SPRING BREAK (IN AUGUST)!!!

Hey everybody, sorry for the missed post last week, I was busy curing all of the worlds diseases and illnesses, retrieving kittens from tall trees, making more drinking water for the world, and then walking on it.... you know how it is. But in all seriousness I am not sure I have ever worked harder on school assignments over a five day period, so glad it's finally over. That being said, yes, its true, I am about to embark on my second spring break of the year, at the end of August... epic. 

Quick (or not so quick) recap on the last week or so of my life: last weekend I was finishing up a mountain of ridiculous work and assignments. These assignments were of course given extensions as I turned them in on the original due date after pulling all nighters, my life would not work any other way. However, this punctuality provided me with a bit of free time in between papers and so last Friday I probably made the worst purchase of my time here in New Zealand. Friday night was set aside as a 'blow off some steam and relax' kind of night so what better way to spend it than to head down to Rosie O'Grady's (my favorite pub for pints and rugby). After splitting about four pitchers (or jugs as they are called here, don't even bother trying to ask for a pitcher, they will ask you for your camera) with my American friend Alex, my Scottish friend Graeme decided we should go across the street to the grocery store and get some wine. Great idea. Nobody had beer or wine back at the flats and so now would be a great time to pick some up. As we weaved back and forth through the wine aisle we stumbled upon what appeared to be some great looking boxed wine, which is otherwise known here as a 'Goony Bag' of wine. Golden Bay Medium White Wine. 

"Sounds good to me"

"Me too, this is gonna be awesome, and it's only twenty bucks for this 3L box bag thing, I think I'll get one too, wicked" (I sound so cool in writing eh...)

As we are standing at the checkout we start up some drunk conversation with the cashier lady who is already kind of laughing at us. We think she's being friendly and we kinda joke along with her and then off we go on our merry way. When we finally got home after our forty minute walk from downtown we were starting to sober up a bit and so we crack open the first box of wine. We of course are drinking out of mugs because nobody has deemed it necessary to get proper glasses but let me tell you something, this wine was not worthy of a proper glass, it wasn't even worthy of an empty margarine container. Folks, I wouldn't even give this stuff, whatever it was, to a feral cat. As soon as it came out of the bag, it was as if somebody had dropped a bottle of perfume in the kitchen.

"Ughh is that the wine" I said

"Yeah.... it smells like, like uhhh, like perfume or something, weird"

As we brought the mugs up to our lips, I am quite certain my eyes started to burn and water from the fumes, what the hell was this.

Then the first sip.....

"OH MY GOD! THATS TERRIBLE" shouted Graeme "It tastes like piss and perfume"

"I feel as though someone has sprayed a whole bottle of hairspray into a bag and then sold it to us to drink, no wonder that stupid cashier lady was laughing at us, what does it say on the box" I replied

"Fruit Wine 5%. You have got to be kidding me, I'll get diabetes before I get drunk off this stuff" said Graeme.

By now I am in stitches on the floor, just laughing my ass off. But now over a week later, we have taken our boxes of wine to two or three different parties, with the hopes of somehow making the twenty dollars worthwhile instead of throwing it out, and it's still not gone because nobody will touch it. By far the worst twenty dollars I have spent here in New Zealand. Golden Bay Medium White Wine. 

Since then this week was also full of work and assignments but once Thursday afternoon rolled around, I was a free man with seventeen glorious days ahead of me to do whatever I want. I started by acquiring a GoPro camera to document my travels because my old camera just is not going to do the trip justice seeing as it is not waterproof or protected in any way. With my GoPro I can now mount it onto helmets when I am rafting, kayaking, horseback riding, bungee jumping, sky diving, snorkeling etc. The only issue is that a 16GB SD (memory) card that I ordered from the states will be arriving one day after my departure for my spring break trip tomorrow (despite some greatly appreciated efforts from some friends of mine). I do have a small 2GB card that was lent to me from a good friend of mine here so I will be able to record about 24 minutes of HD video per day before I have to transfer it to a thumb drive and wipe it for the next recording haha. Going to be very selective in my video taking. No worries though, either way this trip will be incredible, the downside being that you all may have to settle for more of my lame words instead of HD video... my apologies in advance. 

