes and Fun

I’ve had a week of classes now, and so far they all seem good. We call everyone by their first names, because its very unlikely that any of our teachers will have gone to enough school/taught for long enough to have the honor of being called professor. The title is reserved for the people who have been in the profession for at least 30 years and who have multiple degrees. My professor for Ethnicity is a really interesting guy. His name is Lyndon. He has a women’s style hair cut with blonde highlights and wears about 6-7 rings. On the first day of class he went around and asked my class of 50+ students our names. (He said I get an automatic A+ because Audrey is his mom’s name. YES!) He then went back through and named every single person. He got only 3 wrong on his first try, and all correct on his second. He said his point of doing this was so that we couldn’t be anonymous, so if we wanted to be then we should drop the class. I think this is very rare at such a University of 20,000 undergrads but I don’t mind it! He seems like he’ll be a very interesting professor, plus I have no final exam for that class (or any of my other classes for that matter. I’ll be done with school/finals on Oct 22!)

Grading here is really weird. A 50% is a C. So an 80% is an A. Then Butler will take all the B+ and higher grades I get here and mark them as A’s. So, I really don’t know how you get very bad grades from here! Hopefully, I don’t find out.

I’m really excited about my class called Sociology of Health and Medicine. It seems like she really knows what she’s talking about, and presents the information in a very interesting way. I hope I continue to like it. I only have class 9 hours a week. Each class has a 2 hour lecture and then a 1 hour tutorial taught by someone besides the professors. We didn’t have tutorials all last week so this week I’ll meet 3 new teachers. I’m looking forward to that.

This past Wednesday we had a “catch up dinner” put on my by program. So all the IFSA Butler students went downtown for a ROGAINE (a scavenger hunt around the city) and then out for Indian food. I got spinach and cheese NAAN, a mango smoothie drink, and some cheese and green pepper dish in a tomato-y sauce. It was really good! It was great to have a free meal too!

Thursday night, Leland, Andrew and Erin and I went on this free trip but on by BUSSOC (the bus club on campus). It brought you to a few bars around and then dropped you off downtown. It ended up being really weird! But we all made the best of the 4 hour bus ride and were very happy to finally make it back to the University! At least I became closer with Andrew and Erin and we did lots of activities together over the weekend.

On Friday night I had Operation Friendship!! It’s a program put on for the international students where you can have “a kiwi mom dad or grandparents”. My group included students from Singapore, Malaysia, England and America, and a few others. We went to a families home and they cooked a HUGE meal. The house was so warm and cozy – I think it was the first time I’d been truly warm indoors since being here! There were 4 different families there with about 15 kids under the age of 12 running around. After dinner we played a ‘get to know you’ game and then had dessert which was by far the best part! The most famous ice cream here is called Hookey Pookey. It’s basically vanilla with toffee bits. It was good!

I talked to this one kid who was about 12. He was from England but his parents were renting in NZ for 2 years. We talked about what we missed from our home countries and what we liked better about NZ. He mostly just missed the theme parks, and loved all the flavors of ice cream. I also met this girl named Alex. She was very nice and we plan on going to the classes at the gym together this week. They have Zumba here! We also talked about WOOFing. Which stands for “working on organic farms”. She is planning on doing it for the whole summer after we get done with school. She’s also going to do some WOOFing over the break. She gave me some great information and its definitely something I want to look into doing while I’m here. Best of all, I got to meet the families from New Zealand. They were so kind and welcoming and genuinely interested in our lives. I have only met nice people since being here. We will be having dinners with the same group once a month which I’m really looking forward to!

After we got back I went got tickets to a concert put on my the University. It was called the Perfect Storm and they set it up in the student union. They had 5 different stages in different rooms with local kiwi bands playing every hour. It was fun to hear the local music and dance! Then we went downtown to a place called “Boogie Nights”. It’s a bar that plays lots of fun dancing songs! We had a great time.

