Hello faithful readers, friends, family, random visitor from India that I keep getting.
I am currently traveling in Australia, and have nowhere near enough time to write a full post right now as I am waiting on a van to pick me up and take me to a very large boat, on which I will be living for the next 3 days and from which I will be jumping as often as possible into the Pacific decked out in SCUBA gear.
For the win.
I Definitely only told you so that you could be jealous (neener-neener!)
Also this marks the end of my semester!!
No more tests, homework, random geology side trips, lectures in beautiful places, rests in less than beautiful places. From here on out its just me and my wandering compass needle until May, which is when I will be returning to the beloved U. S. of A.
Allegedly.
Who knows? I might miss my flight.
Needless to say this will lead to an epic increase in tomfoolery, mischief and your all around good fun shenanigans.
Only about half of which I can tell you about.
Because my mother reads this blog that's why.
Well, my van is here, so until next time...
Oh ya, I'm in Cairns for all you Google Earth fans. Since Queenstown I have also been to Dunedin and then back to Christchurch before flying north to Cairns.
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Gravity is my favorite toy
It is totally unrealistic to try and Hang-glide, Skydive and bungee-jump...
... In one day at that is, I had to spread it over two.
I am currently staying in a room above Queenstown and am doing my very best to jump off of every high place within spitting distance tied to whatever rope is convenient.
No rope? No problem, give me a foil or a parachute and I'll be glad to jump face-first off of a perfectly good cliff or out of a functioning airplane.
Due to a quiet little mix-up somewhere in the cosmos we are enjoying an extra day in Queenstown.
Great news for my adrenal glands.
Horrible, horrible news for my bank account.
The Routeburn track is one of the great back country trails in New Zealand and is renowned worldwide for its breathtaking vistas and cascading waterfalls. It is fitted with 32 kilometers of trail ranging from maintained and groomed to vaguely marked slabs of rock. With four huts (kiwis can be wusses about their backpacking (tramping) and build huts on trails to save the horror (the horror!) of carrying and pitching a tent in the wilderness) the trail is recommended at 3-4 days, 2 days if you're experienced and in a hurry.
I don't have that kind of time.
Luckily one end of the trail emerges north of Te Anau (home of giant cement statues of extinct birds and where I was staying last week) and the other end empties into Glenorchy just North of Queenstown.
You know what sounds like a great idea? Day hiking the Routeburn track while your friends van it from Te Anau to Queenstown and meeting them there.
Naturally we had to try it.
You know what's less than a great idea? ( ^that idea right up there )
Actually I stand by it being a great idea. That side hike to the summit of another mountain maybe a little less standing by that idea.
Three of us set off on the first trailhead shuttle at O'dark thirty on the 21st to tackle what we were guessing was going to be a 10 hour day of steady hiking. 30 minutes in we had our first seriously rolled ankle.
Go team.
Between tripping over each other and tripping over ourselves we managed to trip over a waterfall.
All 174 meters (metres if you fancy) of it.
From the waterfall we could see all down the glacial valley we were sidling to see the fjord-lands and the Tasman Sea off to the west as well as the Misty Mountains (read: waaaaaaaaaay to much Lord of the Rings on this trip.)
New Zealand tracks are marked not in distance but in time you should expect to hike between landmarks. They say it is because the terrain can be so deceiving when viewed on a map and people end up stranded short of their destinations. For the first 6 hours or so we were able to make the check points in about 2/3 of the time expected of hikers. So when we arrived at the high point and 2/3 distance mark of our hike a little over an hour in the black we decided that we had time for a quick (read: not quick) jaunt up nearby conical hill.
Conical is a Kiwi euphemism for monstrous and malicious.
Just like Damp is a Kiwi euphemism for sheeted downpour.
Conical Hill was worth it. It also left us with 2 and half hours to hike the last 12 kilometers, rated at at about 4 hours. So we did what every sensible hiker would do, we ran as fast as our nerves would allow. Which for about an hour was a very slow scramble as we worked down bare rock paths and steppes. Back in the forest though we were able to step up the pace to half the marked times.
I fell, I bled, I made it to the trail-end by 6 (our goal). That last part is all that matters.
I changed my mind, there is no such thing as too much Lord of the Rings.
In Queenstown, it rains people, at any given time you can look up and there will be no less than 10 parachutes/hangliders/parasailers/man-birds soaring around above you.
I know that I have been doing something right because I have started to run into people over and over again. Travelers and natives alike are in the right places at the right times and its like a reunion between old friends with people I talked to waiting in line for an ice cream cone.
So free pool night is my absolute favorite bar gimmick. While staying near Lake Wanaka I played a fellow student who was from Switzerland. After getting totally stomped on for a couple of racks I asked how long he had been playing, to which he replied "Oh I stopped playing tournaments when I was 10".
