What did one New Zealand Statue say to the other New Zealand Statue?
Sta-tue, bro?
New Zealand was...well...
Warning: This entry will be both long AND detailed. I suggest taking a few days to go over it ;-). You've been warned.
S q u a r e O n e
It was Wednesday morning and I was getting on a plane and leaving EVERYTHING behind. I wasn't freaking out, and I was very eerily calm. I wouldn'tve liked to be around me. When I got to Hell (Los Angeles Airport..LAX) there was supposed to be an AFS person there to meet me, but there was nobody, so I called the hotel we were staying at and got a car to come get me. But they found me anyway. So whatevs. Uhh So yeah I get to the hotel, my mom's on the phone because she's freaking out because I didn't call her. Well, ok, first, I'm in LA, the place I hate the most in all the world, and my mom's lecturing me on the phone in Minnesota.. what..ever.. They took my passport and return ticket. Wow. I feel so much better. People I just met are handling my life right there. Ok ok, so I go get some lunch at the airport restaurant (We ate every single meal there while we were in LA) with our meal vouchers. good deal.
I meet everybody, and everyone is really cool. Yay! Also it made me feel a little better about myself that I could make friends so well, or maybe it was because we were all in the same boat. 'S possible.
Thursday: We do a bunch of teambuilding exercises in the hotel and we meet this guy called Shaymey (like "Jaime" with a 'Sh') who did AFS but with France but he 'has a great deal of love for the land we are going to'. Yeah, he loves New Zealand, and he's big with the Maori people over there. He has this cool staff a tribe chief made for him. He's also a stoner, and insists that marijuana is an herb, not a drug. "New Zealanders really love their Herb."
ANYWAY, the plane left at like.. 10:30 pm, so we had all this time. Shaymey decided it would be cool if we took a little tour of Hollywood, and he'd tell us exactly where to go since he lives in LA! Wow! At least it wasn't really hot like LA mostly is. Oh, that bitch Cameron! She was an AFS volunteer too. She's like "It's going to be like 75 degrees today" and I was like "yes!" "Uhh..that's not warm". Whoa. I think everyone pretty much hated her.
Yes
That's all of us in Hollywood, I think the point of this picture was to get the Hollywood sign in the background. Not that I cared.
So yeah, finally it's time to go to the airport and it's about fricken time if you ask me. We get to the terminal and there's a monstrous line out the door (NZ is popular, y'know) and we catch sight of the plane we're going to be on
that thing was the size of a whale! (uh..not the Air Canada one..)
So I mean it was cool and all that we were on this gigantic plane, I don't care how comfy your seats are, I still can't sleep on them. So I Couldn't sleep the whole 12 hour plane ride. We left at about 11:30 on Thursday, June 30, and arrived in New Zealand at 6:45 in the morning on Saturday, July 2. I treated it no differently than a night with little sleep, which happens often. RIGHT when we get to New Zealand we meet up with AFS and we go STRAIGHT to shuttles who are going to take us to OPC, a 6 hour drive. Gahhh.
Saturday: We get at OPC (aka The Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre of New Zealand)and get set up in this really flash lodge that's brand new. We've got cozy little rooms, and a great lounge area with leather couches; the works. We eat lunch (i think it was pumpkin soup and scones). And check the place out
My sweeeeet set up
the three maori wood carvings in the foyer
Becca and Tyler on the deck
Josh and Leslie
playing volleyball at the old house
Don't let the weather fool you. It was nice and warm in the daytime but it was HELLLLLA cold at night. I fell asleep on a couch, and woke up and was absolutely freezing. So the first night was a little shaky and cold. But it was alright.
Sunday: I'm on breakfast duty, so I have to wake up extra early, and it's still dark out, to set the tables. Besides it being really cold and being able to see my breath in the kitchen, it was cool because we got to see the Sunrise
look! power lines!
Mt. Ngauruhoe (n-ga-na-hor-E..I think) aka Mount Doom. I saw that mountain every day right when I walked out of my room. Awesome.
That day we got oriented and Niki (who was supposed to be our main advisor person throughout OPC) told us we were going to meet our Instructors for the course.
And this is when I met Paddy and Tony.
Meet Paddy (Patrick Read Watson)
Age: 27
Profession: OPC instructor, also a PE Teacher, and Music major!
Obsessions: Rugby
Paddy in two words: Hot. Damn.
Meet Tony (Tony More)
Age: 26
Profession: OPC instructor, former fire fighter, future paramedic. Triathelete.
Obsessions: Coke
Tony in two words: Red Hair
So we meet them and they're really funny, have great accents (I'd call Tony's more of a lisp) and we go get "gear hire" (we rent equipment). Once we get that sussed, they take us on a walk to a waterfall. Yay waterfall!
That's Mt.Ruapehu up there in the background. It's a volcano. I think it's overdue..
I want to say this was used in LOTR, and I wish it had been, but it wasn't. dang.
Tony thought it would be cool to get a picture of us behind the waterfall.
Paddy and Tony are also fascinated by Nalgenes. The water bottles that can't be broken. Apparently they don't have them where they are and they wanted to chuck one off the top of that water fall to see if it would really break.
Tony's really weird...
I seem to recall on that walk I had a debate with Lauren on who has worse weather; LA or Minneapolis. I don't know why. It was a stupid debate.
Nothing else happened that day, except we discovered dog biscuits (biscuits that are really tough, but really good, and full of butter)
Monday: I woke up again early enough to see the sunrise
And it was pretty much really cloudy every single day there. Ah well. We went to a Powhiri (Say "Wh" like "F") at a Marae (Mar-I), a place where the Maori people live. They're not like people who wear grass skirts and have face paint and do war dances (oh wait, yes they do) but they're also normal people. Kevin, the head of the family there, was speaking Maori, and it was so bizarre because he said something and Paddy and Tony started laughing..uhh. Then the part where we become part of the family is where you shake hands with each member of the family (there were only about 3 or 4 people) and you touch noses twice and kiss their cheek. Who's seen Whale Rider? It's just like that.
