Exams and Raglan

Stick a fork in me because I'm DONE! Officially finished with exams on Wednesday and I think they went pretty well. On Thursday I went with Inger, my friend from Norway, to Raglan, a little surfing community on the West coast near Hamilton. I got massively car sick on the way up to Raglan because the road was so windy and it took a lot longer than previously anticipated. I should know better by now that when they say it's going to take 6 hours to drive, they really mean it. It's not like in the US where 6 hours could be as little as 5:15 or 5:30 because of the speed limit. The roads here are windy as and very narrow. We ended up spending the night in Hamilton on Thursday because it was late and I was feeling awful. The next morning we got up early and left around 8:30 and made it to Hamilton around 9:30. We stopped and had a coffee at the Blacksand cafe and proceeded to head to our hostel for the night.

The hostel we stayed at was called Solscape and was the best one yet! The cabins were made from old train cars that they cut in half and stuck beds in. The whole hostel was powered by solar panels and the toilets and showers used rainwater! There was even a big recycling center behind the kitchen and a compost pile! I was in heaven needless to say. The people there were very friendly and I had a very cool discussion about US politics and culture with an American and British couple. In the afternoon I went surfing on the beach which was awesome! I had a small lesson with a local instructor and then just surfed for 3 hours! I finally have no problems standing up and can work on my turns! After the surf lesson we went back to the hostel and had a meager pasta dinner and went back on the beach to catch an amazing sunset. The beaches on the West coast are quite unique because the sand is very black due to the large amounts of iron in the sand. This has also led to some problems because the government wants to start mining for iron in the sand, which will destroy the ecosystem and make it very bad for the surf. But the black sand was absolutely beautiful in the sunset and it was very quiet, which was perfect. The next day we went on the beach again to collect a little bit of souvenir sand before leaving. We found these 4 limestone Maori carvings near the beach of Tawhirimatea (god of wind/rain), Mahuika (goddess of fire, Tangaroa (god of the sea) and Papatuanaku (mother earth). Each statue was beautifully carved and represented one of the cardinal directions. Afterwords we made our way back to Palmy stopping along the way at Bridal Veil Falls and Lake Taupo for a quick lunch lakeside. Beautiful day and awesome trip! Now I have to pack up my life for the past 5 months and get ready to leave for a month long trip around the South Island!

Also, just got a tattoo of a Maori fish hook on my foot today and it looks awesome!

Exam Week!

Ah! Study study study...therefore nothing exciting to report in the ways of traveling. I've just spent the past week studying for my first exam which was my Maori culture exam. I'm so tired of reading Maori words by now and I can't seem to get them out of my head. The exam was pretty intense, it took me over two hours to complete and was for the most part, just answering the essays. I now have to completely switch my brain and start studying for my Friday exam on Equine Reproduction and Breeding. Still haven't found a car yet for traveling on the South Island, but we are all very busy making it difficult to do some research on it.

Had a wonderful day last Thursday which helped me appreciate my friends here. I was supposed to go visit James in Taupo, but because he was leaving the country shortly, he had too much stuff still to do, therefore he didn't have time to spend with me, which is understandable. I was still bummed out, but my friends definitely made up for it. Inger told me to meet her on campus a little before one because she had a problem and needed some help. A load of baloney! She took me on the bus and we went into town where we met Zoe and Kari and the four of us went to the Bean Cafe which has awesome bubble tea which I had been craving for a couple of days. We then walked around Palmerston for a bit and got some ice cream as well. It was very simple, but very kind of them and I appreciate it so much. Who knew I has going to make such good friends halfway around the world in less than 5 months?

The picture is one James sent me of a sunset near Taupo. Enjoy :)

End of classes and weekend in Wellington

No more classes! I officially finished with classes in New Zealand and all assignments! I spent the whole of last week writing two huge assignments for my Equine Reproduction class and my Animal Health, Welfare and Behavior class. One of the assignments was on the benefits and drawbacks to Artificial Insemination and Embryo Transfer in horses, which was really interesting because the lecturer gave us a situation and asked us to explain what we would do and why. The other assignment was a report on parturition behavior in dairy cattle which incorporated observational research we did on a dairy farm next to the campus. The report for me turned out to be almost 20 pages but I feel like I did a good job. It's bitter sweet to end my classes because on the one hand I am glad that I can relax and study for my exams, but on the other hand I will really miss going to class here and seeing everyone.

