Sunday, October 08, 2006
Ok so this is all from a while ago. I was waiting for my blog to get unlocked and just kept updating and not being able to publish it. So... here's what I've been up to!
So my blog has been locked because it has "spam-like characteristics." Until they unlock it [which I have received an email saying they have, but I have yet to see that reflected on the website], I will just write and then update/publish once I am capable of doing so.
Oh man. This weekend was CRAZY. I forgot to mention that we went to the live taping of New Zealand Idol last Monday! It was ... interesting. Nowhere near as large as American Idol, obviously, but it was still full of crazy fans. People started crying when they found out who was voted off. :( And, apparently, there's video of some of the BU kids. They stuck some of us behind the judges; I wasn't among them, though.
Ok. So Friday, we drove to Waitomo and went black water rafting... it was kind of 2/5 tubing/black water rafting [complete with renditions of "Old McDonald had a Farm"] and 3/5 climbing through the cave. Pictures aren't up yet; some of the others have pics from the caves, though. I'm stealing them and adding them to my album at a later date.
After the caves, we were all pretty hungry, so we got some dinner at the only restaurant that was open and watched rugby on big screen tvs.
Tanya, Rob, and I camped out in a tent that night. It was pretty cool! There were emus, cows, and roosters around, so it was kind of farmy. I wasn't feeling well, though, and I ended up waking up feeling even worse the following day. We were supposed to go hiking, but instead Tanya, Rob and I rented ... some sort sailboat thing. I don't know what kind it was... but it had a jib!
Anyway, so we went out on the water for a bit; Tanya and Rob did most, er, all of the work since, yannow, I don't really know how to sail. I could've sworn we were going to tip over a few times, but we never took on any water, so my confidence in their sailing abilities have not been lowered.
That night, we all had a picnic in a park. Well, it was a hodgepodge picnic. Someone got a whole chicken, there were bananas and nutella, peanut butter and jelly, hummus and pita, salads... it was a veritable feast for us college kids. After we finished, we went down to some fresh water hot springs. Since I wasn't feeling well, I just took pictures of everyone and didn't partake in the festivities. That night, I stayed in a hostel to get a good night's sleep since I was going skydiving the next day...
Yes, you read right. I went skydiving. I did feel better the next morning; I could breathe at least, which is important when you're 15,000 feet in the air... Rob posted the video online. When I find it, I'll post it under my links section.
It was amazing! We skydived over Lake Taupo which had incredible views. The whole way up, I didn't know what to think. I was kind of calm, considering I was strapped to a complete stranger who would shortly be pushing me out of the plane... I was okay until the first person went and I was being pushed towards the door. The second person went out and I got pushed even further to the door... my feet were hanging out the plane and I was close to asking, "Hey, can we think about this before we do it?" and I was tumbling out of the plane and yeah, I'm not gonna lie, it was kinda scary.
We had about a forty-five seconds of free-fall before the parachute was pulled. It didn't even feel like you're falling, though. My camera guy kept making hand gestures to me, and I couldn't figure out what he was trying to communicate to me. I didn't even realise he was taking video/photos. My mind kind of went blank as soon as I was hurled out of the plane. So when you see the video, that's why I look really lame. :P
After we finished skydiving [which I will totally do again], we went on a sailing tour of the lake and saw these carvings on the side of a mountain. It was really impressive ... and then we found out they were less than thirty years old... they were still pretty cool... but less so at that point.
That night, we all treated ourselves to a nice dinner and drove home back to Auckland.
That week in school, we had exams... but apparently, exams aren't to interfere with us having fun. One night we went out for a bit just to relax; the next night we went to the casino [I came out ahead! I kept telling some of the others to leave while they were ahead but they wouldn't listen to the girl from Vegas for some reason...]; and then we studied. The exams weren't too hard. Just essay questions based on our lectures and straight from the book... and we were given the questions ahead of time, or the question subjects... so it was really one of those exams where if you did poorly, it really was your own fault.
Right after we finished our last exam, Tanya and I treated ourselves to a massage. It felt soooo good and we felt a lot better. And we promptly ruined the benefits by attending another rugby game and sitting in hard plastic bleacher chairs. We all hung out and enjoyed being done with the first half of the semester that night... and we packed to go to the Cook Islands!
We left really early for the Cook Islands because Daylights Savings kicked in the night before, so we lost an hour. I think that puts us 20 hours ahead of the west coast.
