A student life in NZ

It has been too long since my last confession. I don’t have the excuse of being on many outrageous adventures, all I can say is that I have settled into the normal student life. Therefore, procrastination is my life!

I have yet to leave Wellington since my return from the Northern road trip, and I am just itching to see more of this country. My time has mostly been passed getting to know people in my hall, hanging out with international students, playing soccer, trying to organize kitesurfing lessons, going to class, and of course, partying.

While I was a bit nervous about living with people 4-5 years my junior, things have been going really well on my floor. In an attempt to get everyone closer, a few of the girls on my floor decided to create a family tree (where each person on the floor is a member). Fortunately I was given the role of ‘big brother’ (I was dreading being a grandpa). So I now have a mum, dad, grandma, 7 sisters, a brother, a stray cat, a drunken aunt, and a wife. Safa (my new bride), moved onto our floor after the first week and happens to be in her 3rd year. With too many sisters, our mum decided to marry us before we even met. We generally all get together for drinks on the weekend, eat meals together, and sit around chatting in our common room.

One floor below, there are a bunch of rambunctious kiwis. I can easily equate some of these guys to the small town Canadian boys who get to university and can just out-drink everyone. I spend a fair bit of time one floor down with the boys. There is a lack of males on my floor (not that I would ever complain about that), so it’s nice to go down and learn the ins-and-outs of cricket and rugby, while teaching them about hockey and all it’s glory! It’s definitely nice to mix it up every once and a while. Plus, these guys have all offered their homes to me during our Easter break, so I’m really looking forward to them showing me the real kiwi experience. All-in-all, things in my hall are going really well!

Soccer is taking up a decent amount of time, but I am enjoying every minute of it. I solidified my spot on the 1st team with a shutout in a pre-season game last Sunday. We’ve got two more exhibition games this week, and the regular season starts on April 4th. Guillermo (our Argentinean coach) is great, but is forcing the quick play of Latin American football on our team. It’s so fast, and really works on quick plays starting at the back, so my play is improving rather quickly. There’s also a former keeper who used to play on the team years ago, who is out coaching and training me. The guys on the team are great; really friendly and outgoing. Needless to say, I’m really enjoying playing soccer.

Kitesurfing has not being going as well as I would have liked. I have so far had one lesson, and 6 cancelled due to poor conditions. Two of those lessons were cancelled after I had been out in the water already. Just as I was learning to body drag (where the kite just pulls you along in the water) the wind picked up, and therefore so did I. I was very lucky that my instructor was hanging tightly to my harness as we were both lifted about 6 feet out of the water (had he let go, I was told I would have been slingshot nearly 20 feet in the air). We crashed back down in the water, and called it a day. We called it a day after that, and I’m headed out on Thursday morning (early) this week to try and finally get some nice weather. The possibility of me seriously getting into the sport is looking slim over here due to the distance I need to travel for a good location, the costs, and the fact that the weather is slowly turning to shit here. Winter in Wellington consists of heavy wind, rain, and fairly mild temperatures (3-10 degrees – which isn’t awful, though being in the water makes it just a tad bit colder).

Lenny and I have also been seeing a lot of each other. We now have a class together, Conflict Analysis in International Politics. Basically, we sit there and talk sports all class. It’s a second year class, and we’ve spent the first 3 weeks on Realism and Liberalism (which we’ve both been learning about for the last 3 years). It’s a joke. Naturally, we’ve also been up to some fun and mischief over the last few weeks. We’ve managed a couple of wonderful dinners with some international students, providing a break from our hall meals (they’ve been progressively worse), and kiwis. Lenny and I (along with two others) managed to fabricate bracelets to sneak into Homegrown. This enormous music festival (featuring exclusively NZ music), had tickets going for $90 a piece, and not knowing any of the groups left us with very little incentive to shell out that kind of cash. But thanks to Lenny’s work on ‘paint’, we printed tickets off a computer and walked in without incident! The music was pretty good – though I would not have paid for tickets. With tons of people surrounding us, it was an exuberant atmosphere.

With all that Lenny and I have been hearing about Israel Apartheid Week back on Canadian and American university campuses, we’ve been feeling a bit useless here. There is very little talk of that on campus here in Wellington. However, on separate occasions we both noticed an enormous sign draped off the side of a house near an on-ramp to the highway which stated “Israel and USA get out of Palestine”. This obviously upset us both, and we felt a nighttime sting operation was in order. We snuck into the yard of this house, cut a couple of ropes holding the sign up made a stealthy exit. We’ve yet to see the sign back up, and we’ll be sure to keep these operations ongoing as needed!

Overall, the student life in NZ is very similar to anywhere else in the world. My classes are going well (other classes are: Holocaust and Genocide; and History of NZ – a Settler society), though I’ve yet to really get any work done. It is starting to bother me that the weather back home (Halifax, Ottawa, or GP) will soon be nicer than it is here. My goal of 8 months of endless summer will most definitely not be realized – though I’m sure I won’t get any sympathy from anyone back home.