I finished this week definitely on a high after turning in my assignments with a trip to Wellington to hang out with, you guessed it, handballers! The Spartanz were having a "friendly" game of piantball with the other team from Wellington and we were invited to come join. Zoe, Inger, Sybille and I drove down to Wellington on Saturday morning and met James, the goalie for the Victoria Lions team, for a cup of coffee. It was hilarious to try and find the coffee place however, because it was called cafe Ice, but spelled Eis because it was German! Afterwords we met up with Collin, whose house we were staying at, and went to paintball. It was so awesome to play paintball with 30 other guys, but there were times where there was a little too much testosterone in the room. We played several strategy games and I got hit hard a couple of times but it was totally worth it, especially when I completely took some guys out! I even hit one guy in the back of the head by accident. The hit that hurt most for me, however, was right on my butt from a couple of meters away. After the paintball we went back to Collins flat and had an awesome bbq. More people from other teams around Wellington came and we had a great time socializing with everyone. Around 12:30 we decided to go into town for a bit, which unfortunately for me was not very long because I was feeling sick from having inadvertently consumed pineapple, which I have an intolerance for. Town was pretty intense, since I have never been out in a big city before for the nightlife. The next day we had an awesome breakfast at Cafe Fidel and came back to Palmerston just in time for a Canadian thanksgiving at Allyson's flat. I made green bean casserole for the first time and I think it was a success! But now it is Monday which means I have exactly a week to study for my first exam in my Maori Culture and Society class! Pictures will come up as soon as I get them from everyone!

Birthday and Handball Weekend!

During orientation at NC State one of the student speakers told us that we had to resist the temptation to travel every weekend because we were going to miss so many social opportunities right at our universities, but I didn't really consider what she was saying at the time. I write this because a couple days before my birthday I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with that weekend and I was pretty set on the idea of traveling to the Wiatomo Caves and Ragland, but then I remembered what the speaker had said and all of a sudden it made sense. What was the point of spending my 20th birthday alone, even if it was traveling, when I was surrounded by awesome friends here in Palmerston? I decided to stay here for my birthday and had an amazing time! I went out to dinner with my four best friends here at a Korean bbq. They gave me some great presents including a knitted red and white hat and a greenstone necklace! The greenstone necklace meant so much to me because it's a big part of the culture here and the symbol they gave me was an infinity loop which symbolizes eternal friendship. Earlier in the day my friends Lizzy and Richard gave me an awesome collage of pictures from out mid semester break trip and an orchid (my favorite flower) to keep in my room! After the Korean bbq we met up with about a dozen other people at Rosie O-Grady's pub and hit the town! We played pool for a little while there and then moved to the Fish which is a great little bar in Palmerston North that serves really good cocktails. After we stayed there for a while and did some hilarious dances, we tried to go to High Flyers which is more of a dancing club. We stayed there about 15 minutes and decided to leave because it was a little out of control. So we ended the night at our favorite place which was Murphy's Bar. Great music and great friends made the night a memorable one. :) Needless to say I had a lot of fun, but definitely needed the Sunday to recover.

The next weekend I also stayed in Palmerston North because it was the weekend of the handball tournament! It was an all day event on Saturday and we had teams from Wellington and Hamilton come to play with us. I played for the Massey Women and Men because the men didn't have a goalie. The first game I played with the women was a pretty bad loss because we played the men's team that wound up winning the whole tournament. I wound up winning only 1 out of 5 games that I played that day, but it was a blast anyways. I also got knocked out pretty badly during one of the last games when I took a handball to the face. Turns out goal keeping is pretty dangerous and painful ;) After the tournament, we got cleaned up and changed and went out to Malbas, another bar in town, for some awards and drinks. We finally got to mingle with the other players and I met some really cool people. I ended up winning an award for best knockout and got to spend $20 bucks at the bar, which I used to buy a couple of shots for some friends and I. We stayed at Malbas for a while and decided to move the party to Zoe's flat. A ton of people came and it turned into a pretty crazy house party. The whole team of Spartanz (the champion men's team) showed up and several players from the other teams and of course everyone from our two teams. I met a couple of French guys and of course started talking in French with them which was awesome! At some point we had a hilarious dance party in the living room and of course videos to prove it. The party ended around 2:30 and we went home for some much needed rest. I don't think I've ever been more sore the next morning from all the activity during the day and night. Who knew handball was such a social sport.

Skydiving!

Here are some pictures from my skydiving adventure at Lake Taupo! I jumped from 15,000 which is the highest commercially in the world and it was amazing! The free fall at 200 k/h lasted for about 65 seconds and was the best feeling the world! The weather was gorgeous and I could see the Ruahine Mountain range and Mount Tongariro and Ruapehu as well as the entirety of the lake as I fell. My instructor was a guy from Brazil and really awesome and chill, he helped me through the whole process and made me feel really safe. The parachute was deployed at 5,000 feet and we just cruised down for about 5-7 minutes and I got to steer the parachute. And of course I have plenty of pictures and a video to prove I did it!

Climbing at Whanganui Bay

My first outdoor climbing experience! Well I should correct myself, my first top roping climbing experience. This was the one trip I couldn't wait to go on since I joined the alpine club at the beginning of the semester. The trip started on Friday evening when we drove up to Whanganui Bay which is one of the bays of Lake Taupo and the best climbing spot on the North Island. We set up camp in the dark so we didn't really get to the see the site well that night, but we were excited about the next day anyways!

