Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Living a Fairytale
This past weekend I went back in Rotorua. During the eight-hour bus ride I found myself wondering why I was going back to Little Rotti when there were so many other places that still needed to be explored. Pulling up to Rotti I started smelling the rotten eggs scent of sulfur and oddly enough felt somewhat comforted by the familiarity.
As I said in my earlier post, the first night we checked into Cactus Jack’s and headed towards the Night Market. Day two Taylor and I set out for Blue Lake. She had gone during our first week in Rotorua and said it was really beautiful so I wanted to see this place for myself. After a bus ride and a lift from a friendly local we found ourselves hoofin’ it around the gorgeous Blue Lake to our own, almost-private beach. We befriended a little duck, ‘Milly’ and drooled over some little kids with cute little accents (little kid New Zealand accents are the best).
After baking our bods for a bit, eating some pineapple lumps and fruit, we started back and met a cute family on holiday from Hamilton (about an hour from Rotorua) who owned a blueberry orchard, “Blueberry Country”. After chatting with them we promised to visit and parted ways. The gang of eight of us that made the trip cooked a family dinner of pasta and pizza and cookies and chocolate (mmmmm!! Nomnomnom) and headed to bed early in preparation of a busy next day.
Saturday, six of us headed to sledging, a sort of boogie board-like adventure on a river. The guide told us that the normal speed of the river was 15 meters per second, but that day, due to all the rain, it was 25… the highest it could be if we wanted to sledge, (oh boy, near panic attack). Anyway, fear aside, we plunged our wet-suit ridden bodies into the river right at the base of a beautiful waterfall, simply gorgeous. The first rapid we headed down, my sledge was ripped from my hands and I swallowed about 29 gallons of water through my nose/mouth, awesome, ay? (sorry Mom, cover your ears!) Seriously, the guides gave us two rules, don’t let go of your sledge, and turn your head to the side when heading into a wave so as to avoid breaking your nose… welp, I messed that one up! Accident averted, I re-muckled myself onto my board and continued on, trying not to seem like a wimp. I got the hang of it though, and like all things adrenal fueled, I really loved it. I’ll attach a video at the bottom.
After dragging my sore, beaten body out of the water we headed back to go zorbing. BEST THING OF MY LIFE!!!!! Paired up, we bounded down a long grassy hill in giant, water-filled hamster balls. Talk about dream job!
Sunday, we said ‘so long’ to CJ’s and deemed ourselves nomads for a few hours whilst waiting for the bus back to Welly. Once again an eight-hour bus ride loomed over me. Thankfully it came and went and was made much more enjoyable by the incredibly awesome views. The New Zealand country side is made up of green, rolling hills, mountainous formations, unique flora and fauna, speckled with sheep, cows and the occasional deer.
As a great weekend came to an end, Monday started off quite terribly. I left my flat and got the mail on my way to class this morning only to receive a letter from the post office. Apparently the package that was sent from home almost three weeks ago was randomly searched in customs and is now being held in Auckland… yeah I know bugger, right? As if that’s not bad enough… they want me to pay $200 to get it… um, what? Yeah, that’s right TWO-HUNDRED DOLLARS!@#$%^&*(. Excuse me, but I already bought that, I don’t want to pay for it again. Thanks, but no thanks! So all during my classes today I was just telling myself, “well I mean I guess I’ll just leave it there and never see that stuff again”. But then I realized, all my riding stuff is in there, good clothes, and my camera charger, plus maybe, just maybe my mom stuck some goodies in it?! So now I’m really down about this whole ordeal.
Anyway, it’s really hard to be anything but happy here. My friend Rouven bought a car over the weekend, so he toted myself, Taylor, Cramer, and Dillon to this private beach with nearly-black sand and huge, unbelievably gorgeous rock formations. It was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, top five definitely (the other four are also in New Zealand, this place is unreal). I was kicking myself the whole time for not bringing my camera, like what kind of photographer am I?! BAD. Anywho, I just took millions of mental pictures instead. We climbed huge rocks, frolicked, and oh yeah, hung out with a seal, yeah I know.. caaarazyyy! And then stumbled upon this cute little penguin, double crazzyyy.
It’s times likes these that I can’t help but appreciate and love the life I lead. I’m living a dream, if only for a short while.