1st Road Trip in New Zealand

Man, what an awesome road trip! Myself, Lenny, and 8 Americans had an incredible time (Suzie, Meagan, Michelle, Dana, Arvind, Joe and Shane were all from Penn State and Becky from Rhode Island). After piling 10 people (and all their bags) into two Corollas, we were driving down the left side of the road (a true mental challenge). Working with the signals and wiper blades reversed as well made a great game for the backseat drivers. They would count how many times the driver would signal with wiper blades, instead of lights – I was definitely well over 10 in the first 10 minutes. Force of habit just kept kicking in. I did manage to make a rather potentially costly error at one roundabout. While figuring out which direction to go, I turned the wrong way (into the direction of oncoming traffic) and then turned out of the roundabout onto the wrong side of the road (the right side) all while signaling with my wiper blades. Thankfully there was no traffic anywhere to be seen, except for the second car on the trip behind me. They were laughing and honking at me for a while – and I absolutely deserved it!

We had to drive roughly 6 hours that evening to make it to Rotorua for our hostel reservations. My car got shafted with only one CD, and while it was a great mix-CD I definitely got sick of hearing each song 7 times. We arrived to our hostel at 10:45, got settled, and headed out to Lava Bar for Becky’s 21st birthday. This girl is hilarious. She drank a bottle of Scrumpie’s Cider towards the tail end of the car ride, and was trollied (my new favorite Kiwi term for beyond-drunk). Becky can’t weigh more than 100 lbs and admitted to us that she had never drank before she came to NZ. As we started walking to the bar, Becky began to put on an incredible British accent (which surprisingly lasted until we put her to bed). The bar was nearly empty with the exception for a few local creepers. This however did not stop Becky from racing to the dance floor (she is one of those girls that just loves to dance, and is quite good too). After a couple free drinks from the bartender, Becky was a dancing machine with virtually no one to dance with except for a couple of locals. Just to clarify, the rest of us were stone sober and exhausted from the drive, but with it being her birthday we were happy to look out for her. The night was cut short as the bouncer was knocked unconscious by a bottle, and all 20 people in the bar were asked to leave.

With Becky being unable to walk on her own I piggy-backed her all the way home. It was incredibly entertained with her ramblings in an excellent British accent. She was explaining how she thought she was different from other Americans because of her innocence and I can’t really go into full details about her exact sayings, but they were unforgettable. Upon returning to the hostel, we were sitting in the common area when Becky started mumbling something to Lenny. After not being able to understand the first couple of times, Lenny then realized she was finished with her alcohol and called for me. We raced her to the bathroom, and were only a ½ second too late. It was a messy next couple of hours for Lenny and I, but again Becky’s British accent was worth it. I won’t embarrass her further, but Lenny and I agree that my inspirational, Barak Obama ‘Yes We Can’, speech for getting Becky to drink water was legendary.

The next morning the sun was shining on what was a gorgeous day! Our first stop of the day was a hike to the top of Mt. Maungakakaramea (yeah, just try pronouncing that – it stood for Mountain of coloured earth). It was a short hike and there were geothermal vents everywhere which were incredible. At the summit we could see 13 different lakes! There was a radio tower which I just felt needed to be climbed and the view from up there was even better. Becky was a little worse for wear, though she stuck it out like a champ. After hanging out for a bit up top, we made our way back to the cars in search of some thermal hot springs. In our quest for sulfur infused water, we got lost. It was only a 30 minute delay, but we did manage to catch a couple of clear cuts which had been planted (I felt right at home!). The stop at the thermal hot springs was incredible. It felt as though you just slipped into a bathtub it was so warm. What was most amazing was this was a location where two streams met (one hot and one cold). Finding the happy medium made the temperature just right!

Once we dried off, our sights were set on the Coromandel peninsula. Our only obstacle, quite possibly the most terrifying roads I have ever navigated. I’m talking about roads where they are only two lanes (if you can really call it two lanes, it’s more like one and a half) with a 25 foot drop to the ocean on one side and then a straight rock wall on the other. There was literally no margin for error. Oh, should I also ad in that we were driving at night, and transport trucks were taking these roads as well. With no guard rails, some of the turns had signs saying 10 km/h for corners (to show how tight some the corners were). It was a very tough stretch of driving and we found out afterwards that there are easily a dozen or so cars that go over the edge every year.

We arrived at Coromandel City intact (though some people’s stomachs may have been slightly upset and minds a little blown after surviving the roads) after the city had shut down at 9:45. The hostel had enormous hippie influence in everything from the owner to the sheets and room decorations. Lenny suggested that he and I take the room for two, as we all had to split up. We hadn’t seen the room, and completely burst out laughing when we did. The room (if you could call it that) was a futon with maybe two feet of room around the entire bed. There was colourful tapestry draped across the ceiling. We truly got the honey-moon suite! The following morning was my birthday! It was hilarious to wake up next to Lenny. We packed up and headed to Hot Water Beach. There was a great surf break and Shane, Joe and Arvin raced into the water with their body boards and got to the surfing while Lenny, myself, and the girls played some Frisbee and relaxed. After a while Lenny and I took the boards for a spin and had a pretty good time catching the waves with little effort! I really couldn’t have thought of a more perfect way to start the day.