Aside from this, there was a birthday party on Friday night for a German girl named Franzi who lives just across from my Flat. There was delicious German snacks, lots of drinks (thankfully no green jelly shots), and some great music. This all made for a great night which led to a pretty bedridden Saturday but the weather was bad anyways and I finally figured out how to use the new camera so all was not lost. 

Tomorrow (Monday for me), I am embarking on an eight day tour of the North Island with seven other people in an eight person van. Glorious. There will be a guy from Scotland, guy from Ireland, guy from Germany, girl from New Zealand, girl from France, girl from Poland and myself, quite the crew if you ask me. So far we know where we are spending our first night, and.... thats about it. We will be camping the entire time, at least that is the plan and we have contact info and directions to get to our activities which range from horseback riding, to swimming in geothermal pools, hiking volcanoes and mountains, rock climbing, white water rafting or kayaking, possibly jumping off of or out of certain things from really high up (kidding Mom... ha... ha.) and if anything else pops up along the way you can be sure we will probably be doing it. Maybe catch some sharks with our hands or wrestle thought to be extinct Moa (look it up) or something, I don't know, I don't know if there will be enough time. Anyways, I guess what I am trying to say is that sadly, I will miss posting next Sundays post as well, because we return next Tuesday but hopefully with some ridiculously cool footage.  I will then use my amateur film editing skills to scrounge together a little documentary of the trip and hopefully someone famous will watch it and hire me onto National Geographic or something, hell they'll probably want to give me my own channel and magazine, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

All of that aside, Happy 50th Dad! We are throwing some kind of crazy 50 year old party for you when I get home, or if you feel so inclined to find money on the money tree we have planted in the back yard, please feel free to buy a ticket and come visit me. Mom and Meghan can come too.

Well everyone, until next time, in the words of the all-knowing Red Green: "Keep your stick on the ice".

Take care,

Brayden

Sweet As!

People of the world! Lend me your... eyes, here is a new post for the millions of you that have been waiting anxiously to hear from me. The theme for this past week was undoubtedly a week jam packed with first time experiences. For those of you that followed the link in my status on Facebook, continue reading to see if I have both my arms, for the rest of you, that last comment should seem bizarre enough that I trust you will continue reading as well.

My first first (ha, see what I did there) took place on Wednesday with the super intense warriors that make up the intramural Attawhai volleyball team. We had our first win (a round of applause, possibly a toast at your next big party would be greatly appreciated), thank you.

Stay with me here, I know a volleyball win doesn't seem like that big of a deal (but you should see what we're working with), so we'll go through and look at what I do for school since my parents are curious as to what I actually do here for classes. This link is a pretty good representation of what my Creative Processes class is like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_qh3urEOK8. I think thats entertaining enough for school, now moving on...

There are a few things to be said about the lingo here and in particular there are two expressions that are used on a minutely basis. The first is "chur" which was so accurately translated for me by another Canadian here in the form of an equation churr is greater than or equal to, cool + sweet + awesome + cheers, this is quite similar to chill for those of you back home but they insist that it is different enough to have its own word. The other expression is the title of this post, "sweet as". I am still trying to figure out how to use this properly, but essentially you can say "sweet as" whenever you want to say "sweet" as in cool. But that's not all, they throw the "as" on the end things like "these deals are mean as" and apparently there is a movie or short clip about a whale titled "beached as". I am not quite comfortable with it just yet because I find myself waiting for Kiwi's to finish their sentence or expression,

"man that trip was sweet as!"

"yes... it was sweet as what?"

"nah bro, it was sweet as!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said there at the end"

"dude, it was sweet as..."

"as sugar???"

you get the point. Just a heads up for those of you that may not understand what I am saying for the first couple weeks when I get home.

One more little observation that I forgot to mention last week that made me love this country even more... no commercial breaks on TV during sports. They played the All Blacks game straight through, just like every major sporting event should be broadcast. It was beautiful. Those of you that don't want to miss any of the game due to bathroom breaks, keep a radio on in the bathroom like they do at the pubs here. 