After that we were going into Turangi (the closest town) to 'shop' I guess. I got some long johns. Best thing I ever bought. And I got my first fish n chips meal!
That was soooo good.
I also bought a lot of other crap I probably didn't need (like...magazines with Coldplay on the cover. oh shut up it was an Australian Rolling Stone and a NZ music magazine. nyeah. But also a bunch of toursisty stuff like keychains, patches, flags..you name it!) Oh yeah, then since we had time, They took us to a local rock wall, and we went wall climbing for like the next two hours, and it was already paid for and everything. I keep telling myself I'm a wall climber..but I'm really not.
Since it was the Fourth of July, we had a 'rave'
glow sticks.....glow sticks
Tuesday: White Water Rafting. Yessss. It was SO cold, but I Was laughing and smiling the whole time, getting soaked up in the front. It was fantastic. I looooved it.
The Tongariro river!!!
After rafting we went to some hot pools on a thermal ground. You don't swim right in the hot springs, but in a heated pool. Yeah, that kinda takes away the thrill of it, but ok. Paddy and Tony also cooked some veggies underground for us while we were rafting to eat with lunch
Yeah, since it was a thermal grounds you could basically do anything underground.
Then we looked at the hot springs and boiling mud
Dagobah anyone?
Uh..
Wednesday: We get into our groups of nine with our instructor for the next 3 weeks. I'm in Paddy's(YES) group. Wednesday is usually a 'local' day where you explore all the cool things to do around OPC. We did teambuiling stuff. trust walks, low ropes, etc..
Paddy and my partner Laura. We had to leade eachother through like... mud and rocks and whatever blindfolded.
Lastly we trailblazed a bit and then we had to descend a little muddy cliff with Paddy lowering us on a homemade harness. That was...uncomfortable..
Did Laura wear Jeans?? Man.. that must've sucked.
It was all good though after that (even though we were covered in mud) we got to go Fly Foxing
There's no team building here or anything (except when you have to pull someone back) you're strapped in and you just... run off the platform and you you fly down a wire over a river and stop abruptly. fun times.
Then Paddy made us try a Horopito. It's a leaf that he said would taste minty, but it really tasted like fire! We decided to call our group the Horopitoes after that.
Thursday: We went Mountain Climbing. Yeah, that was tough stuff. It was a pretty steep mountain, but small nonetheless. I saw Mordor. That was pretty sweet.
I slept good that night.
Mount Dooooooooom
That is LITERALLY just a big triangle. Oh, and this was used in The Two Towers, if you can figure out where.
"And Look! More lembas bread"
Friday: High Ropes Course! Yes! I totally conquered it. I did the hardest on first and then used my massive problem solving skills to do another one. Oh man, I was so proud of myself. The last thing we did there was Bridge Swining. You climb a wall to get up to a platform where you're all harnessed up and you just jump off of it and you..well, you swing back and forth, then people stop you and you take off the harness. Whilst trying to stop Nathalie, I grabbed her boot and sliced my fingers on it. (warning..blood!)
that hurt like a mother.
After high ropes we went Caving. Caving was alright. I was bit pissed off by being really uncomfortable and muddy. But I guess it was a good experience.
Josh and Laura outside the caves.
Glow worms!
Us..very muddy and worn out..
That night Paddy was our advisor and instead of watching a movie (which we had been doing so often every night) we had a fashion show. We got into groups of three and one of them had to be a model, one had to be a commentator, and one had to be a fashion guru. I was the guru. all I had to do was make a facial expression. I figured that was simple enough. We came in second. Paddy cheats.
The rules were you can only use four sheats of newspaper, one piece of tape, and a marker. Ours was so cool.
That's oscar giving Josh a free show. Oscar wasn't in our group though... Thank goodness.
The next day it was time for our first expedition. We were going on a two day hike to Mt. Ruapehu. Tony was taking time off so we Got Chris instead. Chris=not as cool OR attractive as Tony.. Or Paddy for that matter. But we had Paddy so it was all good.
That's Chris right there in the corner. He had dreads.
Meet Chris ^^
Age: unknown
Profession: OPC instructor
Obsessions: New Zealand.
Chris in two words: Pissed off.
There were huts for us to stay in, but a few of us decided to be hardcore and sleep in tents. And Sonuva..It was the ONLY night the ENTIRE trip is snowed. But the funny part was that it was the clearest night I'd ever seen in my life.
Me, Sara and Lauren gossiped a bunch and talked about how much Nathalie should shut up. Yeah. That was the basic jist of it.
The next day was the worse. It was walking ON volcanic ash. The whole time. That sucks so much. You wouldn't even believe.
Mt. Ruapehu in the morning
We're the last people on earth!!
Finally we got to the top after a grueling hill that would NEVER END. Seriously it just kept going. We got to the top and to our lovely ski lodge where we would be spending the night. It had electricity, comfortable beds, two floors with a lounge area.
The View from the Top. (Isn't that a movie?)
The next morning I was awoken by a harsh orange light. I figured I should get up soon and take pictures of the sunrise before it was too late.
It seemed kinda funny that the next morning we got picked up by a big truck at the top of the mountain to take us back to OPC. Uhhhh weird considering all the hardships of the past two days but whatever. That day we did absolutely nothing. In the evening however Leslie enlisted Tyler to cut his hair into a mowhawk. Oh, Leslie.
