I spent the spring semester of 2010 studying in New Zealand through the ISEP program. I used this blog to keep an account of my school experience and as a record of the adventures I found. Hopefully it can serve two purposes: to have kept my friends and family informed of my travels and experiences; as well as to serve as a reminder of how important the study abroad experience is, whether it's in New Zealand or not.

29 April 2010

Easter Break - Wednesday 7/4/10 - Pounakaiki

We're up fairly early again to get a start on the road, we want to hit Pounakaiki before dark. First we stop off in town to pick up a load of groceries and change some money. We manage to find the one type of apple juice in the place and while we'll be mildly disappointed by it, it won't be anything compared to how disappointed we'll be with the next kind we get. One important thing about our groceries is they have to be relatively stable for long periods without a fridge or freezer (A.K.A. no ice cream, which isn't all that great in this country, so perhaps not the worst thing). Our next stop is Westport where the clouds have gathered and the rain starts to drizzle down. we stop in the i-Site (a chain of info centers located in each town filled with free info pamphlets) to ask some questions. They give us advice on the best way to Pounakaiki and tell us about the local seal colony. While I'd love to see seals, it's 18km out of the way and it's raining quite steadily now. We jump back in the car and drive toward the blue sky. This is my first real introduction to New Zealand driving. Once we hit the coast past Greymouth the road starts to curve. It's like complete insanity; 100km/hr, winding, narrow roads right along the cliffs and everyone wants to go faster than 100km/hr. I however, appear to know better. My little 1992 Nissan Pulsar not only can't get up a hill without going super slow (we're talking 2nd gear and 30km max), but couldn't possibly physically go around these turns at 100km/hr without zooming off the cliff. Not to mention I'm driving on the complete wrong side of the road so my sense of where the left side of the car is, is a little off. I'm constantly pulling over to let people pass. At least, unlike in the U.S. many of them give a little thank you honk as they go by. The slow pace helps me enjoy the view though. It's absolutely stunning. The Tasman Sea with cliffs all along it and endless beaches. The rain forest climbs up the mountains to our left and the ocean stretches on endless flat to our right. It's hard to find words to describe that first look, or any after for that matter. I'm not sure what colour to call the water other than a teal darker than the Caribbean, but like nothing you'll find in the U.S. Along the way, we make a stop at a lookout where we are greeted by our first Weka. A friendly bird that walks around behind me as I take in the view. Good thing I carry nothing shiny or I could kiss it goodbye forever. We reach Pounakaiki just after five and locate a hostel. We're told the blowholes only function around high tide and lucky for us, high tide is at 5:25. We quickly throw some stuff on the best we want and head up to the pancake rock/blowhole walk. For more on the actual blowholes and pancake rocks: http://www.punakaiki.co.nz/about_punakaiki.htm. We wait and watch. After a build of rushing water, water vapor comes rushing up through a hole in the ground, appearing to steam out like a kettle. We walk around, watching the sun set in the distance and catching blowhole explosions. Back at the hostel, we put together dinner before starting in on another long conversation (this time with two young German boys) about many of the same subjects as the night before with the Dutch boy. Two other Germans (a man and woman) join us in the room later that night. I am only just beginning to see the tip of the German iceberg of people there are in New Zealand.

