No, I haven't died...

Just to let whatever readers are still out there no, this blog hasn't died. The last 6 weeks have seen alot of adjustment on my behalf, and as a result I haven't had alot of time to write. I'll have you know that I AM working on posts from my last month abroad (which was the coolest month) and that after that is done, I will continue to write about my readjustment and life here in America. Just stay tuned and in the next few weeks I'll try to post what I can. Deal?

Australia

I apologize for not having updated in so long, but this is the first time I have had internet in weeks. Enjoy.

On Thursday we finally left student village (myself and friends Maggie and Brice). To say it was a sad farewell is a massive understatement. Everyone that I have met and come to love in the past few months is now split- the IG (International Group, as we became known) was about to fracture. Love was shared, good wishes sent. I shook the hand of every one of my wonderful friends, then embraced them. When I leave NZ for good, I will miss the people I have met way more than any bird, mountain or island. Even though I know I will see many of them once more (especially the Kiwis) I know that we most likely will never be together like this again- my hope is that if someone ties the knot, the IG will reconvene; that would be a day to cherish.
The plane trip to Cairns was two flights- Auckland to Sydney to Cairns. It gave me alot of thinking time, and I realized just how deeply and immediately I missed these people already.
After a long day of flight, we dropped into Cairns. I got in a van to go to the hostel, took the window down, and put my head out the whole way. Where Waikato had frost every morning, Cairns had easy, breezy 70 degree weather. I think I like this country.
After sleeping for about 6 hours, we woke up before dawn to get to our dive shop. We would be taking a liveaboard boat to go dive the Great Barrier reef, every marine biologist’s (and diver’s) dream. The boat held over 30 people, 5 or so crew (including a french chef, ooh la la!). We would be doing 11 dives over 3 days- normally, a day long dive trip consists of 2 dives. Our schedule was literally: Wake up pre dawn (5:45 am), Sunrise Dive, Breakfast, Morning Dive, snack, Noon Dive,Lunch, afternoon/ sunset Dive, Dinner, night Dive, Cake. It was tiring, it was repetitive, it was smelly and wet and crowded, and It. Was. Glorious.

First, let me say something about the great barrier reef. It is the world’s largest contiguous living organsim (i suppose that could be disputed, but it is massive) stretching over more than a thousand miles. Imagine a reef system, like you see in movies. Now imagine that pretty little reef extending in one form or another from Florida to Maine. Yeah, you could say it’s big. The best parts of the reef are actually quite shallow- most divers are certified to dive starting out to 60 feet- the interesting bits of the reef are usually shallower than 40, and once you get within 20 feet of the surface the brilliance is astounding. Every color of the rainbow (and some I didn’t think were even in it) is represented here. Fish that have no business whatsoever being so beautiful are abundant. You can never tell what will be around the next bend, except more reef, more oppourtunity for exploration. What’s next? clownfish? Maybe giant clams? Perhaps you’ll get lucky and see a green turtle as large as you are, or a white tipped reef shark lurking, aware of you ages before you saw it there. The things we saw were unlike many I have ever seen before. The GBR was an absolute dream to dive.

I won’t regale you with all 11 dives, as that would get tedious and repetetive for both of us. I will recap 8 of the dives, and tell of 3 in a bit more detail. In our dives we saw sharks, giant clams of luminescent colors that boggled the mind (and that were big enough for me to fit in if I was so foolish to try), clownfish and anenome fish that stayed close to their havens, fish of every shape, color, size, and mentality, and coral varieties that were astounding. Three dives in particular stand out. In one, we were at a pinnacle known as “The Whale”. We had a pretty standard dive, with swim throughs (underwater rock tunnels that you swim through; at the end, the entire ocean opens up to you- a very cool experience) and wildlife. As we began our safety stop, we turned around to see a shadow moving behind us- a shade, if you will. As we continued to watch, this gliding form came closer- a giant spotted eagle ray. This enourmous creature, about 7 feet wide, glided right past us, sailing effortlessly, almost as if an ethereal projection of this creature was all in my mind. It was the perfect end to a dive. At the second, we dove a reef known as “Gordon’s”. We dropped in the water around 4:30 pm, and descended onto a proverbial aquarium. The bommie, or pinnacle for non-aussies, became a wall that leveled out at about 6 feet deep. We went up there, and saw... another world. Normally red light gets cut out very rapidly in water, but at 6 feet much of it is still there. I never thought I would see neon in nature, but I did. The colors almost hurt. After continuing on this dive, we descended to a maze of bommies, and got lost. The result was awesome, of course- being lost in a wonderful, unfamiliar place, exploring wherever you want, knowing that all you have to do to get your bearings is look at your compass. We got lucky and found a green turtle about half my size chowing down on some algae- like more turtles we later would see on subsequent dives, this one was not afraid at all of us. We could have touched it if we wanted to, and it was unfazed. It was after this that I witnessed one of the coolest things of the trip: an underwater sunset. The idea of the sun slipping behind these under water towers, teeming with life, and watching the evening sun dance in the water before finally dipping over the horizon is something every diver (and I am tempted to say every human being) should experience. The third dive that I found exceptional was my first night dive ever. As the sun set, we began to gear up and get ready to get wet. The lights from the boat attracted a mass of fish, including sea bass, or some fish similiar to it. The chef began to throw our food scraps form dinner overboard, which of course got the fish excited, and soon more had come. After a few minutes, the school scattered. At first I thought it peculiar, but then I saw why- shark.
The shark was probably a reef shark, though I am not sure. It was larger than I was, but not by alot. It began to circle the school, dipping in every few seconds to try and grab one for dinner. What did we do now that there were sharks at our dive site, where it was too dark to see without a flashlight, and where anything could be lurking in the dark?
Well, we jumped in, of course.
Sharks tend not to like divers. They look funny, taste bad, and are loud, big and noisy in the water. Pretty soon what had come for a snack had left, and we continued the dive. It was eerie, to say the least. Imagine those movies in which a heroic space team embarks on an alien world, where shadow abounds. Strange pillars play with the light, and tones of grey and blue mess with your head. Now imagine instead of walking on this terrain, you are slowly gliding over it. This was my experience. I saw one very large fish, which was about 30 feet above my head- as soon as I illuminated it, it sank away. Except for the fact it was a night dive, this dive was nothing special. However, the aspect of darkness gave a whole new dimension to the water that I can safely say I am now addicted to.
Another thing that made this trip very enjoyable was the people that i met and dove with. Out of the 30 or so divers, i would say at least 25 were 30 or under, with the rest being under 40. The crew was similiarly aged. Most of the people were under 25- right in my age group. Though we were similiar in age, in nationality could not have been more varied. The people on the boat were Canadian, American, Australian, English, French, Irish, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Estonian, and Egyptian. We couldn’t ask for a better trip- the people were fantastic, the ocean was literally as clear as glass, the weather was warm and the sky was clear. I actually spent a night out sleeping on the deck of the ship, with not a light in sight except the vast expanse of the outer spiral arm of the milky way above me. It will be something I will never forget.
After our last day of dives, we went back to port, where we were greeted by a small American navy fleet (an aircraft carrier and about 4 or 5 other ships of various sizes and duties). They flooded Carins. I heard American accents as much as Australian. We checked into a backpacker called the northern greenhouse, at the suggestion of some of the people that dove with us. It was a very cool place to stay- it felt sufficiently bohemian and tropical, almost Jamacian, but it was very nice inside. There was a courtyard with a pool, a free barbeque, free breakfast, linens, a full bathroom and half kitchen in each room, and a very cozy feel, all for a good price. I was very pleased.
That night all of the dive group –and I mean all of them, including the tiny french chef of our boat- gathered together for some dinner and drinks at a place called the rattle and hum. Our night of conversing, laughing, eating and drinking quickly became a night of dancing we decided to go to a local venue. It was one of the best clubbing nights I have ever had. The running joke with the IG is that New Zealand has about 11 songs, and within an hour, you have heard them all. Because the Navy was in town, however, the music was fantastic- every song was a hit, a classic, or at least popular enough to dance to and sing along to. The only two songs I could think of that I didn’t hear were thriller and the eye of the tiger. One thing that I have always, always wanted to hear at a club was Bohemian Rhapsody- and boy, did I get my wish. Imagine 200 people all rocking out, singing to each other as they danced like crazy and shredded on air guitar to their heart’s content: they were totally oblivious to each other, with no shame and nothing held back, because, let’s be honest, everyone else was doing it too. All in all, I guess you could say I quite enjoyed Cairns.
The next day we flew to Sydney to spend a few days. Our flight got in at evening, and as soon as we checked into our backpacker we started exploring. Only a few blocks from our hostel, which incidentally was also right in downtown Sydney, we saw a crowd of people on a street, with police everywhere and cameras even more numerous. We decided to take a detour- boy were we suprised. The crowd was there to see none other than Brüno, live and in the flesh (and in a few other things) at a movie premier for his film of the same name. For those of you not familiar, Brüno is a character played by comedian Sasha Baron Conen, who became internationally famout for his film Borat, where he played a backwards Khazakstani reporter in America. Brüno, on the other hand, is a gay Austrain fashion critic, and this character is used much the same way as Borat, to humiliate the people he interviews for the great entertainment of the world. He is pretty famous, you could say.
So imagine my suprise when I saw Brüno come out of an alleyway with a white hourse, while coated in ridiculously shiny roman style armor, complete with equally shiny silver helmet. I’ll give Cohnen something- when he is in character, he really is. Cohnen was Brüno and nothing else. It was a real treat, especially since our chances of seeing it were completely random and astronomically low.
So, what about Sydney, ask you? Well, I consider Sydney to be my 2nd favorite city in the world, second only to St. Petersburg in Russia. What isn’t there to love? It is a city of 4 million, but it feels like a place a tenth of the size. Don’t get me wrong, Sydeny is huge, but it doesn’t feel like it on the street. It is nice and pleasant; people are nice, they don’t push or yell, taxis actually let you cross- try to think of any other city half the size of New York where cars actually stop for pedestrians when they don’t have to? In a word, Sydney is pleasant. The skyline is stunning, all glass and light. It’s skyscrapers flow, almost like waves or sails on the horizon. They most resemble Seattle of all the cities I have been to, but I would say Sydney even tops this. The Opera house and Harbour bridge are spectacular to behold- the opera house is much larger than people have told me, and literlaly took my breath away the first time i saw it. The water reflects the skyline perfectly, and makes for great photography. The alleyways are all well lit, clean, and safe looking. There are a million ways to get anywhere- up those stairs, throgh that alley, across the street, over the bridge, in between those buildings in a small avenue- the possibilities are endless, which gives the city almost a wonderous feel, as if you are doing urban exporation of sorts. This is what we did the first night.
We slept in the second day, and woke up to head down to Hyde park, located right in the middle of the city. This park is something to behold, let me tell you. In addition to the great architecture and wonderful urban aspects of downtown Sydney, it also has frequent and refreshing green spaces. Hyde park is one of these places, with Eucalyptus trees towering 60 feet overhead into a giant arch that shelters a stone path 30 feet wide, right in the middle of Sydney. It was a joy to walk through. Near the park is a cathedral called St. Mary’s, which I can comfortably say is the most beautiful Catholic Cathedral I have seen outside of Europe. As we went in, I sat down to have a quick prayer, and a bell rung. The patrons rose. We again had impecible timing, and stayed for mass. Afterwards we walked to the botanic gardens, and the art museum of New South Wales. The museum was free, and a good use of the afternoon- there were both contemporary and older works, from both Australia and around the world. The mediums were not limited to paint, either. There was video, audio, and interactive art as well. The fact that all of this was free, and that we were allowed to take photos, and that when we left a random person on the street asked us how we liked it, and told us where to find some more sculpture outside, really is a testament to now nice and friendly australians are.
After the museum we walked through the Botanical Gardens, which included multitudes of wild Cockatoos, Ibis (which are like the pidgeons of Sydney) and trees full of sleeping bats, in addition to one of the rarest plants found in the world, a conifer that was thought to be extinct for 150 million years until it was discovered in the Australian Bush. Another testament to Australia- it is a big place, with few people to explore it. We saw the sun set over the harbor bridge from the Opera house, and then and dined on the roof of a local pub overlooking the skyline. Afterwards we walked to Darling Harbour, and wandered back to the hostel for a good sauna and swim. I guess after the dive trip we were used to being wet.
Wednesday we switched hostels to the Wake up! Hostel only a block from the one we were at the past 2 nights (we couldn’t stay because it was booked). It is listed as the best hostel in oceania: let me say right now, nothing could be further from the truth. We checked in and immediately were struck by that fact that the elevator will not function without your card being swiped, which was perfect considering my card simply refused to read. This really helped contribute to the feel of the entire hostel being a mix of wannabe college fraternity house, google staff headquarters and nazi work camp. We went into our room, which was an 8 share dorm room complete with exactly 1 light and 1 outlet. This is for 8 people, mind you. The absolute worst part of the room (and the hostel in particular) are the intercoms. At random intervals throught the day, the intercoms in EVERY ROOM turn on, to accomodate a booming and annoying voice which of course begins with “wake up, wake up, wake up!”, followed by a list of inane, unfunny and infuriatingly annoying comments having actually nothing to do with my life in relation to this place. When I first heard them, I just stared at my companions and waited for the announcements to cease.
“That is going to get annoying.”
“Yup.”
“Really annoying.”
“Yup.”
Needless to say, we didn’t stay in the room for long.
We spent our day much the same as the day before. We walked to a cafe, had lunch, and continued to the Rocks, where the opera house is located. On our way, we went to the obervatory, a green grassy hill looking over sydney harbor, sitting for an hour or so, writing postcards and enjoying the balmy winter weather (which is something I rarely can say I can do). We walked to the Opera house and tried to get tickets for a show, but one was sold out and the other cancelled for lack of ticket sales. We grabbed some snacks (sushi) and walked to the harbor to catch a ferry to Darling Harbor. The ferry, at $5.20 AUD a ticket, is a nice cheap way to see the harbor. It took us about a half hour to get to Darling Harbor, and our first stop was the maritime museum, which was free admission. It had quite a few interesting artifacts in it, including original pieces from some of Captain Cook’s original voyage. Outside the museum were several ships, including a submarine, a warship of the 20th century, and a recreation (full size) of captain cook’s ship the Endeavour. The ship was quite large, and being the age of sail junkie I am, I naturally wanted to check it out, but it had closed only minutes before. The museum itself was only open until 5 pm, so we only spent about 45 minutes in it. Afterwards we walked back to our hostel. A few days later, we were back in Hamilton, ready to depart on our next adventure, which I will write about in the future.

