My First Time Tramping!

Last weekend I went on an overnight tramping trip with the tramping club, and it was basically the best thing ever. I absolutely loved it. We went to the Otehake hot pools and it took us about 5 and a half hours to get there from the beginning of the trail, and about 4 hours to get back the next day. We left campus at like 8:45 after waiting around for a while and drove about 2 hours up near Arthur's Pass to the trail. The trail we took to the hot pools was pretty sweet for the most part, and full of lots of different terrain. We walked on grass and normal land for a while up to our first river crossing. I really liked river crossings, even though the water was super cold and it would make my feet numb for a while afterward. They were a lot of fun, and made it seem like a more exciting trip since I'd never done a river crossing before. The deepest it ever got was up to my waist, which wasn't too bad. We walked mostly through like, the rain forest kinda trails on the first day. We stopped at a lake to have lunch and I found it amazing how I could get so hot walking through the trails and take layers off and literally after not even a minute of stopping to have lunch I was freezing again and needed to put my layers back on. After lunch we kept going and I was with a bunch of kiwis who have been in the group for a while and knew what they were doing. However, we still managed to go the wrong way and follow the flood route instead of the path we meant to follow. This made the trip way more exhausting and way more interesting overall. We were on the flood route for probably about half an hour before we regrouped and tried to figure out if we should turn back or keep going. We talked for about 5-10 minutes about what would happen if we kept going or if we turned around and what the best option was. We had to think about how much daylight we had left and how far away from the regular trail we were and how far away from our destination we were, and it was definitely good to experience what happens when something goes wrong on a trip. We decided to go back and ended up following the wrong markers for a while until we found the right ones and got back on track. It was pretty exciting for me since I'd never been in that situation before, and I felt safe enough since I was with people who knew what they were doing and we'd talked about how we had two tents and food in case we didn't make it to where we were going and needed to camp somewhere else, so we were covered. The flood route itself was kinda crazy - it was incredibly steep and was full of tree roots that you had to climb up and down using your hands and feet. It was incredibly exhausting but a lot of fun, but I was really glad to be back on the normal path once we made it back there. After that there were a bunch of river crossings and all of a sudden the hot pools appeared. I expected them to be farther from the freezing cold river, and it still doesn't make much sense to me how these steaming hot pools could be so close to a freezing cold river that flows into it - kinda crazy... it felt so good to finally get into the hot pools after a really tiring day of being cold and wet for the past 5 hours.

I really liked that we got to a place where you can't possibly go unless you hike for 5 hours, and that we were 5 hours away from any sort of civilization. I also liked that we all had went into it knowing we were going to be dirty and smelly and wet and cold and that was just all part of the fun. I felt really at home in the middle of nature far away from everything - it was an awesome feeling. This is something I knew I'd love to do, and I couldn't be happier that I'm here doing it. I'm so excited to go on more tramping trips while I'm here. I loved how incredibly gorgeous the scenery was and how great it felt to know I made it through a 5 and a half hour hike keeping up with a bunch of the kiwis who do this all the time. I loved everything about it =)

Laying in the hot pools and eating dinner and having some drinks and looking up at the clearest sky I've ever seen with the most stars I've ever seen was also pretty incredible. It was awesome to see a whole new pattern of stars that I'd never seen before, and it really made me further realize that I'm on the other side of the world.

The camping part was fun too, but sleeping in the freezing cold wasn't the easiest thing for me. I didn't sleep very well at all but figured that was all part of the experience so I didn't care all that much. The walk back in the morning was even better than the walk there too, since we took the river route and basically just walked along the river for the first half of the hike. It was fun constantly going in and out of the river. It was pretty cold but after going in the first couple times it really didn't even feel that cold anymore. It was also a lot prettier on the way back because we were out in the open and could see the river and the mountains and just everything surrounding us rather than just seeing tree roots as you carefully picked your steps in the forest. The river was also insanely clear and it was soooo pretty. I also liked that we could fill up our water bottles in the river and drink it since it's so clean. I love how clean New Zealand is, it's awesome.
Overall it was an awesome experience and I can't wait to go on more trips and see more of this beautiful country. I think I'm going on a really long day hike with a couple of the kiwi girls from the club this weekend, so hopefully I'll have that to write about next time. =)

Christchurch fun!

So I'm already struggling with writing in this as often as I should haha but I'll definitely try to work on it.