It was then I decided to stop taking it easy on him.
There are wild goats here, and they don't get much taller than my knees, they are ridiculous.
well until next time,
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
... In one day at that is, I had to spread it over two.
I am currently staying in a room above Queenstown and am doing my very best to jump off of every high place within spitting distance tied to whatever rope is convenient.
No rope? No problem, give me a foil or a parachute and I'll be glad to jump face-first off of a perfectly good cliff or out of a functioning airplane.
Due to a quiet little mix-up somewhere in the cosmos we are enjoying an extra day in Queenstown.
Great news for my adrenal glands.
Horrible, horrible news for my bank account.
The Routeburn track is one of the great back country trails in New Zealand and is renowned worldwide for its breathtaking vistas and cascading waterfalls. It is fitted with 32 kilometers of trail ranging from maintained and groomed to vaguely marked slabs of rock. With four huts (kiwis can be wusses about their backpacking (tramping) and build huts on trails to save the horror (the horror!) of carrying and pitching a tent in the wilderness) the trail is recommended at 3-4 days, 2 days if you're experienced and in a hurry.
I don't have that kind of time.
Luckily one end of the trail emerges north of Te Anau (home of giant cement statues of extinct birds and where I was staying last week) and the other end empties into Glenorchy just North of Queenstown.
You know what sounds like a great idea? Day hiking the Routeburn track while your friends van it from Te Anau to Queenstown and meeting them there.
Naturally we had to try it.
You know what's less than a great idea? ( ^that idea right up there )
Actually I stand by it being a great idea. That side hike to the summit of another mountain maybe a little less standing by that idea.
Three of us set off on the first trailhead shuttle at O'dark thirty on the 21st to tackle what we were guessing was going to be a 10 hour day of steady hiking. 30 minutes in we had our first seriously rolled ankle.
Go team.
Between tripping over each other and tripping over ourselves we managed to trip over a waterfall.
All 174 meters (metres if you fancy) of it.
From the waterfall we could see all down the glacial valley we were sidling to see the fjord-lands and the Tasman Sea off to the west as well as the Misty Mountains (read: waaaaaaaaaay to much Lord of the Rings on this trip.)
New Zealand tracks are marked not in distance but in time you should expect to hike between landmarks. They say it is because the terrain can be so deceiving when viewed on a map and people end up stranded short of their destinations. For the first 6 hours or so we were able to make the check points in about 2/3 of the time expected of hikers. So when we arrived at the high point and 2/3 distance mark of our hike a little over an hour in the black we decided that we had time for a quick (read: not quick) jaunt up nearby conical hill.
Conical is a Kiwi euphemism for monstrous and malicious.
Just like Damp is a Kiwi euphemism for sheeted downpour.
Conical Hill was worth it. It also left us with 2 and half hours to hike the last 12 kilometers, rated at at about 4 hours. So we did what every sensible hiker would do, we ran as fast as our nerves would allow. Which for about an hour was a very slow scramble as we worked down bare rock paths and steppes. Back in the forest though we were able to step up the pace to half the marked times.
I fell, I bled, I made it to the trail-end by 6 (our goal). That last part is all that matters.
I changed my mind, there is no such thing as too much Lord of the Rings.
In Queenstown, it rains people, at any given time you can look up and there will be no less than 10 parachutes/hangliders/parasailers/man-birds soaring around above you.
I know that I have been doing something right because I have started to run into people over and over again. Travelers and natives alike are in the right places at the right times and its like a reunion between old friends with people I talked to waiting in line for an ice cream cone.
So free pool night is my absolute favorite bar gimmick. While staying near Lake Wanaka I played a fellow student who was from Switzerland. After getting totally stomped on for a couple of racks I asked how long he had been playing, to which he replied "Oh I stopped playing tournaments when I was 10".
It was then I decided to stop taking it easy on him.
There are wild goats here, and they don't get much taller than my knees, they are ridiculous.
well until next time,
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
Thursday, March 12, 2009
"Who wants to be run over by the Zorb?"
What a silly question. Of course I want to be run over by a Zorb. Who wouldn't?
That's right dear readers I'm back after an extended stay in a magical land where you have to pay for internet.
Places I have been since my last post for you google earth geeks: Picton, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Cass Field Station, Westport, Greymouth, Hokitiki and am currently staying in a field station in Harihari *Gasp*.
For the past week or so we've been bouncing around mountain field research stations where there is no internet *tear* and even when we're in town you have to pay for it, which I'm not going to do.
I finally went Zorbing, which was awesome. They filled it with water and its the closest thing I think I can get to riding in a washing machine.
During a free day in Christchurch me and a friend decided to take advantage of a nearby gondola and take some bikes back down it. After being reminded exactly how long it has been since I rode a bike on the first hill it was down hill the rest of the way. I should also mention the massive wind gusts that had me riding at a 45 degree angle (Karma for Wellington?). It was so windy that flies congregated on the side of our legs and bikes to get out of the wind.