As I said in my earlier post, the first night we checked into Cactus Jack’s and headed towards the Night Market. Day two Taylor and I set out for Blue Lake. She had gone during our first week in Rotorua and said it was really beautiful so I wanted to see this place for myself. After a bus ride and a lift from a friendly local we found ourselves hoofin’ it around the gorgeous Blue Lake to our own, almost-private beach. We befriended a little duck, ‘Milly’ and drooled over some little kids with cute little accents (little kid New Zealand accents are the best).
After baking our bods for a bit, eating some pineapple lumps and fruit, we started back and met a cute family on holiday from Hamilton (about an hour from Rotorua) who owned a blueberry orchard, “Blueberry Country”. After chatting with them we promised to visit and parted ways. The gang of eight of us that made the trip cooked a family dinner of pasta and pizza and cookies and chocolate (mmmmm!! Nomnomnom) and headed to bed early in preparation of a busy next day.
Saturday, six of us headed to sledging, a sort of boogie board-like adventure on a river. The guide told us that the normal speed of the river was 15 meters per second, but that day, due to all the rain, it was 25… the highest it could be if we wanted to sledge, (oh boy, near panic attack). Anyway, fear aside, we plunged our wet-suit ridden bodies into the river right at the base of a beautiful waterfall, simply gorgeous. The first rapid we headed down, my sledge was ripped from my hands and I swallowed about 29 gallons of water through my nose/mouth, awesome, ay? (sorry Mom, cover your ears!) Seriously, the guides gave us two rules, don’t let go of your sledge, and turn your head to the side when heading into a wave so as to avoid breaking your nose… welp, I messed that one up! Accident averted, I re-muckled myself onto my board and continued on, trying not to seem like a wimp. I got the hang of it though, and like all things adrenal fueled, I really loved it. I’ll attach a video at the bottom.
After dragging my sore, beaten body out of the water we headed back to go zorbing. BEST THING OF MY LIFE!!!!! Paired up, we bounded down a long grassy hill in giant, water-filled hamster balls. Talk about dream job!
Sunday, we said ‘so long’ to CJ’s and deemed ourselves nomads for a few hours whilst waiting for the bus back to Welly. Once again an eight-hour bus ride loomed over me. Thankfully it came and went and was made much more enjoyable by the incredibly awesome views. The New Zealand country side is made up of green, rolling hills, mountainous formations, unique flora and fauna, speckled with sheep, cows and the occasional deer.
As a great weekend came to an end, Monday started off quite terribly. I left my flat and got the mail on my way to class this morning only to receive a letter from the post office. Apparently the package that was sent from home almost three weeks ago was randomly searched in customs and is now being held in Auckland… yeah I know bugger, right? As if that’s not bad enough… they want me to pay $200 to get it… um, what? Yeah, that’s right TWO-HUNDRED DOLLARS!@#$%^&*(. Excuse me, but I already bought that, I don’t want to pay for it again. Thanks, but no thanks! So all during my classes today I was just telling myself, “well I mean I guess I’ll just leave it there and never see that stuff again”. But then I realized, all my riding stuff is in there, good clothes, and my camera charger, plus maybe, just maybe my mom stuck some goodies in it?! So now I’m really down about this whole ordeal.
Anyway, it’s really hard to be anything but happy here. My friend Rouven bought a car over the weekend, so he toted myself, Taylor, Cramer, and Dillon to this private beach with nearly-black sand and huge, unbelievably gorgeous rock formations. It was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, top five definitely (the other four are also in New Zealand, this place is unreal). I was kicking myself the whole time for not bringing my camera, like what kind of photographer am I?! BAD. Anywho, I just took millions of mental pictures instead. We climbed huge rocks, frolicked, and oh yeah, hung out with a seal, yeah I know.. caaarazyyy! And then stumbled upon this cute little penguin, double crazzyyy.
It’s times likes these that I can’t help but appreciate and love the life I lead. I’m living a dream, if only for a short while.
thanks for listening folks.
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| Sheepskis again, i'm seeing a trend.. |
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| CJ's |
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| c: |
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| blue lake |
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| milly! |
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| after zorbing |
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| Lake Taupo, on the way home. |
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Don't listen to the date, March 11, 2011
I seem to be keeping up with my sub-par and irregular blogging skills. Last week was kind of a shakey week (literally). We had three earthquakes in Wellington ranging from a 3.7 to a 4.7. One thing I learned, I really don’t enjoy earthquakes. Wellington certainly lived up to its reputation as ‘Windy Welly,’ the week was full of rain and wind comparable to hurricanes and freight trains. It’s somewhat unsettling to be sitting in your room and be swaying with the wind. I’m told it’s a good thing that the building moves with the elements because if a large earthquake hits it should be able to just go with the flow?!