Days 112-118

This week has been one of few distractions or events. Sunday I had a small get together officially for my birthday- it included a meal at the only Mexican restaurant in Hamilton (which was down a dark alley- it looked like every free meal would come with a complimentary mugging). The meal was great- and though it took much longer to make and was more expensive than it would be at home, I didn’t mind. I was surrounded by friends whom I loved and cared about, and likewise cared about me. While I was basking in this social happiness, I closed my eyes, and everything felt fundamentally right. I felt as if everything had aligned, and I was simultaneously reliving my past and embarking on an exciting new adventure. In a word, I could close my eyes and feel like I was home. Home. What a concept. Is it where we live, or where we are happiest? Can home really be constrained to a physical location, or is it something more? Is it a mental state inside ourselves? Is our true home our soul? Is home a house, a family, a familiar scent or breeze of wind, or is home a table halfway around the world, full of friends sharing jokes and letting laughter seep out into the cold night air? I can’t tell you. Perhaps home is something we each need to define for ourselves, but on Sunday, I could tell you exactly what home was for me. I could close those eyes and be home. I could be whenever I wanted, any time I desired- I could be last Christmas, or a hot day in July, or the first day of school. I could be at thanksgiving dinner or mother’s day. Maybe what I shared was just that feeling of intense… correctness, the knowledge that this is one of those fragrant life moments that I can look back on for years to come and never forget. Perhaps that is what links all of those memories I have when I close my eyes. Perhaps that is home.

I’ll get off my philosophical pedestal now.

The few days to follow were filled with little of importance. I have no exams until the 24th, which means studying before the 14th would be useless- I need to keep a constant flow of information going through my head in order to be effective, and I think that 10 days for 2 exams is already more than enough time. The week has been filled with sleep ins, trip planning, and relaxation. One could say I am mentally preparing for my soon to be stressful endeavor.
One thing I did do was visit the Hamilton gardens with a really good friend of mine, Anna. The Hamilton gardens are a collection of gardens in styles from around the world. There is a Japanese garden, an English garden, a Chinese garden, an American garden (which looked like someone vomited new age pop art over a block of downtown inner city Newark that had been abandoned for 40 years), an Italian/Greco garden, and an Indian garden. There were also a few other gardens (including a Maori garden, which was literally a pile of dirt. It made the American garden look like someone committed new age pop art over a block of lush, downtown San Francisco. Anna and I walked around, and I marked each garden on overall coolness, tranquility, beauty, originality, thematic elements, etc. The winner was the Indian garden (which was a large courtyard with 4 quadrants of flowers, with the Greco and Chinese gardens tying for 2nd place (the Chinese garden had an awesome hobbit hole type thing). Anna and I then walked to the river and had a good deep conversation until I could no longer feel my hands. Few things make me as happy at the end of a day than a really deep, meaningful and rewarding conversation with a friend.
I also took an evening and walk around the campus with a friend of mine to do some urban exploration- going to areas you normally wouldn’t think of. We walked up outer staircases on one of the blocks just to see the view- something I normally would not do, but I realized how beautiful the view is at night. Half the campus can be seen just from that one spot. The entire idea is to get a new perspective on things, a new viewpoint. We walked around for a few hours, until early morning, and it was great. This is a friend I normally don’t get much time to talk to, and it sure beat the pants off of sitting down and watching a movie, being antisocial.
The week has also been filled with a game I know I have described before, called ‘Who am I?’. The rules are simple. Each person chooses a famous person, Ex. Albert Einstein. I write his name on a sheet of paper, and give it to the person on my left. They stick the paper to their forehead- now everyone can see who they are except them. You can only ask yes or know questions to figure out who you are, and the questions go to the next person when one of your questions is answered as ‘no’. Example:
Am I am man? Yes.
Am I European born? Yes.
Am I Dead? Yes.
Was I known for music? No.
(goes on to next person). First person to figure out their person wins!

This game is incredibly simple but addictive- it is exceptionally fun and can get very challenging. People get very heated when they can’t think of who they are, and we often find ourselves saying ‘just one more game’. One night we played for 5 hours.

So, as you can see, my life here the past week has been fairly low key. If the weather was better or I was better equipped, I would travel, but circumstances just weren’t great for it. I will be traveling starting the 25th, all the way until the 31st of July, when I fly out.

I can’t help but think that after everything I have been through here, I am going to go home, sit down on my bed, and look at all of this as I would a dream. An entire semester, half a year, around the world, and I have come right back where I began. I already know it will be a powerful and surreal experience- but I also know I’ll come back some day, here to these islands. A seed has been planted- I can’t stay away.

P.S. A small update on swine flu. Level 6 pandemic level has been reached. The Waikato region of NZ has been affected, but minorly. I know that New Hanover county, where UNCW (my home university) is situated, has also had cases. Apparently if the infection makes it’s way into the halls here at Uni of Waikato, the containment procedures are fairly extreme- the uni shuts down, domestic students are sent home, internationals stay and are cooked frozen meals until it blows over. This is not an official statement, but I heard it from a source I consider reliable. I imagine it will only be a matter of time before the university gets hit- whether I am here or not, who knows. Apparently estimates in the newspaper today expect 50% of the nation’s population to get the virus in the next 2 years. It is pretty incredible how quickly information travels and situations can develop. 30,000 cases, 74 countries. That’s pretty impressive.