He was freaking out..
trtuth be told, he didn't look so bad with it
The next day (Tuesday) we went for our overnight at the Marae. It was AWESOME. That place has so much culture, and there's such a feeling of family. I felt like I really belonged there.
The Boys learned a Haka (a Maori war dance)
Ka Mate! Ka Mate!
Ka Ora! Ka Ora!
Ka Mate! Ka Mate!
Ka Ora! Ka Ora!
Tenei ta Tangata Puhuruhuru
Nana nei i tiki mai, whakawhiti te ra!
A, hupane! A kaupane!
A, hupane! A kaupane!
Whiti te ra!
and made a Hungi (food cooked in an underground fire pit)
and we had a fabulous feast. it was like thanksgiving all over again.
The girls learned a Maori stick game, which wasn't as fun as learning the Haka, I'm sure, but it was still awesome.
E Papa Waiari
Taku ne mahi
Taku ne mahi
e tuku roimata
e aue, e aue
e kamate au
e hine hoki mai ra.
Ask me to sing it for you sometime and I will.
Heh. Lauren
this is called me being a wise-ass in regards to Nathalie's lecture about the difference between a trans-sexual and a transvestite. All I"m saying is, I'm glad I know :P
Overall, Marae was an awesome experience. I'm so proud to say I was apart of it.
The next couple days were a bit of leisurely. On Thursday we went into Taupo to chill, but not before we Bungied.
heh. that was freaking sweet as! Scary as hell for the first two seconds, but SO awesome the rest of the time.
y o u g o b a c k w a r d s , b u t t h e n , y o u g o f o r w a r d s a g a i n .
We went into Taupo (the biggest town nearby. it has about 3 main streets..) and I spent more money.. Then we had some spare time so the boys took us to Huka falls
It's not very big, but it's like the most powerful waterfall in the North Island (or all of NZ, I'm not sure) It looked refreshing.
on Friday we were supposed to go skiing but the weather had other plans, so instead we went on a walk around a small lake. At one point the track splits off. While most everyone went one way, a few of us went another way, and Tony followed. When we got to a little beach, we were waiting to meet the other group and Tony said we could go swimming.
I do'nt have the best judgement with hot and cold... Yeah, I don't know why I never realized it.
While the water looked refreshing from the top where we were in our warm clothes, once you actually strip down and you're standing there you kinda have some second thoughts.
that water was abso-bloody-lutely freezing. It hits you like a slap in the face and you can't breathe. The wind didn't help either.
GROSS. Why am I even putting this picture up?
I didn't have a towel so I air dried. The Wind was cold, but warmer than the water, so it was weird. When I put my clothes back on, I didn't even need anything extra. I was already really warm. Weird how those things work.
Saturday, Skiing, started out pretty well. Well first of all, Mt.Ruapehu SUCKS for skiing. It's a volcano. IT's not real good powder, and there are no trees, only rocks. At the top of the mountain they have t-bars instead of chair lifts, and me and tyler were on one and he was screwing around and I fell....all the way down. It was the single most terrifying experience of my whole life. When you keep falling and you don't know where you're going to stop or what you're going to hit and you can't stop yourself..That's scary stuff. And your first instinct is to yell for help, but who can help you? nobody. I got pretty badly bruised and really traumatized. I was going off jumps and bouncing over ice chunks. I didn't have any skis, but the thing that saved me was a helmet. God bless helmets. aahh
teheheheh. That's just ONE of themany bruises I got from that whole ordeal, and this picture was taken 5 days after it happened. :)
Sorry about the exposage... But this is as real as it gets. (You can kinda see the bruise on my right arm too)
on Sunday it was time for our 5 day expedition. We were going Paddling with Chris (Paddy had holiday). It was really fun. We stayed at a lot of cool huts and I found out I love paddling. I honestly can't ever talk about the Canoe trip because there was just too much stuff. Pictures instead:
l o o k a t s t a r s .
l o o k h o w t h e y s h i n e f o r y o u .
it's a tent! or is it..water?
a tree! Or is it...a claw?
The Whanganui river
...rocks, mate
The farm surrounding Whakahoro hut
These are images from Tieke Marae, a different marae we stayed at while on the trip.
The famous splinter. We were just paddling on down the river, and I put my finger too far down on a stroke and it caught up in the wood. I got a gigantic splinter in my middle finger (right down under the nail). I pulled it out and the minute I saw how big it was i said "oh my gosh i'm keeping it!" Yeah, I still have the splinter. (warning blood)
still got the bruise too. That happened over 4 weeks ago.
I loved that 5 day more than anything on the trip. It was awesome. I loved canoeing.
Upon return from the trip, we were SUPPOSED to get picked up by Paddy, but it didn't happen (sad, yes). We stopped in town for Fish n Chips, then headed back, greeted the other group, and just talked the rest of the night.
Friday: We clean and pack and everything and we make little presentations for eachother (each group had to make a song or rap or skit and present it). Ours was pretty much the most awesome thing ever. I don't remember it because we each had a verse to say and I only know mine. Then Paddy and Tony thought it'd be cool to take us to the top of Ruapehu to see the sunset. That plan sounded good, but the clouds started to settle in.. But it was weird. When we got there, They both got out and just stalked around, we were still in the bus and had no idea what was going on. They were just looking up at the mountain looking dumbstruck and talking about something. So I seized the oppurtunity and took a picture of them. Lauren and I laughed SO HARD. And then they saw us laughing at them and Tony gave us the meanest expression I think he could muster. That made it even funnier.
ah, memories
Oh Paddy, you joker.
Paddy flipping off Oscar and Lauren managed to get on camera for the few seconds it was there. Brilliant, Brilliant Lauren. I think the two of us loved Paddy and Tony the most. Or at least...talked about them the most. lol. She liked Tony more. That was good since she was in his group. Heh >D
Man I loved those guys
Swell.