Also this past week I went and checked out this cool place that offers Buddhist Meditation every Monday and Wednesday nights. Although I don’t think I understood half of the things they were saying (in English) and obviously nothing they said in Tibetan, I still left feeling very calm and happy. Plus, at the end they served us carrot cake, which I don’t really like but it was free and sweet so I’m not complaining!
A few days ago I went down to the harbor with some friends and joined the locals in dong some ‘bombs’ off the plank. I don’t think I can really call mine a ‘bomb’ though; it was probably more comparable to a flailing flop. I’m as graceful as ever these days…
Tonight I’m finding myself back in Rotorua. This time, with a group of five girls from Wellington, and staying at the hostel, ‘Cactus Jacks’. Earlier we wandered around the Night Market, taking in the live music and free food and wine samples.
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| getting pumped up by showering himself in some sugary substance? |
Monday, February 28, 2011
Jeez, i suck at blogs
So I realize it's been over ten days since I last posted.. and my last post was just a tease. I guess i'm not cut out to be a blogger!
My first week in Rotorura was amazing, it was filled to the brim with adventures, new friends, and great times. The first day we learned the Haka, painted intricate beard-like tattoos on our faces and stripped down, if that doesn't bring a group of about 70 closer in .2 seconds than I don't know what does! The whole idea of the Haka and the Maori is really interesting. The Haka is an old war dance used to scare rivals, with intimidating words, bulging eyes and contorted facial expressions that'd send me running for the hills too!
I found this little clip and couldn't resist, it's actually very similar to the Haka we were taught except much less intimidating, enjoy! Kamate Haka
On Tuesday we had our day of adventure, I chose to go white water rafting and then to a mineral spa. The rafting was probably the funnest thing i've ever done and i might just have to go back while i'm here. Funny thing about Rotorura is that it has A LOT of thermal activity so you can walk just about anywhere and see steam rising, oh and it smells like rotten eggs! I don't think i could get used to that one...
Wednesday we visited the Maori village for what was supposed to be a community volunteer day but they didn't have anything for us to do so we just walked around and ate their amazing food, I wasn't complaining! At night we went to another Maori village and they prepared a traditional Hangi for us. A Hangi is a meal cooked in the ground with hot rocks, it was probably one of the best meals i've had here so far.
Thursday we went caving or spelunking. We could choose from two different tumi tumi toobing adventures or repelling. I chose the tumi tumi toobing, it was something I never thought I would ever be able to do. They dressed us in wet suits and made us walk about a 1/4 mile in rolling fields filled with sheep. We stumbled upon a little hole in the ground with a ladder. Once our guide disappeared under the earth's surface we made our way one by one into underground networks of caves and rivers. It was so cool! At one point we turned our head lamps off and looked up to see a simulated night sky... not really.. it was actually millions of glow worms.
After the culture and adventure program I wasn't looking forward to coming to Wellington. I made so many great new friends, I just wanted to continue adventuring everyday and living disconnected from the world. But Friday morning came and went and I found myself in Wellington, Wellywood, or Windy Welly take your pick. I think this was the culture shock I had been waiting for. Wellington, New Zealand's capital is chock full of fashionistas, hipsters, free spirits and just overall trendy people. I never thought I'd stick out for being plain! The first day I felt really overwhelmed, I didn't know where anything was and had so much to do. After adding some homey touches on my room I started to feel better and really began to enjoy this city. Since i've been in Wellington i've gone to the beach (about a 25 minute walk) multiple times, Te Papa (a museum you could spend 2 days in without even brushing the surface), the Botanical Gardens (so gorg!), clubbing on Courtenay Place, bar hopping on Cuba St, hiked Mt. Victoria, adventured all around the city, oh yeah I started school too. I kind of forgot I'm here to go to school... kind of a bummer.
Since I've been here i've noticed many things:
-New Zealand is a little obsessed with America
- internet and cell phones really suck
- food and clothes and pretty much everything else is really expensive. Thankfully the currency exchange rate is on my side!
-Wellington is real loud. waking up to construction and traffic every morning is kind of a downer but the ocean and mountain views makes up for it :)
i'm going to come back with buns of steel because you can't walk anywhere without a huge hill, and we have to walk everywhere!