In the past week I've done a lot of walking around the uni and downtown Christchurch which has been fun, and I've done plenty of drinking which is a big part of their culture here. The cop who talked to us at orientation (the one cop for our entire university...) kept talking about how new zealanders are champion drinkers so I'll have to learn to keep up, although I don't think I'll have too much of a problem.

The University seems really nice so far, and aside from the cold and sometimes rainy weather, it's pretty here and I like it =) I'll have to take some pictures of campus to post on here once I decide to just walk around more with my camera.

I really like downtown Christchurch. It's only like a 10 minute bus ride away and there are tons of little shops, bars, restaurants and all those kinds of things. There's this really cool place called SOL square that has a bunch of little bars and stuff and you can just go inside and order a drink and then bring it outside and sit in the couches that are around and there are little fire places and space heaters and it's really cool. I'm a huge fan.

I didn't really do too much during the week other than explore and go shopping to get stuff to get all settled in like a hair dryer and alarm clock and things like that, but this weekend was awesome. Let's start with Friday night...

Friday night started after a fairly boring day of doing basically nothing other than grocery shopping and some walking around. Me and a bunch of people drank at my flat because my flat is basically just the place to be. I'm right on the ground floor so people are constantly coming by and just knocking on my window or coming in through the sliding door - it's a pretty sweet deal. Anyways, we were all drinking here, which is always a good time. My roommate decided to clean the vacuum hose and make a beer bong out of it, so that was pretty hilarious haha. After a while of hanging out at my flat, a bunch of us decided to go to the supermarket to get food for breakfast in the morning. This was a great bonding experience because after stopping at McDonald's on the way back, our car ran out of gas and we had to push it for like 15-20 minutes to a gas station and had to make it through a couple traffic circles along the way... it was exhausting but overall a great time.

Saturday we woke up and all had breakfast together - Chelsea and Sarah made some awesome coconut french toast. Then we went to the gondola and for a hike around there. It was absolutely amazing. It was so pretty and I took tons of pictures because even though I probably already had like 8 shots of the same view, it was too pretty not to take more pictures of everything. The hike was probably about an hour and a half to 2 hours long, and was so much fun. I absolutely love the outdoors and I love how gorgeous it is here. I can't wait to just hike everywhere and see more beautiful scenery everywhere I look.

After we finished our hike around the crater rim walkway, we sat down and had a little picnic with whatever food we had packed and then went inside and got a beer to drink while we watched the sunset. It was super pretty and the beer added a nice touch.
Then we went out into town and got dinner and went to the bar to watch the rugby game between the All Blacks and South Africa which was AWESOME. I'm like all of a sudden so into rugby. I guess being immersed in a rugby culture and actually watching a rubgy game and seeing how intense and awesome it is makes me instantly a huge fan of rugby and the All Blacks which is the Maori team from NZ. I bought a ticket with a bunch of my friends to the All Blacks vs Australia game in Christchurch in August. I'm sooooo excited for it =)

On Sunday I woke up and kinda expected to just have a chill day and get ready for school and such but then Clay and Chelsea knocked on my window and said they were going surfing so I obviously went along. It was a group of 8 of us and we got a 2 hour surf lesson and it was really fun even though it was pretty cold, but not terrible in our sweet wet suits. I was able to get up and actually surf on a few waves which was pretty sweet. The waves were pretty strong and definitely knocked me down a lot though. And who knew surfing was so exhausting. I'm pretty sore today...

Today was the first day of class, and I was pretty afraid I was gonna be late to it because I woke up at 6 to go to the bar and watch the world cup final at 6:30. It was such a good game and totally worth it to go to the bar and watch it, and luckily it finished in time for my to get to class.

I really liked my class today, and I'm really excited about it. It seems like it's gonna be about really cool topics and I'm really gonna enjoy it. And i found out that my only 2 classes (on just Monday and Tuesday) don't have normal finals so I'll be finished with the semester completely by October 15th which is insane...It's gonna be an awesome semester...

The first adventurous day of many

So yesterday we woke up early and drove 3 hours down to Rotorua. It was an extremely pretty drive and consisted of tons of cows, sheep, and other various farm animals all over the green rolling hills everywhere.