Easter Break - Tuesday 6/4/10 - Able Tasman

We're up fairly early the next day and get ready for a full day of walking. We only plan to have one day so we need to make the most of it. we park at the trail-head and, after a short encounter with a magnificent blue bird (which I fail to capture on camera), we start off. We walk along the coast track, trying to keep a good pace because we know we need to reach Torrent's Bay by 10:23AM. Low tide was at 8:23AM and you have 2 hours either side of it to do the low tide crossing or else it's under water. The high tide crossing is an extra hour- hour and a half. We hit the crossing at 11:45AM and since it looks good, we decide to try it. We're not the only ones, there's a group of three boys heading out just in front of us. We take our shoes off and wade through some water then meander our way toward the signs for where the trial starts in the woods again. It's not too long before we realize that if we don't get across fast we'll be surrounded by water on an island that will itself be under water eventually. So we quickly scurry our way toward the trail. Once "back on land" we realize there are houses out here. A whole little village in fact. The building materials and everything else had to be brought in by boat and there's no electricity. Most of th houses have solar power and hot water. We stop for lunch on the beach and quickly have to cover all exposed skin in defense against the sand fleas. It's not the most epic of battles, but I think they win in the long run. After lunch we continue along the track for a while, but soon have to turn around in order to make it back before the stores closes and darkness falls. This time we have to take the high tide track, but it's so beautiful anyway, the extra hour isn't a problem. We just manage to make it back before the store closes so we can get food for one more dinner. All in all, we walked about 32km (roughly 20 miles). We spend quite some time after dinner talking with a Dutch boy traveling with, presumably his girlfriend, from Austria. They're on vacation, like so many other Europeans with endless time and their money worth so much more here. The four of us have the 8 bed dorm to ourselves for the night. we go to sleep after a terrible episode of an awful American TV show "I Shouldn't Be Alive." It was about two ship crew wreck survivors, but was so bad it's not worth further mention. I feel bad for all world peoples that have to put up with awful American cultural influences.

Easter Break - Monday 5/4/10 - Nelson

Fearing I won't get up in time to pick up the rental car, I set my alarm the night before. Once again though I find myself awake long before I need to be. I go downstairs to claim my free breakfast. I have a choice of five cereals along with rolls and six kinds of jam. I eat and pack leisurely and finally head out to pick up the car. The man at the rental place is quite laid back and nice, but I'm so nervous about pulling out of the parking lot and crashing that I don't even notice there's no GPS in the car. However, I make it back to the hostel, where I pick up my stuff and check out, without a problem. With nothing to do until my dad's place arrives, I decide to drive around the back part of town a little to get used to driving on the left. I wind my way to the Japanese garden I had been looking for the day before. After wandering around there for a while I get my notebook from the car. I pick the sunniest place I can find away from the family with yelling children and sit down to write about the days before (oddly enough I don't write about this day until practically the next week). I'm interrupted from my flow several times by screaming children followed by their tired looking parents. Finally it's nearly 12PM and I can head off to pick up my dad. Turns out the airport is a good bit further from town than I had expected. But the airport itself is quite small and I have no trouble spotting my dad. A moment that made me happier than I want to admit, because I really like being here, but I missed him a lot. It took seeing him arrive for me to really realize how much I missed him. I tried not too smile too much because I thought my mouth might get stuck and that could turn out to be rather painful. We load up his stuff and head out of town toward Able Tasman National Park. We stop along the way at the first beach along the Tasman Sea. The sun is out and we're practically sweating just strolling along the beach. We identify shells and try to make out which mountains we're looking at across the water. Our next stop is in Kaiteriteri, where we park, quite literally, on the beach. We wander around taking in the orange sand of the beach, the teal of the ocean, and the warmth of the sun. We end up in Marahau for the night at the beach camp hostel. We have to pay a fortune for our small first food supply at the only little store, but we don't need much for just the two nights we'll spend since I brought along some things. The hostel is no that comfortable. The top bunks (where we're sleeping) are too close to the ceiling and the door between the bedroom and the kitchen is glass so the light shines right through. However, we make ourselves comfortable (as we can) and settle in for the night.