Days 105-111: Birthday Week

So this past week was my birthday week! It wasn’t wild or crazy, but it was kind of busy. Allow me to elaborate:
The first part of the week was mainly working on assignments- My photography exhibition was on Thursday, so I spent a good deal of time scanning my physical prints in, digitizing them, and perfecting them in photoshop. I then got them printed out (A3 prints, 11 by 16 inches, in high quality full color for 60 cents each? Yes please!) and mounted. Our last class day was spent sipping champagne and listening to classical music, reminiscing about deadlines and stressing out. Liquor ban, eat your heart out. It was one of the best last days of class I have had.
Wednesday was my birthday! It was naturally preceded by Tuesday, which was not my birthday. It was on Tuesday I got my first birthday gift, from my good friend Anna. Anna is an interesting friend of mine- she is an RA, and thus is very responsible. In order to balance out her maturity, she often acts very childish, tapping people on the opposite shoulder to get them to look the wrong way and engaging in fanciful waves from great distances. Naturally, she got me a very childish gift in order to balance out my coming of age. I got a knock on my door right after midnight (my first technical minutes as a 21 year old), and had a gift shoved in my hand. Inside were two things: A set of cling- on pirate stickers (currently sticking to my windows and mirrors in my room) and a small wooden model pirate ship (ages 5+). Naturally, I was ecstatic. I played with the stickers and talked to Anna for hours (a naturally unhealthy habit that keeps me up until sunrise on some mornings) and finally went to sleep.
I woke up on my birthday to more gifts. I won’t go into them all, but they included a lot of chocolate, Guinness (YES), a small yard glass, a box of 30 ice cream cones (from a lactose-intolerant German girl, go figure) and other random bits and pieces, including some very nice cards. My Canadian friend gave me sunshine for the day- the weather could not have been nicer. I spent the day relaxing, staying in a hammock, not doing a whole heck of a lot, and loving it. That night a few friends and I went to an Irish pub we had hit up months before- it has a real pub atmosphere, and we were naturally the only students there. After a few rounds (all the good stuff, Guinness, cider, and Speight’s, a local NZ brand), we went to the bakehouse, a 24-7 bakery, and got some good eats. My birthday was low key and very enjoyable.
Thursday was a surprising day- normally it is my hardest, with class all day. Today, however, it was short with only 1 hour of class. I used this to my advantage to sleep in on my birthday. Oh yeah, it was still my birthday. One of the perk of living halfway around the world is that when you have your birthday, it starts on your time and ends at your home time. So, while I may not have had a massive thrashing party with dancing girls and beer kegs, I did have 40 hours of relaxation and enjoyment. I worked on some assignments, but otherwise didn’t have a terribly eventful day.
Friday likewise was less than… monumental. The three perks of the day were getting an assignment back (A+), hanging out on a stoop, and going to physio. At physiotherapy, to make my appointment time I had to run. Those of you who know me know that I have never been able to run a mile- my foot drops and I fall. I was astonished to not have this impending feeling of doom as I ran, that my foot was about to fall. I eventually did reach physio on time, and instantly told Jill, my physiotherapist. She told me to try and run a mile when I got back, so I did.

For the first time in my life, I ran a mile. The feeling was exhilarating. I decided that instead of doing cross training anymore, I would do running instead. The next day I ran an 8 minute mile (pretty good, considering that my last best time for a mile was in the 10th grade at 13 or 14 minutes). I decided to run 2 in a row, taking exactly 16 minutes. I have no clue where this falls on the fitness scale, but it was exciting. Have I found a passion I have thought so many others crazy for holding? Time will tell, I guess. For now though, the prescription from the physio is to keep it up, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

My third good thing about the day was me sitting on a stoop with friends for over an hour, just hanging outside for no good reason. I felt like a city kid.

Friday was the engineering boat race- engineering students have been working on boats all semester, and it took place at the pond on campus. Both costumes and large crates of beer were encouraged. What did I do? I dressed up as a pirate. Naturally. I and a friend of mine dressed up, brought large sticks, and had swordfights on the opposite side of the lake in between races. It was totally juvenile and lots of fun.

Saturday included little except a visit to an art gallery showing scale models of Leonardo Da Vinci’s most famous inventions, including flying machines, war machines, and more (not to mention the first bicycle). The genius of the man is astonishing. Later that night me and Bryce went out to do some light graffiti, where one takes a long exposure picture of a subject, and then by manipulating light sources, is able to create an image similar to graffiti without damaging property. We spent most of the night walking around town, but did get a few cool shots near some abandoned buildings and in a graveyard. After a ton of walking we called it a night.

Days 96-104: Enter Witty Title Here

I have an excuse for why I haven’t updated- classes are about to be over, and I had such an awesome weekend that I wanted to do it justice with a real post, not a pansy half post. Real posts, however, take time.
On Friday me and my dive mates went with the uni scuba club up to Tutukaka, up in the bay of Islands region of New Zealand. It was about a 5-6 hour trip up through Auckland. There were green hills and lush grass, as through all of Waikato. We got there and settled into our accommodation, which was a 12 person bunk cabin. We made dinner and went to the local place to watch the rugby game- Waikato Chiefs (yeah!) versus the Wellington Hurricanes. It was the first rugby game I had ever watched, and it was intense. The temperature was about freezing point, so when the teams fought for the ball (the scrum) the steam from them collectively rose as if the field was on fire. These ethereal ghosts wisped away as the plays continued. With 3 or so minutes to go, the Hurricanes had the ball and were only 5 meters or so from scoring, and that score would give them the lead. A fogbank rolled in instantly- within 20 seconds the field went from totally clear to so obscured that the only people who could see the game were the players actually playing it. The cameras couldn’t see anything, nor could the fans. The game was broadcast from a camera on the field. The Chiefs won- they will play in the finals in South Africa for the first time ever.
Saturday we had our first dive. The site we were diving is known as the Poor Knights Islands, and they have an awesome history. Allow me to enlighten you.

The first picture of me diving ever!


In 1823, the Maori chief of the tribe living on the islands decided to join other chiefs and their warriors to fight a war in the Waikato area. The chief and all the warriors left, while the women, children and elderly stayed behind. A slave from a neighboring mainland tribe was able to steal a canoe and escape during this time. He paddled the 22km to the mainland, and alerted his tribe how he had been mistreated, and how easy it would be to take the islands. The tribe attacked the Poor Knights Islands, slaughtering everyone except for the Chief’s wife and son, who were taken into slavery. The chief, upon return, saw the destruction and declared the islands sacred. It has been illegal to touch foot on them ever since. No one has lived there in almost 200 years.
Our first dive of the day was a series of underwater pinnacles (rock columns) called Trevor’s rock. The area was covered in kelp, clear blue water, nudibranchs, scorpionfish, moray eels, and tons of other organisms I won’t bore you with.

We swam under submarine arches, relaxed on the bottom, and had an awesome dive. The second dive of the day was called meditation wall, and I see why- it was colorful, full of life, and totally serene. There was even an undersea cave, but I did not enter- I don’t like overhead environments, and so I won’t dive in them.
Our second dive took us to the best dive spot on the Poor knights, and often considered the best dive in New Zealand- northern arch. The northern arch is an archway that is perhaps 10 meters across at the surface, but once you go underwater a few meters, the arch flares out to become much wider. It was breathtaking, literally. So literally, in fact, that one of our group had to surface without stopping to decompress because he used up air too quickly- as a result, we didn’t get to spend much time in the arch at all. It was astounding what I did see, however.

Our last dive was called Ann’s rock, and it was another undersea pinnacle. This time, we descended to 18 meters (60 feet) and began a spiral ascent, seeing everything that grew on the walls of the pinnacle. It is here that I, for the first time ever, got to handle an underwater video camera. The following is what you would have seen if you were me on Ann’s rock.



In some of the shots the fish look as if they are moving down and the entire shot looks like it is on its side, but it is not. Ann's Rock is an almost vertical surface, but it looks horizontal. The shots of nothing but blue are looking straight down- we couldn't see the ocean floor.

After the 4th dive, we visited Riko Riko cave, the largest sea cave in the world, at 8 million cubic feet. The boat easily fit inside the cave. It receives almost no direct sunlight- all light is reflected from the water into the cave, resulting in ferns that grow and hang from the ceilings. The water is crystal blue, the cave walls are every color of the rainbow, and they are filled with glowworms. Bands have played here, Maori have done haka here, Japanese submarines have repaired here, even a man brought submersible speakers here and played music- just to watch the dolphins come in and swim to it. The acoustics are fantastic. I want to be there now instead of writing this.




The cave photos were taken by me. The undersea photography was done by Brice (AKA Frenchie), my dive buddy. The underwater video was all my work.

Needless to say, the trip was… unforgettable.

Sunday night we made dinner and called it an early night. We got up at 5 or 6 am on Monday to make the half day trek back to Hamilton. When we returned we got unpacked and I went to class. The leaves falling and the scent of autumn in the air, combined with my supreme feeling of rightness, reminded me of when I was at NCSSM junior year, when all felt right. I love that sensation- it makes me strangely and happily nostalgic. Monday carried this feeling with it.

Tuesday was another good day- I got my photography assignment back, and I was given an A+. I worked long nights, weekends and lunch periods in the chemical soaked darkroom to get these assignments and shots exactly how I wanted them. I sacrificed time with friends and sleep to make them perfect. I wanted that A+, and I totally earned it. I felt like I was walking on air when I left that class. The rest of Tuesday was good as well.

Wednesday was filled with work, but not much else. Thursday was also filled with assignments and labs, and also was the day I took my SCUBA rescue diver certification test. I needed an 88 to pass, and luckily soared on by with a 92. All I need to do now is fill out some paperwork and get my first aid class in, and I will be golden! We went out to town on Thusrday, and we had a good time dancing- but due to my back acting up, I took off fairly early and went to bed.