I was chased through Cathedral Square by marching bagpipes, into a wall of more bagpipers(??) Apparently I wandered into some sort of Bagpiping competition while I was looking at a man in a top-hat.
The most interesting pizza I have ever eaten was on a whole wheat crust with onions, spinach leaf, fresh hen, ham and hare with mozzarela cheese and bleu cheese chunks. The sauce was plum sauce.
While we were in New Plymouth we were actually staying outside of town. The Profs dropped us off in town and gave us directions (kind of) to wander back into the holiday park (a motel/rv/campsite/whatever the heck else you want it to be). On our way back (well after sunset) it occured to us that we had no idea where we were going, so we stopped some poor random kiwi on the path to point us in the right direction. She proceeded to invite us to her house (think beach-front villa with windows for walls) offer us dinner, ice cream, introduce us to her dog and sons (interchangeable apparently) and then give us a ride home, leaving us with an invitation to wander back for another meal and to meet her daughters who were visiting from America of all places. She was nice.
There are at least 23 different ways to prepare black-eyed peas, I know because that's what I've had for dinner every night since Christchurch.
It more or less never stops raining here, the current storm has been going for almost a week.
There is a cave near Greymouth that I am going to get married in, and then go rafting through.
Bookstores here are only for the adventure spirited, sure there are the ones like Borders but most of them are pretty well hidden. My favorite so far was a store hidden in the back of an antique shop. I wandered upstairs where there was a clothing store and in the back of the store there was a little nook with a giant bookcase in it, when I got closer there was a door to another room crammed with bookshelves and a little cash register in the corner. Books three deep on the shelves it was smaller then my room at home with honestly thousands of books lying around.
When leaving Kaikoura our train was cancelled and we were left scrambling to find a bus to get to Christchurch.
I swam with dolphins. I hit one (on accident) in the face.
I found a blues bar in Christchurch called The Southern Blues Bar (kiwis aren't known for their creativity). It was pretty good and they let me go up and jam with the house band which was pretty sweet.
Everyone comments on my accent. I think they're nuts.
I saw watchmen on March 4th. With the dateline that's 2 days before you. And I was the only one in the theater.
I found a "Mexican" food place in Auckland that tasted like Thai food. I want a quesadilla more than life itself at this point.
Tomato sauce (ketchup) is still really weird here.
You know that crusty old bum/troubadour that you always see in movies? I found him. He lives at the Strawberry Tree in Kaikoura and he is hilarious. I think his name is Steve. He was playing with this band (by band I mean two guitar players, one from Brazil and the other from Czech Republic and by playing with I mean wandering between the two while they played their set.)
American pool is impossible to find here. Every table has billiards a little bigger than golf balls and side pockets with rounded rails, it's ridiculous. All I want is a free pool table with real billiards.
I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's at the Botanic Garden in Christchurch, and I watched the rain scene, while it was raining.
That's right, be jealous.
There is a man in Cathedral Square in Christchurch who looks just like Doc from Back to the Future. They call him Wizard. He has been screaming at passer-by for over ten years they say. He has a milk crate that he hides his water bottle under, no one knows why.
Ok.
This is all I can remember for now, I may or may not have knocked my head on the roof of a cave (repeatedly).
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
That's right dear readers I'm back after an extended stay in a magical land where you have to pay for internet.
Places I have been since my last post for you google earth geeks: Picton, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Cass Field Station, Westport, Greymouth, Hokitiki and am currently staying in a field station in Harihari *Gasp*.
For the past week or so we've been bouncing around mountain field research stations where there is no internet *tear* and even when we're in town you have to pay for it, which I'm not going to do.
I finally went Zorbing, which was awesome. They filled it with water and its the closest thing I think I can get to riding in a washing machine.
During a free day in Christchurch me and a friend decided to take advantage of a nearby gondola and take some bikes back down it. After being reminded exactly how long it has been since I rode a bike on the first hill it was down hill the rest of the way. I should also mention the massive wind gusts that had me riding at a 45 degree angle (Karma for Wellington?). It was so windy that flies congregated on the side of our legs and bikes to get out of the wind.
I was chased through Cathedral Square by marching bagpipes, into a wall of more bagpipers(??) Apparently I wandered into some sort of Bagpiping competition while I was looking at a man in a top-hat.
The most interesting pizza I have ever eaten was on a whole wheat crust with onions, spinach leaf, fresh hen, ham and hare with mozzarela cheese and bleu cheese chunks. The sauce was plum sauce.