We then headed to a marine reserve (Sting Ray Bay and Cathedral Cove). Lenny and I picked up some beer, sausage and crackers for the perfect mid-afternoon snack to share at Cathedral Cove. All of us went swimming, lay on the beach and did a little exploring. The scenery was very similar to Thailand. But I was most impressed with the vegetation of the area. It appeared to be a perfect cross between North America and a sub-tropical region. There were enormous pine trees surrounded by giant ferns and palm trees. It’s tough to describe so check out some of the pictures. We decided to get back on the road as to not get into wherever we were staying too late. We had no se plan though we all wanted to let loose that night, have a nice dinner and a few drinks for my birthday. Lenny was excellent at browsing through Lonely Planet while we were driving and spotted a town on the way called Whangamata. This is the actual description from Lonely Planet,
“While Auckland’s socially ambitious flock to Pauanui, the city’s young and horny head to Whangamata to surf, get stoned, and hook up. It can be a raucous spot over New Year, when the population swells to over 40,000. A true summer holiday town, in the off-season there may was well be tumbleweeds rolling down the main street.”

After hearing that, we hit the exit found an absolutely perfect hostel which had a vacant room for 10. Things really couldn’t have worked out more perfectly had we planned it. Arvind cooked up a great pasta dinner for everyone, as we all began putting back glasses of wine. We had our own kitchen, and a massive dinning room for a hostel which was perfect for eating and playing a few drinking games. After enough drinks we decided to head to the lone town bar for a little karaoke with the locals. Lenny was nice enough to offer me a tequila shot (little did I know he turned it into a Prairie Fire – added a little Tabasco to the shot) which went down anything but smoothly. After that I was up to sing a rendition of Sweet Home Alabama before calling it a night. My walk home was a little more rough than getting there. Michelle and I actually wrestled most of the way home from the bar (now I know how that sounds, but we actually, legitimately wrestled a good ¾ of the way home from the bar. I can only imagine what Lenny though, as he had a perfect view of us from the stairs of the hostel. I’m happy there were no cameras available that night.). I somehow made it to bed after what was an incredible birthday!

I awoke with a, well deserved but wicked, hangover. We were headed to Mt. Maunganui for a mid-day hike. At first I only managed to crawl out of the car and onto the grass, though I sucked it up. It was another short hike up the mountain which was littered with sheep. There were stunning views from the summit but we managed to meet up with a couple of paragliders who were waiting for the right wind direction to take off (Paragliding is a sport where you open up a parachute from the top of a mountain and then run off, flying free as a bird). I started chatting with one of the gents and the conversation turned to kitesurfing. As it turns out he was one of the New Zealand’s top kitesurfers a few years back (check out Dave Edwards on Youtube – he’s got some unreal clips of him jumping some rocks in Maui). He gave me the name of a great kite school in Wellington and wished me the best of luck as he flew off the mountain.

As we descended the mountain, I along with a few others became absolutely famished. Lenny and I were craving Burgerfuel (by far the best burger establishment ever!) As we were driving, we got split up from the other car (the whole time I was talking about how I would kiss the ground if we found a Burgerfuel) and pulled into a strip mall to wait for the other car. Like a sign from g-d, at the end of the mall was Burgerfuel (and yes I did kiss the ground)! The burgers were oh-so delicious. We finished up and were on our way to meet up with other car in Gisborne.

Our car made one stop along the way at a batting cage to stretch and hit some balls. The attendant was hilarious and joked with us the whole time (check the video at the bottom). We only stopped for about a ½ hour and moved on to Gisborne where we were banking on sleeping on the beach with the hopes of catching a sunrise. We met up with the other car, found a great spot on the beach for a fire and hunkered down for the night. Wine was drank, naked people were in the ocean, the fire was roaring and great conversations were had before the night was through. The only downside of that whole experience was our night under the stars and sunrise was completely ruined by thick cloud cover and spitting rain. It was a good effort and we only got off with a warning from a park ranger for spending the night on the beach before heading back to Wellington.

We managed to miss the worst part of the storm as it caught up with us during the drive home. The roads also got increasing sketchy as the weather took a turn for the worst. On some insanely winding roads into Wellington, we saw several car accidents which easily could have resulted in several staggering drops should the cars have tested the guard rails any further. Needless to say, we weren’t rushing home along the dangerous roads. We all arrived home safe, sound and exhausted. I am now preparing for my first week of school in Wellington but, more importantly, my first kitesurfing lesson is on Wednesday…