The first thing we did was head to the zorb, and it was so much fun. You had a choice of doing it wet or dry, and I was told the wet one was more fun so that's why I chose, even though it was winter and pretty cold to be outside in just a bathing suit. Then you got to choose whether you wanted to go down the straight hill or the zig zag hill, and I was advised to do the zig zag, and it looked like more fun, so I did that. It was AWESOME. It was totally unlike anything I've ever really done before and it's hard to even describe, but you basically can't see where you're going at all and have no idea what's coming next or when it's ending and you're just being sloshed around all over the place with no control over where your body goes. It was fantastic. And luckily they filled it with hot water so while in the zorb it was nice and warm, even though getting out was pretty freezing. Oh also I got run over by the zorb which was pretty sweet haha. I laid down on the hill with 2 of the other guys and we all got run over by it. Pretty fun.

Then we went and got lunch at this cute place called the fat dog cafe and headed on to the next big adventure - white water rafting. This was also tons of fun and pretty exhilarating at times. I was in a raft with 5 other people in my group plus a guide and we were definitely the most fun of the 5 different rafts. We didn't have anyone who was afraid of flipping or didn't want to get too wet or anything boring like that, so it was a good group. We went down a couple little waterfalls and eventually went down a 7m tall waterfall, which was pretty awesome. We got completely soaked because the front of the raft basically just went down into the water and flooded the raft and such. We also had fun paddling back into the bottom of little waterfalls after the big drop which was lots of fun because it would push us down and get us all soaked. It was pretty amazing too how we were in super cold water but our wet suits kept us so warm. I had no idea wet suits were that good at keeping people warm, and it made it soooo much better.

Then we went to the backpackers hostile we were staying in and checked in. It was actually pretty nice and better than I'd expected. We had a 4 person room and it was all nice and clean so that was nice. We went out to a bar that we all had coupons to for a free beer and got that. I really liked the beer which was nice considering I'm usually not much of a beer drinker. We ended up staying there for a while and getting some food and a few more drinks which was lots of fun. Then we all went back to the hostile to change and headed off to the Polynesian Spa which had hot mineral pools and spas to relax in. It was really nice and relaxing, minus the awful smell of sulfur which consumed basically the whole town but was very strong at the spa. It was also nice that I got in for free because that was my prize for winning the Minties game we played on the bus - who can make the rectangular minties wrapper the longest by ripping it and such. I guess I'm a good problem solver. =)

- there were seat belts on the coach bus we took that we all had to wear. do coach buses even have seat belts back home?
- on the way to the zorb there were a bunch of cows just running on the side of the road next to cars. kind of awesome.
- New Zealanders are so friendly I love it. We ran into this guy at the zorb place that our camera guy Brian had met at the airport, and he needed a ride somewhere so without hesitation we just let him ride the bus with us and dropped him off on our way to lunch. I feel like Americans would not normally be that friendly. Our Australian group leader said New Zealand is the friendliest country she's ever been to, and so far I can definitely see why. I love how nice everyone is =)
- It's going to be weird getting used to using 1 dollar and 2 dollar coins rather than actual dollars. I don't know if they even make $1 and $2 in paper money because I've only seen coins so far, and it's weird to go through my change to pay for normal things.
- I'm definitely going to need to get used to being away from college park drink specials. All the drinks here are definitely more than $2 and it's probably gonna be a little rough. Also, I asked the bartender yesterday what prices were for mixed drinks and she asked "like in a bottle?" lol. Once I said like rum and coke she understood but it was pretty weird for her to not know what I meant by mixed drink. Also, although my rum and coke was $7.50, a sign for a red bull vodka said $12. Now that's just crazy...
- Also, people were talking about cigarette prices and apparently here they're like $12 a pack which I thought was expensive, but our camera guy said they're like $20 in Australia! I can't believe anyone would smoke at all if they had to pay $20 for every pack. That's awesome though because it probably helps deter a lot of people from smoking.
- On our way back from the spa we stopped at a little shop to get snacks and check out beer/wine and they had like, a mini one serving coke bottle for $3.00 and a 1.5 liter bottle for $3.80. The prices of things here are so strange. Needless to say I bought the 1.5 liter and felt pretty cool drinking from it as we walked back and people looked at me weird.
- I think it's pretty ridiculous that I wore my bathing suit 3 separate times yesterday and it's winter here and freezing. And it's going to be even colder on south island once I get there. It's still so weird to me that it's so cold here in July lol.

