ANZAC Day

Hello!

Today is ANZAC Day, which is similar to Memorial Day in the US, but they celebrate much more formally here. ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. The ANZAC celebration was created to remember the Australian and New Zealand soldiers that have died at war, specifically in the Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey in WWI. I attended the Dawn Parade at 5:30 am, which is approximately the time 95 years ago that the first shots were fired at Gallipoli. ANZAC Day is the most widely celebrated national holiday in NZ. The ceremony was pretty short, only around 45 minutes, and started with the firing of a cannon, follwed by a few speeches in remembrance, some hymns and prayers, and a gun salute and final post played on a bugel, and then ended with the singing of the NZ national anthem, followed for the first time in history by the Australian national anthem. So many people attended the Dawn Parade, and there were several other ceremonies held in other places around town, such as at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Churches are holding public masses in remembrance as well and town has been completely shut down since 12am this morning. I was surprised at how many people showed up that early in the morning, and I'm glad I went to see it.

I also went to the Te Papa museum to see the Pompeii Exhibit. They had body casts of people that had died after Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. There were also a lot of artifacts that they had found buried in the ash centuries later. It was a really interesting exhibit and they even had a 3D movie of what it would have looked like over the two days that the volcano erupted. Although the exhibit was really cool, possibly the best part of my day was walking to the exhibit when we spotted a celebrity. We didn't just spot him, we had to squeeze past him on a bridge on the waterfront right by the museum.

We were walking in a group to the museum when we got to the bridge and all filed past Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords! I'm sure a lot of people have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's a comedy show about a NZ band that goes to New York and tries to make it big. I think it's on HBO or something. Anyways, both Brett and Jemaine live in Wellington (they went to Victoria University) and every once in a while people will see them around town like we did. Jemaine quit the show (but not the band) because he was tired of being recognized by fans everywhere he went, so we didn't bother him even though he knew we recognized him. Still, it was amazing! I'm hoping to see Brett one of these days. Since he's the more social of the two, I think I would even be able to talk to him. Some of the Americans met him later that day! I was so jealous but don't feel that my encounter was in any way belittled by theirs. I just hope that soon I'll get to meet Brett! It made my week!

Other than that, it was a pretty typical week. Next weekend our housing is holding a masquerade ball so I'll write about that later. Bye!

The War Memorial

Inside the Memorial


red poppies are the symbol of the NZ soldiers that died at Gallipolli

Back From Break!

Hello!

I just got back from my two week trip to the South Island. It was amazing! There were five of us that road-tripped all the way from the northern tip of the island down the west coast to the southernmost tip, and then back up the east coast. We camped outside every night except 2 and got to wake up to some of the most beautiful scenery in New Zealand.

We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton on the South Island. It was a three hour trip but we were all so excited and the view from the boat was so beautiful that it seemed really quick. Once we got to Picton we picked up our rental car and began our road trip. We did a lot of driving every day but we got to stop and see some amazing things and had a lot of fun. Some of the things we saw were the Golden Beaches of Abel Tasman, seal colonies at Cape Foulwind, the Pancake rocks in Punakaiki at sunset, Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, Milford Sound (which is technically a fjord), and the Moeraki boulders at sunrise. Besides sight-seeing, we also did a lot. We cliffjumped at the Pelorus River on the way to Nelson, kayaked and did a day hike in Abel Tasman, did the third tallest bungy in the world in Queenstown, and coasted down the steepest street in the world in Dunedin (Baldwin St., 19 degrees), which was actually kind of fun. It was a great trip and we're all still talking to each other despite the 5 of us being crammed into a 5 seat station wagon with all of our stuff for 14 days.

The North Island is a great place to live and go to school, but I think the South Island had the best scenery in New Zealand. It's hard to choose, but I think my favorite view was the one in Cape Foulwind. Although we were drawn there for the seal colonies, I was more interested in the massive waves crashing against huge, jagged rocks. It was really entertaining to just sit there and watch the waves. I felt bad for the baby seals learning to swim in that water though. We also got to watch the sunset at the Pancake Rocks which were also amazing. Unfortunately my camera was dead the day we went to both the seal colony and Pancake Rocks! I'm going to make sure I get pictures from everyone else though. Milford Sound was great too...There's too much to choose from, I loved all of it! I'm going to try and convince everyone I know to make a trip.

Now that I'm back in Wellington I'm back to studying. School sucks anywhere. I can't wait for my finals to be over so I can travel around some more. A bunch of us realized the other day that we only have 2 and a half months left here. I'm going to be sad to leave but I'm also really excited to come home for summer. It got pretty cold sleeping in the tents some of the nights, and it's definitely fall here in Wellington. The day we got back it was pouring rain and the weather is getting cooler and windier. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone this summer in Alaska!

Road Trip




Cleopatra's Pool on the Abel Tasman Hike


BUNGY!!!



Survived!

Southernmost Point on the South Island

Milford Sound

Sunrise at Moeraki

The Group

Last Post Before Autumn Break

Hello!
This is the last week of school before our autumn break starts. We get two weeks so I'm heading to the South Island with pretty much every International student in New Zealand. I'm taking the ferry on the way there and I'm excited because I hear it's beautiful. I'll put up some pictures of break when I get back.

These past few weeks haven't been too eventful. Last week one of the Americans had a gig at the San Francisco Bathhouse. A good Kiwi name huh? He played the guitar and sang, and we all drank. It was a lot of fun.

