Orientating

Auckland!

After about an hour and a half of sleep, maybe two, in a creepy hotel room with an air conditioner that made funny noises and wouldn't turn off, a bathroom door that wouldn't prop open, and staff that didn't speak English I made it back to the airport to meet up with the group.  I was the first one to show up, but even with very little sleep I had a head start on the jet lagged kids just arriving.  We settled in to the YMCA lodge at Shakespeare National Park just outside Auckland, had some food and a general briefing, and headed down to the water for some kayaking.  I wish I had the pictures for this, but I won't get them til the end of the semester since my camera is not in fact water proof.  We had to do all this crazy stuff like try to keep two kayaks together and have two people standing and paddling and playing polo and such.  It was super fun but we were paddling for a solid 2 hours of more and all came back tired and sore (like we weren't already)

The view from the lodge

In the evening we went to hot springs pools which was very nice on the shoulders after all the paddling, and then went across the street to try some local brew.  Needless to say we all were very ready for bed after dinner and after a nice relaxed talk we all headed straight for bed.  The next day started with a quiz to catch us up on New Zealand and then we did something called a "rogaine" which involved running around sheep and cow fields looking for little square plaques with symbols from a map of the area.  Our team wasn't too big on the idea and made a plan that seemed easiest, so it came as a total shock to us when we won the entire thing!  Even though we were late and forgot one of the symbols.  After that we were allowed to do our own thing so I obviously headed to the beach and swam and lounged.  The food the entire time we were at the lodge was absolutely amazing, and I got too used to eating breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and multiple desserts along the way.  Should be easy to work off since my new home is a giant incline treadmill.

The next day we had briefings about academics and our schools/cities.  After we set out for the Auckland Wartime Museum that was pretty nice, part natural history, part depressing, part creepy, part volcano.  We got to go in a little house and sit in a living room and go through a simulation of what would happen if a volcano actually went off in Auckland (the entire city is built on about 60 different volcanic cones).  The floor shook and it was spectacular, but I'm still hoping for no natural disasters while I'm here (don't worry, I knocked on wood).  

The last event of the day was also the most incredible and if I have time I want to come back and describe it all in detail but we were welcomed with the traditional Maori challenge to see whether we came in peace or not.  This involved a guy in traditional dressing doing all the crazy faces and prancing around with a spear coming up to us.  Then we got to watch him and his family perform a Kapa Haka which was dance, martial arts, singing, and some demonstrations of traditional instruments.  The songs are all beautiful and we learned two to sing because after we were welcomed we had two male speakers say tank you and we stood to sing to show our agreement with what they said.  We got to spend the night, ate tons of amazing food, and got to learn about the culture from a Maori woman who was a big part of the civil rights movement for Maori in the 60s.  She was great because she was this little adorable old woman with a wicked face tattoo and kept cursing and talking about how the "paki" (people who aren't maori) are idiots and she won't let the man get her down.

After we left the Marae we went on a walk up one of the old volcanic craters for a view of the city and then went to a vineyard for a tour and wine tasting before heading to the airport.  Because most days should be started with wine before having to deal with airport security.