24 April 2010

Easter Break - Sunday 4/4/10 - Wellington to Nelson

The clocks go back an hour at 2AM so I get an entire extra hour of sort of sleep. i leave the hostel at 7:10AM and walk across the street to the train station where the ferry shuttle leaves from. I get to talking to the woman in line behind me as we check in for the ferry. Her name is Paddy and she's from England. We sit together on the observation deck and talk for the whole trip. When we enter the Marlborough Sounds we get up and walk around to take in the scenery. We bump into some people she met in a hostel at the beginning of her trip. They're a nice couple originally from England, but now just north of NY in Canada. We arrive in Picton 1/2 hour before the buses all leave for Nelson. The bus ride is winding and beautiful. We go through some of the major NZ wine regions before arriving near the beach of the Tasman Sea in Nelson. I check in to a nice looking hostel and they show me around. I share a room with a very nice woman from the Netherlands and two nice, but very quiet other girls. One from the middle east, but she doesn't say where and the other from Japan. I leave my stuff and head out for a walk. The town is totally dead, but it is Easter Sunday. I go up to the botanical reserve and follow the signs for walk 1. Along the way I pass a Kauri Tree planted in the 1950s and make a mental note to find out its significance. I continue upward until I reach the dais marking the geographical center of NZ. After this I walk through an area with sheep grazing next to and on the trail. They look at me like I"m an alien, but the type of alien they are used to seeing. I wind my way back to the hostel stopping for a little milk to make my mac 'n' cheese. Along the way I hear the church bells start playing. They go on and on and I find myself wandering toward them. They're enclosed in a beautiful tower in front of a grand stone church. I sit and listen until they stop playing then finish my walk home in the near darkness. I eat my meal listening to table half filled with Germans teaching a kid with a heavy Scottish accent how to say inappropriate things in German. I crash at about 10:00PM leaving many people just about to start their night out.

Easter Break - Saturday 3/4/10 - Wellington

I plan to sleep in somewhat, though I know my plans will take up the entire time they're allotted. Te Papa (the national museum) opens at 9 and closes at 5, or so I think. My plan is to spend the morning in the museum and then catch a city bus to the zoo for the afternoon. But I'm woken early by people moving around in the room. I set off in search of Wholly Bagels, now knowing Te Papa doesn't open until 10AM. I eat my breakfast and read my guidebook until I can head over to the museum. People have told me you could easily spend a day or more in Te Papa, but I know how I feel about museums and I figure it won't keep my attention that long. Now, if I've ever seen a place my dad would love, it's this one. A free museum filled with mostly natural history. Every room is filled with interactive panels for you to learn about the things you're looking at. The first place I go is called "Our Space" and the floor is made of glowing square with satellite images of New Zealand. Some of the squares you can stand on and they light up TV screens on the walls with pictures of places within the square. I move on to the sort of animal section where they have tons of taxidermied animals and skeletons. New Zealand is the world's bird land and they need more than one room to show them off. They even have a scene depicting the world's largest eagle (now extinct) attacking the world's tallest bird, the Moa (also now extinct). There's a giant squid here as well and a video on how they caught it. They tell you about how at the ends of the tentacles the squid has these hooks to catch its prey and the hooks can rotate around. They even have a giant model so you can move a hook around and get a better picture. There are some interesting cultural and historical exhibits as well. They have a Maori prayer house and traditional clothing. There's a room about how the Maori's got to NZ, which has a model boat and when you look at it from one side there's a hologram play going on about life on the boats. A section called passports tells about the various peoples who came to NZ when it was just becoming a place to settle. Many Polish children were sent over by boat during the second world war. Apparently back at this time they were offering free passage to many people. I push a few buttons on a panel and find out they would have paid my way to NZ. However, I try another panel for a few years later and they wouldn't even have let me in the country. There's a display about the geography of NZ and natural disasters that take place here because of its location. They have a map of NZ you can move with a lever to see how the shape of the country has changed over the last million years and how it may look after the next million years. They even have a room you can stand in and it replicates how it feels if there's an earthquake. Let me take this time to remind you this is all free. There's a painting section and two or three sculptures, mostly from more modern day artists, but I buzz through those pretty quickly. I take a quick glance around the top floor at the silver and gold pieces they have, but there are very few of them and I go quite quickly again. Finally I pay for something: there's and exhibit called "A Day in Pompeii." Thinking back to my Latin days in middle/high school. I figure the exhibit might be worth it. After all, I"m only going to be here once, or so I need to think to decide on what's really important. It's well worth it and I just keep thinking "I wish Mrs. Keeley was here to see it," (my old Latin teacher). I learn all about life in Pompeii and get to see many artifacts removed from the site. There is of course a whole section about the fateful day of the Vesuvius eruption. Along the wall there's a time line of the 2 day catastrophe including excerpts from the only surviving eye witness account. They have body casts as well. These are not real bodies, the bodies decomposed a long time ago, but they left holes in the ash. These holes were filled with plaster and then the plaster was removed to show the form of the person who had once been there. Finally there was a 7 minute 3D film depicting the time line of the eruption. Quite possibly the best #D I've ever seen, though the actual material of the film left something to be desired. By the end I feel it was well worth the money. I end my experiences by paying for two "rides." The first you sit in a "submarine" and they take you to an underwater volcano off the NZ coast. The second they just show footage of NZ, both rides move around with the movements on the screen. I wouldn't say either of them is particularly worth it. I grab a sandwich on my way out at 5PM, at some point I decided I liked the museum too much and I would just skip the zoo. I head back to the hostel where they switch my room to a four bed one, but I think I would have preferred to stay in the 23 bed one. At least it's fairly quiet, but I still don't sleep that well.

