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!