When we got back to OPC, Robin (our cook) had set out a huge junk feast.
full of little NZ delectables. (Oh, this picture here, wasn't even HALF of what we had in the end)
Cheat cakes!
Then Paddy showed us the slideshow he made with all the pictures taken by instructors throughout the 3 weeks. The first song was "Yellow" which I admit, I had never heard before. But of course since then, I've been listening to it non stop. When the show was over, Tony was like "Ah, you're a legend, mate!"
We got to stay up until Midnight so we did what we had been doing a lot recently...
DANCE PARTY. Those were... THE best. Tyler (white shirt) was probably the sexiest straight boy dancer you'll ever see. I think he copied his style from Franz Ferdinand. There was one song we listened to ALL the time, and that was "I'm not sick but I'm not well" (or something like that) by Harvey Danger. We must've listened to it at each dance party at least 10 times... at least.
This picture summarizes Paddy's personality pretty well.
The Next morning we got ready to head out and it was all pretty sad. I was taking the bus to Hamilton with a few people, but it wouldn't be the same. Man, it was a sad morning. the last time I'd see Paddy and Tony. I'd see everyone else again on the flight home, but man...
Me, Lauren and Sara. Tent buddies for life :) (Oh yeah, in case you were wondering, I cut my hair while we were there. heh)
During group shots Paddy got in the way. Yessss
All of us, minus Nathalie, who left extra early. I don't think we ever got a group shot of EVERYONE.
When we left I hugged Paddy and Tony and Paddy said "Cya round Caroline"....I dared not contradict him.
So I was off and OPC was over. The greatest experience of my entire life. and it was over... like that.
a n d t h e h a r d e s t p a r t w a s
l e t t i n g g o , n o t t a k i n g p a r t.
I arrived in Hamilton right on time and was met by my Host dad, David. I got into the car (nice car, by the way. I must've thought that every single time I rode in it) and headed to their huge house in Waikato (just a small district in Hamilton). My family was nice, but really quiet. And the house was unbearably quiet. I got right on the computer and wrote my mom a 7 page email on OPC. Then I met Becky, my host sister. She's cool, if a bit close minded and spoiled. My family had their own tennis court, trampoline, swimming pool and hot tub. they also had a cow.. I don't know what the cow was for. I named it Bungy, because what else do you name a cow? there was also a really awesome Tree at the beginning of the Road and I named it Hugo. It was incredible.
My first full day with the family we went to Waitomo Caves to see the glowworms. Yeah it was alright, I suppose. I had already seen glow worms when I went caving and I didn't have to pay for it either.
me and my host family outside the caves
inside the cave...
a cool waterfall they took me too. It was massive.
During the week I worked at a Primary school with Gail, who's husband Mark is president of the local AFS chapter. She got me the job there and I worked in her class mostly. She got me involved in Archery with her exchange student Henrik from Sweden. I'm glad I met him because we hit it off really well and I actually had a friend in Hamilton. I was just lonely.. all the time.
The quality of these photos are a little less than good because Henrik took them with his cell phone.
So I did Archery every Wednesday night for an hour and a half. It was kind of an escape from the house.
Every weekend my family took me on little expeditions (Well, my mum and becky did. dave was kinda uninvolved in my homestay)
The first saturday I went to Hobbiton.
That's BagEnd
and that's me at BagEnd
the view of the Party Tree from inside.
That was really really cool. My family didn't really want to go on it so I paid for myself and went by myself. morning tours are the best because there's like..nobody in them. There was me and 3 other people. Niiiiice
Then we went for a bush walk (a walk in the woods) to a really spectacular waterfall which name escapes me
The Next day we went to Roturua to go Zorbing and luging. It was raining too hard so we only went Zorbing (you'll know what it is once you see)
this picture is somewhat unflattering, but oh well. Zorbing was SO FUN. I giggled uncontrollably the entire time.
Let's see, the next weekend I stayed with Gail's family, because both my parents were away on business, so Mark (her husband), took me, Matt (her son) and Henrik to Raglan, on the west coast.
and i could write a song a hundred miles long, well that's where i belong, and you belong with me, not swallowed in the sea
that's matt on the beach. it was an incredible beach
yes, it's meant to screw with your head.
and the most fantastic sunset.
During that week at school, it was Book Week and so on one of the days everyone had to dress up as their favorite book character, including me, so I was like "whatever" and dressed up as a Hobbit, because, what choice did I have? I had nothing to work with. I had a bunch of brown so I wore that. Go me.
despite popular belief, Spongebob isn't a book character
harry potter was quite the popular choice.
Oh that's just Max. He was awesome. He loved Halo 2 and he was really clever and we had a war one day where we would lick our hands and try to slap each other. If OPC made me more mature at all, I lost all of it during my time at the school.
My last weekend we went to Tauranga, which is the other side of the Island (The South Pacific) that was a beautiful beach as well.
I don't have pictures of my last days in New Zealand because my camera was dead. But I basically did everything the same. I got picked up from School on Friday, August 19 at 2 pm by a Shuttle and got taken to the airport where I saw everyone from OPC and I was giddy as ever. We all sat by eachother and I enjoyed the 12 hour plane ride home. We arrived in LA at noon on the same day we left, went through customs and said our final goodbye.
l i g h t s w i l l g u i d e y o u h o m e
It wasn't real. None of it was. It was a blur. I got my plane ticket home and sat in the gate of the plane to go home, just thinking. Hungry...it was still the same day! The plane ride to Minneapolis wasn't as long as I thought it would be, and I made it home.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. All of it. Every single bloody moment of it all.
