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Trip Start Jan 01, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 10, 2008

  Rotorua, New Zealand
Saturday, February 16, 2008

Well the rest of my stay in Raglan was about the same as the first bit. I wore shoes for probably two hours total across the span of the week, I wrote like a madwoman, and I had a permanent claim on a chair in the living room and a hammock in the courtyard as I bounced between them depending on whether I was writing, reading, or napping. One night I switched to a couch instead of the chair, which was noticed by a friendly Brit named Paul who used that to start up a conversation ("you've moved seats" - I didn't recognize until later that I'd switched into the same seat he'd been sitting in for five days straight) that ended up lasting the entire evening and through dinner and two jigsaw puzzles. We spent a lot of the night trying to figure out what you call the parts of the jigsaw pieces that interlock. We decided that somewhere, in some jigsaw geek-fest convention, they have a name for them, one of those integral pieces of jargon that manage to remain completely esoteric and known only to the true geeks of the jigsaw world. We even tried a German alternative, but our German speaker had no advice either. Paul tried to make up words for them, but they simply didn't stick. If anyone has any better ideas... let me know, okay? It's driving me crazy.

I left really early in the morning, caught the correct bus to Hamilton, waited a while at the Transport Center, and once again caught the correct bus to Rotorua. I was dropped off at the Information Center there, where I found myself essentially stuck until I figured out how to get to the hostel where my booking for the night was and where I would be meeting the rest of the Australearn group the next afternoon. I went in to the desk and asked what was the easiest way to get to the YHA (the Youth Hostel) and five minutes later I was being picked up by the most friendly wonderful woman named Bev who managed the hostel and worked the front counter. We talked about politics, of all things, on the short ride back. Then I hung out in the café working on my book some more until my room was ready. It was a single room, which surprised me and made me very very happy; after sharing with 8 others for a week it was incredibly nice to have a bit of privacy and a door to lock and a big bed all to myself. There was a queen size bed in there if you can believe that! I paid 25 bucks and when I checked the sign the next morning it said singles were $42. I got a wicked deal! Maybe because I was with Australearn? I don't know. But I'm not complaining!

So that was a lazy, me-time night (not that I hadn't just spent the last week having me-time) with some writing and a lot of internet time (they had wireless! Not free, but cheap) and an early bedtime. Australearn's buses were late because some planes were delayed, and I will freely admit that I was really nervous. I don't really know why; maybe just the idea of meeting a bunch of new people all over again. But eventually they got there, and I had moved into the double room I'd be sharing with someone else and left the door open, and then she was there and we were talking and everything was fine. Her name is Caitlin and she's going to Waikato too. She's very nice and we got on great. They served lunch even though it was after three, which was great because I'd been holding off hoping they'd feed me and I was starving. Then we had a welcome session which wasn't that interesting but which was held at a traditional Marae (meeting place) in a Maori community on the shores of Lake Rotorua. We had to take off our shoes because, well I don't know why, I only know that you don't ever wear shoes when you go in a marae. Anyway, there's nothing to say about the session except that it was pretty boring.

Then they served us dinner and we had the evening free; I spent it in my room writing because I still couldn't quite get used to the crowds of people again after a few weeks of total independence. Janna came by (a girl I'd been talking to over email for several weeks who's also going to Waikato) and we talked for a while. She's really cool too. Oh, and I met this guy who looked really familiar, so I told him he looked really familiar, and he kind of just paused and then introduced himself, turns out he looks familiar because I know him, he goes to Western! There were two other WSC students besides him and me, which is crazy; all of them are going to different schools than me but it was nuts that we were all there in Rotorua New Zealand and none of us knew the others were coming!

It was an early bed night for me again, even though the party over at the bar was raging; I just never have any fun at those things and since I know that I've just never been able to force myself to go to them for the social atmosphere. I'm going to have to get better at that; I think that's part of the reason I miss out on the initial click-building: I don't participate in the click-building parts of the orientation. I'm not sure what it is about me that refuses to have fun at the social events everyone else seems to thrive on; eventually I always manage to find other people who don't like the same things I like (almost more of a requirement than liking the same things I do like, in a way), it just takes me a long time.

The next day we had a big day planned. We had a morning full of more info sessions, which I can't claim much memory of or interest in. But after the sessions and before lunch, we drove out to the Agrodome and saw a sheep show. That was pretty cool, actually; I hadn't been very excited about it (yay, sheep...) but it ended up being a really fun show. They had something like 19 rams of different breeds all lined up for us to see, and the kiwi announcer talked about them all, but talked way too fast for me to get much of what he was saying. He was really funny, though, at least the parts I did hear. He brought the dogs out, and showed off the ones that were trained to bark like crazy. The sheep didn't seem bothered a bit by all the barking, though. Some of them fell asleep, and the announcer had to poke them and wake them up before he sent the dogs running over the top of them. That was pretty entertaining. The dogs would stop on top of the sheep and lie down and a couple of them fell asleep up there. It was pretty funny.