While we were in New Plymouth we were actually staying outside of town. The Profs dropped us off in town and gave us directions (kind of) to wander back into the holiday park (a motel/rv/campsite/whatever the heck else you want it to be). On our way back (well after sunset) it occured to us that we had no idea where we were going, so we stopped some poor random kiwi on the path to point us in the right direction. She proceeded to invite us to her house (think beach-front villa with windows for walls) offer us dinner, ice cream, introduce us to her dog and sons (interchangeable apparently) and then give us a ride home, leaving us with an invitation to wander back for another meal and to meet her daughters who were visiting from America of all places. She was nice.
There are at least 23 different ways to prepare black-eyed peas, I know because that's what I've had for dinner every night since Christchurch.
It more or less never stops raining here, the current storm has been going for almost a week.
There is a cave near Greymouth that I am going to get married in, and then go rafting through.
Bookstores here are only for the adventure spirited, sure there are the ones like Borders but most of them are pretty well hidden. My favorite so far was a store hidden in the back of an antique shop. I wandered upstairs where there was a clothing store and in the back of the store there was a little nook with a giant bookcase in it, when I got closer there was a door to another room crammed with bookshelves and a little cash register in the corner. Books three deep on the shelves it was smaller then my room at home with honestly thousands of books lying around.
When leaving Kaikoura our train was cancelled and we were left scrambling to find a bus to get to Christchurch.
I swam with dolphins. I hit one (on accident) in the face.
I found a blues bar in Christchurch called The Southern Blues Bar (kiwis aren't known for their creativity). It was pretty good and they let me go up and jam with the house band which was pretty sweet.
Everyone comments on my accent. I think they're nuts.
I saw watchmen on March 4th. With the dateline that's 2 days before you. And I was the only one in the theater.
I found a "Mexican" food place in Auckland that tasted like Thai food. I want a quesadilla more than life itself at this point.
Tomato sauce (ketchup) is still really weird here.
You know that crusty old bum/troubadour that you always see in movies? I found him. He lives at the Strawberry Tree in Kaikoura and he is hilarious. I think his name is Steve. He was playing with this band (by band I mean two guitar players, one from Brazil and the other from Czech Republic and by playing with I mean wandering between the two while they played their set.)
American pool is impossible to find here. Every table has billiards a little bigger than golf balls and side pockets with rounded rails, it's ridiculous. All I want is a free pool table with real billiards.
I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's at the Botanic Garden in Christchurch, and I watched the rain scene, while it was raining.
That's right, be jealous.
There is a man in Cathedral Square in Christchurch who looks just like Doc from Back to the Future. They call him Wizard. He has been screaming at passer-by for over ten years they say. He has a milk crate that he hides his water bottle under, no one knows why.
Ok.
This is all I can remember for now, I may or may not have knocked my head on the roof of a cave (repeatedly).
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Just a quick fix......quit your whining! I can hear it all the way over the date line!!
At the moment, three things hurt; my head, my stomach and my limbs, so this will be brief just to whet your appetites.
I am currently in Kaikoura, which is on the South Island, after leaving Rotorua, I was in Auckland for almost a week and then New Plymouth for not nearly long enough.
Since my last post I have tried the most interesting pizza I have ever tasted, I caught a ride from a kiwi, met some organic farmers from Maryland and swam with penguins.
I'm afraid that's all I have for now because I need to sleep off this headache
cheers till then,
The Wayward Hoover
I am currently in Kaikoura, which is on the South Island, after leaving Rotorua, I was in Auckland for almost a week and then New Plymouth for not nearly long enough.
Since my last post I have tried the most interesting pizza I have ever tasted, I caught a ride from a kiwi, met some organic farmers from Maryland and swam with penguins.
I'm afraid that's all I have for now because I need to sleep off this headache
cheers till then,
The Wayward Hoover
Monday, February 9, 2009
Volcanoes, I Climb Them
Ok. So at the moment, I am hanging out in Rotorua, where they charge you by the minute for the internet.
Ridiculous.
After leaving Wellington, we moved on to Turangi (tUr-an-ee) where I was promptly assaulted by every sand flea within spitting distance. My feet look like some sort of cross between hamburger meet and a leper.
In between biting and being bitten by the fleas, we managed to wander our way over to the Tangariro Crossing, a very spectacular hike over one of the most active volcanic fields of modern times. This includes Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.
Mt. Doom stinks.
Seriously, it smells like rotten eggs and sweaty tourists.
But the rest of the volcanoes were amazing. After wandering past river after river of (cold) lava, we hit the flank of the ticking time bomb everyone kept calling a mountain. A few stops to inhale dangerous volcanic fumes and we were hiking across the floor of a crater about a 1/4 mile across.
Awesome is a pansy word compared to these peaks and craters.