I think I'm quite ready for another adventure
I told you it'd be long. :-)
New Zealand was...well...
Warning: This entry will be both long AND detailed. I suggest taking a few days to go over it ;-). You've been warned.
S q u a r e O n e
It was Wednesday morning and I was getting on a plane and leaving EVERYTHING behind. I wasn't freaking out, and I was very eerily calm. I wouldn'tve liked to be around me. When I got to Hell (Los Angeles Airport..LAX) there was supposed to be an AFS person there to meet me, but there was nobody, so I called the hotel we were staying at and got a car to come get me. But they found me anyway. So whatevs. Uhh So yeah I get to the hotel, my mom's on the phone because she's freaking out because I didn't call her. Well, ok, first, I'm in LA, the place I hate the most in all the world, and my mom's lecturing me on the phone in Minnesota.. what..ever.. They took my passport and return ticket. Wow. I feel so much better. People I just met are handling my life right there. Ok ok, so I go get some lunch at the airport restaurant (We ate every single meal there while we were in LA) with our meal vouchers. good deal.
I meet everybody, and everyone is really cool. Yay! Also it made me feel a little better about myself that I could make friends so well, or maybe it was because we were all in the same boat. 'S possible.
Thursday: We do a bunch of teambuilding exercises in the hotel and we meet this guy called Shaymey (like "Jaime" with a 'Sh') who did AFS but with France but he 'has a great deal of love for the land we are going to'. Yeah, he loves New Zealand, and he's big with the Maori people over there. He has this cool staff a tribe chief made for him. He's also a stoner, and insists that marijuana is an herb, not a drug. "New Zealanders really love their Herb."
ANYWAY, the plane left at like.. 10:30 pm, so we had all this time. Shaymey decided it would be cool if we took a little tour of Hollywood, and he'd tell us exactly where to go since he lives in LA! Wow! At least it wasn't really hot like LA mostly is. Oh, that bitch Cameron! She was an AFS volunteer too. She's like "It's going to be like 75 degrees today" and I was like "yes!" "Uhh..that's not warm". Whoa. I think everyone pretty much hated her.
Yes
That's all of us in Hollywood, I think the point of this picture was to get the Hollywood sign in the background. Not that I cared.
So yeah, finally it's time to go to the airport and it's about fricken time if you ask me. We get to the terminal and there's a monstrous line out the door (NZ is popular, y'know) and we catch sight of the plane we're going to be on
that thing was the size of a whale! (uh..not the Air Canada one..)
So I mean it was cool and all that we were on this gigantic plane, I don't care how comfy your seats are, I still can't sleep on them. So I Couldn't sleep the whole 12 hour plane ride. We left at about 11:30 on Thursday, June 30, and arrived in New Zealand at 6:45 in the morning on Saturday, July 2. I treated it no differently than a night with little sleep, which happens often. RIGHT when we get to New Zealand we meet up with AFS and we go STRAIGHT to shuttles who are going to take us to OPC, a 6 hour drive. Gahhh.
Saturday: We get at OPC (aka The Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre of New Zealand)and get set up in this really flash lodge that's brand new. We've got cozy little rooms, and a great lounge area with leather couches; the works. We eat lunch (i think it was pumpkin soup and scones). And check the place out
My sweeeeet set up
the three maori wood carvings in the foyer
Becca and Tyler on the deck
Josh and Leslie
playing volleyball at the old house
Don't let the weather fool you. It was nice and warm in the daytime but it was HELLLLLA cold at night. I fell asleep on a couch, and woke up and was absolutely freezing. So the first night was a little shaky and cold. But it was alright.
Sunday: I'm on breakfast duty, so I have to wake up extra early, and it's still dark out, to set the tables. Besides it being really cold and being able to see my breath in the kitchen, it was cool because we got to see the Sunrise
look! power lines!
Mt. Ngauruhoe (n-ga-na-hor-E..I think) aka Mount Doom. I saw that mountain every day right when I walked out of my room. Awesome.
That day we got oriented and Niki (who was supposed to be our main advisor person throughout OPC) told us we were going to meet our Instructors for the course.
And this is when I met Paddy and Tony.
Meet Paddy (Patrick Read Watson)
Age: 27
Profession: OPC instructor, also a PE Teacher, and Music major!
Obsessions: Rugby
Paddy in two words: Hot. Damn.
Meet Tony (Tony More)
Age: 26
Profession: OPC instructor, former fire fighter, future paramedic. Triathelete.
Obsessions: Coke
Tony in two words: Red Hair
So we meet them and they're really funny, have great accents (I'd call Tony's more of a lisp) and we go get "gear hire" (we rent equipment). Once we get that sussed, they take us on a walk to a waterfall. Yay waterfall!
That's Mt.Ruapehu up there in the background. It's a volcano. I think it's overdue..
I want to say this was used in LOTR, and I wish it had been, but it wasn't. dang.
Tony thought it would be cool to get a picture of us behind the waterfall.
Paddy and Tony are also fascinated by Nalgenes. The water bottles that can't be broken. Apparently they don't have them where they are and they wanted to chuck one off the top of that water fall to see if it would really break.
Tony's really weird...
I seem to recall on that walk I had a debate with Lauren on who has worse weather; LA or Minneapolis. I don't know why. It was a stupid debate.
Nothing else happened that day, except we discovered dog biscuits (biscuits that are really tough, but really good, and full of butter)
Monday: I woke up again early enough to see the sunrise
And it was pretty much really cloudy every single day there. Ah well. We went to a Powhiri (Say "Wh" like "F") at a Marae (Mar-I), a place where the Maori people live. They're not like people who wear grass skirts and have face paint and do war dances (oh wait, yes they do) but they're also normal people. Kevin, the head of the family there, was speaking Maori, and it was so bizarre because he said something and Paddy and Tony started laughing..uhh. Then the part where we become part of the family is where you shake hands with each member of the family (there were only about 3 or 4 people) and you touch noses twice and kiss their cheek. Who's seen Whale Rider? It's just like that.