My second first was a NZ cell phone. It was a beautiful month that I just had without a phone but with the spring break coming up and everyone getting busier with school it is harder and harder to get in touch with people using only Facebook and direct contact.

Ah yes, something a little more exciting now, my third first... thermals. This may not sound exciting considering they are essentially the same thing as long underwear designed to keep you warm and dry but I assure that once you see a picture of these bad boys, you will understand where the excitement comes from....

At last, it is time for another one of my mildly entertaining adventure stories. Facebook status followers, this is the moment you have all been waiting for, my trip to the Piripiri Caves on Saturday. The caves were about an hour away from school so we (Graeme - Scotland, Gizo - Germany, Benedicte - France, Danni - New Zealand) borrowed a car from a friend and headed for the hills. On our way into the mountains we realized we had a little under a quarter tank of gas and with all the towns now behind us we got a little nervous as the needle on the gauge dipped down about a half centimeter when went up the hill and up a half centimeter when we went down hill. After a missed turn and a half hour accidental scenic detour down a single lane dirt road through farmers fields we arrived to a crowd of other people waiting on us to go caving...oops. This is where the fun started because there I was looking semi cool with my North Face sweater, caving helmet, headlamp, climbing harness etc. and my striped red thermal leggings straight off Pippi Longstockings. After explaining to the group that I had bought them off the clearance rack they were a little more understanding, but I had still not shown them the matching shirt at this point... Anyways the first part of the trip involved abseiling (rappelling) off of a bridge along a cliff wall, through a tiny crack that opened up into a big cave about eight stories below. Naturally I went first... this had nothing to do with other members of the group volunteering me... The abseiling was really amazing, I had never done it before so this makes it my fourth first of the week. Once we all reached the bottom, we walked along this underground river and climbed up a small waterfall into a small little cave where we had to crouch and shuffle along in ankle to hip deep, freezing cold water. Once we were deep inside the tunnel we turned off all of our lights and let our eyes adjust to the darkness. Then, one by one these little green specs started to appear all over the roof of the cave! These were glow worms, which were described later as "maggots with glowing shit"but that doesn't quite sound as pretty as it looks haha. We also found a couple of crayfish and a small eel which brought back memories of watching an episode of River Monsters at college. All in all the trip through the caves was a blast and a great success, but the trip does not end here. After we throw some dry clothes on and I reveal my many layers of striped, obnoxiously coloured thermals we pile into the car and plug in the home address into a GPS. Now folks this isn't your average run of the mill GPS, this thing had plans for us. After re routing us several times to roads that didn't exist we ended up at the bottom of a massive hill on the edge of a farmers field, wondering where the road on the GPS screen was. Lucky for us we had a full tank of gas to get out of there... oh wait. As we drive back up the hill the gas meter dips down a little bit and the gas light comes on... good thing were a solid forty minutes from town. After countless turn arounds, a scolding from following members of the caving group and a beautiful observation of the moon we were looking forward to sleeping under, we made it to a gas station. Sorry folks, still have both my arms and never even had to open my swiss army knife. 

