Ok, sorry this is super long, but we've been up to a LOT in the short week that we've already been here and this is the first time I could get to the library with my computer!
Kia Ora!! So I made it safe and sound after the daunting 17 hrs of flying that started on Friday from Milwaukee and ended on Sunday in Auckland, New Zealand! (I actually slept through Valentine’s Day completely!! ) I am travelling with a group of students through a program called AustraLearn, and the majority of us flew out of LA together. There are about 50+ of us in the group, and half will be studying in the country’s capital of Wellington, while the others will be in Auckland. Once we arrived at the airport, we split into our designated schools to load 2 coach buses that would be taking us to Rotorua (pronounced Wrote-O-Rew-a), where we would participate in a 4 day program introduction. We stayed at a really nice hostel called Kiwi-Paka and I shared a room with 3 really cool girls (Heather, Sarah, and Meredith) .
The first night, most of us went to bed super early since we were just wiped from all the traveling; but the second day was full of fun! Our first adventure was at a sheep show, which I don’t really think anyone expected to be that great. However, it turned out to be pretty entertaining and funny! I happened to be sitting at the very end, which made me lucky enough to be chosen to make sure one of the sheep stayed still before it was brought on stage. After a couple seconds of petting it (because I obviously had no idea how to control a sheep), he/she jumped over the gate and I had failed. Ha it was clearly staged, but funny nonetheless. After that, we headed back to Kiwi-Paka for lunch and then had to decide if we were going to either Luge or go Zorbing. Since Rotorua is the only place in the country to Zorb, I had to try it! I have pictures of the Zorb, but to explain it better , it’s a giant inflatable ball with a smaller ball suspended in it. You (and up to 2 other people) jump into a little hole in the Zorb after they put a bunch of soapy water in it. Then they push you down a big hill while you’re rolling around inside of it. It was AWESOME!!!! It was even cooler because on our turn, a group of people at the bottom of the hill came running partway up and layed down in the middle of the hill so we would roll over them! As cool as it was being in a human sphere in the UW-L gladiators competition, this was 10 times -better!!! After that, we came back to Kiwi-Paka to learn the Haka, which is a chant that the national rugby team (the All Blacks) do before every game. After learning it and splitting into 3 groups, they dressed us up in costumes and face paint so they could video tape it. That was a really unique and incredibly fun experience!! The last part of the night was spent at the Tamaki Village about 20 minutes away from Kiwi-Paka where we watched a show put on by the indigenous people of New Zealand (known as the Maori). Afterwards, they treated us to a huge feast of lamb, chicken, and fish that were prepared by being cooked in a hole in the ground. Finally, we headed back to the hostel where we celebrated one of the guys in our group’s 21st birthday! There’s a bar connected to Kiwi-Paka, so most of us stayed there late into the night/morning, and we played Thumper with a group of about 15-20 people!
The next day, we travelled a couple hours to Waitomo to go caving!! There were three caving options we could choose from, and I was lucky enough to be the last to sign up for the one that most of the people wanted. It was one that included abseiling down waterfalls, and then rock climbing back up to the surface. There were nine of us who went down the caves with two really fun leaders that helped us through the cave and top and bottom belayed us. There were a handful of times where we had to crawl on all fours and squeeze through really tight spaces, so I’m really glad we were in wetsuits! As incredible as it was, by the end we were all super exhausted so we were relieved when they took us back to the Waitoma Kiwi-Paka and had pizza waiting for us! After that, we headed back to Rotorua for our last night in town. Almost everyone ended up going out to town a few blocks away to a place called the Lava Bar. It won’t come as a surprise to most of you, but me and another girl, Kacey were the first to hit the dance floor!!! I don’t remember the last time I’ve had that much fun, but everyone in our group was dancing up a storm and busting out some crazy moves!!! Couldn’t have asked for a greater last night in Rotorua!!
After an amazing 4 days, we were finally off to our final destination of Auckland! We arrived at the Wellesley Student Apartments around 2, and I was pleasantly surprised with how great they were! I don’t have any roommates yet, but there should be 3 more people coming within the next couple weeks. Once we unpacked, 2 of the Milwaukee girls (Mandy and Brianna) and I walked down a few blocks for food and to get some necessities that we couldn’t pack. We were super excited about all the stores we passed and realized how they were only a couple blocks from our apartments…which could mean trouble. We’re only about a 10 minute walk from the infamous Sky Tower (which I might jump off of) located in the heart of Auckland! We came back around 7pm and I realized I needed my apt key AND a security sensor key to get the elevator to work. Well, it turns out I somehow lost it in a matter of a couple hours since they gave them to us, so I ended up staying in my room for a couple hours because I couldn’t get to the other side of the building where most of the AustraLearn group is. So I started writing this blog, and was thinking about heading to bed when Mandy and Bri knocked on my door and said we were going out! So we went out with a big group, and by the end of the night, it was just Vic, Rylee, Mike, and me! It was another fun fun night of dancing/sweating like crazy!!