We woke up Saturday morning and crawled out of our tents to constant rain. And constant rain = no outside climbing. We had an awesome pancake breakfast courtesy of Jackson and we headed up to Taurangi, a town nearby, to do some climbing on the indoor wall. The road to get to Taurangi was quite an adventure and there were a couple of times we nearly got stuck in the mud, but we made it. At the gym we climbed many different types of routes and we even learned how to lead climb, which is the first climb to go up on a route and set the rope up. In the afternoon it stopped raining so we decided to try and climb outside some. The rock was a little slippy at the bottom, but not too bad. The first route, Lizzy, Richard, Chelsie, Sam, Christy and I all tried and successfully made it to the top. I then tried to lead climb on another route and was not so successful. We headed back to camp and had an amazing chili dinner in front of a huge bonfire with some good German beer and chocolate for dessert. The night was freezing however, and I barely slept because I was too busy trying to keep myself warm. I had to go to the bathroom around 2 in the morning and it was a very unpleasant experience.

The next morning we had more breakfast and headed straight to the climbs. The day before we had climbed in a region called the Plateau and this day was for climbs further out next to the water. Some of the climbs I did were climbs with a special move at one point in the climb. The first two climbs were fairly straight forward and then I did two climbs called Jungle Judy and Wet Dreams (I don't know who gets to name these) and they involved a heel hook and mantle for Jungle Judy and a lean-back crack climb for Wet Dreams. I also got to practice repelling for the climb that was to come next...

I had been looking forward to this climb since I heard someone talking about it at a meeting. The climb is called the Tibia because it looks like the human leg bone. It is a 60 meter 3 pitch climb, which means that the rope has to be used three times. This also means that once you start climbing, you can't come back down. No Quitters! I climbed with two other good climbing guys who had never climbed it either. The first pitch was about 22 meters and involved shoving myself however I could up a very narrow chimney through some ledges. About 4 or 5 meters up this climb there is also a human skeleton from a Maori women that was left up there because of an infectious disease she had. It was very surreal to climb up past this skeleton that was over a hundred years old! The second pitch was short, about 10 meters, and involved coming out of the chimney to go around. Easiest pitch by far because there were some awesome hand holds! The third pitch was a very wide chimney that went up about 18 meters or so and there was a point were I had my back against one side and my feet could barely touch the other when my legs were fully stretched out! I made it up successfully and the view from the top was absolutely amazing! The lake was very clear blue and you could see the bottom in some parts. It was a beautiful day and made the 60 meter climb up totally worth it. If there was something more fun than climbing up it was probably getting down. From the top, one by one, (after we had some chocolate) we each repelled down the 60 meters by ourselves! It was scarier walking off the back of the cliff backwards than it was jumping out of the plane. Once I had lowered myself past that point I could just cruise down at my own speed and enjoy the view as I pretended to be Spiderman. After we had successfully repelled down we packed up camp and headed out. To continue the tradition we stopped at a hot pool in the area and took a little relaxing dip. I could definitely feel all my cuts and bruises (the kiwis call it "rock allergies") from the weekend as soon as I go into the sulfur pools! What a fun weekend! I am working on getting pictures from Richard and will post them soon enough! Cheers!

Week Two Adventures!