Now... there was one day remaining in the week so I had to fill it with some type of excitement. On Monday I saw an advertisement for a half marathon here in Palmerston North, so I did what anyone else would do, and I signed up for it haha. Considering my grueling summer running and training regiment I assumed I would be alright. I mean a solid six runs in the last month, two of which were 11km and the rest about 6km, makes sense to sign up for a 21km race right? Without any real training at all I had signed up for a race I was not quite sure I would be able to finish but who cares. I have been post poning this type of race for so long due to inadequate training time or commitments to other sports but it was finally time to "man-up" and do it. My friend Graeme, also decided that he too would embark on this foolish adventure. So there we were, the day after our caving trip, walking down the hill towards the registration area when we saw the 20km marker, the last marker in the race, and I thought to myself, "holy shit, twenty one kilometers of running". The night before a few of our friends were asking us where we saw ourselves finishing, what times etc... Jokingly I said that I was going to come across the line at 1hr 17 mins 17 seconds because 17 is my lucky number and I was feeling lucky, even though in reality I was thinking anywhere from 1hr 30mins if I was lucky to 1hr 40mins. Graeme on the other hand was shooting for anything under two hours. He has done a few half marathons and marathons before and judging by the amount of training we had done - none -  he, like myself was somewhat morbidly entertained by the thought that we would be heading to the finish line in an ambulance. Getting back to race day... I thought it would be a great idea to show a little Canadian love since I was so far away from home and so I pinned the Canada flag to my shoulders like a cape. Seconds later it began to rain.... and I thought about taking it off so that I would not be weighed down but what the hell, this was gonna be as fun as I wanted to make it and so I left it on. As I walked towards the start line after warmups, Graeme saw me and said "you look like some poor fella who doesn't know he's got a flag pinned to his back" but right then some guy was walking by with what looked like a sleeve on his head with flames on it and stupid shirt to match with a heart rate monitor underneath, and overly tight shorts, and so I said "at least I don't look like that guy". He was then referred to as "The Flash" and like many over accessorized runners before him, he was passed early on in the race.

Gunshot.

Off we went, Graeme and I were at the very back of the pack so it took some time to get across the start line but when we did it was game on, weaving in and out of the people running with strollers etc. until we reached an area of the pack that was proving to be a little more competitive. From there on Graeme and I were separated for the rest of the race. I am quite certain that a huge portion of my motivation to run came from the flag on my back because every time I passed someone or even whenever any pedestrians saw me I got a "Ehhhhh Canada! Keep going!!!" and one of the event volunteers even started singing the national anthem as I ran by which got me all kinds of fired up. At the 8km marker there was someone playing the bagpipes which had the same effect on Graeme as he ran by. Around the halfway point of the race I was still moving along great picking off one runner at a time, and there was a water station coming up. A bunch of little eight and nine year old kids were handing out the cups and so I took one and as I started drinking it, the little girl said, "What are you doing with a baby wrap on your head?" referring to my bandana. I had no idea what that meant at the time and almost choked on my water as I laughed and ran away apologizing for not knowing why I had a "baby wrap" on my head. Things went very smooth aside from this and a quick stop at kilometer thirteen to tie my shoe and so I was nearing the end of the race. At kilometer seventeen it started pouring rain but I am quite certain that I could have been shot during kilometer seventeen and been fine because it was number seventeen... As I hit the twenty kilometer mark I thought back to what I had said earlier in the morning and how I had done it, I was going to finish. Not far up the road a couple of girls, Ema from New Brunswick, Canada and Jen from Utah, USA had made signs for us and were out in the rain cheering me on as I ran by. One of the signs said "1:17:17 Go Faster!". As I rounded the final corner I saw the finish line and the straightaway was lined with spectators so I put down the hammer which was most likely a crawl in reality and began to sprint (at least it seemed I was sprinting in my mind). But as I approached the finish at this blistering speed, the race clock was becoming visible one number at a time from behind the spectators, it started with a 1... thank god, then another 1! No way theres a 7 following that!?!?!? But sure enough there it was, 1hr 17 mins and 12 seconds, so I stopped dead in front of the finish line. NO WAY was I going to let this opportunity pass, I waited there in front of the clock for 5 long seconds to pass by. Meanwhile, the announcer is on the loudspeaker saying "SIR PLEASE CROSS THE LINE TO FINISH THE RACE, SIR, YOU ARE NOT FINISHED YET" So I pointed to the clock expecting him to know what I was doing and as the sixteen turned to a seventeen I jumped across the line to the applause and laughter of the  crowd and headed to the rest tent. Exhilarated by the fact that I had predicted the future and achieved something so out of the ordinary I quickly asked one of the race organizers, "Do you know what my time was?!?!" to which she replied "yeah you came in around 1hr 27mins 4 secs unofficially, your race chip will give us a more accurate time". I was crushed, in all of my excitement and exhaustion I had looked at the wrong clock... on the right hand side was the clock for one of the other races while on the left (NZ is so backwards) was my time. Oh well, I was sub 1hr 30mins and so I'll take it. It's no seventeen but hey, not bad for six days of training and having never run twenty one kilometers in my life. Graeme came in a little while later in a little more regular fashion, running like a normal person across the finish line... so mainstream. Anyways this was my fifth first of the week, another great one.