The guy sheared a sheep for us and brought some volunteers up on stage to learn to milk a cow. Then he brought up some more volunteers and handed them all bottles with milk in them and said they were going to have a drinking contest. They all had mildly horrified looks on their faces until the lambs came crowding onto the stage. They were so cute! I got some really great pictures of one of the girls (who I later found out is going to Waikato!) feeding the lambs. Awww!

After the sheep show we got to see a dog trial, with the three sheep and the gates and the pen. Like in Babe.  Baaaa Raaammm Eeewwwe. Lol. That's all I could think about the whole time. It was cool to watch the trainer work the dog who in turn worked the sheep. He used a whistle, mostly, and called out to the dog a lot too.

We wandered around the gift shop a bit and then we were back on the busses. Lunch was back at the hostel. They were feeding us really well, which I appreciated especially after feeding myself for a month. Then we were right back on the busses again - we were going zorbing!

If you don't know what zorbing is, the best I can come to an explanation is a memory I have of standing in front of the washing machine as a kid watching my "kitty pillow" go around and around, wondering what that felt like. I think I know now. A zorb is a giant beach ball contraption - one smaller ball attached inside a larger one with a million multicolored elastic strings that make it look like one of those electric charge balls that have all the electric currents flowing from the middle to the outside. There's a tunnel from the outside into the middle of the inside ball, which they zip closed as soon as you've wriggled your way inside. I was paired with these two tiny girls, both shorter than me and a whole lot skinnier. I was afraid I would crush them both on the way down the hill. Oh yeah, there's a hill involved. They put some water in the ball with you, so you have to wear your swimming suit ("togs", in this country), and so you won't get plastic-burns. Then they give the ball a slap and tell you to walk it forward, which of course is easier said than done as you are barefoot inside a beach ball full of water and slipping and sliding everywhere.

I was standing pretty confidently until the operator banged so hard on the side of the zorb that I fell down, taking the other two girls with me. And just like that we were rolling down the hill, tumbling over each other and screaming and laughing ourselves silly. When we got out we were soaking wet, despite the fact that there had only been a few inches of water in the zorb to begin with. They rolled the ball forward and we tumbled out in turn, feet first, and they took our picture in front of the zorb. If I'd ever been in a washing machine, I would probably compare it to that. As I have never been in one, however, I must admit I have absolutely nothing to compare it to! I'll just say that if you ever want to know what it felt like to be your teddy bear when Mom put him in the wash, all you have to do is go to Rotorua or Queenstown (the only two places in the world where you can do this, I'm told) and forty-five bucks will get you a ride down a hill in a giant beach ball full of water!

We decided to buy our pictures; it was $25 for the CD but between the three of us that wasn't too bad. I was absolutely exhausted and went straight back to my room for a nap when we got back to the hostel, because we had still more planned for the evening and I wanted to have a good time and not be grumpy all night because I was tired.

The plan for the evening turned out to be a fully booked tour of a Maori village, and for a moment I expected to turn around and see a big sign that said "The Scholar Ship" bobbing off over the crowd. Still a tourist. There's no getting out of that, it seems. But it was a really well-put-together tour, and our guide was of Maori descent and told us a little of the history of her people on the way to the office. We started off with a couple of videos, and the theatre spaces were all decorated and we walked through a jungle set to get from one room that was decorated like the inside of a lodge where we watched the first movie, to another, which was the outer edges of the village where a few huts were set up, to watch the second movie. The gist of the films was the decision of a young boy to leave his home in Tahiti to search out new lands because the island was getting too crowded. He ended up in Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud. That's New Zealand. It was basically the story of how the Maori people came to be in Aotearoa in the first place.

After that we were off in the waka - this time the bus, and I learned that "waka" can represent any form of transportation and not just a boat. We elected a chief for our visiting tribe, and when we arrived at the village the three chiefs from our three visiting tribes moved to the front and we all waited behind, awaiting the challenge of peace from the warriors of the home village. The warriors came out, one at a time and then all three at once, taking the forms of some of their gods and doing the best to intimidate the visiting chiefs. We were instructed not to laugh, smile, or intimidate the warriors in any way lest they take our reaction for a challenge. There were women there, too, singing and chanting and doing their best to scare us away. It almost worked. I would not want to meet those warriors in a side street at any time of the day.