Anyway, so we flew to Rarotonga on Sunday and got there on Saturday [yay for crossing international date lines!]. From Rarotonga, we flew to Mangaia in the smallest commercial plane I've ever been in. It held only about fifteen people... and when we landed in Mangaia [which has only about 500 people living there and you can drive around the entire island in a half hour], the airport was just a strip of dirt and a building. The group had to split up to fly to Mangaia, so those of us of the first group just kind of hung around the airport talking to some of the locals and exploring the surroundings.
When the other group finally joined us, we were driven to a village and we had a feast, then we were taken to the hall where we'd be staying for most of the week and crashed. Well, some of us crashed; others went out to the only bar on the island. Tanya and I were super tired, so we stayed in with some of the others and one of the guys that also stayed in read to us because he's got a great reading voice.
The next day, we went to a church service and had a breakfast kaikai [the feast/feed thing they had everywhere for us to keep us all fed, but they do these for all their guests]. After that, we took a hike up a hill [which I don't quite understand why the lady took us up the way she did since all of the girls were wearing skirts and it was a climb] and saw the village's school. Some people went back to the hall we were staying at, and others of us just sat and enjoyed the view [they have an ocean view at the school... it's not really fair], that is, until we discovered the coconuts. Some of the boys started to try to open the coconuts and it took them so long to crack the husk open. What sucks even more is the fact that the very first one they did was old and had no coconut meat in it... A few of the guys started to climb the trees, too... and they got pretty scratched up.
After that, we went back to the hall; we took a drive around the island. We stopped in Tamarua and had lunch/dinner and we got to see all of the island - or rather, the perimeter with the main road. Parts really looked like it came from Jurrasic Park. When we left Tamarua and got back to our village, we went to the beach. Their beach is all coral reef, though, so it wasn't like we could go swimming or anything. When it started getting dark, Thea, Gabe, and I walked back to the hall and Thea and I got really good showers.
I guess I should point out here that the island has no hot water. And the hall we stayed at had horrible water pressure. If someone turned on a tap, the shower would shut off. So since we got back before anyone else, Thea and I enjoyed nice, cold showers that had water pressure. After that, the three of us had philosophical discussions over Hearts.
When the rest of the group showed up, Tanya, Rob, Gabe, Thea, and I played a game called Coins. What happens is that you get dealt four cards and the dealer uses the rest of the deck to try to get a four of a kind. You can only hold four cards at a time, so you discard anything you don't need to the person next to you. Once you get four of a kind, you grab a coin from the pot in the middle [there are other variations of this game where you use spoons or stick out your tongue]. There's always one less coin than person, so as soon as the first person grabs a coin, everyone else lunges for the rest of them, and the person who doesn't get one gets a "C." It's kind of like musical chairs meets horse. The more you don't get a coin, the more letters get added on. The game gets kind of violent and frantic the longer it goes on... we finally stopped after Rob's glasses got bent out of shape. Thea, Gabe, and I then finished our philosophical discussions on a walk through the village. The ended, not because we were tired or out of things to discuss, but because roosters started crowing and we weren't sure what time it was and we didn't want to be thought missing if we weren't back home before the next morning ... not that it would have been a big issue; the island's tiny and they would have found us eventually...
The next morning, we attended an assembly at the school and then had breakfast there. After the breakfast, we went down to a different beach and hung out for a while until we had to go back and go to yet another meal. [It sounds like all we did was eat ... well... yeah... they fed us at least four times a day]. I can't remember what else we did that day... Hmm...
The next day, we went to a breakfast and then we were taught how to make rope from coconuts [first, you husk it, then you pound the husks, then you separate the really tough parts of the husk from the mush, then you braid them!], and then we had lunch and then a nature walk. A lot of people opted out of the nature hike, so it ended up being Gabe, Aya, and me who went, so they just drove us through where we were going to hike [it wasn't as bad as everyone thought it was going to be, and at the end we saw the remains of a shipwreck had by Zaragoza {and I climbed the old, rusted anchor... I'm really lucky I didn't get tetanus}] and cut the time in half.
By the time we got back from the nature drive, it was time to leave for our billet's house [billet, I think, is the Maori word for host?]. We had a two day stay with local families. My family lived in Tamarua, which is about a 30 minute drive from the village where most of the others were staying. When we got to the Tamarua, my billet, Juliet, took me for a walk through her village and showed me their taro plantation. We had dinner and then we went to bed early because we were supposed to have a church service at five am the next day.