Week two begins! So I guess I left you off at the Auckland airport where I picked up Lizzy and Richard for the second half of our trip. We drove up from the airport that night to Coromandel town in the Coromandels. The car ride was along the coast the whole time and must have been quite beautiful during the day. Unfortunately we were driving at night and it was quite rainy and very windy, which for me meant major car sickness. As a result I went to bed right away at Anchor Lodge Backpackers and slept through the night.
The next morning we headed up north to see if there was any cool hikes, but the only thing we could find was a 6 hour one-way hike and it was too late in the morning to try that. Instead we cut across the Coromandels peninsula on this small dirt road and found an awesome 2 hour hike straight uphill called Castle Rock. From the top we could see the east and west coast of the Coromandels and we shared an awesome bar of chocolate! We stopped that evening in Hahai Beach to sleep at Tatahi Backpackers which was awesome! There I had my first real dinner in days! After dinner we met up with Sam, Chelsie and Sebastien at this cool place called the hot water beach. The name comes from the thermal activity underneath that causes all the sand to be really warm, so when you dig a hole in the ground and water from the ocean fills it up, the sand naturally heats up the water and it becomes a hot pool! It took a lot of digging to get our pool big enough for 6, but it was well worth it and the stars were amazing! Going at night was a great idea because we got to interact with all the locals instead of the tourists.
The next morning we chilled in bed for a while before deciding to get our butts in gear and take a trip around the area to see all the coves. We stopped at a little-known place called Shakespear's cliff and Lonely beach underneath and it was gorgeous! Just like something out of a movie, the beach was smooth with very soft sand and giant cliffs surrounding a clear blue bay. We played on the beach for quite a while, especially on the rocks and took lots of pictures. After that we went to Cathedral Cove, sight of the second Chronicles of Narnia castle scene. The cove is very beautiful and majestic and we took so many awesome pictures of us being 5 year olds on the beach and playing in the waves. I got completely soaked at one point because I stood on a rock to get an awesome jumping picture and didn't see the large wave coming in behind me. Once the sun went down we drove to Tauranga, where a friend of ours, Zoe, lives. We stayed at her house for the night and had a pretty hilarious evening because she is quite possibly one of the funniest people I have ever met! Plus, hilarity always ensues when I show foreigners the 'I'm on a boat' video.
The next morning we had a lazy breakfast and stopped by her father's shop to buy food and treats before heading to Mount Manganui for some easy hiking. The view from the top was awesome, but it was mostly overlooking the sea and city, which was very different from previous hikes. After that we headed south to Rotorua and stopped at a place called Kiwi 360, where, you guessed it, they harvest and sell kiwi everything! In Rotorua we met up with other Massey students, unintentionally, at the hostel and had another great dinner. That evening we went to the Polynesian Spa and soaked in the thermal hot pools for a couple of hours to relax. There were seven hot pools and each one was filled with minerals to help skin, joints and muscles. When we got back to the hostel we had great conversations with some of the other travelers, especially about the south island and it got me so excited for traveling after exams!
The next day we headed up north of Rotorua to do some zorbing! Zorbing is a fun random sport that is kiwi-invented and involves rolling downhill in a giant bubble ball! I did the hydrozorb which is filled with water and then rolled down in a zigzag. Even though you are not going very fast (10 k/h) I couldn't stand up or even realize where I was in relation to the ground because I was too busy being flipped every which way! After zorbing we went luging down a really big hill a couple of times, which reminded me so much of my days go karting. From there, we spent the rest of the day driving up and along to coast to the East Cape, where we would spend the night. The cool thing about the Bay of Plenty, which is the route we took to go East, is that there is so much Maori culture because of the land quality and the history (two of the major canoes landed there). I got to see the beach where the Tuinui and Arawa canoes landed, which was a cool tie-in to my class. There are very few town along the way and even fewer cars on the road. When we got to the end of the highway we had to take a small, weaving dirt road to the very point of the cape, which is the furthest point East. We stopped there, near the lighthouse and decided to camp for the night, because our goal was to get up early in the morning and walk up to the lighthouse to see the first sunrise in the world! The weather was really terrible, however, and we had to set up our tent in the wind and rain. We also had to cook in the bathrooms (which didn't function) and eat our meal in the car. This may sound pretty terrible, but it was actually one of the highlights of the trip, because if you have good company it doesn't matter what the circumstances are. We split another chocolate bar and bottle of wine and just relaxed and talked in the car for hours before braving the rest of the night in our little two person tent. I swear I thought the wind was going to flip us over!
In the morning we climbed up to the lighthouse before dawn (which was 750 steps at 5:45) and watched the first light emerge of the new day! Then it started to hail and we decided to leave. We headed back to where we came from and traveled down the East coast stopping when appropriate for pictures, and wound up in Napier. We were exhausted, so we relaxed in a small backpackers in Napier for the evening and went to bed fairly early after a long dinner and many riddles exchanged.
The next day was our last day so we decided to take it easy and just spend the morning visiting Napier, which is a cool little city on the coast filled with Art Deco buildings of the 1930's. We stopped for lunch at a cool cafe called Spaz and ate lunch while listening to the awesome music of a street performer. Once we left Napier we stopped at a chocolate factory and took a tour of the museum, but missed the chocolate shop because it was closed. Guess we should have gone to the store first... We then continued south and stopped at another outlook of the surround farmlands to get one last activity before we headed back to Palmy (Palmerston North). We arrived in Palmerston North completely exhausted and dirty, but very very happy with our adventures of the past week! :)

Two Week Adventure across the Northland (Part 1)

Sorry for not having updated sooner, but I've been supper busy with assignments before the break and then traveling during the mid semester break. I decided to break up the two weeks of traveling into two separate posts to make it easier for everyone to read.