Friday I went to physiotherapy (where I learned that I am likely going to have to do daily stretches and exercises the rest of my life to keep my back from shutting down). I then proceeded to spend 2 hours in a studio doing a photo shoot for a friend of mine- this was not for any classes or anything else- it is just good practice for me, and good pictures for my friend. I really, really enjoyed it, and I think this is a good sign in my steps to becoming better at photographing people. This experience is important for me. After the photoshoot, Fabian, Jens and I went out for a drink and some appetizers at a local place called Iguana. The music was awesome, the food delicious, and the atmosphere perfect. It was classy yet relaxed, a place where you could dress up if you wanted to, but you didn’t have to. One thing I have noticed here (and this is one of a very long list) is that it is quite a bit more expensive to eat out here than it is back home. I can count the amount of times I have eaten out while here in New Zealand on one hand- most of that is because my meals are covered by the cantine, but it also is because New Zealanders cook a lot more here than we Americans do back home. In fact, I know a few chefs that I have met here, who cook amazing dishes just to do it. I miss the food from home, but It is a paltry thing to long for in the midst of so much beauty here. Friday night I spent up staying up way too late hanging out with an RA I know. I love the RA’s here because they know that us internationals aren’t first year students- they know that we (for the most part) are responsible and mature, and thus they treat us as such. I am happy to say that many of the RA’s in Student Village have also become awesome, awesome friends of mine.

Saturday I woke up early and went with my German friend Jens (from the South Island trip) and we went to the local market here in Hamilton. In this market are local stands filled with all sorts of things- the entire market had a heavily Maori influence- me and Jens were definitely in the minority, and it was really cool. I actually have come to really love the Maori culture, and I feel that I am beginning to understand some of the contemporary issues that surround it; nonetheless, I love the Maoris I have met and know they will stay good friends for a long time.

The stands had anything from food, to groceries, to clothing, to toys, to bone and greenstone carvings. Jens and I easily spent 2 hours (and a good chunk of change, we left when he was broke) at this market, and I would happily go back, just to look at the work again. Most of the stuff was really reasonably priced, and I got a few good deals… but you will just have to wait until I return to see what I got!

Saturday afternoon was spent watching movies (as it was a rainy day and I had tons of work to do). I generally do not like watching movies here- I feel I am wasting my time- but sometimes one gets so tired and lazy during a rainy day that a movie seems the best way to relax. We watched Slumdog Millionaire, and it was a really good movie. At least twice, the tension was so palpable that I could feel my heart racing, with me and Zia shouting at the screen. That’s a good sign of an awesome movie, I’d say. After the movie we had dinner, and I proceeded to spend the rest of the day just veggin’ out, doing nothing but hanging out with friends, just like I used to do before life seemed to get so hectic. I, of course, got nothing done, but it was everything I needed and thought it could be.

Days 86-95: A super busy week

So, this past week has been amazingly busy. I had a biochemistry test on Monday, on the Electron Transport chain, Beta oxidation, Oxidative Phosphorylation, Lipid and carbohydrate biosynthesis, release and uptake… you get the point. I spend literally my entire weekend in the cafeteria, where there are whiteboards for announcements. We would get in early after breakfast, use the whiteboards, study all day, take breaks for lunch and dinner (where people were giving us funny looks for what we had drawn up on the boards, entire diagrams of how electrons move in cells, and other unintelligible things) Friday, Saturday, Sunday and half of Monday were taken up on this. As soon (and I literally mean right after) as I finished my test, I ran to the darkroom and started working on my pieces for my second photography assignment. I will post them up once I put up my exhibition pieces, but they are all thematic- they deal with seeing biology in everyday life, and seeing everyday life in a biological context. I spent all my free time Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday working on this project. I have 24 hour Darkroom access, so I worked until early in the morning hours a few times. All the security guards know me by first name, and a few are photographers. So, as you can see, there hasn’t been much to write about or much time to write about the nothing I have to write about. I will write about this, though:
I am beginning to miss home. I don’t miss my house as much as I miss North Carolina. I don’t want to pick up and go home by any means (I am in love with this country way too much) but I appreciate more every day how lucky I am to live where I do. Two things have catalyzed this feeling. The first is that I have started going through photos of home, to edit them. I have about 8000 pictures, and I want to slim it down to maybe 2000 (a lot are duplicates). So, going through them has reminded me of the beauty of my state. The second is my civil war class- we watch a lot of movies and documentaries, where the misty green hills of the south are illuminated by sunrise. I miss the southern drawl the historians have as they describe a war that almost tore our country in twain. I miss the southern accent, despite how annoying it sometimes get, it has a sort of congenial warmth I miss. I am not regretting staying here in the least, but it makes me proud to be a North Carolinian. To take a quote from a friend:

“The red clay of North Carolina runs through my veins.”

How true. Once a Carolinian, always a Carolinian.

Day 85: Dylan’s birthday

Dylan is one of my friends here, from NY state. He turned 20 today, and as a result we had a little celebration for him. After a long day of class (which was mind draining) some of our group started cooking for Dylan and the rest of us, with the groceries I had bought the day before. By the end we had 2 chicken pasta bakes, baked potato, and pineapple for desert. It felt good to have home cooked food again. After dinner, we went to our friends room and gave Dylan his gifts, which included a necklace with a strawberry on it (as he dressed up as a strawberry for a party at the start of the year, he never really got over the stigma), and a bottle of Jagermeister. We were all in these rooms, having a few drinks and wishing Dylan a happy birthday, when we decided to play a game I hadn’t played since my high school days, during the winter months at Cold Stone Creamery. The game is simple: write the name of a famous person on a scrap of paper- give it to the person next to you, without them looking at it. Take the paper that you have received, lick it, and stick it to your forehead. Everyone now knows who you are except you. Then, by answering yes and no questions only you must determine who you are. The game is exceptionally fun, but I came in last place (I had a crappy person, Matt Damon). Other people had Napoleon, Jesus, Albert Einstein, Stalin, and Gandhi, among others.
After our game, we decided to go to town to celebrate the birthday. Two interesting things happened while we were there- first of all, our bus driver looked very familiar. In fact, he looked almost identical to Jermaine Clement, from Flight of the Conchords.

Jermaine is the one on the right. Our bus driver had the glasses and all.
Once we were in town, we went to a student club that we frequent. The running joke among us is that the clubs all over NZ play only 11 songs, and they take about an hour to repeat. This night they added a 12th song to the list: I think it is something along the lines of “I’m on a boat”. This has been a pretty popular song in the past few months, but I can’t help but cringe at the fact it is escaping beyond the realm of the internet scene, where I am sure it was made as a joke. Go look it up on YouTube if you want- but I warn you: it contains really strong language, and repetitive, idiotic yet strangely catchy lyrics. If you do know what song I am talking about, then kick your head back in laughter at the mental image of 150 people shouting at the top of their lungs “I’m on a BOAT! I’m on a BOAT! Take a look at me I’m on a ************* BOAT!” while bobbing to the beat. The night ended up being pretty fun, despite the constant rain. Dylan enjoyed himself.

Days 83-84: Getting back into things

So, Tuesday was a pretty uneventful day. I got some work done, worked with my first film shot on Saturday, and did a bit of studying for my Rescue Diver test scheduled for Wednesday. Later that night I shot my second film of the project with one of my subjects, models, whatever you want to call them. The focus of the main piece was about breast cancer, and ideas I really want to develop with it. I got a pitiful amount of work done the rest of the night.

Today I woke up to Waikato weather- during the winter, it gets chilly, but not piercing cold. The lowest temperatures here are around freezing. Winter is more like the rainy season here- for days it has been partially overcast, raining a few times an hour then stopping. This is normal, from what I have been told.
Anyway, I woke up and began to study for this SCUBA test. I spent the entire day working on the rescue diver manual. My first reaction was that I was a fool for putting this off so much- there is so much to know, and no possible way to determine it all in only one day. This would take at least a week of constant preparation to understand, and months to master. I slaved over the book, absorbing every detail as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Night came, and it was time to go and test my skills. I walked a half hour in rain, at night, to get to the dive shop. I arrived precisely at the appointed time. I was one of 3 people there.

Thanks to my wonderful, glorious, amazing internet service here, I did not receive a fairly critical email that notified the rest of the class that the test had been postponed a week to next Wednesday. Half relieved, half annoyed, I trudged back a half hour through the dark rain to uni. I used the rest of my night to study for an impending biochemistry test (on Monday) and developed the film I had shot the night before. On my walk back from the education building (where the security guards know me by heart since I am in there more nights than not, working on photography), I was listening to classical music, and walked past an artistically lit pond that I cross every day and most nights. I realized I was in no real hurry to get back to my room. I began to slow my pace, began to meander a bit. Perhaps it was just the music, or mood I was in, or the fact that my back was killing me, but I decided to lay on a raised portion of the wooden boardwalk and watch the stars as I listened to Anton Dvorak’s 7th symphony. Sipping the crisp autumn air, listening to an energetic symphony poorly chosen for something as passive as stargazing, a sense of peace and happiness came over me. Ask yourself, how often do you look up, stop everything you are doing at a whim, and stare at the unobstructed night sky? It is humbling. We go about our days and nights, our busy schedules and dramatic existences, and still the stars burn. They look down on us with constant and cold eyes, distant observers in a universe so old and vast that some of them have already winked away, unbeknownst to us. They sit, day after day, night after night, millennia after millennia. It makes one want to take life just the slightest bit slower. It made my night better.

Tomorrow is my busy day, with obligations from sun up (okay, 9 am) to sundown. Every assignment creeps the tiniest bit closer, but I think I’ll take it one step at a time. The assignment will get done, and the stars will still burn as bright as ever. No point in adding stress.