Some things kiwis say:
keen: "I'm keen to clubbing on Courtenay Place"
ideal: "How ideal!"
sweet as, bomb as, cool as, mean as: "I just came back from swimming with dolphins and unicorns" "Oh sweet as bro!"
dodgey: "Don't go down that dark alley way, it looks real dodgey"
oh yeah and they call flip flops jandals, and swim suits, togs.
togs vs. undies
Well that's recap on my life for the past few weeks. Hopefully i'll remember to update this more!
My first week in Rotorura was amazing, it was filled to the brim with adventures, new friends, and great times. The first day we learned the Haka, painted intricate beard-like tattoos on our faces and stripped down, if that doesn't bring a group of about 70 closer in .2 seconds than I don't know what does! The whole idea of the Haka and the Maori is really interesting. The Haka is an old war dance used to scare rivals, with intimidating words, bulging eyes and contorted facial expressions that'd send me running for the hills too!
I found this little clip and couldn't resist, it's actually very similar to the Haka we were taught except much less intimidating, enjoy! Kamate Haka
On Tuesday we had our day of adventure, I chose to go white water rafting and then to a mineral spa. The rafting was probably the funnest thing i've ever done and i might just have to go back while i'm here. Funny thing about Rotorura is that it has A LOT of thermal activity so you can walk just about anywhere and see steam rising, oh and it smells like rotten eggs! I don't think i could get used to that one...
Wednesday we visited the Maori village for what was supposed to be a community volunteer day but they didn't have anything for us to do so we just walked around and ate their amazing food, I wasn't complaining! At night we went to another Maori village and they prepared a traditional Hangi for us. A Hangi is a meal cooked in the ground with hot rocks, it was probably one of the best meals i've had here so far.
Thursday we went caving or spelunking. We could choose from two different tumi tumi toobing adventures or repelling. I chose the tumi tumi toobing, it was something I never thought I would ever be able to do. They dressed us in wet suits and made us walk about a 1/4 mile in rolling fields filled with sheep. We stumbled upon a little hole in the ground with a ladder. Once our guide disappeared under the earth's surface we made our way one by one into underground networks of caves and rivers. It was so cool! At one point we turned our head lamps off and looked up to see a simulated night sky... not really.. it was actually millions of glow worms.
After the culture and adventure program I wasn't looking forward to coming to Wellington. I made so many great new friends, I just wanted to continue adventuring everyday and living disconnected from the world. But Friday morning came and went and I found myself in Wellington, Wellywood, or Windy Welly take your pick. I think this was the culture shock I had been waiting for. Wellington, New Zealand's capital is chock full of fashionistas, hipsters, free spirits and just overall trendy people. I never thought I'd stick out for being plain! The first day I felt really overwhelmed, I didn't know where anything was and had so much to do. After adding some homey touches on my room I started to feel better and really began to enjoy this city. Since i've been in Wellington i've gone to the beach (about a 25 minute walk) multiple times, Te Papa (a museum you could spend 2 days in without even brushing the surface), the Botanical Gardens (so gorg!), clubbing on Courtenay Place, bar hopping on Cuba St, hiked Mt. Victoria, adventured all around the city, oh yeah I started school too. I kind of forgot I'm here to go to school... kind of a bummer.
Since I've been here i've noticed many things:
-New Zealand is a little obsessed with America
- internet and cell phones really suck
- food and clothes and pretty much everything else is really expensive. Thankfully the currency exchange rate is on my side!
-Wellington is real loud. waking up to construction and traffic every morning is kind of a downer but the ocean and mountain views makes up for it :)
i'm going to come back with buns of steel because you can't walk anywhere without a huge hill, and we have to walk everywhere!
Some things kiwis say:
keen: "I'm keen to clubbing on Courtenay Place"
ideal: "How ideal!"
sweet as, bomb as, cool as, mean as: "I just came back from swimming with dolphins and unicorns" "Oh sweet as bro!"
dodgey: "Don't go down that dark alley way, it looks real dodgey"
oh yeah and they call flip flops jandals, and swim suits, togs.
togs vs. undies
Well that's recap on my life for the past few weeks. Hopefully i'll remember to update this more!
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| After caving! |
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| Sheepies! |
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| Botanical Gardens |
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| ... |
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| View from my room |
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| First night, sunset in Auckland |
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