Last week I got roped into a interhall swim competition and hopped in a pool for the first time in 4 years. We had a practice on Friday and then the competition was on Sunday. At the practice we got timed so it could be decided who would be swimming in the meet. There were only around 8 events at the meet, all relays, and most of us ended up swimming at least 4 or 5 of the events. The girls team consisted of two Kiwis, another American, and me. A lot of the Americans and other people from our hall came to watch and cheer us on. I was surprised at how much they got into it. One American told me that she felt patriotic cheering for us and joked that she even teared up a little. Haha.

The residence halls here have pretty strong rivalries and their halls are their substitute for the Greek system. Apparently everyone makes fun of the Kiwis that live in our hall because it's a temporary hall and has a lot less people than all of the other halls, not to mention all those damn Americans. The rivalries led to a pretty intense competition and we were kind of feeling the pressure from our hall manager, Helen, to win.

I swam 50 back in the 200 medley relay and then 50 free in the 200 free relay and we won both of those races by quite a bit. The other relays I was in were a wheel barrow relay (where one person is the arms and the other is the feet), a feet first (sculling) relay, and a leap frog relay. We won both the wheel barrow and the leap frog and got second in the sculling relay. We ended up winning the entire meet and apparently earned ourselves a pizza party, so I'm excited for that. It was a lot of fun, but I'm still sore! I forgot what a good workout swimming was.

Now I'm wrapping up my school work that I have to turn in before break and then I leave on Saturday morning. I'm excited and I'll have a lot to blog about when I get back. Until then I'm just doing school work and taking a few breaks to blog and go rock climbing tonight. I'll blog again after break!
Team America

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hope everyone had a good St. Patrick's Day! For St. Patrick's Day, my dorm put on an hour long harbor cruise. The city was so beautiful at night and I tried to take pictures but they all turned out blurry. After the cruise, everyone went out to town to celebrate. I was super excited because it was going to be the first year that I could go to a bar and get a green beer, but unfortunately there is no green beer in New Zealand for St. Patty's. They don't have the pinching rule either! Apparently they don't have it in Germany either because one of our German friends asked, "Isn't the rule in America that if you aren't wearing green people throw yellow sponges at you?" He was completely serious and was confused as to why we were all laughing. It was hilarious. There was a lot of green when we went out to town, but I didn't see any specials on Guinness or Jameson. Overall, New Zealanders don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day quite as hard as Americans. Not really that surprising, Americans love to party!

This Saturday I took a daytrip with a few of the other Americans to Mana Island. It was so beautiful and if you ever go to New Zealand, you HAVE to go to Mana Island. We chartered a sailboat named the Paikea, which means humpback whale in Maori. It was about an hour sail to the island where we got off and hiked the trail to the top for a look at the South Island. The whole island had amazing viewpoints and there were a few hiking trails to give access to the more amazing lookouts. The island used to be a trading post and there also used to be a sheep farm there, but now only a park ranger and his family live there year-round. The old barn is still there with some rusty shearing equipment inside. It still smelled like sheep and lanolin, and it was actually really creepy.

The island is home to a pretty large group of a type of bird called the Shore Plover which is really rare. The Maori name for it is Tuturuatu. There are only around 200 of them in the world and people travel from all over to Mana to see them. We had no idea and took it for granted and only realized later how lucky we were to have seen them. The beach was also littered with Paua shells, which are a blueish iredescent color. It was hard to tear ourselves away from beachcombing in order to make the hike around the island.

After we got back on the sailboat we got the chance to do a little fishing. Technically, I caught the first fish of the day, a jellyfish. It was all over my line and my bait. Only one person caught a fish, but it was pretty big and she was able to bring it back with her. She needed help to gut the fish because she had never done it before, and naturally, she asked the Alaskan. I helped her gut it and she cooked it up and we got to have fresh fish for dinner. I'm not really sure what type of fish it was, but it had white meat and tasted pretty good.

Anyways, that was my big adventure for the week. It was one of the best days I've had here. The trip was amazing and we all kept talking about unbelievable it was to be sailing around in New Zealand.
The Paikea

Paua Shell

Mana Island

View from Mana


South Island

Mana Hiking Trail

Shore Plover

Jellyfish

Dinner

Finally Set up a Blog!

Hey!

So I finally set up a blog after being here for over a month, but now I'm in "uni" so I'm not really doing anything too interesting. The first few weeks here I was traveling all over the north island with my Australearn group and then with my Mom and step-dad. It was nice to get to see a lot of New Zealand in the few weeks before school started. Once I got to Wellington things were a bit rocky with my housing situation, but that has all been sorted out. We just got internet in my dorm last week after living here for around 3 weeks! Which reminds me, we Americans take our free internet for granted. It wasn't until I got here and had to pay up to $10 for a half an hour of "high speed" (as fast as dial-up) internet, that I realized how nice it is to have free wifi hotspots all over in the US!

Like I said, I'm at school now, at Victoria University of Wellington, and things have slowed down a lot. I am lucky that I only have class 3 days a week, but I have started working in a microbiology lab on my days off. The weather is starting to get a bit cooler, but when I first got to Wellington, it was in the 70s or 80s every day! It's still been pretty warm, but we've had some really cold, wet, and windy days. Last Friday there was a mini tornado that ripped the roofs off of some buildings. Apparently, that's not too out of the ordinary for "Windy Welly". There is a really cool picture of the storm front coming into Wellington at http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3443374/Southerly-buster-hits-Wellington. Looking at the picture, it's hard to believe that the next day I was doing homework at Oriental Beach!

Well, I don't have too much to talk about as far as what I've been doing this week. I'll keep you updated if anything interesting happens!

Oriental Beach