Days 69-82: My apologies

When I began this blog, I promised myself (and a few of you) I would update every day, to imitate the valorous ones who had done so before me. Well, as can be seen, I have failed in that promise. I would like to make excuses, and say that my internet has been down, that I have been too busy, or that I have had nothing to write about, but those all would be lies. The truth is, no matter what I do, sometimes I just don’t feel like sitting down and writing about it after a long day. Let me tell you, the days here are long. I often (especially when traveling) look back at the end of the day and wonder if what happened in the morning really was the same day. Here I will make a rather pitiful (though full hearted) attempt to remember the important features of the past 2 weeks. Here goes nothing…

My last post was on the 30th of April. On the weekend (the 2nd and 3rd of May) I began training to become an SSI certified rescue diver. The training involved an all day pool session on Saturday, with a trip to a lake in the Rotorua region on Sunday. We worked on rescuing panicked divers, unconscious divers, and tired divers. We learned to improvise on the fly, how to take control of a situation, and various other useful skills. The lake itself was freezing- the water was in the upper 50’s (think winter swimming in Wilmington) and we were in it for several hours. The wetsuits were absolutely necessary- without them, we all would have become hypothermic and died, and that would probably reflect badly on the instructor. After working out some skills at the lake, the instructor threw some surprises our way. First, while we were eating lunch on the shore, 2 of our team slipped off, got on gear, and jumped in the water. They swam out and began to ‘panic’. All of a sudden we had a group of inexperienced rescuers without gear on who had to go get these two before they passed out or drowned. I was the first one to be ready: and when I mean ready, I mean I had on fins and a woefully inadequate half of an under layer wetsuit on. I swam out in the freezing cold water with almost no gear, calmed diver number one, and began to tow her back. I got switched out to a properly equipped diver, and got up to help bring them to shore. This was the easy task we had to do (and this wasn’t just me acting, this was the entire team). Later on, we went out for paired dives with our buddies. Surfacing, we saw a panicked diver in the distance- her mask was on her forehead (a big no no) and she was flailing about. Again, me and my partner got to her first (as we were the first to surface) and found out her dive buddy was missing. Let me just say that the visibility of this lake was about 6 feet- any further and everything became murk. To find an unconscious diver underwater, with no visibility in an area a hundred meters or more on each side is HARD, let me tell you. Eventually after towing the first diver back to shore and calling an ambulance to treat her for shock, I stood on shore and looked for bubbles, the only way you can really find a diver instead of finding a body. Eventually we found the bubble stream and brought the diver to the surface, at which point she stopped breathing. We had to tow her to shore while giving rescue breaths, bring her up to dry land, and administer oxygen. We had ‘saved’ her- but it was a sobering experience that truly gave us an appreciation for how much could go wrong so quickly.
Our dive group was quite diverse, and included members from NZ, USA, France and Germany. I found the course (which isn’t finished yet) quite useful- I actually feel that I was unsafe diving before having started it, and I am sure that I will feel even more safe and secure underwater than before. In fact, I think my next step will be to be oxygen certified, so that if someone needs it I’ll be able to administer it without blowing everyone up.
After this tiring weekend was a week full of class. I had to turn in one paper, but not much else happened. On Thursday (day 75) a bunch of us hung out and had a few drinks at a friend’s flat- it was a nice relaxing night in the midst of stressing about photography and chemistry. This was only the beginning of a very good weekend.
Friday me and a few friends watched two very good films. The first was a German film called The Lives of Others, about East Germany in the 1980’s. It was an absolutely mesmerizing film- it was exceptionally long, but good. It took us over an hour to prepare for the film, because the dvd player would not work correctly. We tried to sort it out for 20 mintues, then failed. We eventually decided to play it through a computer onto the TV, so 45 minutes, 3 laptops, a VGA cable and very damaged speakers later, we had the movie running- on half of the screen. After we got it sorted and ate a snack, we watched The Boondock Saints, my favorite film. This viewing marked the 19th time I had seen the film, and I still will gladly see it 19 times more. The scary bit about it, though, is that now I can recite pretty much the entire movie by heart. It is so incredibly good.
Saturday, I did quite a few things. I used the early afternoon doing a photoshoot for my photography class, developing some ideas. The first half of the afternoon actually was spent developing my ideas, as I spent 2 hours with my models doing shots and then subsequently finding that I had no film in my camera- how I missed this crucial step can only be explained by my absentmindedness. I ran back, reshot the poses, and got even better shots than I anticipated. Once again, I am excited to work in photography. Saturday, I had promised I would go out with some people who live on my floor (they went out Thursday and were disappointed I was not going out with them then). We went to a local club called the Outback, which is split into two different parts. They had rented out half of the venue, which was awesome. We stayed late into the night, and it sure was interesting. I went in knowing only one or two people, and left after being initiated into about 3 families. By the end, several people I had talked to for hours (about everything from fireworks to evolution’s role in religion) had started calling me their brother, and introducing me to more people as such. It was fun because it was a true experience for me- I was the only non New Zealander there that I could tell (until later in the night at least), and I really feel like I connected with several people on several levels. It was the highlight of the weekend.
On Sunday, about 25 people from Student Village went to Waihi beach and a nearby gorge for Mother’s day. It was something I decided to do because, among other reasons, I needed to be around people and occupied on that day. We drove in a very bumpy route, and stopped at a gorge that used to be host to gold mines. We walked through the completely black tunnels, with nothing to light our way. My geologist friend marveled at the mineral deposits in the rocks (there were geodes sticking out the side of the rock walls that you could take out if you had the right tools). In the middle of the gorge was a flowing river, deep at some points with pits from erosion, littered with rapids and boulders. It was a refreshing scene.
After this we went to Waihi beach. After a non-wetsuit swim in 59 degree water, we went along looking for shells. The sheer abundance and diversity boggles the mind- back home, people will be walking early at the morning to get shells that here would be so subpar you wouldn’t even give them a second glance. Here, if you pick up a shell and it isn’t perfect, you can just toss it away- there are 200 more literally within an arm’s length that will suit you just fine. I have been coming back from every beach trip with shells, every inland trip with rocks. This can’t be healthy. On the beach we also caught dinner- Pipi, a type of burrowing bivalve. We gathered a few dozen and later cooked them up. After the beach, we went to some local hot pools- for 7 bucks, you could go into a series of pools of varying degrees of temperature that got their water from a geothermically active spring 200 meters below. It was quite the day- I was so relaxed on the way home that I just fell straight asleep. To finish off the weekend, I caught up with a few friends and watched a series called ‘Black Books’, a British comedy. I don’t watch TV anymore- I find that it takes away time I could better use to things that aren’t as passive- but this show is hilarious. The humor is so incredibly dry (my style) that I was in stitches for 3 hours. I highly recommend it.
Monday was full of work, a ‘top secret’ project, and a few bits and pieces, including *gasp* lecture. I have a test next Monday that promises to be a killer, so I guess I have some work to do.

Days 60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68- Slacking off

So, you’ve read this far? You still want more, do you? You haven’t had enough? Alright, fine. I’ll give you even more. I’ll write until your eyelids close, until your head begins to dip, until you are fast asleep, drooling all over that fancy keyboard of yours. How will I accomplish this? I’ll cram 8 days into one post, of course.

Seriously though, I do actually have some stuff to write about. On return, I found that our rooms had been bombed for bedbugs. Right before we left for break, there was a small outbreak in our pod, but it got chemically treated. As a result, all of my food, electronics and clothes were in separate plastic bags on my bed, and my room had never looked cleaner.
Tuesday we had no class, as it was Kingitanga day, the Maori King’s birthday. This gave me a day to recover from my trip, get sorted, and ready for class. I had already missed a lecture by returning on Monday, but it’s only biochemistry. No big deal, right? Wrong.
Turns out that after a half semester, the professor for our biochemistry class switches. Out old lecturer, the dry yet incredibly humorous (unintentionally) professor who has spent his life researching honey, was gone. I missed him- I had gotten used to his teaching style and wit, and if anyone knows me, I freak out the first part of each semester as I try to determine the teaching style and grading style of each professor I have. Now, as the professors switch, I lose that inherent familiarity, and it makes me uncomfortable. Walking into class on Wednesday gave me a taste of what I was in for. Enter power points, overhead slides, whiteboard drawings, notes, printed lectures, lecture books, and of course, the textbook. Unlike the first part of the semester, this would require nightly revision and hours in the library. Luckily, I have the time and the willpower. After all, metabolic pathways won’t learn themselves, will they? No, they won’t. Metabolic pathways are lazy as.
Thursday was a day for developing photography ideas. I turned in (frantically) my first project before leaving for south island. Now, on return, I had to begin brainstorming for project 2. I decided I wanted to take a certain direction with this second photographic process. I wanted to shoot people- not with guns, but with a camera. I have never been good at capturing people in photography- those of you close to me, or those of you who have ever posed in front of my lens know this. I decided that here, now, is the perfect time to develop that skill. I know where I need improvement- in creative thought and in assertion of that thought. I want to be able to tell people exactly how and where to pose, why to make a certain face or turn their head. I want to tell them when they’ve got it right and when they’ve got it wrong. I want to be able to control the frame as I can with a still life, with a sunset or a landscape. I want to turn people into a medium I can control. I personally find it the most difficult subject to take, but the most important. People are emotion- they are what we connect to as fellow human beings, and thus I think they give us the strongest weapon we can have as photographers. They allow us to connect with the soul of our audience, through laughter, tears, pain, strength, wit, creativity, and energy. We can portray in one photograph the entire span of human emotion. While a picture of a flower or a waterfall can portray majesty, beauty or even awe, it seems to fall short. These photos have a place, of course. It’s just that I feel my house has become too small. I have become to comfortable doing what I do, and I want to step out. I want to get uncomfortable and grow, and let my work grow. So, as you can see, I am pretty passionate about this new project of mine. The question is, where do I get the models? I have the ideas- pieces about the circular nature of life, about religion, science, drugs, cancer, death, life, joy, wit, communism, and a few that are just meant to make you think ‘what the hell?’ yeah, a few of my ideas I created just to mess with my audience. Whether those particular pieces become reality though, the next few weeks will tell.