The adventure started on Tuesday morning when I picked up Sam and Chelsie, two other students from the US, on campus with all their stuff and then off we were! We decided to just blaze through the North Island on highway one to get as far north as possible that day. We stopped in Taupo for a quick lunch and continued all the way to half an hour North of Auckland, in a town called Orewa. Nine hours of driving total and this was only the third time I had ever driven on the left! We stayed at a cool tropical-themed backpackers called Marco Polos for the night and then headed up the next morning to Tawharanui Regional Park, a little peninsula that sticks out from the main land, where we did a cool 4 hour hike up and down sheep-filled hills along the coast down to this cool little bay surrounded by rocks called Anchor Bay. We spent a good deal of time playing on the rocks, especially on the water before we left. We were basically walking right through sheep pastures and since it's lambing season there were little lambs everywhere! We stayed in Whangerei for the night and got up at 5:30 the next morning to drive all the way to Kaitaia to catch an 8:30 tour of the 90 mile beach. We took Harrisons Cape Runners and got to drive on the beach at 100 kilometers an hour on a huge bus! We stopped to go sandboarding on the giant dunes and I pretty effectively wiped out and rolled all the way down the dune. Anybody surprised? Then we were driven to a beautiful little beach for lunch and continued on to cape Reinga, which is the furthest point north in New Zealand where you can see the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean collide! It's also an important place in Maori lore because they believe it is the place that the dead go to get to the afterlife. After the cape we stopped at an awesome ice cream place and a place to see 45,000y year old buried Kauri trees. After the whole tour was over we drove t Ahipara to spend the night. There we stayed at the best backpackers called Endless Summer Lodge (perfect name since it was on the beach) and met some other cool people who were traveling. In the morning I went to go blokarting on the beach, but there wasn't enough wind so I rented an ATV and cruised on the beach for a little (75 kilometers/hour!) while Sam and Chelsie relaxed on the beach. We left around noon along with two backpackers who were staying at the hostel and needed a lift to Auckland. Needless to say it was quite packed in the red baron with five people and all our stuff. We drove down to the Waipou forest and saw the largest Kauri tree in the world (called Lord of the Forest). It was so big, if 15 people tried to fit their arms around it, they wouldn't quite reach around it! We took a cool little ferry to get across to the next segment of the Northlands (land North of Auckland) and stopped at a weird backpackers that reminded me a lot of an old persons house. The following day we drove down some more and visited another little Regional Park called Shakespear for lunch and then proceeded to drive to Auckland and drop off the two backpackers and have some awesome sushi for dinner! Driving through Auckland was crazy, but I survived. We spent the night at the same backpackers as the first night north of Auckland, but we decided to camp this time. It was definitely a three person tent, but we managed to squeeze four people in the tent because by this time we had picked up Sebastien from the airport. We had a relaxing evening with some wine and cards and then tried to sleep in the tent, which worked fine until about 3 in the morning when it started to pour. And not having a waterproof tent became a problem...so I spent the next couple of hours curled up on a couch in the lounge. The funny part was that it was absolutely gorgeous the next day. The next day was relatively uneventful with a couple of exceptions. We accidentally managed to lock the only key to the car inside the car and spent an hour trying to break into the car. Hilarious ordeal, since we successfully got the car opened, but a little stressful at the time. We drove back into Auckland where Sam, Chelsie and Sebastian picked up their campervan for the following week. We tried to head to a campervan park but somehow got lost in the suburbs of Auckland for a good little while. We finally figured out a meeting point and I went along with Sebastian back into Auckland to pick up Lizzy and Richard, my traveling buddies for the next week. We had dinner under the skytower and then drove to the Coromandels. I felt like death, since I had little sleep from the night before and extreme carsickness due to the type of windy coastal road we were driving on at night, so I was very relieved to get to the backpackers in Coromandel Town. And thus begins the adventures of week two...

The Adventures of the Red Baron and Mount Doom!

I guess it's been a while since I last updated this blog, but so much has been going on! I've been pretty busy writing a paper for my Maori class about why the Great Fleet Theory is wrong. Basically the Great Fleet Theory says that after New Zealand was discovered by Kupe in 950 AD, a fleet of 7 canoes came from Hawaiki (which is a mythical place speculated to be Tahiti) around 1350 AD to Aotearoa (New Zealand in Maori) and settled in different places and formed the foundations of Maori tribes today. That is the popular belief, and I essentially had to prove why it was flawed from an anthropological perspective.

Last weekend I was supposed to go on an Alpine Instructional Course with the alpine club, but there were limited spots so I wasn't able to go, so instead I planned a little roadtrip with a couple of my friends to Taupo. Our original plan was to go skydiving, but it was pretty overcast and rainy the whole weekend, so we decided to just stick with exploring. We went and saw Huka Falls again, along with a thermal spot where stem comes out of these huge craters called Craters of the Moon. Pretty creepy, but cool looking. We stayed at a really cool hostel and made a fantastic spaghetti dinner that night. We also found a natural hot spring along one of the walking trails and took a prolonged dip in the evening. One of the best parts of the trip was the drive back from Taupo when Diane drove the red baron (Richards 1992 little red car). Probably really stressful for her, but hilarious for me because since we had 5 people in the car it couldn't go over 45 kilometers/hour up a hill!

Yesterday I went with Atawhai Village to Mount Ruapehu for an awesome day of skiing! We left at 5:45am so we could get in a full day of skiing. Mount Ruapehu is better known to the rest of the world as Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings, so essentially I went skiing on Mount Doom! It was beautiful skiing weather at first with the sun shining and light wind, but then some clouds came in and visibility was greatly reduced. I haven't been skiing in years, so it took a little warm up before I was comfortable enough to try black diamond slopes. SO many people on the mountain and I had near collisions with some crazy snowboarders! I still can't get over how beautiful New Zealand is.

School is officially over for two weeks now since it is the mid semester break so I'm planning an awesome road trip up to the Northern part of the island, called the North Lands, known for the beautiful black, golden and white sand beaches. I'm taking the bus up to Auckland and then renting a car for 4 days and see where that takes me. On Saturday I'm meeting up with Richard and driving down the Eastern Coast and hopefully going zorbing in Rotorua as well. If you don't know what zorbing is you have to youtube it! So next time you will hear from me will be after this awesome adventure! Wish me luck!