After scrambling up a few more volcanic rims we came to a series of lakes, which were that beautiful turquoise blue that you always see when you're exhausted from climbing volcanoes. Sadly for us, they were quite literally lakes of sulfuric acid (dilute, but hey you don't see me jumping head first into the acid lake). Warning signs abounded, so naturally a couple of girls from another hiking party (Americans of course) thought it would be fun to have a swim. While their skin was slowly eaten away (they got a rash) we stumbled upon what would be the first of many fumerals, all of which smelled like burnt sin.
Natural deposition of a pure mineral, one of the rarest occurrences in the world, brings about the absolute strongest urge to vomit I've had in recent memory. Vaporized sulfur spouting out of these vents was crystallizing around the edges of the fissures in the ground. Apparently, moving directly from a gas to a solid is smelly business because there is no escaping the brimstone (rotten eggs). We continued on and found tons of interesting (says the geology prof.) rocks, one of which he had only heard of but never seen in person but expected us to identify it just the same (Olivine bearing Rhyolite).
If you have ever seen the movie Cool Hand Luke (the correct answer here is "Yes The Wayward Hoover, of course I've seen Cool Hand Luke") then you have a pretty solid of where we stayed in Turangi.
There were rows of small 8x8 cabins with spring-net cots, and the proper dosage of sand fleas. But it was so far my favorite stop. We spent the majority of our time sitting on our stoops playing ukelele, singing and swatting bugs.
Rotorua is world famous for its hotsprings, which are heated by volcaninc vents, which vent sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs. Seriously, the whole town smells like rotten eggs, and its a tourism hotspot.
I will never understand.
While in Rotorua we are responsible for our own food. For the most part we've teamed up with our roommates and been able to wrangle some pretty decent meals out of the Pack 'n' Save (Kiwi for Costco).
The tallest commercially rafted waterfall in the world is approximately 25 ft high, and I rafted it.
I have not gone Zorbing yet.
I know that I have had too much art history because today we were at a museum and I noticed that the guide was wrong.
I don't know what you know about masking tape and newsprint but if you are looking to create a realistic portraiture in the round, pick some other medium. I spent the better part of 12 hours last night trying to convince the sports section to look like my ears and nose.
At the end of it all, I thought it looked pretty decent. My art professor disagreed.
Things I still want to do:
Luge
Jump out of an airplane
Bungee Jump
Shave a sheep
If someone ever asks you what Kiwi peacocks do for fun, the answer is bite tourists.
I have lost all track and sense of time. I can't tell you what day or hour it is, all I know is that in 3 days we leave Rotorua.
I think that is awesome.
The ketchup here is weird. It's sweeter, almost like bbq sauce except not tasty. The hunt is on for some good old fashioned Heinz 57.
Have I mentioned how much the Kiwis love curry?
It is wicked hot here in Rotorua. I sleep on top of the covers underneath the window with as few articles of clothing as my roommates will allow.
The actor who played Jango Fett also apparently used to work making videos (very cheesy videos) for New Zealand museums.
I already miss my friends from Lewis and Clark.
I am running out of coins so this post has to stop here.
Tune in next time for something else I haven't told you about yet!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
Ridiculous.
After leaving Wellington, we moved on to Turangi (tUr-an-ee) where I was promptly assaulted by every sand flea within spitting distance. My feet look like some sort of cross between hamburger meet and a leper.
In between biting and being bitten by the fleas, we managed to wander our way over to the Tangariro Crossing, a very spectacular hike over one of the most active volcanic fields of modern times. This includes Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.
Mt. Doom stinks.
Seriously, it smells like rotten eggs and sweaty tourists.
But the rest of the volcanoes were amazing. After wandering past river after river of (cold) lava, we hit the flank of the ticking time bomb everyone kept calling a mountain. A few stops to inhale dangerous volcanic fumes and we were hiking across the floor of a crater about a 1/4 mile across.
Awesome is a pansy word compared to these peaks and craters.
After scrambling up a few more volcanic rims we came to a series of lakes, which were that beautiful turquoise blue that you always see when you're exhausted from climbing volcanoes. Sadly for us, they were quite literally lakes of sulfuric acid (dilute, but hey you don't see me jumping head first into the acid lake). Warning signs abounded, so naturally a couple of girls from another hiking party (Americans of course) thought it would be fun to have a swim. While their skin was slowly eaten away (they got a rash) we stumbled upon what would be the first of many fumerals, all of which smelled like burnt sin.
Natural deposition of a pure mineral, one of the rarest occurrences in the world, brings about the absolute strongest urge to vomit I've had in recent memory. Vaporized sulfur spouting out of these vents was crystallizing around the edges of the fissures in the ground. Apparently, moving directly from a gas to a solid is smelly business because there is no escaping the brimstone (rotten eggs). We continued on and found tons of interesting (says the geology prof.) rocks, one of which he had only heard of but never seen in person but expected us to identify it just the same (Olivine bearing Rhyolite).
