Fast forward a few rainy days of orientation where we learned what a library was and all of that important stuff, I had acquired a few friends from around the world. Quite possibly my absolute favorite part of traveling. I now have friends from countries like Oman, Poland, Scotland, Sri Lanka, France, Germany, China, India etc. the list goes on. One of the more interesting trips involved with orientation was a demonstration at a sheep farm owned by the school. We traveled by bus to watch a sheep shearing as well as some sheep herding with dogs, I won't bother to tell you how fun the cow farm tour was....
My living conditions actually turned out much better than I though seeing as I am in a five person flat with guys from America, India, China and Oman so I am being exposed to a wide variety of cultures. I must say that a great perk of this wide range of cultures is the food that gets cooked here, I dont know how to spell or pronounce any of it but my god is it ever good. It is a great opportunity for all of us to exchange foods that we make at home as well as try our hands at a few things we would otherwise never think to make. Since I have arrived I have cooked up an unbelievable amount of food, chicken cordon bleu, chicken fennel pasta, chicken pot pie (wow, just occurred to me I may be turning into a chicken soon...) gourmet mac and cheese, honey rosemary lamb sausage, either way everything has a little bit more taste and quality than the instant noodles I see kids making so often in the US. Also, thanks to Mom I am cranking out a loaf of banana bread about every three days. Curiously enough my cooking must be alright because there has yet to be a time that where I have not had a visitor walk by my window and walk right on in through my front door to the kitchen. Certainly a great way to make friends and make a name for yourself, provided the food is good (or bad I guess...). I did have one incident last weekend when I was cooking for a group and some oil dripped off a pan onto the bottom of the oven, but we just used it as a fog machine and turned the music up.... Groceries and beer/liquor are relatively the same as Canada which is not too bad but they do have things figured out with the displayed price because no taxes are added on at the end. Oh and on a bit of a side note I ate this traditional Maori meal on Friday called a Hangi which was basically a piece of beef, a piece of chicken, some pumpkin and kumara (sweet potato) and something that resembled stuffing, wrapped in some kind of leaves and cooked (I believe on coals) underground for about an hour or so. It was served with this really sweet bread and butter and was absolutely delicious. Ahh and I made it to a burger joint called Burgerfuel the other day and had a ridiculously good fast food burger, it was enormous ($9 though which was a little scary) I doubt I'll ever be satisfied by any other fast food burger ever again. Moving on!
Night life in Palmy is interesting, nothing too special, mind you I've only been out about three times. Drinking in the Flatts seems to be the way to go, we had a game of flip cup with about nine different nationalities being presented on teams the other night, I suppose it was somewhat of an olympic event. The card games spoons has also taken off quite well here which is pretty funny because things get intense, we had a game that involved beer, wine, whiskey and Korean tequila. I'd rather drink the first three combined than touch the Korean tequila ever again.
Classes are quite interesting so far with my schedule consisting of, Creative Processes (creative writing, film, visual arts combo), Maori Lore Culture and Economics (a study of New Zealand's native people), New Zealand Society (a sociology class that covers the ins and outs of New Zealand's history, social structure and biographics) and finally Applied Sport Science (a course related to my major that covers things like biomechanics and physiology). When I'm taking time off from studying all the time.... haha, I am doing awesome stuff like rock climbing on our indoor wall, working out, running or exploring what Palmy has to offer as far as stores etc...
Now on to the stuff I have actually been wanting to write about for the last twenty minutes... this past weekend was quite epic to say the least. On Saturday I joined my two buddies from the States (Georgia and Maryland) as well as a friend from Scotland and rented a car to head to Wellington (the NZ capital) for a NZ All Blacks vs. South Africa Springboks Tri-Nations rugby match. We were driving up with the intentions of meeting up with a group of girls that had tickets as well but they stopped at an outlet mall near the beach so naturally we skipped out on the mall and headed straight for Otaki Beach... the catch is that it is the middle of winter here in NZ and not only was it only about 10C but it was incredibly windy. But lets be serious here for a second, I am not gonna skip out on a swim at my first NZ beach. So I stripped down to my boxers and did something that resembled a prance, skip, fairy, pansy ass run into the raging Tasman sea. Ten minutes later, when my heart starting beating again and we had established that no girls in skimpy bathing suits would be arriving anytime soon we piled back into the car and continued on our journey to Wellington.
Once we figured out parking and all that jazz we started off towards the NZ national museum Te Papa. On our way there we stumbled upon a small artsy fartsy market in and underground car park where one of the americans ended up buying some wool socks due to his misjudging of the Tasman Sea tide. Shortly after this pleasant detour we arrived at Te Papa and man was it ever cool. It was a free museum that had everything from information on plants and animals native to NZ including skeletons and wicked displays to some more political and culturally motivated exhibits about the Maori people and European settlers (Pakeha). Everything I learned at the museum should fit together quite nicely with my classes on Maori Culture and NZ Society.
Shortly after leaving the museum we stopped at The Green Man, an Irish Pub packed with All Blacks fans where we met up with a friend from Wellington that I met at school in Virginia. We downed a few pints of Tui and then.... it was time (play incredibly motivating movie trailer-esque music, maybe a drum roll, if its really really good...), the All Blacks game. When we left the bar we were carried away by the masses of All Blacks fans all headed towards Westpac Stadium. It was as if the entire city was being pulled by a magnet towards the stadium, everybody was so fired up for the game. Once inside, we found the girls and a few other folks from school that also had no idea what they were there for but were excited that everyone else was excited.