However, the next day came and we didn't go to the church service. Juliet's parents had meetings that ran a little long the night before and they were tired. We had breakfast and then we drove to the school and learned crafts from the students. I now know how to make no less than ten things from a palm frond, including: glasses, rings, bracelets/anklets, earrings, titis [kind of like grass skirts], and bracelet/leg things that are worn during dances. After that, our billets picked us up and we went back to their homes. I had dinner and made eis with my host family. Eis are leis... just without the l. I went to bed early because I was really tired, and I ended up waking up later than the rest of the family... but this could be because their roosters woke them up and I was just too out of it to care that roosters were crowing.
We went back to the school and practiced a song/dance routine we were to perform that night for the school, and then later, the bar. We were fed some more. And we tie-dyed! That was a lot of fun; I only made one, though, because I was sunburned by this time and it really hurt to be in the sun for any longer than a few minutes. We were given about an hour of downtime before we had to be back at the school, so we just hung around the hall we were staying at. The school put on some dances for us after the feast, and then we sang and danced for them. It was a lot of fun after it was all said and done. We felt really stupid dancing beforehand, but when it got dark and after we saw the school's performance, we just had fun and let loose.
After that, we headed to Babe's Bar for an encore performance, except there was more dancing and less singing... all of the girls wore coconut bras [except me... again, I was sunburned and coconut rope isn't that smooth... and I really didn't feel comfortable with it], so that may be why.
The next morning, there was a market where my billet and I got breakfast. She drove me around the island on her bike for a bit, then we went back to the hall and I finished packing and cleaning up. Then it was off to the airport and back to Auckland!
Today I was supposed to start my internship, but the lady never emailed me back from before I left for Mangaia, so I went at 9 AM and there was no one there. I called the lady and she said she'd call me back ... and then someone showed up and told me she wouldn't be in until 1 PM... so I called my director and left a note for the lady and went back to the dorms. She never called me back and left two more messages for her... so hopefully she'll contact me before tomorrow. Although, I think Tanya goes with me tomorrow, so maybe something will happen. I didn't want to go back at 1 PM because it costs about ten dollars roundtrip and it's about 30-45 minutes one way, and I'd already made the trip once today. We'll see how things go.
On the bright side, I was able to get my laundry done. :D It is so nice to be home and connected to the world again... and to take hot showers with water pressure... and to be able to get clean... and to have clean clothes... and no roosters or goats... and no bugs everywhere [and when I say everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE].
Anyway! I'm going to go find the skydiving video and move everything to this site. Sorry if I kept you guys waiting! It didn't occur to me to just make a new account until this afternoon. :P
So my blog has been locked because it has "spam-like characteristics." Until they unlock it [which I have received an email saying they have, but I have yet to see that reflected on the website], I will just write and then update/publish once I am capable of doing so.
Oh man. This weekend was CRAZY. I forgot to mention that we went to the live taping of New Zealand Idol last Monday! It was ... interesting. Nowhere near as large as American Idol, obviously, but it was still full of crazy fans. People started crying when they found out who was voted off. :( And, apparently, there's video of some of the BU kids. They stuck some of us behind the judges; I wasn't among them, though.
Ok. So Friday, we drove to Waitomo and went black water rafting... it was kind of 2/5 tubing/black water rafting [complete with renditions of "Old McDonald had a Farm"] and 3/5 climbing through the cave. Pictures aren't up yet; some of the others have pics from the caves, though. I'm stealing them and adding them to my album at a later date.
After the caves, we were all pretty hungry, so we got some dinner at the only restaurant that was open and watched rugby on big screen tvs.
Tanya, Rob, and I camped out in a tent that night. It was pretty cool! There were emus, cows, and roosters around, so it was kind of farmy. I wasn't feeling well, though, and I ended up waking up feeling even worse the following day. We were supposed to go hiking, but instead Tanya, Rob and I rented ... some sort sailboat thing. I don't know what kind it was... but it had a jib!
Anyway, so we went out on the water for a bit; Tanya and Rob did most, er, all of the work since, yannow, I don't really know how to sail. I could've sworn we were going to tip over a few times, but we never took on any water, so my confidence in their sailing abilities have not been lowered.
That night, we all had a picnic in a park. Well, it was a hodgepodge picnic. Someone got a whole chicken, there were bananas and nutella, peanut butter and jelly, hummus and pita, salads... it was a veritable feast for us college kids. After we finished, we went down to some fresh water hot springs. Since I wasn't feeling well, I just took pictures of everyone and didn't partake in the festivities. That night, I stayed in a hostel to get a good night's sleep since I was going skydiving the next day...
Yes, you read right. I went skydiving. I did feel better the next morning; I could breathe at least, which is important when you're 15,000 feet in the air... Rob posted the video online. When I find it, I'll post it under my links section.