That night it snowed making it the sixth first, the first snow I have seen here. What a week. This week coming up should be quite bland seeing as I have some real school work to complete for midterms but do not worry, I am sure something ridiculous will happen to me somewhere along the way. Until then, I hope you all have a great day, and you should probably go out and do something awesome so that it doesn't seem like I am hogging all the fun, not that a half marathon is fun... but you see my point. 

Chur,

Brayden 

p.s. - I will continue to add more photos as I get them...

*update - placed 14th overall out of about 165 runners with an official time of 1:27:11

Here is a video that a friend from the trip made with his GoPro Camera and some photos from other people on the trip, he really did a great job with it! 
http://benegrodotzki.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/nz-adventures-episode-3/

Kia Ora - Hi

Another week gone. Wow, and something close to 150 of you read my last post, how flattering. You guys must be bored eh? Well there were no icy beaches or brakeless bike adventures this week but I do want to give you guys a little taste of what life is like over here. In my last post I was unable to really elaborate on the details of day to day life among the Kiwi's (people from New Zealand) so I will do my best to buy you a mental thousand dollar plane ticket here so you can walk around yourselves.

As some of you may know Kiwi's do everything backwards from North America, they drive on the left side of the road, winter during our summer, water flushes opposite from toilets at home (not entirely sure but we'll just let that one go...). So you can imagine my surprise the second morning here at about 8am as I tried to cross the street, looking left, taking a step into the road and then looking right, at a car that had stopped two feet from me. Welcome, noob. It's been about a month since then and still I look like an absolute tourist animal as I lurch across roads craning my neck in every direction so not to end up like the pesky NZ possums that didn't quite make it (NZ version of the raccoon). You'd think that at some point things would just click but still I find myself doing that awkward hop/jerk/dance move on sidewalks as I travel along the right side and lets not get started on the traffic jams I have caused in grocery store aisles across Palmy.

Wildlife here is ridiculous, plants and trees are amazing but even more so are the birds that I see and hear on a daily basis. Each day I find myself looking up into the trees to find birds that sound like creaky doors or beautiful bells. They are about the only wildlife I see here aside from sheep, cows and the odd rabbit or possum because the only animals on the island were brought by settlers at some point. One strange thing I have found is that people really don't mind if birds come indoors. Down at the dining hall there are small finches flying around all over the place eating crumbs off the tables and floors. There are also a number of them at the local Pak n Save (grocery store) just zooming around in the rafters. I feel as though people would be having a fit at home if there were animals flying around their food, I kinda like it though. Birds gotta eat too haha.

As far as fashion goes here, guys wear short shorts and many of them sport braided rattails or mullets which is kinda funny but hey thats just the way it is. I think the rattails may be a sport thing (i.e. rugby team...) though I cannot say for sure. There are also a lot of people, mostly guys, that walk around barefoot here which is also very different from home but I'm all for it provided the streets are clean like they are here. What I do not agree with here so far is the music selection haha. This country or at least from what I have heard is stuck back in the 90's.... N'Sync, early Brittney Spears etc... I think I may start anonymously mailing CD's out to local radio stations and see what they think of the future (or even the good stuff from the past haha).

I have now taught myself how to cook up some pretty awesome lamb chops which was inspired entirely by this video, http://www.recipes.co.nz/lamb-chops-with-mash-vegetables (sault and pippa... ). When I arrived at the grocery store I was a little disappointed to find that twin blonde chefs didn't come with the lamb chops but bought them anyways (8.80NZD for about 8 of them for those of you wondering about prices). I managed to make a balsamic reduction sauce for the chops too which is a must if you're in the mood for some lamb.