On the Black Rock

This weekend was my first try at climbing outdoors on real rock and (no pun intended) it rocked! I went with the Alpine Club to Lynn Hill about an hour and a half away and climbed a little ways up a hill until we got to a patch of boulders and pretty much just started climbing from there. There were several different climbs that tested everything from finger strength to balance. The weather was perfect and the view was even better! Rolling green hills covered with sheep and the beautiful volcanic snow topped mountains in the background. My favorite climb of the day was a crack climb we did towards the end of the day where you just had to use your back and legs to scoot your way up. We finished the day off with some awesome Turkish kabobs, which seem to be really popular here.

Class is pretty much the same as always, except I turned in my first official assignment last Friday! Now I have to wait for the grade...We've been having some pretty interesting lectures about Mastitis in cows for our Animal Health class, and we had a tutorial where we had to come up with a management strategy for a farm afflicted with chronic Mastitis cases. We received our first assignment for that class today and for the paper we will have to go observe parturition and calving on a dairy unit nearby.

I'm still in the planning stages for my mid-semester break, and it looks like it is going to be more spontaneous than expected, which will probably be way cooler! Still planning on going skydiving in Taupo at some point, maybe during the break.

On My Way

So it's been a pretty uneventful week. I decided to drop my Animal Behavior class because it's a lot of statistics that I wasn't really ready for, plus it's just not that interesting. And I figure if I'm going to take boring classes I might as well do them in the states. And it frees up a whole lot of time for other things. Currently I'm trying to fill that time with volunteer work on a dairy or sheep unit somewhere, but it's a work in progress.

I had my first try at the rock wall here on campus and I can definitely tell that it's been a while. I'm trying to get some practice in so I can go on the bouldering trip and be mildly successful. This weekend was pretty relax, but we did have a lot of parties going on. Two birthday parties, one of which was at our flat, and they were a lot of fun and pretty crazy at times. I decided to stay in and watch a movie last night, instead of going to a house party, and it turned out to be a great decision because I had a very meaningful conversation afterwords. Today I went slacklining for the first time with the alpine club near the city and it was so much fun. It was very tricky because you had to use strength and balance. I progressed pretty well throughout the afternoon and I'm looking forward to next time. Pictures to come for those of you that don't know what slacklining is.

Random note: Oddly enough I figured out that what makes me miss the States is not when I talk with my friends or my mom, or look at pictures, but rather when I listen to country music, especially songs like Zac Brown Band's hit 'Chicken Fried'. :) Being around all these other cultures is great because I'm learning so much about the rest of the world, but it also helps me appreciate my own culture and makes me happy to come from where I do.

Tomorrow is another day at school, but I'm probably going to be spending more time working on my paper for my equine reproduction and breeding class about pneumovagina in horses.

A rush of blood to the head

Yahoooooooooooooooooooooooo! Guess what I did this weekend...BUNGEE JUMPED!!!! It was one of the most amazing things I have ever done! I went with 6 other people from the Alpine club at Massey to Gravity Canyon about 2 hours north of Palmerston. We started off with the Flying Fox which is like a very long zipline that speeds you into the canyon from about 100 meters up and you hit top speeds of 160 kilometers/hour! The cool part is that you're lying down in a harness so it feels like you're flying through the canyon. It wasn't quite the adrenaline rush I was looking for but it was very cool to do and a perfect set up for other activities...Originally I was going to do the bridge swing because I was afraid of re-injuring my neck that I broke a couple of years ago because it's quite a shock to your spinal cord. But then four people did the bungee and it looked too fun for me to pass up! I ran onto the bridge wearing just my clothes and they sat me down and strapped on the bungee ankle boots and the bungee cord and walked me out onto the platform that stuck off the bridge. The jump master told me to wave to the people on the bridge and then 1,2,3 jump! So I jumped off the bridge attached only by a giant rubber band on my feet. I don't remember much of the 80 meter fall except the most amazing feeling of adrenaline, terror, and excitement and then the bungee catching me and rebounding me back up. I bounced up and down for a while and then was lowered onto a small boat in the river where someone unhooked me and then got lifted back onto the bridge by a small chairlift. The experience was unreal and I still can't believe I convinced myself to do it! On the way back we stopped and took pictures of the countryside because it was so pretty but the best memory of the day had definitely been the bungee off the bridge! Now it's back to classes and routine during the week but I'm already planning my next big adventure because unfortunately this experience has turned me into quite the adrenaline junkie.

Here comes the work...

Well the title says it all. I'm finally getting into the workload for my classes and it's starting to add up. I have a lab report for my Animal Behavior class due on Monday and a couple of papers for my other classes coming up in the next two weeks. I also have a TON of reading for my Maori class. I have to read well over a hundred pages for class next Tuesday!

I had my first Equine Reproduction practical yesterday and I got there at least 45 minutes late because I couldn't find the freakin' place! I assumed that a lab having to do with horses was going to take place at the Equine Center, which happens to be on the same road as the Veterinary Large Animal Teaching Unit. You can guess what happened. But once I get there we take a look at a reproductive tract of a mare and go outside to watch a stallion attempt to get a mare to tease him. For all those that don't know, when a mare teases a stallion it means that she is sexually receptive to him, or in other words, she is in heat. I think Equine Reproduction and Breeding is my favorite class right now because we talk a lot about the differences in Equine management between the US and New Zealand. For example, New Zealand has a huge Thoroughbred (racing horse) industry, whereas the US deals a lot with more working class horses such as Quarter horses.