It was amazing! We skydived over Lake Taupo which had incredible views. The whole way up, I didn't know what to think. I was kind of calm, considering I was strapped to a complete stranger who would shortly be pushing me out of the plane... I was okay until the first person went and I was being pushed towards the door. The second person went out and I got pushed even further to the door... my feet were hanging out the plane and I was close to asking, "Hey, can we think about this before we do it?" and I was tumbling out of the plane and yeah, I'm not gonna lie, it was kinda scary.
We had about a forty-five seconds of free-fall before the parachute was pulled. It didn't even feel like you're falling, though. My camera guy kept making hand gestures to me, and I couldn't figure out what he was trying to communicate to me. I didn't even realise he was taking video/photos. My mind kind of went blank as soon as I was hurled out of the plane. So when you see the video, that's why I look really lame. :P
After we finished skydiving [which I will totally do again], we went on a sailing tour of the lake and saw these carvings on the side of a mountain. It was really impressive ... and then we found out they were less than thirty years old... they were still pretty cool... but less so at that point.
That night, we all treated ourselves to a nice dinner and drove home back to Auckland.
That week in school, we had exams... but apparently, exams aren't to interfere with us having fun. One night we went out for a bit just to relax; the next night we went to the casino [I came out ahead! I kept telling some of the others to leave while they were ahead but they wouldn't listen to the girl from Vegas for some reason...]; and then we studied. The exams weren't too hard. Just essay questions based on our lectures and straight from the book... and we were given the questions ahead of time, or the question subjects... so it was really one of those exams where if you did poorly, it really was your own fault.
Right after we finished our last exam, Tanya and I treated ourselves to a massage. It felt soooo good and we felt a lot better. And we promptly ruined the benefits by attending another rugby game and sitting in hard plastic bleacher chairs. We all hung out and enjoyed being done with the first half of the semester that night... and we packed to go to the Cook Islands!
We left really early for the Cook Islands because Daylights Savings kicked in the night before, so we lost an hour. I think that puts us 20 hours ahead of the west coast.
Anyway, so we flew to Rarotonga on Sunday and got there on Saturday [yay for crossing international date lines!]. From Rarotonga, we flew to Mangaia in the smallest commercial plane I've ever been in. It held only about fifteen people... and when we landed in Mangaia [which has only about 500 people living there and you can drive around the entire island in a half hour], the airport was just a strip of dirt and a building. The group had to split up to fly to Mangaia, so those of us of the first group just kind of hung around the airport talking to some of the locals and exploring the surroundings.
When the other group finally joined us, we were driven to a village and we had a feast, then we were taken to the hall where we'd be staying for most of the week and crashed. Well, some of us crashed; others went out to the only bar on the island. Tanya and I were super tired, so we stayed in with some of the others and one of the guys that also stayed in read to us because he's got a great reading voice.
The next day, we went to a church service and had a breakfast kaikai [the feast/feed thing they had everywhere for us to keep us all fed, but they do these for all their guests]. After that, we took a hike up a hill [which I don't quite understand why the lady took us up the way she did since all of the girls were wearing skirts and it was a climb] and saw the village's school. Some people went back to the hall we were staying at, and others of us just sat and enjoyed the view [they have an ocean view at the school... it's not really fair], that is, until we discovered the coconuts. Some of the boys started to try to open the coconuts and it took them so long to crack the husk open. What sucks even more is the fact that the very first one they did was old and had no coconut meat in it... A few of the guys started to climb the trees, too... and they got pretty scratched up.
After that, we went back to the hall; we took a drive around the island. We stopped in Tamarua and had lunch/dinner and we got to see all of the island - or rather, the perimeter with the main road. Parts really looked like it came from Jurrasic Park. When we left Tamarua and got back to our village, we went to the beach. Their beach is all coral reef, though, so it wasn't like we could go swimming or anything. When it started getting dark, Thea, Gabe, and I walked back to the hall and Thea and I got really good showers.
I guess I should point out here that the island has no hot water. And the hall we stayed at had horrible water pressure. If someone turned on a tap, the shower would shut off. So since we got back before anyone else, Thea and I enjoyed nice, cold showers that had water pressure. After that, the three of us had philosophical discussions over Hearts.