After that we were going into Turangi (the closest town) to 'shop' I guess. I got some long johns. Best thing I ever bought. And I got my first fish n chips meal!
That was soooo good.
I also bought a lot of other crap I probably didn't need (like...magazines with Coldplay on the cover. oh shut up it was an Australian Rolling Stone and a NZ music magazine. nyeah. But also a bunch of toursisty stuff like keychains, patches, flags..you name it!) Oh yeah, then since we had time, They took us to a local rock wall, and we went wall climbing for like the next two hours, and it was already paid for and everything. I keep telling myself I'm a wall climber..but I'm really not.
Since it was the Fourth of July, we had a 'rave'
glow sticks.....glow sticks
Tuesday: White Water Rafting. Yessss. It was SO cold, but I Was laughing and smiling the whole time, getting soaked up in the front. It was fantastic. I looooved it.
The Tongariro river!!!
After rafting we went to some hot pools on a thermal ground. You don't swim right in the hot springs, but in a heated pool. Yeah, that kinda takes away the thrill of it, but ok. Paddy and Tony also cooked some veggies underground for us while we were rafting to eat with lunch
Yeah, since it was a thermal grounds you could basically do anything underground.
Then we looked at the hot springs and boiling mud
Dagobah anyone?
Uh..
Wednesday: We get into our groups of nine with our instructor for the next 3 weeks. I'm in Paddy's(YES) group. Wednesday is usually a 'local' day where you explore all the cool things to do around OPC. We did teambuiling stuff. trust walks, low ropes, etc..
Paddy and my partner Laura. We had to leade eachother through like... mud and rocks and whatever blindfolded.
Lastly we trailblazed a bit and then we had to descend a little muddy cliff with Paddy lowering us on a homemade harness. That was...uncomfortable..
Did Laura wear Jeans?? Man.. that must've sucked.
It was all good though after that (even though we were covered in mud) we got to go Fly Foxing
There's no team building here or anything (except when you have to pull someone back) you're strapped in and you just... run off the platform and you you fly down a wire over a river and stop abruptly. fun times.
Then Paddy made us try a Horopito. It's a leaf that he said would taste minty, but it really tasted like fire! We decided to call our group the Horopitoes after that.
Thursday: We went Mountain Climbing. Yeah, that was tough stuff. It was a pretty steep mountain, but small nonetheless. I saw Mordor. That was pretty sweet.
I slept good that night.
Mount Dooooooooom
That is LITERALLY just a big triangle. Oh, and this was used in The Two Towers, if you can figure out where.
"And Look! More lembas bread"
Friday: High Ropes Course! Yes! I totally conquered it. I did the hardest on first and then used my massive problem solving skills to do another one. Oh man, I was so proud of myself. The last thing we did there was Bridge Swining. You climb a wall to get up to a platform where you're all harnessed up and you just jump off of it and you..well, you swing back and forth, then people stop you and you take off the harness. Whilst trying to stop Nathalie, I grabbed her boot and sliced my fingers on it. (warning..blood!)
that hurt like a mother.
After high ropes we went Caving. Caving was alright. I was bit pissed off by being really uncomfortable and muddy. But I guess it was a good experience.
Josh and Laura outside the caves.
Glow worms!
Us..very muddy and worn out..
That night Paddy was our advisor and instead of watching a movie (which we had been doing so often every night) we had a fashion show. We got into groups of three and one of them had to be a model, one had to be a commentator, and one had to be a fashion guru. I was the guru. all I had to do was make a facial expression. I figured that was simple enough. We came in second. Paddy cheats.
The rules were you can only use four sheats of newspaper, one piece of tape, and a marker. Ours was so cool.
That's oscar giving Josh a free show. Oscar wasn't in our group though... Thank goodness.
The next day it was time for our first expedition. We were going on a two day hike to Mt. Ruapehu. Tony was taking time off so we Got Chris instead. Chris=not as cool OR attractive as Tony.. Or Paddy for that matter. But we had Paddy so it was all good.
That's Chris right there in the corner. He had dreads.
Meet Chris ^^
Age: unknown
Profession: OPC instructor
Obsessions: New Zealand.
Chris in two words: Pissed off.
There were huts for us to stay in, but a few of us decided to be hardcore and sleep in tents. And Sonuva..It was the ONLY night the ENTIRE trip is snowed. But the funny part was that it was the clearest night I'd ever seen in my life.
Me, Sara and Lauren gossiped a bunch and talked about how much Nathalie should shut up. Yeah. That was the basic jist of it.
The next day was the worse. It was walking ON volcanic ash. The whole time. That sucks so much. You wouldn't even believe.
Mt. Ruapehu in the morning
We're the last people on earth!!
Finally we got to the top after a grueling hill that would NEVER END. Seriously it just kept going. We got to the top and to our lovely ski lodge where we would be spending the night. It had electricity, comfortable beds, two floors with a lounge area.
The View from the Top. (Isn't that a movie?)
The next morning I was awoken by a harsh orange light. I figured I should get up soon and take pictures of the sunrise before it was too late.
It seemed kinda funny that the next morning we got picked up by a big truck at the top of the mountain to take us back to OPC. Uhhhh weird considering all the hardships of the past two days but whatever. That day we did absolutely nothing. In the evening however Leslie enlisted Tyler to cut his hair into a mowhawk. Oh, Leslie.