This past weekend we had an international dinner and everyone brought a dish from their country which meant a lot of food and great company. I brought American burgers (you know the kind with way too much meat), but they were sort of undercooked, so most people stayed away from them. After that we watched the All Blacks of New Zealand beat the Wallaby's of Australia in a classic rugby match. I also had an interesting conversation with one of the older Atawhai residents, who happens to be a rugby referee as well as a war history buff. I actually ended up learning a great deal about the Civil War from him!

Yesterday I tried handball for the first time and it was fairly intense. I was the keeper for most of the game and got hammered quite a bit by tiny soccer balls. Handball is structured similarly to soccer but you don't use your feet (hence the name) and you are allowed to wrap you arms around the other person to prevent them from shooting at the goal. There is also a ring around the goal where only the goalie can reside, which is good news for me. I'm looking to make this a regular occurrence on Wednesday night and tomorrow morning one of my friends here is going to attempt to teach me Tai Chi. Wish me luck!

Above are some pictures from around the Atawhai Village area.

Maori adoration

I had my first Maori Culture and Society class today and after all the trouble I went to just to be able to take this course I thought it had better be worth it and it was! Everyone in the class is of Maori descent with the exception of the 6 international students (all from the US). Even the teacher is Maori and she introduced the class for the first couple of minutes in Maori! She spoke a lot of her family history while she introduced the topics and went off on a couple of tangents, but the best part is as she says "...well here I go off topic again, but the good thing is that everything I talk about in this class is related to the topic." I'm going to LOVE this class! Went to club day as well and joined the Amnesty International club and the Alpine Club that does skiing, caving, backpacking, and climbing trips for free! In a couple of weeks they are planning to go skiing at Mount Ruapehu and guess who is going to be first in line...

The beginning of classes

What a busy week! On Saturday I was supposed to go to an orientation for domestic students and optional for international students and even though I signed up to go I decided at the last minute to do something way cooler. About 11:00pm I checked my facebook and one of my friends had left me a message saying that they were going on a small road trip tomorrow morning and asked me if I wanted to go. I said yes of course and at 8:30 the next morning we were off to visit Lake Taupo! It was a four hour drive to get there but along the way we got to see the New Zealand countryside which was amazing! Lots and lots of sheep. We arrived at the town of Taupo which overlooks the lake and the snowy volcanic mountains and walked around the town and visited the hostel so I could get information for future visits. We ate at Burger Fuel for lunch and had the biggest freakin' burgers I've ever eaten! Before driving home we stopped at Huka Falls just north of the town and learned some pretty cool things about the river. Apparently the river supplies the north island with 65% of its power! In the evening when we returned my flatmates decided to through a spontaneous party that lasted until 4:30 in the morning. It was a good chance for me to meet a lot of the people from Attawhai Village in a fun environment, plus learn some interesting new games. I also got to talk with the group of girls from Germany and learn a little bit more about them and German culture which was neat. We talked about going back to Taupo at some point to sky dive since it is really big up there.

Monday was the first day of classes for me and it was very different from what I am used to. Currently I am talking Animal Health, Behaviour and Welfare, Animal Behaviour, and Maori Customs and Lore. There might be a way for me to take the Equine class, but I will have to speak with my lecturers about that. I had two classes and a lab yesterday and it was very intense. They really pack a lot of information into each lecture and one of my classes comes with a stack of notes that could rival a textbook in size. Clearly a lot of the work that is involved with these classes is studying to be done outside of the class. It will also be difficult for me to learn how to study since the only grades we get for the classes are two exams, sometimes just the final! It is not a requirement to attend lectures, but probably very well advised to. My Animal Behaviour class deals a lot with the quantitative aspect of animal behaviour which in turn involves a lot of statistics. Guess who hasn't taken statistics in over two years...I will have to do some review on my own and make friends very quickly with people or I will drop the class.

Side note: we had our village meeting with the RA last night and I found out that not only am I the youngest in my flat by 3 years, but I am the youngest in the whole Attawhai Village by that same margin! They kept referring to all the students in the dorms on campus as the young ones and most of them are older than me!

So today I will attempt to work the bugs out of my class schedule before I go to my one class this afternoon. After class I will go with my friend Erin to try and find the Green Bike shop where they sell you a used bike for $30. It would be great exercise for me to ride into town every once and a while.

I'm in recycling heaven!

So it's day four of my kiwi adventure and things just keep getting better! I have had two days of orientation and time to familiarize myself with Massey University and a little bit the city of Palmerston North. Through orientation I've met a lot of other international students as well as many Americans. The two largest groups of international students are the Americans and the Germans who seem to all be studying bio-mathematics. It's amazing how easily you can meet other students since we are all in the same boat. I was just standing in the courtyard area and a girl approached me and asked me if I was an exchange student all because I was wearing an NC State sweatshirt and we have been hanging out ever since.