Saturday we woke up and went to the Christchurch Art Gallery. There was a really interesting exhibit by Taryn Simon that was about America, actually. She found a bunch of weird and strange places/things in America that no one really knows about and photographed and described them. We spent about 2 hours walking around that one exhibit. One example was a photograph of a rotting corpse. Then when you read the text, its taken at the Forensics Lab in Georgia, I think, where they take corpses and let them decompose to study the process for Forensic purposes. There were some other really interesting ones! I think I will have to go back. After that we went out for some food and then went to the Holy Grail Bar to watch the Rugby game. I’m trying to learn all of the rules so that when we go to the game on August 7^th I’ll be able to tell what is happening!

Sunday, we woke up early and went for a hike to a place called Taylor’s Mistake. It was beautiful! We were hiking up and everyone was going at a very fast pace so I just went my own speed and would catch up with them when they stopped for a brief break. Then Leland made this announcement about how when you have people who hike at different speeds either the slow ones could go first, or you could meet at big areas and wait for the slow people. This was clearly directed at me-but it was funny! I made all the fast walkers go ahead, but then once a few other people realized that I liked hiking a tad slower than a jog, they decided to join me! I also fell in the mud and had a very wet second half of the walk! It was amusing, and overall a really fun day!

Andrew, Carly, Ian, me, Leland, Erin (Anna took the picture)

I had a great bonding session with Anna my flatmate. She is a very interesting girl and I enjoyed getting to know her better. She is a New Zealander but lives in Japan. She is 19. She is engaged to her boyfriend here who is from Switzerland. She has a strong, energetic personality, and we had a very interesting conversation. I hope that we talk more soon; I think that we will.

Classes start again today! It’s weird going from adventure on weekends to learning/reading on the weekdays. I guess that’s how school works though.

The first weekend

The weekend was beautiful – the sun stayed out the whole time!

On Saturday Anna, Josh, Carly, Ian and I woke up early and went to a farmers market in Lyttelton. It was about a 40-minute bus ride away. I got some tomatoes and broccoli and tried lots of other yummy things that the local people made (such as hummus). We then stopped in a really cute, local café and enjoyed bagels and soups and hot chocolate.

Ian and Anna with their soup at the cafe

The view at the farmers market

After walking around the harbor we headed back to Christchurch city centre and walked around there. We saw Cathedral square and some really cute stores and restaurants. It’s a pretty small city compared to ones in the USA so it was easy for us to navigate around.

The center of the city

Anna had heard from someone who used to live in Christchurch that we HAD to go to wool world. We got directions and were really looking forward to buying some wool clothes to keep us a little warmer. When we got there it ended up being called knitting world, and only sold yarn etc. It was a funny adventure though and a reason to walk around the city. Last night my flatmates and friends and I went into town for the big All Blacks game vs. South Africa. We went to a sports bar called The Holy Grail. It was a huge/popular place and had stadium seating to watch the game on the gigantic screen. It was really fun to be surrounded by die hard rugby fans (plus NZ won!) After that we stopped at a couple other bars and clubs and then took the metro bus back to school. This morning we decided to take a bus out to a small town on the water called Sumner. We ate lunch at a café and then walked on the beach and got ice cream. It was really pretty and there were a lot of families there with kids playing in the water and climbing on the rocks. It was a great way to spend our Sunday afternoon.

The beach

Carly, Anna and Josh with their ice cream

Me looking really cool

The view from where I was standing

Tonight I plan on relaxing and then going to bed early. We’re all going to wake up at 6:00am to watch the World Cup final at 6:30! And then classes start tomorrow. I only have one but I am actually very excited for all of my classes I hope that they will be interesting.

I still haven’t made myself a real dinner yet. I’ve been surviving on yoghurt and the free popcorn and chips at the events the Apartments are putting on to meet people. Those events ended today though, so I guess I’ll have to start cooking…

so cold!