The second that the All Blacks stepped on the field, the stadium erupted. I mean these people know how to give home field its advantage, it was incredible. Following the arrival of both teams was the singing of the South African national anthem and the New Zealand national anthem, which was sung with such a passion that it sent chills down my spine and gave me goosebumps. All along the left side of the stands the fans had organized white cards so that they collectively spelled out "ALL BLACKS" along the length of the stadium. Finally, something I have been waiting to see in person since my first 'view' of it on youtube, the "Haka". This performance was just incredible, the power, intimidation/motivation that those guys create is just unreal. From the player at the start calling out, commanding attention from every fan in New Zealand like some type of general to the slapping and forearm punches; it just gave the whole stadium this buzz of excitement and awe, new comers as well as regulars. At last it was game time and man was it awesome, huge hits, big runs, precision passes, powerful punts, despite the fact that the All Blacks destroyed the Springbok's 40 to 7, the game was an absolute success and an experience that will never be forgotten. Alas, all great things must come to an end, and so we piled back into our car and returned back to Palmy.
But wait!!! My weekend is not yet over. You see, I can not just have this one ridiculously amazing day and then follow it up with a dud, so this is how my sunday went. Yes... go ahead, grab another beer, grab me one too. It started off by heading to the farmers market for cheap fruits and veggies and then taking the rental car back with Graeme, my friend from Scotland. It was during the mileage calculations that we both realized that I should probably practice some simple math without a calculator for a while. Anyways... from that point we somehow ended up with scratch cards from the gas station where we returned the car and I ended up winning an energy drink (do not forgot this seemingly insignificant event). When we got back to Atawhai (the name of our little group of flats where I live) Graeme's roommate, Giso (from Germany), invited me to go for a bike ride. Being the person I am, I do not have the actual ability to form the word "no"when met with such an offer. So despite the fact that I had minimal sleep and had eaten next to nothing for the day I borrowed a friends bike and off we went at about 1pm. About 5km down the road I realized that the reason Giso was so damn fast was because I was so damn slow. The bike I was riding had its seat down to the minimum and so I looked like I had stolen my bike from a ten year old and was frantically knocking my knees off my chest as I huffed and puffed, trying to meet the cadence of Giso as he effortlessly rolled further and further away in front of me. After a few stops, the removal of two articles of clothing, the consumption of half a bottle of water and the muttering of a few choice words under the breath I did not have. We had made it to the 15km point and up onto a mountain ridge that opened into an incredible view of mountains rolling like waves into the distance. I had kind of assumed at this point that perhaps we would turn around and go back but when Giso started up another hill on a dirt road towards the windmills, again, I can't say no, it's an adventure! We biked past a whole bunch of deer that were penned up and view after view of these world class mountains while on the other side of the ridge a great expanse littered with the buildings that make up Palmerston North. The idea of taking this road was that it would eventually lead to another road that could take us back to Palmy, but after countless ups and downs kilometer after kilometer I was starting to doubt our planned route. The road was getting muddier, sometimes covered entirely with water forcing us to get off our bikes and walk or tip toe. At last it was roughly 4:30pm and here we were still on top of this mountain ridge, logging roads everywhere but no sure sign of how to get home. Somewhere between 25 and 30km into our trip we stopped and assessed the situation, it was getting dark, we had no way of knowing where to go because we did not print a map out, I had no bike light, and the only way we knew how to get home was to retrace our tracks. Both of my legs were cramped up so bad I could barely walk let alone bike and I was starting to fade fast. BOOM free energy drink, thank you to whoever the hell is looking after me. After much debate we decided to turn around and thats when we saw our first and only two people of the day on the ridge, a man and woman on dirt bikes who confirmed our theories that perhaps there was no way to Palmy and if there was, it had been closed up as a private logging road. We thanked them and off they went. This is where things get scary. As I am zipping down this single track, steep drop on one side cliff face on the other, I realize my breaks are no longer working. Lovely. How are you supposed to bike down a mountain without breaks? So the next four or five km's became exceedingly dangerous as I skidded around muddy corners narrowly avoiding fenceposts and trees. At one point walking up a hill I realized I could barely walk, I had no brakes on my bike, no lights for my bike, the sun was almost gone, and we weren't even at the 15km mark yet where the dirt road joins the paved road. Shit. So as I hobble along with my brakeless bike I start to devise this plan of how to avoid sleeping on this mountain. Thats when my I get struck with my second stroke of luck and come around a corner only to find that the couple on the dirt bikes had a van up on the track. "Need a lift?" they said. Oh my friggin god, I love this country and its ridiculously friendly people. Hannah and Jeff, I later found out, just happened to be visiting this ridge for the first time and arrived later in the afternoon than planned. Really.... Really...? Am I that lucky? That after putting up with the brakes or lack thereof in addition to the cramped legs and no food or sleep, I am rewarded with a ride home for the remaining 20km's that would have surely resulted in some kind of unfortunate event. I arrived home around 6:15pm in the dark, only to be met with a bottle of wine from one of my roommates. I live in a lucky fairytale adventure realm. Well that pretty much wraps things up so far, I think, if not. Your more than likely sick of reading this by now and you may even be out of beer. I have all my pictures posted on my Facebook right now for those of you who are interested, but I will work on getting some of them on here over the next few days. Well, I'll call it quits tonight. I hope things are well on your end and I'll talk to you all soon.
Take care,
Brayden