Wednesday and Thursday were fairly uneventful. Friday likewise was uneventful. The past week I have been hit by a serious of lethargic, rainy, depressing days. They were long yet gulped up in an instant at the same time. My desire to do everything, anything, faded. This occasionally happens to me- I will get in a funk, and become unproductive. Luckily, not much was breathing down my neck, so there weren’t bad side effects. Every time I get in a rut like this, something different pulls me out. Sometimes it is friends, or a book, or music. This time it was work. Sometimes, after a few weeks of vacation, nothing feels better than pulling out that biology book and getting to work. It feels good to get the hands dirty, to tell someone ‘sorry, but I can’t hang out- I have to study’. Call me a nerd, but it makes me feel busy and important, and that completely counteracts and neutralizes any feeling of inadequacy or lethargy I accumulate.

Saturday was ANZAC day. ANZAC stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corps. The day commemorates the day the soldiers sent to war during WWI (in 1915) landed at Gallipoli. The day is marked by dawn services across the country (and Australia too). It is like our independence day, but more solemn. There are no cheers or drinking or baseball games. There are salutes, and ‘The Last Post’ is heard echoing through the cemeteries where those soldiers still lie. Stores by law cannot open before 1 pm. I did not take part in any ceremonies or watch any parades. I was in a funk, remember?

Saturday night a bunch of us got together to cook a dinner for Kristen’s birthday, which was over the break (we were in the car all day, probably the most boring day of the trip). To be honest, we decided to do cooking because I missed it. Even being away from a kitchen for a week was getting to me. I fear I may have caught the cooking bug. I guess there are worse hobbies to have, right? After dinner (which took several hours to cook) we went out on the town and danced for hours. We called it a night at 1 am (early nights here, remember?) and went to sleep.

Now I guess I’ll go into something I figure I should write about: the Swine Flu. Now, if you want to stop reading now, that’s fine- I am writing this so that I’ll have a record of this thing if it ever does seem to get out of control. I wish I had written on my first reactions after 9/11, Katrina, the Tsunami, the Washington snipers, and other events I feel have shaped our world in the short time I’ve been on it. If I write about this and it blows over and is forgotten in 3 years, that’s fine with me- no electrons wasted. If, however, this does become a longer hitting news piece, I’ll want to remember how I felt about it now while it was still pretty small. Either way, here goes.
Saturday is when I first heard about this thing. My friend Dylan came up to me and told me about some flu that was spreading from Mexico to America, killing people. I looked it up, and saw no real cause for alarm, but it was still peculiar. It had gotten into the US by this point, April 25. I kept it in the back of my mind.
All throughout Sunday the news began to spread. There were more possible cases of flu in the US, even more in Mexico with the death toll climbing. It started to look like it may be something more than just some media hype. I think it was Sunday that the UK got its first unconfirmed case, meaning it might have slipped over the Atlantic. Well, on Sunday it slipped over the Pacific too- it got to New Zealand. What a peculiar feeling- to see this virus go from my home country all the way to New Zealand, on the other side of the world. It made breaking news here, and friends of mine went to school near or at the school that was infected. People here started to freak out that there might be spreading here in NZ and in the Waikato region, but it didn’t seem that big a deal to me. No deaths or serious complications in people outside of Mexico. Even if it spreads, it seems to me like it will be pretty mild. Maybe that is me being naïve, but I just don’t see that much reason for alarm.
Monday, 2 days ago. Over a dozen countries might have the virus, including Australia, NZ, parts of Europe, America, Canada, and Central/South America. This really began to pique my interest. I began to follow the story closely, and see the infections map pop up over the web. A Newspaper article for the day listed the flu as its main headline, saying Waikato region was going on alert.
Tuesday, yesterday: The main headline reads that 2 people coming back from Auckland have entered Waikato and may be infected. I still can’t believe how quickly this thing has traveled. The idea that this virus, hitting news less than a week ago, may have already made it to my area? In NZ? Luckily, later tests confirm that these 2 do not have the virus. We are flu free for now. The US is not as lucky though- already by this point over a dozen states may have the virus: at least 4 or 5 have it confirmed. Canada has several provinces with confirmed infections. It’s all people are talking about at dinner. Still, I think the media are hyping it up, but they are doing a good job- I am staying interested.
Wednesday: today. Looking up on the internet, I see over 30 countries with possible infections, including 9 confirmed. NZ is now one of these, along with Mexico, US, Canada, UK, Israel, Germany, Spain, and a few others. Most of Europe has possible cases, as does most of South America. The spreading of this thing is starting to get a bit… surprising. It really shows how quickly the world moves its human cargo. Look up a time scale map if you are keen. You will see how quickly these cases pop up. It looks nice and impressive, almost like a coloring book being filled in. The thing that has to be kept in mind is that if a single case in Russia is suspected, all of a sudden a sixth of the world’s landmass turns orange for ‘possible case’. In reality, of the over 200 million people in the country, one person has minor flu symptoms. While these maps are cool, they seem to be a tool for… unsubstantiated drama. They blow this thing out of proportion a bit.
Tonight we had a compulsory swine flu meeting. One of my friends wasn’t there. I later found out that he went to take his friend to the hospital, for flu symptoms. I have heard nothing else except they are both fine, but it leads me to wonder how easy it would be for the flu to get here. Anyway, for anyone that cares, everyone here is fine. I am fine. I see North Carolina may have some cases, New Jersey and New York definitely have some. I’ll be monitoring the progress of this over the next few days, and will probably be writing about it some. I hope nobody minds too much.

Day 59- Our last day in South Island

So, our last day we left for Christchurch, but not before cleaning out my bottle. It was full of mud and rocks, which were easily removed. However, it soon became clear that one rock was too big to come out. That seems rather impossible: how could it have gotten in if it was too big to get out?

Turns out the rock was really a rock crab. The poor little guy went in when he was small, and grew inside the bottle. I tried to take him out, but could not. I decided I would take him with me, filled the bottle with water, and packed him up.

We went into Christchurch for a few hours before our flight, and wandered. We went back to Cathedral square (which has the most beautiful war memorial I have ever seen), and then down to old Otago university, where Ernest Rutherford worked on his theories about the atom (he was a Kiwi scientist, a fact they are quite proud of. He is also on the 100 dollar bill). Before we knew it it was time to go. We boarded our flight (where we got dinner and beer/wine free of extra charge) and were back in Hamilton before we knew it. Thus ended the last day in our massive adventure. As you can imagine, you are tired of reading and I, frankly, and tired of writing. What can I say in summary of this trip?

The trip acted, more than anything, as a sampler of South Island. I now have a list 4 times longer than when I started the trip of things to do. I feel like we traveled around enough to get a taste of the island, but didn’t get the time to really feel at home in any one place. I also feel like we really bonded- by the end of the trip I really felt like a family with these people I came to know. We did everything together- from cooking to traveling. Not once did someone snap at another, something I was fully expecting. There was almost no tension over 18 days.

Something else that struck me about the trip is how it kindled my passion for traveling. I feel like I know nothing about my home country, or even my state now. I want to return and go to Canada, to the Southwest, Louisiana, Utah, Montana, California, Alaska, Massachusetts… I want to see everything. My first thought when I saw those mountains on day 2, after ‘wow’, was ‘now I’m really living’. I still feel that way. It makes me wonder how much time I and other people spend wasting their lives on things so utterly unimportant to them. I am not saying that everyone should go out and see the world- I am just suggesting that you find a passion, and stick to it. Life seems so much better with it. I don’t feel like I am missing out on these experiences anymore, and that is a message I am happy to walk away with.

Day 58- Redefining the nuclear family, and a French Flair

We woke up, had breakfast (we were quickly dwindling on food) and dropped off Dylan and Fabian at the airport. We then drove to a small town called Akaroa, about 70 K’s away from Christchurch. It was something we decided to do on a whim- by word of the Brits we encountered days before, and it was a great suggestion.

A ways through the trip, we reached the highest peak in the area, at a few hundred meters tall. Below us was a pastoral scene- green rolling hills covered in morning sunlight. To the left was a series of gentle mountains, and rolling down them was a thick bank of fog. The low lying clouds were acting like foam from an overfilled beer- they spilled over the crests of the peaks, and into the valley below, keeping right to the ground. They moved so fast that we could see the specters advancing onto the fields below. We sat and watched. It was perfect- it was content. It was out of a movie, or so it seemed.

We drove the rest of the way to Akaroa, and were hit by a feeling of… rightness. Everything was pleasant here. The town was the only French settlement in the country, and the influences are obvious. Nestled in a bay, which itself is nestled in a bay, which itself is on a peninsula forming a bay, Akaroa is a peculiarly situated town. The population could not have been more than 3 or 4 thousand. Sailboats flocked in the quiet harbor. I felt as though I was in an 18th century Caribbean French settlement. The sun was shining, the breeze was light, the grass was green and the water blue. Out of all the places we visited, this was one of my most favorite, because it was just right. There were no extreme mountains or raging rivers- there were no bungee sites or glaciers. It was a pleasant town, and while I normally abhor the idea of a perfect place, I didn’t here. I suppose I tend to associate perfect with boring, but here the two don’t even begin to overlap.
We checked into our hostel, to learn it was the highest rated hostel in all of New Zealand. The beautiful historic farmhouse had large rooms, a pear tree, chestnuts, walnuts, free fruit, right on the coast, with pastoral views on all sides. I wrote a postcard and watched a shepherd herding sheep in front of me. We walked out on the coast, and walked to a peninsula which was originally a Maori Pa, or fortress. Imagine a bay. Jutting out of the bay is a peninsula that is quite large at the tip, but where it meets the mainland it is so narrow that at high tide only a footpath is exposed. This footpath is about 30 feet in the air, with no railings on either side. Drop off, and say hello to a face full of rocks. We didn’t drop, and got to the top. At the summit there was a group of exposed limestone outcrops, similar to a smaller version of Castle hill. We watched the sun set behind the hills, and watched the fog roll in, which it did quickly.
Walking back along the beach, we came across beach glass. I love beach glass, and picked up over 20 pieces. I at last found an entire beach bottle- it had been tossed in the waves, but not recently. It had organisms growing on it- obviously it had been in the sea for awhile. It was full of mud, but I took it back. We went to sleep early that night.