It’s very interesting going from the middle of summer to the middle of winter. I haven’t quite adjusted yet! My strep throat and ear infection are finally improving so that has made the days a lot better. The sun is supposed to shine in 2 more days- so that will be another great improvement.

The last few days I’ve spent running small errands and meeting new people. I registered for classes today and am taking 3 in the sociology department; Ethnicity, Family and Kinship, and Health and Medicine. I don’t have any classes on Friday, which will be great for travelling on the weekends. It was so much more of a hassle to register for classes here than at home. At first I was signed up for mostly economics classes, I have no idea how I managed that. I had to ask at least 4 people what to do about it until I finally found someone who cared enough to put me in the right direction! Classes start on Monday, which I am surprisingly looking forward to.

I won a phone from a study abroad student from last semester in a raffle so I didn’t have to buy one for $100! Calling is very expensive here (something like 89c a minute) so everyone texts. Carly and I went to the mall and bought phone plans. We saw a shoe store there called The Athletes Foot. Not the most convincing advertisement for us!

Every time I walk down the street I try to be polite and pass people on the right. After a lot of awkward looks I realized that they like to pass people the same way they drive on the road, so I’m trying to learn to walk on the left side of the sidewalk.

At orientation the other day we had a lot of speakers come up, many of whom talked about driving, especially as it relates to drinking. They all promoted zero tolerance and said drinking and driving is looked at very negatively in New Zealand. Then they had the campus police officer come up who actually told us that men could probably have 5 beers and women 3 and still be safe to drive. It was pretty amusing to hear that from the Police Officer and the other opinion from the students running the orientation! He also added that if we biked home drunk a police officer would definitely not stop us. He was actually a very nice, sincere man and told us to come in with any questions, but it was an entertaining, unexpected speech.

Ketchup is absolutely disgusting here, so I ended up paying 3 more dollars a bottle for Heinz. Definitely worth it. The cream cheese is kind of like sour cream icing. I really like it but I’m sure you wouldn’t approve, Rachel.

That’s about all I can think of for now, hopefully after this weekend I’ll have lots more interesting things to write!

Finally in Christchurch

The view from the plane ride from Auckland to Christchurch

Carly and Me on the beach at the YMCA

The view from our "wander" around the YMCA

I haven't quite figured out yet how to put the images inside of the text..

Wow I’m finally here! New Zealand is amazing! I’m excited to write this – I am hopefully going to write a lot so that I can remember my visit as much as tell you all about it so if it gets a little boring feel free to skim ☺
It was great having Grandma bring me out to California and nice to meet all of Adele’s family. Our tour of LA the next morning was fun! At first when we went to check in they thought I was part of the Make A Wish Foundation, which was a little awkward. After we got that sorted out it was a great tour. We made it to the airport plenty early and Adele and Grandma sent me off around 7pm after a nice, final American dinner.
The plane ride over was very easy and relaxing. My vegetarian meals were decent and I slept for 80% of the flight. I did my acupuncture for jet lag and I think it might have worked, its hard to say since orientation sort of forced us to adjust to the time change (by not letting us sleep). I’m pretty sure the man next to me thought I was a witch when I was rapidly poking myself with a pen on my knees, toes and wrists, but oh well! We arrived at the airport and made it through customs and were met by the IFSA Butler staff. They were amazing throughout the entire orientation and I couldn’t be happier that I’m studying abroad through their program instead of others that I’ve heard about while being here. They had snacks for us and then we headed off to The Shakespear YMCA Lodge about an hour north of Auckland. After getting organized in our rooms and bunk beds we were given more kai (pronounced k-eye) and meaning food. I can definitely say that I was never hungry and the food was surprisingly good.We went for a ‘wander’ of the park and then given the schedule for the weekend by the head of the YMCA. The schedule that he wrote on the board honestly looked something like this:

9:30ish Kai
10:00ish Stuff
11:00ish Kai
11:15 Stuff
12:30 Kai
1:30 More stuff
etc…
Well the stuff turned out to be a lot of adventuresome outdoors activities. When we heard we were going to go sea kayaking they told us to bring our “togs, jumpers and jangals”. One of us was finally brave enough to ask what these were and we learned they are bathing suits, sweatshirts and sandals. Its been really fun learning all the differences in the language since New Zealand also speaks English. (I also found it interesting that one of the 3 official languages is Sign Language – Kate you have to visit now! )
Sea kayaking was so much fun but SO cold! I couldn’t believe that I was in shorts and a teeshirt on the ocean getting soaked in 45 degree weather. My partner Dave and I were very slow kayakers for some reason we just could not keep up with the others but it ended up being a fun joke. After learning how to steer and turn we played a game of kayak water polo where you basically throw balls at one of the leaders kayaks. Dave and I decided we’d be the team mascot since we couldn’t keep up anyways but we did end up scoring a point!
Later that night we went to “hot springs”. I thought it would be a lot more natural and outdoors-y than it was but it was sort of like a water park. The water slides there were the scariest I have ever been on! The seemed fairly unsafe and did not have a lifeguard but they were tons of fun! After that we went to a pub where most people bought their first legal beer. I was asleep by 7:30 that night, immediately after dinner.
The next day was even busier than the first. We started off with some educational material that was set up in a way to make it more fun. My group had to do an interpretive dance of our plane ride and arrival through customs. After our “pub-less quiz” as it was called, we did a ROGAINE, which stands for something about racing and getting exercise and competing. Well it was basically a timed scavenger hunt around the huge park for wooden blocks with symbols using a map a paper and pencil. We ran up some seriously big hills and hopped over a lot of electric fences but we my team ended up doing pretty well, with only a few of us getting shocked. That afternoon we had a couple of choices for activities so my friend that I’ve made, Carly, and I chose to go mountain biking. Wow was that difficult and scary! Going up hill was so hard probably because I was so tired already. Going downhill I thought I was going to go flying over my handlebars. (Two other funny differences. They call cross walks Zebra crossings and when you want to nap but not admit it you say I’m going to “check my eyes for holes”)
After mountain biking we obviously ate some more and then learned to play Touch Rugby. It’s a great game and I hope to join a club here so I can play a lot more often! New Zealanders are very competitive, I’ve learned, and were not happy if you weren’t giving it your all if you were on their team!
I went to bed before 8 again and woke up the next morning still very tired! The next day we left to go on our overnight stay at a Marae where the native Maori people live. It was such a great experience. The children of the Marae performed the Haka, or dance, for us. It is usually the adults that do it but they were off at a meeting at another Marae. It is custom for two of the boys from the visiting group to give a speech in the Maori language to introduce us. I had the best time watching the kids ages 0-9 laughing at the boys accents but trying to hide it. We then touched noses with all of the members of the marae that were present and said “kia ora” which means the breath of life but is another way to say welcome. This was the final step in making us part of the family at the marae. They taught us one of their dances and then we ate some kai and all went to sleep on mats in the “meeting room”.
The next morning we went on a wine tour and tasting. It was probably pretty interesting except that somehow I’ve gotten sick with a very sore throat and I thought I was going to throw up the whole time. The wine was gross but I’m sure anyone who likes wine would have very much enjoyed it! We then headed off to the airport for our flight to Christchurch. I am sitting in my bed here under the covers its 8pm. I have met 2 of my 4 flat mates. They are named Anthony (from Britain) and Leeland from Georgia (the state). One of the others is named Anna but I haven’t met her yet and the other is a Kiwi I believe so he is home for the break.
Tomorrow Carly and I are going grocery shopping and I’m going to the College Health centre for the very first time in my life since I can’t ask Mom to tell me what’s wrong with me! I guess that’s a good experience. Sorry this is so long and detailed it’s probably a reflection on the fact that I haven’t really made friends yet and there isn’t much to do. Its still been a great start to my trip; I just need to adjust to the winter light and weather! Miss you all!