Easter Break - Friday 2/4/10 - Wellington

I hear Sandy leaving at 6AM and am thankful I get to sleep another two hours. We didn't stay out late the night before, but it was late enough for me. Just as I'm drifting off again, I hear my cell phone vibrating on the floor. After hearing what I thought might have been Sandy knocking before, I figure maybe it's her and she needs something; perhaps she locked herself out. But it's a number that's not in my phone. I get the text my dad wants to come and I have to call home. Only slightly regretfully, I get up and turn on my computer. I may not get those two more hours of sleep, but it'll be worth it. One hour later my dad has a flight into Nelson and a day to pack. I try my hardest to sleep for one more hour, but it's useless and I quit to finish packing and eat breakfast. I barely get ready in time, only to discover there is no bus in to town on Good Friday. Luckily the big group of North Island traveler's haven't left yet and I manage to catch a ride with them. I make it to the main bus terminal in plenty of time. The bus ride is fairly uneventful. At one point a little boy sits down next to me. His unaccompanied minor permission form says his name is Cody. I'm reminded of the Rescuers Down Under which we watched the other night. Suddenly the ocean pops up next to the road. It's surprising because I just didn't see any warning and as unfamiliar as I am with this place, I had no idea how close we were. I take off from the combo railway/bus/shuttle station in search of a hostel. It's not long before I see the signs for Armageddon, a Kiwi Comi-Con. At this point I start to worry about the room availability. The first place I stop in has no rooms. So I retrace my steps back to the station where there's another hostel. They tell me they're all full, but they'll call around and try to find me a place. As I'm waiting a young man walks in asking "Is there any space? Please say yes because I've already been to seven places." Another receptionist looks for him and finds they do have something open. So I luck out and manage to get a room for both nights. So, once I've stowed my stuff, I head back out on the town. I'm unsuccessful at locating the Wellington Sea Museum, which is strange because I passed it twice earlier. So I just wander the main streets thinking I'll eventually catch the cable car up to the Botanical Gardens. But I totally misjudged the distance on the map and end up always going way past where I want to be. So I eventually enter the gardens from the other end. It was well worth the walking as I'm greeted by the smell and color of the rose garden. It's getting to be fall, so I wouldn't say everything is in full bloom, but it's been quite warm the past few days and I think the plants are happy about it. I spend the next hours wandering through the gardens. Sometimes retracing my steps to catch all the highlights. There's an endangered plants section, a succulent section, a flowers section, and a sculpture section that I mange to hit. I end up at the observatory area. There is a WWI and WWII plaque. And a German Cannon (though to be the only of its kind left of 190) from WWI. I get to the cable car museum, but it's closed, so I just take the ride down. Walking back to the hostel, everything's closed. I see two bars and a BK open. Completely by accident I run into the government buildings. Turning, I notice the Beehive, so I take a quick detour to their lawns to get a peak at them. I finally make it back to the hostel and make myself some dinner. It's 8:30 by the time I start writing this. I listen to two guys from the Netherlands talking to one from England and another from near Ithaca, NY. They eventually leave to find a bar and I"m left nearly alone in the 23 bed dorm. But as you might imagine with 23 people sharing a room, you're never alone for very long. It's 10 to 10 as I finish this and I am thoroughly ready for sleep.