Day 57- Back to Christchurch

We woke up and got on the road again. Today was a long drive- we had to go all the way back to Christchurch, around 400 Kilometers, much of it through windy mountain roads. We stopped for lunch at lake Tekapo, a small settlement on an astoundingly blue lake- there seem to be a lot of those here. We briefly lost Kristen, because she went into a café and met a childhood friend from Minnesota. By this point we were fairly sure that God was playing a practical joke on us- “See, it really is a small world!”. We shook our heads- surprise had turned into expectation.

We eventually made it into Christchurch with a few hours of daylight to spare, and checked into our hostel, which was a historic building. We walked around city center, and saw cathedral square (where there was a fire juggler). I picked up a free book I found on some steps- they were given out all over the city. We wandered through historic squares and streets, and eventually decided to stop for food. We chose Chinese, but barely over a Russian restaurant. After eating (the atmosphere wasn’t great, but the food sure was), we wandered around and decided to visit an Irish pub for a drink. We enjoyed a pint, and on our way out, we hit another preposterous coincidence; we met Mareka, a German exchange student from Student Village- we eat dinner with her at uni more days than not. The chances of seeing this German girl we know, in an Irish pub, in a city of 360,000, is remarkable. It was almost like the icing on the cake for us- just to drive the point home that this was a truly phenomenal series of events. We walked home and slept in the most comfortable beds I had ever laid on. I slept like a baby.

Day 56: Wanna go to Wanaka?

So, the next morning we performed a ritual which by this point was second nature: wake up, pack up, ship out. As with every morning, I was the last one to grumpily awake, eat a quick breakfast, and get rolling. Unlike most mornings though, we had a detour. It was time to go bungee jumping.

We had signed up for the jump the day before, at the first bungee site in either NZ or the world (not sure on the details). It was a 43 (150ft) meter drop to the river below, over an old disused bridge. 4 of us would be jumping- I didn’t dare risk it for fear of my back being injured again, but the other 4 guys were…enthused. As soon as they had paid before there was a range of emotion: Dylan was instantly regretting the outflux of cash, Fabian was immediately regretting that he now had to jump off a bridge, Jens was calling ‘shotgun’ on first jump, and Andrew was stuck in silent contemplation (probably wondering if gravity worked on Canadians).

We drove to the location, which was almost painful in its beauty. The river was a bright aqua blue- the trees on the cliff’s edge had just began to turn, and were a beautiful golden hue. The cliff walls were reflecting the morning sun- it was a perfect day to die… I mean jump- it was the perfect day to jump.

The jump, I was told, was exhilarating. There was no feeling of falling, no pit in your stomach. It was universally described as utter freedom. I wish I had risked it. All 4 jumped, and each had a different style. Jens, the first, silently plunged to the water below, barely missing it- he let out a victory yell. Fabian, second to go, spread his arms, screamed an utterance is German, and succumbed to gravity himself. Dylan, a six foot 200 pound fellow, had the most graceful jump I had ever seen- he dove and almost reached the river, and then began his springy ascent up a few feet. Unlike the others, though, Dylan became an acrobat- he arched his back and sailed through the air. There was every indication this man was flying, with all the confidence of a raptor. He looked over the ground he was defying, and seemed to command the altitude he desired. It was something to behold, especially behind a 200mm camera lens. To round things out, Andrew got on the plank, gave his usual thumbs up, and shouted “To infinity, and Beyond!” before jumping with abandon. He went straight first into the river, and then was yanked back up by the cord, spiraling as water flung from him in every direction. All four styles were unique and wonderful to watch.

After the jumps (totally worth it) we drove among mountains and hills to Wanaka. Wanaka is as beautiful (nearly) as Queenstown, but not nearly as touristy. Also on a lake (Lake Wanaka), the town boasts kayaking, biking, and free glacier trekking/mountain hiking. Fabian and I rented some bikes and took some pictures along the lake- as the sun set between the peaks, it illuminated the far side, which was a series of grassy steppes, unlike anything I had seen before. As we rounded a bend, we then came across a shore that looked like Tuscany (so I was told by Fabian). It still amazes me how quickly the scenery can change here in this country.

After our bike ride (only cost us about $8 USD) we made dinner- salad! We had to hurry, though, because we had a surprise for Dylan and Fabian- something a Canadian we met suggested to us more than a week before. We hit up the cinema.

The Wanaka Cinema is a piece of work- the closest thing I had seen since was Galaxy Cinema in Cary, NC. The entire seating arrangement consisted of armchairs, couches, loveseats, and even an old car (drive in movie, anyone?). It is like sitting at home in your comfy sofa, with a 30 foot TV screen. The place makes food to take in, soda, water, tea, coffee, popcorn, beer, wine, and best of all- cookies. The show (we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) had a 10 minute intermission, which coincided with cookie time. They were soft, gooey, homemade, and giant. This was the best film experience I have had in a good long while. We walked back under the Wanaka stars, talked about physics, string theory, and multiverses (multiple or an infinite amount of universes), and called it a night.

Day 55- Queenstown

We drove the 3 hours to Queenstown, situated on Lake Wakatipu. The drive is what we were used to by this point- majestic peaks descending into crystal clear lakes of a color blue I have only seen in postcards. The lake is long- it took us almost an hour to drive up half of its length to get to Queenstown. It didn’t help that on the way we almost got run over by a house. As we were driving down this narrow 2 lane road (which serves as the main highway), cars ahead of us were passing a truck and pulling onto the grass. Strange. The car then passed us and told us to do the same. We did, and perplexed, saw a utility truck with the strangest sign I have ever seen on top of a pole from the bed: House Follows.

I’m sorry? A house is following you? That sounds like a personal problem. It is here when we see a very stressed looking flatbed towing a very whole house. It is then that we realized this was everyone’s problem. The house was attached to the truck by a few seemingly pitiful cables, and as it neared we noticed it probably wasn’t going to fit, smashing our van to pieces and sending it careening to the lake below, all so that someone could move their domicile to a better location. Luckily, the truck knew what it was doing, and we narrowly missed what was sure to have been an utterly horrendous multinational catastrophe. After that completely bizarre encounter, we were on our way to Queenstown.

The town itself with a population of about 13,000, is labeled as the adventure capital of the world, and it lives up to the name without a doubt. The town itself is not much of an exciting place- out of the whole of the south island I would personally label it (though I would not be the only one to do so) the most ‘touristy’ place. Unlike most of the other towns and locales we had visited, this place had bars upon bars, tons of souvenir shops, more restaurants than there ought to be, and other instruments of a busy society. The streets were packed and fast, and the town itself was quite condensed. The town being unremarkable didn’t bother me much, though- the majesty of the area around me kept my eyes diverted away from civilization. We got in and were immediately struck by the position the town is on the terrain- it is settled in between two mountain peaks, overlooking a placid lake that itself is surrounded by mountain peaks. The lake, which stretches as far as the eye can see left and right, is only a mile or two across. The other side was easily approachable and visible, but uninhabited (which made the view even better in my humble opinion). With only a day in Queenstown, our options for adventure were limited (as was our budget). Kayaking, Skydiving, Jetboating, helicopters, flying, paragliding, and a whole host of other options were cancelled out. We decided in the end to split up. I decided I would hike a small mountain.

I don’t remember the name of the peak, but it was within sight of Queenstown, and was pretty steep. Our initial climb was the hardest- roads that went straight up the slope to the ritzy new developments were the most taxing. Once we were on the trail however, the path flattened out and took a more meandering course. After a 90 minute walk to the summit, I wasn’t ready to call it quits. I said goodbye to my friends who hiked with me, and decided to set out a bit on my own. I found a small narrow footpath, barely large enough to walk on. I later determined it was probably a route for sheep, as this was a farmer’s land that he granted public access to. I walked along this for another 40 minutes or so, simply wandering wherever the path took me. The forest up the other side of the mountain we had hiked (which was reminiscent of Appalachia more so than anywhere else I had yet set foot on) was replaced by rolling, flowing golden grassland. On top of his peak were swamps, ponds and fantastic views. As I rounded the mountain and came to the far side, where Queenstown was just a memory, I was hit by one the most beautiful sights I have ever beheld. The pasture gave way to steep declines, which allowed me to see a rustic mountain valley, bathed in the late afternoon sun. The golden peaks were split in the center by a steep valley, which flattened at the bottom for a few kilometers, then rose itself into a third, middle mountain range. These red peaks were either barren or coated in golden grass plains. The sunbeams were visible- they illuminated the central ridgeline, making the light and shadows in the scene almost palpable. It was a sight to behold- and for once, I am glad I didn’t bring my camera along.

That night in Queenstown we went out to a local bar/pool hall and played a game or two, and met both our friends the Brits from the two days before, and the German Pals of Jens and Fabian. Kristen also made a new friend (as she does everywhere) and we added a Dutch girl to our ensemble. After a night full of conversation (surprisingly deep conversation, I might add) we called it a night.