One of them placed the peace offering on the ground - just a small stick, nothing fancy - and one of our chiefs went out to him and picked it up, showing our acceptance. Then we followed the warriors and the chiefs and the women into the village. While I was on my way in there I could hear jungle ambience noises and thought perhaps they were taped, along with the screeching of the women which was still going on. Then I heard one of them scream right next to me and she jabbed her staff at me and I about jumped right into the bush on the other side of the path. Definitely not canned ambience. When we got into the village, all the people (there were only about a dozen total) had taken places at various huts and were showing different arts, objects, and skills of their people. One of the warriors was doing a carving demo and the other two were showing and explaining the weapons. There was a cooking hut and a woman in another hut was making clothing out of strips of flax leaves. The warrior that was doing the carving called us out on looking too serious. He said, "Now that the ceremony is over, you're allowed to have fun, so I want to see some more teeth." It took him a while to get us all to smile, we were pretty shaken up; the ceremony was so real!

Then we moved into the marae, or the meeting house, and they performed for us. The woman showed us their stick-throwing games and their poi (bean-filled pouches on strings that they swing around dance with) - both of which were once games for the boys to limber and strengthen their wrists but which have been picked up by the women now that the men don't need the warrior skills so much. It was so cool to watch. The singing was amazing and it made me almost ache to be singing again. They did a haka (war song) for us too, and lots more singing and dancing. There was a beautiful duet of a love song as well, something from the Maori legends. It was a typical Romeo and Juliet story without the tragic ending: Hinemoa and Tutanekai were from different tribes and because of social differences were forbidden to see each other, but one night Tutanekai sat on his island in Lake Rotorua and played his pūtorino, his flute, as a call for his loved one to come to him. Hinemoa snuck down to the shore of the lake, only to find that her father had pulled all the canoes far up on the shore so that she could not get one into the water. Being a very determined woman, she instead strapped empty water gourds around her waist for flotation and swam the three miles across the lake to be forever with her lover Tutanekai.

After the performance came dinner, a traditional hangi meal cooked in an underground oven. We were shown how the food was cooked: in a hole dug in the ground and filled with white-hot rocks covered with mats woven out of flax leaves. The meat goes in first, and then more mats, and then the vegetables, and more mats, and then the "pudding" dessert, so it all cooks for the same amount of time and gets done the way it should. Dinner was absolutely amazing; it was like Thanksgiving only more exciting because it was different. I ate soooo much.  The pudding dessert was really good too; it wasn't what we would think of as pudding but more like a kind of chocolate cake. And to think all this food was cooked in the ground while we were being led around the village and watching the performance. Mmmmm.

The tour guides did a little more performing for us after we ate and while we had tea and coffee and many of the other Australearn students visited the cash bar. There was a huge bonfire outside and we hung out around there for a while just taking and still meeting new people. It was a little bit cold, actually, and we were glad to get back inside for the goodbye ceremony and then back on the buses. I was exhausted. We'd had a crazy long day and I went right to bed when we got back.

The next day was a big one too; we were going caving. I had hoped to do the blackwater rafting again, but there were a lot of people going and I wanted to give someone else a chance to do it. There were too many people who wanted to do the wet caves, so I just did the dry one instead. It turned out to be plenty of work and just as much fun; our guides Ryan and Liam were fantastic and we got to be in harnesses and repel and do a zip line. It was so fun. There were no glow worms since it was a dry cave, but the calcite formations were absolutely incredible and I really wished I had a camera. They don't let you take your own camera down there. They took really good pictures of us and I would have bought them, but we took so long in the caves that we had to rush out and didn't have time to go back up to the office and buy them. But we had a fantastic time. I was with a bunch of people who were going to Waikato, which was fun too.

A lot of people didn't want to do the dry cave because they thought it would be boring, but it wasn't at all. It was a lot of climbing and the repelling was really cool. The harnesses weren't particularly comfortable, though. The formations were amazing and I couldn't get enough of them. You didn't get that in the wet caves as much. I don't know why. But these were millions of years old; they had to be. It was fantastic. But by the time we were done I was so exhausted I wished I could go straight to bed. I even took a nap between the caving and dinner. We had a free night but I didn't go to the bar; I probably should have but I couldn't get excited about it; I just got some more writing done and read for a while and went to bed early again.

The next morning we had yet another session that went way over time, but eventually we were back on the buses and on our way to the University. I was really excited, but actually a little nervous. We stopped for lunch at a lake and the view was great but the sandwiches were really lame, and we stopped for a little walk down to a suspension bridge with a view of the Waikato River. Our driver, Josh, had games for us to play; we circulated a story where we each finished the previous sentence and left another open-ended sentence for the next person, and we each wrote out sheets with our favorite color and favorite food and the date we would orchestrate for Sheila, our Australearn leader. The idea was she would chose which ones she liked, but she ended up making some matches based on what people said. I wish they'd taken this one a step further, because it would have been a really neat way to meet people. Josh wanted my date.  It was just a nice dinner and a play, what I would think was a really nice date if someone took me out on it. Sheila read them out loud though which was a little unnerving.

When we got to the University, everything happened really fast and before we knew it we were off the bus at Student Village and being met by our RAs and escorted into our rooms and then the bus was gone and so was Australearn and we were here, and on our own. The rest of that is for another post!

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