Auckland from the Maori Perspective

So today was day 2 in Auckland and we took a tour of it with Maori people as our tour guides. Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand, and from what I learned today, they're prettyyy cool. It was really interesting learning about their culture and their history and hearing them speak in their language a lot throughout the day. I wish I could remember all the names for everything but they are difficult for me to pronounce and would be impossible for me to spell and are therefore pretty hard to remember everything unfortunately.

The first thing we did was go to this really cool crater thing that used to be a volcano I think and also used to be a Maori village. I'm pretty sure they were saying that all the big hills around used to be volcanos, and they were all villages of different Maori tribes. They compared them to wedding cakes because they have basically like different layers which was built by the tribes as a defense mechanism for when other tribes would attack. They would attack on one level and if they conquered it, they would climb up the hill and over the next fence to the next layer to try to conquer that one so eventually they'd make it to the top and conquer the entire village. Pretty cool. The crater in the center of it was I guess formed by the volcano, and it used to be okay to run around in it but now there are signs everywhere says don't enter the crater, so they took away the fun lol. I really liked walking around there though and learning all about the history of it.

Then we went to the Auckland War Memorial Museum to learn some more about Maori history. This was pretty awesome too. I learned all about different parts of their culture. We also saw a Maori cultural performance and saw some of their traditional dances along with various fighting moves and things. It reminded me a little bit of Hawaiian dances and things at some points, but it was also very unique in other respects.

Then we ate lunch and headed out to the wilderness. =) We took this super long windy bus ride up this mountain, and I totally thought we went up most of the way but I guess we must have gone down just as much because we ended up at a black sand beach and I'm pretty sure beaches can't be like, at the top of a mountain haha but I was extremely confused... It was really pretty though and I ended up playing touch rugby on the beach with a bunch of the other people which was really difficult and tiring and confusing at first, but probably a good thing to get to know since New Zealand is a rugby kinda country.

Then we drove around some more and then hiked to a waterfall through the rainforest. This place is incredible and has everything from awesome nature and adventure stuff to city stuff to sweet history and man made awesome stuff I love it. The waterfall itself was really pretty and the path there was pretty sweet too. On the way back we learned all about different plants and stuff and heard a story about the Maori creation of the Earth which was pretty awesome.

Overall, this place is absolutely incredible. And if South Island is more is even better than North Island for nature and adventure stuff, I'm going to love it even more once I'm there. I really hope the next 5 months are like the past 2 days in terms of nature and things, and I can honestly already say that I absolutely picked the right country to study abroad in. =)

- They have outlet switches here...I thought my converter didn't work because I plugged something in and it wasn't charging and then I realized there was a switch, most likely to help conserve energy. So cool, why doesn't America have this kinda stuff?
- Also, the outlet almost broke my hair dryer as soon as I turned it on just because they use a different voltage here than we do, so I turned it on and I immediately thought it was going to blow up...
- I forgot to mention yesterday that my roommate for orientation, Claire, is also a redhead from Maryland. So hilarious.
- I wore boots out to dinner yesterday. It's July and it's cold and I'm wearing boots. Ridiculous.
- I heard my first New Zealand song - it's called take me higher by j williams. I liked it so that's a good sign. Even though most music I've heard here so far is American.
- The time difference still kinda sucks. I get super tired at like 6pm and wake up naturally at like 545am lol it's obnoxious.
- The calories and nutrition facts on foods are weird here and I don't understand what they're saying. I'll work on it.
- They have crazy food here...like chicken flavored potato chips. They tasted a little like ramen noodles and overall pretty decent.
- When we were learning about the plants in the rainforest I ate a leaf that tasted like lettuce, and then put another kind of leaf in my mouth but didn't swallow it since we weren't supposed to and it kinda made my mouth numb. Apparently that one can be used for lots of medicinal purposes.
- I also found out that gingers in Australia are called ranggers...which comes from orangutan. I don't like that.
- I also saw a cat today and it made me happy =) and I thought of Tina. Miss you Tin.
- We had fish and chips for lunch with these awesome sweet potatoes that are native to here and they were awesome, especially when dipped in this awesome garlic mayo type dip. We saw a bunch of little pits by the crater that we used to do something with those sweet potatoes.
- I worked out a little this morning because I was naturally awake so early. Kind of hilarious, and I'm such a weakling. But if I'm hiking and walking and stuff throughout my time here as much as I have been in the past few days (which I am absolutely planning on) then I better be in shape by the time I leave.