If you have ever seen the movie Cool Hand Luke (the correct answer here is "Yes The Wayward Hoover, of course I've seen Cool Hand Luke") then you have a pretty solid of where we stayed in Turangi.
There were rows of small 8x8 cabins with spring-net cots, and the proper dosage of sand fleas. But it was so far my favorite stop. We spent the majority of our time sitting on our stoops playing ukelele, singing and swatting bugs.
Rotorua is world famous for its hotsprings, which are heated by volcaninc vents, which vent sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs. Seriously, the whole town smells like rotten eggs, and its a tourism hotspot.
I will never understand.
While in Rotorua we are responsible for our own food. For the most part we've teamed up with our roommates and been able to wrangle some pretty decent meals out of the Pack 'n' Save (Kiwi for Costco).
The tallest commercially rafted waterfall in the world is approximately 25 ft high, and I rafted it.
I have not gone Zorbing yet.
I know that I have had too much art history because today we were at a museum and I noticed that the guide was wrong.
I don't know what you know about masking tape and newsprint but if you are looking to create a realistic portraiture in the round, pick some other medium. I spent the better part of 12 hours last night trying to convince the sports section to look like my ears and nose.
At the end of it all, I thought it looked pretty decent. My art professor disagreed.
Things I still want to do:
Luge
Jump out of an airplane
Bungee Jump
Shave a sheep
If someone ever asks you what Kiwi peacocks do for fun, the answer is bite tourists.
I have lost all track and sense of time. I can't tell you what day or hour it is, all I know is that in 3 days we leave Rotorua.
I think that is awesome.
The ketchup here is weird. It's sweeter, almost like bbq sauce except not tasty. The hunt is on for some good old fashioned Heinz 57.
Have I mentioned how much the Kiwis love curry?
It is wicked hot here in Rotorua. I sleep on top of the covers underneath the window with as few articles of clothing as my roommates will allow.
The actor who played Jango Fett also apparently used to work making videos (very cheesy videos) for New Zealand museums.
I already miss my friends from Lewis and Clark.
I am running out of coins so this post has to stop here.
Tune in next time for something else I haven't told you about yet!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
What!? Another Post!? It's Only Been 2 Days! Is He Out of His Mind?!
That's right everyone. I'm back already for one reason and two reasons alone.
Pictures.
And Slang.
And an adventure!
First things first, I think you should all be updated on the words that are starting to slip into my everyday use before it slips into my typing and you give up reading in a fit of befuddled frustration. So pull out those buzzers and lets look at the categories shall we?
Maori (Indigenous New Zealanders)
Te Papa - Our House
Te Ara - Our Story
Mana - A life source. Kind of like karma/juju/something else I'm not entirely sure how to translate
Tapu - Sacred
Noa - Normal, not sacred
Waka - War canoe
Kia ora - Thank you but translates to a whole basket of friendly things
Manaia - Kind of like a spirit
Ka Mate - "It is death"
Marei - A ceremony house
New Zealand-y things
Sweet as - its like "awesome" but with more variety (*colorful adjective* as)
Breu - sounds like bro with an accent, and you can pretty much tag it on the end of any sentence
Cheers - thanks, goodbye, hello, pardon me, the list goes on
Diddums - "awww po baabyyyy"
So today something very out of the ordinary happened. Remember that level of 007 Goldeneye where if you stayed in one spot enemies would keep pouring out of the doors indefinitely?
Well it was kind of like that.
But with ducks.
We were definitely attacked by a flock, no - an army, of ducks. They just kept coming out of the bushes by the thousands (ok, so maybe there were 10 or 15 ducks). But they were organized!
They killed and ate Jack. True Story.
I had a dream the other night where Jack was flying a plane with the group in it and we all fell to our deaths, so I guess it all worked out.
Anyways... on to the main event!!
Look Samson, Pictures!!!!
...
...
Dear Readers, Blogger hates me and pictures will be delayed.
Again.
Pictures.
And Slang.
And an adventure!
First things first, I think you should all be updated on the words that are starting to slip into my everyday use before it slips into my typing and you give up reading in a fit of befuddled frustration. So pull out those buzzers and lets look at the categories shall we?
Maori (Indigenous New Zealanders)
Te Papa - Our House
Te Ara - Our Story
Mana - A life source. Kind of like karma/juju/something else I'm not entirely sure how to translate
Tapu - Sacred
Noa - Normal, not sacred
Waka - War canoe
Kia ora - Thank you but translates to a whole basket of friendly things
Manaia - Kind of like a spirit
Ka Mate - "It is death"
Marei - A ceremony house
New Zealand-y things
Sweet as - its like "awesome" but with more variety (*colorful adjective* as)
Breu - sounds like bro with an accent, and you can pretty much tag it on the end of any sentence
Cheers - thanks, goodbye, hello, pardon me, the list goes on
Diddums - "awww po baabyyyy"
So today something very out of the ordinary happened. Remember that level of 007 Goldeneye where if you stayed in one spot enemies would keep pouring out of the doors indefinitely?