When the rest of the group showed up, Tanya, Rob, Gabe, Thea, and I played a game called Coins. What happens is that you get dealt four cards and the dealer uses the rest of the deck to try to get a four of a kind. You can only hold four cards at a time, so you discard anything you don't need to the person next to you. Once you get four of a kind, you grab a coin from the pot in the middle [there are other variations of this game where you use spoons or stick out your tongue]. There's always one less coin than person, so as soon as the first person grabs a coin, everyone else lunges for the rest of them, and the person who doesn't get one gets a "C." It's kind of like musical chairs meets horse. The more you don't get a coin, the more letters get added on. The game gets kind of violent and frantic the longer it goes on... we finally stopped after Rob's glasses got bent out of shape. Thea, Gabe, and I then finished our philosophical discussions on a walk through the village. The ended, not because we were tired or out of things to discuss, but because roosters started crowing and we weren't sure what time it was and we didn't want to be thought missing if we weren't back home before the next morning ... not that it would have been a big issue; the island's tiny and they would have found us eventually...
The next morning, we attended an assembly at the school and then had breakfast there. After the breakfast, we went down to a different beach and hung out for a while until we had to go back and go to yet another meal. [It sounds like all we did was eat ... well... yeah... they fed us at least four times a day]. I can't remember what else we did that day... Hmm...
The next day, we went to a breakfast and then we were taught how to make rope from coconuts [first, you husk it, then you pound the husks, then you separate the really tough parts of the husk from the mush, then you braid them!], and then we had lunch and then a nature walk. A lot of people opted out of the nature hike, so it ended up being Gabe, Aya, and me who went, so they just drove us through where we were going to hike [it wasn't as bad as everyone thought it was going to be, and at the end we saw the remains of a shipwreck had by Zaragoza {and I climbed the old, rusted anchor... I'm really lucky I didn't get tetanus}] and cut the time in half.
By the time we got back from the nature drive, it was time to leave for our billet's house [billet, I think, is the Maori word for host?]. We had a two day stay with local families. My family lived in Tamarua, which is about a 30 minute drive from the village where most of the others were staying. When we got to the Tamarua, my billet, Juliet, took me for a walk through her village and showed me their taro plantation. We had dinner and then we went to bed early because we were supposed to have a church service at five am the next day.
However, the next day came and we didn't go to the church service. Juliet's parents had meetings that ran a little long the night before and they were tired. We had breakfast and then we drove to the school and learned crafts from the students. I now know how to make no less than ten things from a palm frond, including: glasses, rings, bracelets/anklets, earrings, titis [kind of like grass skirts], and bracelet/leg things that are worn during dances. After that, our billets picked us up and we went back to their homes. I had dinner and made eis with my host family. Eis are leis... just without the l. I went to bed early because I was really tired, and I ended up waking up later than the rest of the family... but this could be because their roosters woke them up and I was just too out of it to care that roosters were crowing.
We went back to the school and practiced a song/dance routine we were to perform that night for the school, and then later, the bar. We were fed some more. And we tie-dyed! That was a lot of fun; I only made one, though, because I was sunburned by this time and it really hurt to be in the sun for any longer than a few minutes. We were given about an hour of downtime before we had to be back at the school, so we just hung around the hall we were staying at. The school put on some dances for us after the feast, and then we sang and danced for them. It was a lot of fun after it was all said and done. We felt really stupid dancing beforehand, but when it got dark and after we saw the school's performance, we just had fun and let loose.
After that, we headed to Babe's Bar for an encore performance, except there was more dancing and less singing... all of the girls wore coconut bras [except me... again, I was sunburned and coconut rope isn't that smooth... and I really didn't feel comfortable with it], so that may be why.
The next morning, there was a market where my billet and I got breakfast. She drove me around the island on her bike for a bit, then we went back to the hall and I finished packing and cleaning up. Then it was off to the airport and back to Auckland!
Today I was supposed to start my internship, but the lady never emailed me back from before I left for Mangaia, so I went at 9 AM and there was no one there. I called the lady and she said she'd call me back ... and then someone showed up and told me she wouldn't be in until 1 PM... so I called my director and left a note for the lady and went back to the dorms. She never called me back and left two more messages for her... so hopefully she'll contact me before tomorrow. Although, I think Tanya goes with me tomorrow, so maybe something will happen. I didn't want to go back at 1 PM because it costs about ten dollars roundtrip and it's about 30-45 minutes one way, and I'd already made the trip once today. We'll see how things go.
On the bright side, I was able to get my laundry done. :D It is so nice to be home and connected to the world again... and to take hot showers with water pressure... and to be able to get clean... and to have clean clothes... and no roosters or goats... and no bugs everywhere [and when I say everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE].
Anyway! I'm going to go find the skydiving video and move everything to this site. Sorry if I kept you guys waiting! It didn't occur to me to just make a new account until this afternoon. :P
// posted by Chelcie @ 7:20 PM 