During orientation we had the mayor of Palmerston North come and talk to us a little about the city and it was really fascinating. The city is really a student city and has a great transportation system from the University into town for free! They are also the most sustainable city in New Zealand with over half of its power coming from the wind turbines just north of the city. They also don't have central heating in the homes which means less energy to power several small heaters than one big one. And even on campus they have a place where you can go and pay $20 (New Zealand dollars) to get a second hand bike and you get half the money back when you return the bike so it encourages students to get bikes instead of cars! They are crazy about recycling and have bins everywhere. It almost feels unnatural to throw something away in the trash (or rubbish bins as they like to call it).

Today we had some pointless orientations, but also some really cool field trips. I still haven't finalized my classes yet because of time conflicts so I'm going to have to find another class to take. I had to choose between equine reproduction and Maori customs and lore which are two of the classes I wanted to take the most. The Maori class would give me an obvious insight on Maori culture and is one of the big reasons I chose New Zealand to study. The equine class would give me the opportunity to learn how they teach animal science in other countries which was also another motivation for me to come to New Zealand. In the end I chose the Maori class, because I will never again have the opportunity to take such a class and I already am taking two other animal science classes (they call classes 'papers' which really confused me at first when people would ask how many papers I was taking). In the afternoon we got to take a farm visit to the sheep and dairy units and watch some sheep shearing and sheep herding. My goal is to get some volunteer time at one of the units as I think it would be a lot of fun. For dinner we went to a hotel and were treated with a live performance of traditional Maori dance and song, including the famous Hakka. It made me all the more excited to take the Maori class. During the diner I talked with a group of American students and we formed an informal travel group. We all want to take a skiing trip to the volcanic mountains north of Palmerston so we are going to start planning right away!

Unfortunately I am still fighting jet lag so even if it is only 9:00 pm on a Friday night I think I am going to crash into bed and get some sleep. Still trying to figure out my web cam as well so all of those that want to talk with me on skype, be patient. :) More to come from kiwi land...

PS- Had cool discussions with my flat mates about American culture and politics and what was the most interesting thing they had never heard of...beer pong. That right there is priceless.

Kia Ora! Hello from New Zealand!

I'm here finally! This is my official second day in New Zealand! I landed yesterday at Palmerston North at 8 in the morning and started my adventure. Fortunately I met a girl on the flight that was also from the US and going to study at Massey. We informally decided to stick together as we began to explore.

We first got settled into our rooms. I am living in a flat just off campus in a placed called Atawhai Village. It's basically an apartment with five bedrooms, a bathroom, a toilet, a kitchen, and a common room (it also has a washing machine). The room I am in is very big for a single and has everything from a bed to a sink. I also have a really large window which looks out into our backyard! I was afraid when I first heard that I was living here that I would be put with only grad students or a family, since that is what it caters to, but I am living with all international students so far (our fifth roommate hasn't moved in yet). Two of the girls are grad students from Canada and somewhere in Asia (haven't officially met her yet) and the other girl is an undergrad from Germany. They are all really friendly and I think we will enjoy each other's company.

After we got settled, Erin and I took the bus into town and started to look around. It's just like a city with all the stores and restaurants, but not quite as big. We stopped at subway to eat our first meal since breakfast on the plane at 3:00am and then went to get groceries. I am, for the first time, feeding myself so I have to budget and choose wisely. Lesson number one: when you don't have a car, refrain from buying two weeks worth of groceries in one go. It was very difficult to get back to the bus stop and even more difficult to find my way back to Atawhai Village, especially when you get lost. Plus, the village is on a mini-mountain next to campus so I have to walk up a very steep hill in the woods to get to it and you can imagine with 40 pounds of groceries it took me a while. What's really cool here is that when you go grocery shopping you have to bring your own bags otherwise they charge you for plastic bags. How ecofriendly!

In the evening we made spaghetti dinner and I got to know one of my roomies a little better, and then proceeded to crash at 7:30 in my newly made bed. Slept for about 11 hours, which is the longest time I've slept in a very long time. Today I think we will go back into town to buy cheap cell phones and go around campus to find our way before orientation starts tomorrow.

For all those wondering New Zealand is 16 hours ahead of the East Coast in the US so while it is 8:30am Wednesday morning here, it is only 4:30pm Tuesday afternoon at home! Crazy!

Preparation

So I have a week left in the States before I leave for 5 months to live and study in New Zealand and I'm not really feeling the pressure. There were a lot of slippery stepping stones along the way, however, mostly in the form of paperwork and inconveniences, but they are mostly sorted out and now I have time to get excited. I just had my last day of work and pet-sitting so now I have nothing to do until I leave on July 5th except for relaxing and getting ready.

Although I'm not feeling the pressure of leaving for so long I am a little nervous. I have never been away from home for this long and this far away. If something is wrong I can't just drive home anymore, I have to figure it out myself. And for the first time in my life I will be going to school and living in a place knowing absolutely no one. It will be a real test for me, but one that I need to better myself and build my self confidence. All I'm hoping is that I can meet other students who want to travel as much as I do.