Well it was kind of like that.
But with ducks.
We were definitely attacked by a flock, no - an army, of ducks. They just kept coming out of the bushes by the thousands (ok, so maybe there were 10 or 15 ducks). But they were organized!
They killed and ate Jack. True Story.
I had a dream the other night where Jack was flying a plane with the group in it and we all fell to our deaths, so I guess it all worked out.
Anyways... on to the main event!!
Look Samson, Pictures!!!!
...
...
Dear Readers, Blogger hates me and pictures will be delayed.
Again.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Bees, Trees and Kiwis
So.
New Zealand.
Its pretty fantastic. True story.
Things are well under way here and, Geology homework aside, everything is great! The weather, more or less, refuses to dip below 70 and when it's hot the wind keeps things cool.
About that wind. It never stops. Ever. The windows in our rooms are designed to only open part way which is great for all sorts of reasons but nothing gets you out of bed like a good gust of wind slamming it shut come 3 in the AM. Going down the harbor you see people riding bikes at 45 degree angles leaning into the wind (this gets absolutely hilarious between gusts).
I've been spending more and more time in libraries lately: city libraries, university libraries, research libraries, quiet libraries, loud libraries, libraries that serve drinks. The on-campus library at University of Victoria is currently my favorite for one reason alone; they have so many books that they simply started lining them up on the floor. At first I just thought it was messy, but when I saw bookends on either side I knew that this library and I were going to be great friends. Every row, between shelves on the floor there are little lines of books when they run out of room on a shelf, labeled and organized. It just goes to show what I've been telling my parents all along:
The floor is the biggest shelf in the house...err..library.
Directly up the hill from our dorm building is the Wellington Botanic Gardens, go ahead, Google it. You know you want to. It is absolutely gorgeous on 6 or 7 different levels. The upper parts of the garden are all natural foliage just left to grow with oodles of noodling paths running through it. In a week of going at least once a day I haven't taken the same route twice, which is wonderful. Anyways at the top of the garden is a tree, a magical tree.
Imagine, if you will, wandering along a quiet path with some friends when you happen upon a tree. As you walk past this tree, you notice it has been manicured and trimmed to form a perfect cylinder and then just before you turn away it does something really weird.
It says, "Hello."
If that doesn't make you re-read the labels on your medication I don't know what will. Turns out that this tree has grown together at the top to form a very sturdy web of branches that you can walk across, sit on and view the whole city from. It really is pretty magnificent. Of course, there are a few holes in the web, most of which I promptly found (and fell through). It has turned into the premier place to meet people. So far we've encountered just about every variety of south pacific culture there is and scared even more varieties of tourists.
Speaking of tourists (I am not one). (Really). We've become something of a tourist attraction ourselves. Be it a game of good old fashion American football or just throwing a baseball around, we manage to gather an audience. My favorite is playing catch under a near by cable car and watching everyone scrambling in the windows to pull out their cameras. Kiwis love baseball.
They love cricket too. Cricket is something that I don't understand. At all. I spend a good 2 hours trying to watch a game and all I got out of it was that there is a very specific way to wipe the ball off on your pants. I will admit that it is probably the best dressed sport out there; all collared shirts and khaki pants and trendy hats and whatnot.
I actually have nothing to say about bees in this post, it just rhymed with kiwi and tree.
I do have something to say about birds. Today I saw a bird going after a grasshopper and I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to root for. Comments? Suggestions? Theories on the social paradigm represented in the struggle for food?
Speaking of food.
Curry. So much curry you wonder what the plural for curry is. Wellington (which is where I am) is one of the stops where the group is fortunate enough to have some sort of dining facility to prepare meals. However, this means we do not get to control the menu which apparently means that we are to eat our bodyweight in curry. All varieties of curry: lamb curry, rice with curry sauce, vegetables with sauce and more lamb curry. Our chef is Welsh.
I don't get it either.
I miss Mexican food. A lot.
A kiwi introduced me to an interesting new dip for your potato chips: cheese & bacon. Weird, right? The taste isn't all that interesting one way or the other but the texture reminds me of old jello.
I cannot for the life of me get over how many things are free here. There are free concerts every night in the Garden, and they're really good and they're packed every night. All of the museums are free, the cable car service is dirt cheap and so are the taxis. Four bucks American can get you anywhere in the city in a taxi. Even the auto insurance is free (my parents would love it). There was a free reggae festival serving free food; free delicious food, mind you. They had watermelons cut in half and filled with assorted fruit, like a fruit salad in a bowl you could eat.