The next day (Thursday), we all went to an international student orientation that lasted most of the day, and was pretty boring so I won’t bore you with details. However, things picked up when we went out to dinner. There were five of us girls (Mandy, Brianna, Meredith, Beth, and myself) that wanted sushi, so we looked in someone’s Lonely Planet book to find a good sushi restaurant in the city. We found one that sounded great, so we headed out to search for it. Somewhere along the way, we forgot the address, so we were resourceful and stopped in a Borders bookstore to find that same Lonely Planet book and found the address! We ended up finding it, and the sushi was excellent! We started talking about music festival and Mandi, Bri, and I were talking about Summerfest, and all of a sudden the guy sitting at the table next to us started talking to us and asking where we were from. He said he was going to Texas in a couple weeks for South by Southwest. His name was Simon, and he had just graduated from AUT and made us all feel a little better when he told us it was pretty easy. We found out he was in a band, and a few minutes later his friends/fellow band members showed up. We met Jeremy, Matt, and Nick who were all really cool too. After talking to them for awhile, they slide in fact that they’re actually #2 on the New Zealand charts right now (behind Jason Mraz!). They tell us they’ve opened up for Incubus and OK GO, and toured with the Veronicas in the past couple years. We’re all thinking that’s pretty cool, but at the same time, thinking they could totally be messing with us since they knew we were Americans. After dinner, they were telling us about the bar they always go to (and laughed at us when we told them which ones we had already been to). So we ended up going to the bar with them, which was called Deschler’s. We were there for awhile, and then decided to go to a different bar, which was pretty empty and not very hoppin compared to the previous night, so Mandy, Bri and I decided to go back to Deschler’s, and Meredith and Beth headed home. We met back up with Simon and Nick, and Simon took us to another bar down the road that was pretty nice but it had a deer head on one of the walls (which I thought was odd, but I definitely thought of you Chelsy!) We didn’t stay for long, and on the way home we stopped at an internet cafe. We were all sitting in different places, but when we were leaving Mandi and I were talking and had both looked up the guys’ band (Midnight Youth) and found out that everything they told us was actually legit and even sounded like something I’d listen to!! They have a concert in the city on Saturday, and the five of us girls are definitely going!!
and this is where I started getting lazy and just bulleting the major happenings of the day...
Friday
-went all over the city to get a picture and notorized letter in order to obtain an 18+ card so we don't have to take our passports to the bars
-went to the The Lounge bar with a big group and danced all night
Saturday
-Grocery shopping
-Went to see He’s Just Not that into You with the girls
Sunday
-Went shopping down Queen’s St. w/ the girls and Mike
-Ate lunch at a Mexican place by the Harbor
-Came back and started planning a three day trip to the Bay of Islands this week, which is north of Auckland and supposed to be beautiful
-What started out as about 6 girls, turned into about 16 AustraLearn people going on the trip, so we booked our hostel and bus tickets.
-We have plans to skydive, swim with dolphins, and possibly go sand duneing!
-Took a shower and got ready to go out. We met up with our bus drivers from Rotorua (Stu and Luke) because they were in town dropping off another group of AustraLearn people going to the University of Auckland, which is right next to our campus.
So to wrap it all up in a nutshell, I've met some amazing people already that I know I'll be friends with long after this trip, and I'm having the time of my life!! I miss you all back home, and wish you could come out and see how incredible it is here!!! MUCH LOVE!!
-Tami
As awesome as Auckland is, we decided we wanted to get out of the city for a little bit before school starts next Monday. So a bunch of us girls from our AustraLearn group organized a trip up north to a place called the Bay of Islands. We heard there was a lot to do there and that the landscape was beautiful. We had a group of about 15 that took a bus on Tuesday morning, and another 6 ended up renting a van and met us up there. We stayed in a great backpackers hostel that was super cheap and I was in the big room with 7 other girls in our group. The first night, Rylee, Josh and I just went to the beach and walked around for a bit, and then on our way back to the hostel, we passed a bar that has "bar olympics" every Tuesday night. We asked about it, found out there wasn't any drinking involved, and that they give away a free skydive, so we signed up a team of us three and mike. Later, we all ended up at the bar and had pizza before the bar olympics began. The first event was the limbo and everyone on every team had to participate. The last two to make it under would win points for their team. I think there were 9 teams of 4, so I wasn't expecting to do well at all (especially w/ my back). Well by the end of it, it was just me and 2 other girls and people were chanting my name?? (cough, Kathy, cough) I was so jacked up, and I ended up taking 2nd and won a point for the team! Mike was next and he won us another point in a balloon popping competion, but everything was going so slow and we had to get up early in the morning, so we ended up forfeiting and going home. ha ooo well, we still had fun.