He was freaking out..
trtuth be told, he didn't look so bad with it
The next day (Tuesday) we went for our overnight at the Marae. It was AWESOME. That place has so much culture, and there's such a feeling of family. I felt like I really belonged there.
The Boys learned a Haka (a Maori war dance)
Ka Mate! Ka Mate!
Ka Ora! Ka Ora!
Ka Mate! Ka Mate!
Ka Ora! Ka Ora!
Tenei ta Tangata Puhuruhuru
Nana nei i tiki mai, whakawhiti te ra!
A, hupane! A kaupane!
A, hupane! A kaupane!
Whiti te ra!
and made a Hungi (food cooked in an underground fire pit)
and we had a fabulous feast. it was like thanksgiving all over again.
The girls learned a Maori stick game, which wasn't as fun as learning the Haka, I'm sure, but it was still awesome.
E Papa Waiari
Taku ne mahi
Taku ne mahi
e tuku roimata
e aue, e aue
e kamate au
e hine hoki mai ra.
Ask me to sing it for you sometime and I will.
Heh. Lauren
this is called me being a wise-ass in regards to Nathalie's lecture about the difference between a trans-sexual and a transvestite. All I"m saying is, I'm glad I know :P
Overall, Marae was an awesome experience. I'm so proud to say I was apart of it.
The next couple days were a bit of leisurely. On Thursday we went into Taupo to chill, but not before we Bungied.
heh. that was freaking sweet as! Scary as hell for the first two seconds, but SO awesome the rest of the time.
y o u g o b a c k w a r d s , b u t t h e n , y o u g o f o r w a r d s a g a i n .
We went into Taupo (the biggest town nearby. it has about 3 main streets..) and I spent more money.. Then we had some spare time so the boys took us to Huka falls
It's not very big, but it's like the most powerful waterfall in the North Island (or all of NZ, I'm not sure) It looked refreshing.
on Friday we were supposed to go skiing but the weather had other plans, so instead we went on a walk around a small lake. At one point the track splits off. While most everyone went one way, a few of us went another way, and Tony followed. When we got to a little beach, we were waiting to meet the other group and Tony said we could go swimming.
I do'nt have the best judgement with hot and cold... Yeah, I don't know why I never realized it.
While the water looked refreshing from the top where we were in our warm clothes, once you actually strip down and you're standing there you kinda have some second thoughts.
that water was abso-bloody-lutely freezing. It hits you like a slap in the face and you can't breathe. The wind didn't help either.
GROSS. Why am I even putting this picture up?
I didn't have a towel so I air dried. The Wind was cold, but warmer than the water, so it was weird. When I put my clothes back on, I didn't even need anything extra. I was already really warm. Weird how those things work.
Saturday, Skiing, started out pretty well. Well first of all, Mt.Ruapehu SUCKS for skiing. It's a volcano. IT's not real good powder, and there are no trees, only rocks. At the top of the mountain they have t-bars instead of chair lifts, and me and tyler were on one and he was screwing around and I fell....all the way down. It was the single most terrifying experience of my whole life. When you keep falling and you don't know where you're going to stop or what you're going to hit and you can't stop yourself..That's scary stuff. And your first instinct is to yell for help, but who can help you? nobody. I got pretty badly bruised and really traumatized. I was going off jumps and bouncing over ice chunks. I didn't have any skis, but the thing that saved me was a helmet. God bless helmets. aahh
teheheheh. That's just ONE of themany bruises I got from that whole ordeal, and this picture was taken 5 days after it happened. :)
Sorry about the exposage... But this is as real as it gets. (You can kinda see the bruise on my right arm too)
on Sunday it was time for our 5 day expedition. We were going Paddling with Chris (Paddy had holiday). It was really fun. We stayed at a lot of cool huts and I found out I love paddling. I honestly can't ever talk about the Canoe trip because there was just too much stuff. Pictures instead:
l o o k a t s t a r s .
l o o k h o w t h e y s h i n e f o r y o u .
it's a tent! or is it..water?
a tree! Or is it...a claw?
The Whanganui river
...rocks, mate
The farm surrounding Whakahoro hut
These are images from Tieke Marae, a different marae we stayed at while on the trip.
The famous splinter. We were just paddling on down the river, and I put my finger too far down on a stroke and it caught up in the wood. I got a gigantic splinter in my middle finger (right down under the nail). I pulled it out and the minute I saw how big it was i said "oh my gosh i'm keeping it!" Yeah, I still have the splinter. (warning blood)
still got the bruise too. That happened over 4 weeks ago.
I loved that 5 day more than anything on the trip. It was awesome. I loved canoeing.
Upon return from the trip, we were SUPPOSED to get picked up by Paddy, but it didn't happen (sad, yes). We stopped in town for Fish n Chips, then headed back, greeted the other group, and just talked the rest of the night.
Friday: We clean and pack and everything and we make little presentations for eachother (each group had to make a song or rap or skit and present it). Ours was pretty much the most awesome thing ever. I don't remember it because we each had a verse to say and I only know mine. Then Paddy and Tony thought it'd be cool to take us to the top of Ruapehu to see the sunset. That plan sounded good, but the clouds started to settle in.. But it was weird. When we got there, They both got out and just stalked around, we were still in the bus and had no idea what was going on. They were just looking up at the mountain looking dumbstruck and talking about something. So I seized the oppurtunity and took a picture of them. Lauren and I laughed SO HARD. And then they saw us laughing at them and Tony gave us the meanest expression I think he could muster. That made it even funnier.
ah, memories
Oh Paddy, you joker.
Paddy flipping off Oscar and Lauren managed to get on camera for the few seconds it was there. Brilliant, Brilliant Lauren. I think the two of us loved Paddy and Tony the most. Or at least...talked about them the most. lol. She liked Tony more. That was good since she was in his group. Heh >D
Man I loved those guys
Swell.