Pictures are taking me longer than I thought. This has nothing to do with my being unable to locate my connector cord for my camera. Nothing at all.
Well I think this is a sufficiently aimless and long winded post for now so stay tuned for more kiwi adventures! Coming next time: Kiwi slang!!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
P.S.
I am missing the Superbowl and this makes me sad.
Edit ::
This is a really long post, should I make them shorter? Should I post more? Should I just please, for the love of all that is good, stop rambling?
New Zealand.
Its pretty fantastic. True story.
Things are well under way here and, Geology homework aside, everything is great! The weather, more or less, refuses to dip below 70 and when it's hot the wind keeps things cool.
About that wind. It never stops. Ever. The windows in our rooms are designed to only open part way which is great for all sorts of reasons but nothing gets you out of bed like a good gust of wind slamming it shut come 3 in the AM. Going down the harbor you see people riding bikes at 45 degree angles leaning into the wind (this gets absolutely hilarious between gusts).
I've been spending more and more time in libraries lately: city libraries, university libraries, research libraries, quiet libraries, loud libraries, libraries that serve drinks. The on-campus library at University of Victoria is currently my favorite for one reason alone; they have so many books that they simply started lining them up on the floor. At first I just thought it was messy, but when I saw bookends on either side I knew that this library and I were going to be great friends. Every row, between shelves on the floor there are little lines of books when they run out of room on a shelf, labeled and organized. It just goes to show what I've been telling my parents all along:
The floor is the biggest shelf in the house...err..library.
Directly up the hill from our dorm building is the Wellington Botanic Gardens, go ahead, Google it. You know you want to. It is absolutely gorgeous on 6 or 7 different levels. The upper parts of the garden are all natural foliage just left to grow with oodles of noodling paths running through it. In a week of going at least once a day I haven't taken the same route twice, which is wonderful. Anyways at the top of the garden is a tree, a magical tree.
Imagine, if you will, wandering along a quiet path with some friends when you happen upon a tree. As you walk past this tree, you notice it has been manicured and trimmed to form a perfect cylinder and then just before you turn away it does something really weird.
It says, "Hello."
If that doesn't make you re-read the labels on your medication I don't know what will. Turns out that this tree has grown together at the top to form a very sturdy web of branches that you can walk across, sit on and view the whole city from. It really is pretty magnificent. Of course, there are a few holes in the web, most of which I promptly found (and fell through). It has turned into the premier place to meet people. So far we've encountered just about every variety of south pacific culture there is and scared even more varieties of tourists.
Speaking of tourists (I am not one). (Really). We've become something of a tourist attraction ourselves. Be it a game of good old fashion American football or just throwing a baseball around, we manage to gather an audience. My favorite is playing catch under a near by cable car and watching everyone scrambling in the windows to pull out their cameras. Kiwis love baseball.
They love cricket too. Cricket is something that I don't understand. At all. I spend a good 2 hours trying to watch a game and all I got out of it was that there is a very specific way to wipe the ball off on your pants. I will admit that it is probably the best dressed sport out there; all collared shirts and khaki pants and trendy hats and whatnot.
I actually have nothing to say about bees in this post, it just rhymed with kiwi and tree.
I do have something to say about birds. Today I saw a bird going after a grasshopper and I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to root for. Comments? Suggestions? Theories on the social paradigm represented in the struggle for food?
Speaking of food.
Curry. So much curry you wonder what the plural for curry is. Wellington (which is where I am) is one of the stops where the group is fortunate enough to have some sort of dining facility to prepare meals. However, this means we do not get to control the menu which apparently means that we are to eat our bodyweight in curry. All varieties of curry: lamb curry, rice with curry sauce, vegetables with sauce and more lamb curry. Our chef is Welsh.
I don't get it either.
I miss Mexican food. A lot.
A kiwi introduced me to an interesting new dip for your potato chips: cheese & bacon. Weird, right? The taste isn't all that interesting one way or the other but the texture reminds me of old jello.
I cannot for the life of me get over how many things are free here. There are free concerts every night in the Garden, and they're really good and they're packed every night. All of the museums are free, the cable car service is dirt cheap and so are the taxis. Four bucks American can get you anywhere in the city in a taxi. Even the auto insurance is free (my parents would love it). There was a free reggae festival serving free food; free delicious food, mind you. They had watermelons cut in half and filled with assorted fruit, like a fruit salad in a bowl you could eat.
Pictures are taking me longer than I thought. This has nothing to do with my being unable to locate my connector cord for my camera. Nothing at all.
Well I think this is a sufficiently aimless and long winded post for now so stay tuned for more kiwi adventures! Coming next time: Kiwi slang!!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
P.S.
I am missing the Superbowl and this makes me sad.
Edit ::
This is a really long post, should I make them shorter? Should I post more? Should I just please, for the love of all that is good, stop rambling?
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