Just a quick sidetrack here, a friend of mine posted this on her Facebook and it couldn't be more true for the non Kiwi's here getting lost in conversations. Apologies in advance for some of the language but it is worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPg_wp5KbCc

I personally have not been up to too much this week, anything that can be deemed as action began on Wednesday night when I played in my first volleyball game since grade eight. We ended up losing but thats alright, it was great to get out and meet people from the other dorms and burn off some energy. Thursday night is apparently when the weekend starts at Massey because a couple flats down from my own there was a party for two girls that had celebrated their birthdays that week. This as some may say, 'escalated quickly'. It started off fairly tame, a few beers, some delicious finger food and about ten or twelve people from around the flat. Then... out of nowhere, two massive towers(tower consists of about five stacked paper plates) of green, tequila jelly shots, homemade rye, scotch, and a bottle of tequila. There was a game of limbo involved, people were wobbling into walls, I had a wicked hairdo for a while after my hat was taken hostage and there were way too many incriminating photos taken. It was a great night, and like many great nights before this one, I woke up with a beautiful hangover. I say beautiful because I had the means to sleep most of it off and faired far better than most of my friends from the night before. When I finally did get out of bed, I went into town with a friend where we ran into  some people from the night before. To give you an idea of how they did, both of them woke up around 10 15am, for 10am presentations, following their 9am classes.

On Friday night we planned a falafel cooking night at a flat 11 where about twelve people showed up and a few of them cooked up some falafels and kumara fries with salad. This was pretty awesome considering I had never eaten it before and it was my first meal of the day haha. The dessert for the night, rote grutze, was made by a friend from Germany and was absolutely delicious. It was a hot berry sauce that was served over vanilla ice cream, just awesome. Unfortunately this night didn't last long because everybody was still suffering from Thursday and so everyone was in bed by about 11pm.

Saturday started off with pretty miserable cold, windy, grey, drizzling weather which warranted some movie watching till about 2pm. Shortly following this, some friends got me organized and off we went to  another rugby match but this time it was the local Manawatu Turbos taking on Taranaki. It was comparable to a Junior level hockey game so the talent was certainly there but not nearly on the same scale as the All Blacks. We were so fortunate that the rain held off the entire game but man was it ever cold and windy. The home team Turbos ended up winning 15 to 10 and so off we went to warm up at the nearest watering hole. We ended up stopping at a small Irish pub called Rosie O'Grady's because it had a fire place right in front of the TV. I ordered some fish and chips, a pint of Summit Lager and next thing I knew the All Blacks were taking on the Australia Wallabies on the tube. In fact, the four of us there watching the game were so entranced that when the first try was scored we nearly jumped out of our seats due to the cheers that erupted from behind us. The bar was absolutely packed full of die hard All Blacks fans (and one or two Aussie fans). The All Blacks laid a beating down on the Wallabies 30 to 14. Our rainy, grey, saturday didn't turn out so bad after all.

Finally (I know... I said this one would be shorter... I'm sorry) tonight (Sunday, I am 16hrs ahead of Ontario), the group of flats where I live held a potluck dinner and I got to try food from all over the world which was amazing, I cannot remember the names for most of the dishes but to give you an idea, there were crepes, schnitzel, curried chicken to name a few. I of course being the master planner that I am failed to plan any Canadian dish ahead of time and resorted to my go-to food, Banana Bread which turned out to be a hit, thank you mother. When asked if this was a Canadian dish, I simply told them that if they were going to believe that I had a dog sled and lived in an igloo, knew Joe and Suzy from Canada etc. then yes... banana's grow in Canada and this was probably the most delicious thing ever to eat while sitting on my chesterfield.

Well I'm stuffed, which means tired here instead of full so I think I will let you all get back to Facebooking, Stumbling, Youtubing or whatever else you may be doing to avoid work. Thanks for reading again and I hope you all have a great week (and Sunday for most of you because you're just starting it right now). Again, I will put up some pictures and stuff on here over the next few days and you can always check out the NZ album on my Facebook.

Cheers,
Brayden