Day 54- Milford Sound

We woke up early to get to Milford Sound, in Fjordland national park. The drive was only 120km, in 100 kph zones, but it took over 2 hours to get there, because the drive was too beautiful to speed through. We stopped on several occasions to take pictures and enjoy the scenery. Our drive took us through golden plains, rain swelled alpine creeks (which we drank from), moss covered rocks, and glacier topped mountain peaks. We eventually reached the sound, and hit yet another coincidence- Fabian and Jens, our two German companions, met two of their classmates here, literally halfway around the world from Germany. They ended up cruising the sound with us, which was one of the most fun experiences I have done here in NZ. As the ship went out into the sound, the wind immediately picked up. It continued to blow from a breeze to a gale to a force I had never felt before. Standing on the upper deck of the ship, one could lean over perhaps 20 or 30 degrees into the wind and stay balanced due to the force of it pushing on the front of the body. Several of the passengers decided to hop into the air, just to see if the wind would carry them. It certainly did- a vertical jump quickly became a frightening, exhilarating, and probably very stupid horizontal journey as the wind took the people and flew them like kites. They all landed safely only a few feet back, but a few looked as though they may take off for good. To get a taste of really how strong this wind was, two peculiar things happened. First, the wind was blowing across the water so hard that it was literally vaporizing the topmost water layer, then whisking it around and up away from the water line. Another thing that I saw that I never thought I would were waterfalls that went up. As water would fall over these peaks and descend into the sound, they often hit such strong wind that the water never made it to the bottom; they too would vaporize within a few meters of falling. Some waterfalls were in such windy spots, however, that as soon as the water crested over a ridge to fall, it would be blown straight up, creating a strange reverse waterfall. It just seemed to defy logic- it was a surreal feeling.

After the sound tour, we returned to Te Anau, but took a few stops along the way. One of these stops is the Chasm, an area where waterfalls have carved massive round holes into the side of the rock, resulting in pits of beautiful shapes, all covered in moss. As I was crossing the footbridge to overlook the chasm, I hear a voice behind me: “Are you from UNCW?”

No way.

I turn around to see a girl and guy my age, looking inquisitively at me. I then remembered that I was in fact wearing a teal UNCW move-in shirt, which would make me a target to seahawks a mile away. I spoke with these two, and found that one, Daniel, was a UNCW student- the other was a former student who had transferred to Maryland. Both of them lived in Seahawk Village, within sight of my apartment back home in Wilmington. Surely there are no coincidences.

On our return to Te Anau, we went back to our hostel to prepare dinner, where Fabian’s german friends check in. We all have dinner, and we meet a group of Brits who are heading along the same track we are, to Queenstown. During dinner (which by this point in the trip easily lasts 2 hours) we sat and had a conversation and discussion on whether denominations are a good thing in the Christian faith and tradition. It was a great conversation, because it included the viewpoints of 3 countries, 4 denominations, and both believers and non-believers alike. Everyone contributed, and the entire conversation was an open minded search for truth by all- it was one of those dinners that you wish could last all night.

Day 53- The road to Te Anau

After waving goodbye to Dunedin, we headed inland to the town of Te Anau. The drive went through rolling hills, with mountains in the background. Te Anau seems to be a relatively unremarkable place, except that it has a population or 3000 people and caters to a half million tourists and travelers per year. The town doesn’t really have anything to distinguish itself, but the surrounding area is quite beautiful. Te Anau is right on the edge of Fjordland national park, NZ’s largest national park. We checked into our accommodation, which were a series of cabins overlooking the mountains. The area was situated on a deer farm, and was thus sparsely inhabited. We saw the sun set over the sound, and watches the stars peek out of the evening sky. I quickly noticed two things- first, there was no noise- no cars, no televisions, and no airplanes. Second- there were no lights. In front of me was a 180 degree field of view, with no headlights, streetlamps, illuminated windows or billboard signs- it was the most uninterrupted view of land at nighttime I have ever seen. We cooked dinner and met a few brits who were following the same route we were, and this is where we hit another astounding coincidence- Dylan met someone from back home who lives 20 minutes away from him, and Kristen found a girl who graduated with her sister and had her father as a professor, and lived in the same small town back in Minnesota! The coincidences that have and continued to follow us throughout the trip are uncanny- it makes one wonder how many chance meetings are missed by deciding to stay at hostel A instead of hostel B. One by one we went to sleep, and I decided to get some reading done. Soon most of the lodge was gone, except for me and a few French people, who invited me to come share a glass of wine and some conversation with them. We talked for well over an hour, and I then retired for the night, but not before one enjoying that spectacular night sky, uninterrupted by humanity.

Day 53- The road to Te Anau

After waving goodbye to Dunedin, we headed inland to the town of Te Anau. The drive went through rolling hills, with mountains in the background. Te Anau seems to be a relatively unremarkable place, except that it has a population or 3000 people and caters to a half million tourists and travelers per year. The town doesn’t really have anything to distinguish itself, but the surrounding area is quite beautiful. Te Anau is right on the edge of Fjordland national park, NZ’s largest national park. We checked into our accommodation, which were a series of cabins overlooking the mountains. The area was situated on a deer farm, and was thus sparsely inhabited. We saw the sun set over the sound, and watches the stars peek out of the evening sky. I quickly noticed two things- first, there was no noise- no cars, no televisions, and no airplanes. Second- there were no lights. In front of me was a 180 degree field of view, with no headlights, streetlamps, illuminated windows or billboard signs- it was the most uninterrupted view of land at nighttime I have ever seen. We cooked dinner and met a few brits who were following the same route we were, and this is where we hit another astounding coincidence- Dylan met someone from back home who lives 20 minutes away from him, and Kristen found a girl who graduated with her sister and had her father as a professor, and lived in the same small town back in Minnesota! The coincidences that have and continued to follow us throughout the trip are uncanny- it makes one wonder how many chance meetings are missed by deciding to stay at hostel A instead of hostel B. One by one we went to sleep, and I decided to get some reading done. Soon most of the lodge was gone, except for me and a few French people, who invited me to come share a glass of wine and some conversation with them. We talked for well over an hour, and I then retired for the night, but not before one enjoying that spectacular night sky, uninterrupted by humanity.

Day 52 Dunedin and Moeraki boulders

On the road early, we had a short drive to Dunedin, so we decided to take a brief stop at a natural attraction called the Moeraki boulders. These are large stone orbs, some larger than 2 meters across, strewn on the beach. They are known as Ooliths- minerals form around a nucleating agent, causing the round shape. Over hundreds of thousands or millions of years, these boulders are formed. Some of the boulders had been split open by elements, revealing their internal nature, which was quite impressive- veins of stone and mineral interlaced in an intricate pattern. Think of an old soccer ball, where the seams are beginning to darken, widen, and come apart.- now imagine it is 6 feet wide, thousands of pounds, and millions of years old. Thinking about it is pretty humbling- it makes you just begin to appreciate the age of the mountains around you.

Visiting the boulders made me realize another thing that had been niggling at the back of my mind for the entire trip- something I had just realized. All of the south island (and you could even say this for all of New Zealand) seems to be run by Karma. The entrance to the boulders was a one dollar payment, put in a box by good will. Some hostels didn’t even have locking doors. People gave you the benefit of the doubt- hitchhikers were common and safe. Trust abounded, and goodwill seemed to ooze from the land. The realization hit me, and made me smile. I like this place.

Within a few hours we had reached Dunedin, which I was told is Gaelic for ‘Edinburgh’. The town is situated on a bay (a peninsula, really), and extremely hilly. In fact, Dunedin has the steepest street in the world- we didn’t have time to visit it, though.
Dunedin is quite an interesting place. It boasts a population of 122,000 people, but a third of them are temporary residents; the university of Otago boasts several thousand students, which are temporary. Many overseas doctors and hospital staff are also temporary, not to mention tourists and travelers that are staying for months at a time. Despite only having 120,000 people, Dunedin is the third largest city in the world. The city limits (from city center) extend 30 kilometers south, and 60 km west and north (the Pacific ocean is to the east). The result is a massive metropolitan area, most of it uninhabited hill or farmland. Dunedin is also New Zealand’s richest city- every bank, insurance company, and major national company began in Dunedin; because it is so rich, it has beautiful cathedrals. Most of these cathedrals were built in the mid 19th century, and are a result of the settling population, which were mostly Scottish. As a result, most of these churches are Anglican or built for the Free Church of Scotland- pardon the lack of knowledge, for I don’t know the history of the latter in the least. As I said before, Dunedin is very hilly- most of it is built on old volcanic formations- as a result, the city was originally divided by a small volcanic ridge, which was carved away decades ago. The result of the carving is that an entire street was left up 30 feet in the air- a special staircase had to be built to allow access to it.

One last thing that I found quite interesting in Dunedin was the graffiti- most population centers in NZ, even pretty small ones, have a problem with graffiti, but Dunedin is different. Dunedin has a good deal of graffiti, but much of it is creative, positive, beautiful, or even funny. Walking across the city, I noticed certain themes, certain graffiti characters reappearing. One (which I sadly didn’t capture on film) was a very simply drawn giraffe- it was only a yellow head with dots- I saw this critter everywhere- in alleyways, peeking out of windows, in small, hidden and otherwise forgotten spaces. Sometimes the giraffe was happy- sometimes sad, sometimes inquisitive. Other areas of town were tagged by an artist known only as ‘Jester’- his stencil, Banksy-style work was captivating and though provoking (if you don’t know who Banksy is, I highly suggest you look up his work). Dunedin also has commissioned some professional graffiti work on some public areas that otherwise would be boring, concrete and unsightly. Dunedin takes an attitude towards this cultural urban phenomenon that I have not seen before, and I loved it.

So, we walked around Dunedin for awhile, and that night decided to do a tour of the Speights Brewery. Speights is one of 3 or 4 major beer companies in NZ (and my favorite). There were 5 of us for the tour, and we were told we would be paired up with 2 random extra people. As luck would have it, we knew them! We got paired with two girls who live in the same dorms as we do back at Waikato university- this coincidence would be one of many that would occur in the next few days. After an hour long tour (and an hour of tasting) we decided to walk down to the city center, known as the Octagon. It is here that we encountered a strange establishment- it was known as “Probably the smallest bar in the Universe”. It consisted of 3 bar stools and 1 bartender- I could outstretch my arms and touch a wall with each hand. After an hour or two there (and 3 kilograms of peanuts), we left and walked back to our hostel, which we picked because it was advertised as having a ‘free ghost’. We didn’t get a glimpse of it, however, and went to sleep.