When we got back to OPC, Robin (our cook) had set out a huge junk feast.
full of little NZ delectables. (Oh, this picture here, wasn't even HALF of what we had in the end)
Cheat cakes!
Then Paddy showed us the slideshow he made with all the pictures taken by instructors throughout the 3 weeks. The first song was "Yellow" which I admit, I had never heard before. But of course since then, I've been listening to it non stop. When the show was over, Tony was like "Ah, you're a legend, mate!"
We got to stay up until Midnight so we did what we had been doing a lot recently...
DANCE PARTY. Those were... THE best. Tyler (white shirt) was probably the sexiest straight boy dancer you'll ever see. I think he copied his style from Franz Ferdinand. There was one song we listened to ALL the time, and that was "I'm not sick but I'm not well" (or something like that) by Harvey Danger. We must've listened to it at each dance party at least 10 times... at least.
This picture summarizes Paddy's personality pretty well.
The Next morning we got ready to head out and it was all pretty sad. I was taking the bus to Hamilton with a few people, but it wouldn't be the same. Man, it was a sad morning. the last time I'd see Paddy and Tony. I'd see everyone else again on the flight home, but man...
Me, Lauren and Sara. Tent buddies for life :) (Oh yeah, in case you were wondering, I cut my hair while we were there. heh)
During group shots Paddy got in the way. Yessss
All of us, minus Nathalie, who left extra early. I don't think we ever got a group shot of EVERYONE.
When we left I hugged Paddy and Tony and Paddy said "Cya round Caroline"....I dared not contradict him.
So I was off and OPC was over. The greatest experience of my entire life. and it was over... like that.
a n d t h e h a r d e s t p a r t w a s
l e t t i n g g o , n o t t a k i n g p a r t.
I arrived in Hamilton right on time and was met by my Host dad, David. I got into the car (nice car, by the way. I must've thought that every single time I rode in it) and headed to their huge house in Waikato (just a small district in Hamilton). My family was nice, but really quiet. And the house was unbearably quiet. I got right on the computer and wrote my mom a 7 page email on OPC. Then I met Becky, my host sister. She's cool, if a bit close minded and spoiled. My family had their own tennis court, trampoline, swimming pool and hot tub. they also had a cow.. I don't know what the cow was for. I named it Bungy, because what else do you name a cow? there was also a really awesome Tree at the beginning of the Road and I named it Hugo. It was incredible.
My first full day with the family we went to Waitomo Caves to see the glowworms. Yeah it was alright, I suppose. I had already seen glow worms when I went caving and I didn't have to pay for it either.
me and my host family outside the caves
inside the cave...
a cool waterfall they took me too. It was massive.
During the week I worked at a Primary school with Gail, who's husband Mark is president of the local AFS chapter. She got me the job there and I worked in her class mostly. She got me involved in Archery with her exchange student Henrik from Sweden. I'm glad I met him because we hit it off really well and I actually had a friend in Hamilton. I was just lonely.. all the time.
The quality of these photos are a little less than good because Henrik took them with his cell phone.
So I did Archery every Wednesday night for an hour and a half. It was kind of an escape from the house.
Every weekend my family took me on little expeditions (Well, my mum and becky did. dave was kinda uninvolved in my homestay)
The first saturday I went to Hobbiton.
That's BagEnd
and that's me at BagEnd
the view of the Party Tree from inside.
That was really really cool. My family didn't really want to go on it so I paid for myself and went by myself. morning tours are the best because there's like..nobody in them. There was me and 3 other people. Niiiiice
Then we went for a bush walk (a walk in the woods) to a really spectacular waterfall which name escapes me
The Next day we went to Roturua to go Zorbing and luging. It was raining too hard so we only went Zorbing (you'll know what it is once you see)
this picture is somewhat unflattering, but oh well. Zorbing was SO FUN. I giggled uncontrollably the entire time.
Let's see, the next weekend I stayed with Gail's family, because both my parents were away on business, so Mark (her husband), took me, Matt (her son) and Henrik to Raglan, on the west coast.
and i could write a song a hundred miles long, well that's where i belong, and you belong with me, not swallowed in the sea
that's matt on the beach. it was an incredible beach
yes, it's meant to screw with your head.
and the most fantastic sunset.
During that week at school, it was Book Week and so on one of the days everyone had to dress up as their favorite book character, including me, so I was like "whatever" and dressed up as a Hobbit, because, what choice did I have? I had nothing to work with. I had a bunch of brown so I wore that. Go me.
despite popular belief, Spongebob isn't a book character
harry potter was quite the popular choice.
Oh that's just Max. He was awesome. He loved Halo 2 and he was really clever and we had a war one day where we would lick our hands and try to slap each other. If OPC made me more mature at all, I lost all of it during my time at the school.
My last weekend we went to Tauranga, which is the other side of the Island (The South Pacific) that was a beautiful beach as well.
I don't have pictures of my last days in New Zealand because my camera was dead. But I basically did everything the same. I got picked up from School on Friday, August 19 at 2 pm by a Shuttle and got taken to the airport where I saw everyone from OPC and I was giddy as ever. We all sat by eachother and I enjoyed the 12 hour plane ride home. We arrived in LA at noon on the same day we left, went through customs and said our final goodbye.
l i g h t s w i l l g u i d e y o u h o m e
It wasn't real. None of it was. It was a blur. I got my plane ticket home and sat in the gate of the plane to go home, just thinking. Hungry...it was still the same day! The plane ride to Minneapolis wasn't as long as I thought it would be, and I made it home.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. All of it. Every single bloody moment of it all.
I think I'm quite ready for another adventure
I told you it'd be long. :-)