Got a car!!

Hey y'all! Well I have not even 5 minutes left, so this will be super quick, but I GOT A CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is a 1989 Mazda Astina hatchback. The Snells and associated crew will appreciate that the coloring is slightly reminiscent of Grover (not a clone, but its navy blue with orange racing stripes). I'll post a photo for you all soon, so you can see how I'm travellin' in style. ;) A couple other notes - when we were heading out to test drive my car up in Silverdale, we passed the construction site of an indoor ski slope. What???? Yeah. So weird. And I went to yoga again on Monday (I am loving the yoga classes). But I had to laugh at the distinctly New Zealand yoga instruction. When describing Ujai (spelling???) breathing technique, the instructor told us that "it's kind of like doing the Haka." (For those of you who don't know, the Haka is a famous Maori dance. Sorry I can't be more specific since I haven't seen it yet. But I think they do it at rugby games and stuff too. Maybe one of you who is more knowledgeable than me can let me know. And if anyone knows the correct spelling of Ujai, I'd appreciate a correction on that too! Nate, you're looking in the dictionary already, aren't you?! hahaha :) ). I am heading off to camp on Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf outside Auckland for the weekend while my car waits to visit the mechanic on Tuesday. Then its off somewhere around the country, specific route TBA. I feel like there is something else I wanted to tell you guys, but I don't remember what it was. Oh! I remember what it was. I found a tent for only $49 NZ! Its a pretty darn nice tent as far as I can tell. Practically brand new. The guy who was helping me said he couldn't figure out why they hadn't charged $149 for it. Hopefully I won't discover the reason for that in a bad rainstorm...! ;) Alrighty. I'm off. Hope you're all well! More updates on the car soon.

So I don't know how many of you are familiar with Long Beach, California, but this is Long Beach, one of the city beaches in Russell, the first capital of New Zealand. Turquoise water, clear air, bluffs studded with greenery and flowers, polished shells and fine sand... LBC has got nothin' on LBNZ!!

Sorry this photo didn't turn out better. This is the Marae (Maori meeting house) at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. It was built for the 1940 centennial celebration of the treaty signing. You can't see the amazingly detailed, GORGEOUS, carvings, but this plus the 155-person canoe that was also built for the occasion were built using only volunteer labor!

You know how I said that Waitangi was probably the most beautiful home to a treaty-signing? Well you can judge for yourselves!

Lindsay looking out over Cape Reinga, the northernmost point on the north island. If you look closely, you can see the green of the Tasman Sea to the left and the blue of the Pacific Ocean to the right. Although you all know how good I am with right and left... just kidding. I thought about that before I typed it, so I got it right. Don't worry!

One thing I discovered while hiking on Urupukapuka is that sheep poop a LOT. I went through this pasture and had to stop to take in the view since I certainly couldn't see it as I was walking. At least not if I wanted to keep my sandals smellin' sweet, anyway. I also learned that sheep poop in pellets, so all those big patties that we saw on Mt. Eden must have been from cows. I had been wondering about that since I pictured sheep poop being a lot smaller than that...

Dana, Lindsay and I on Urupukapuka Island in the Bay of Islands, shortly before they took off on the "safe" ferry and I cut it a little too close on the infamous "3:30" ferry... :)

Fixed it

Alright. I fixed that whole slew of weird partial postings - I think! I had a fabulous time at the beach yesterday. We were there for a good 8 hours (10:30-6:30) playing in the water, reading, talking, snoozing... Gotta love it! My friend Gemma came to join us for part of the time, as did Savage's friend Graeme and Krista. A fun little crew of us takin' over the seashore. :) I just got out of church and I'm waiting for mom and dad to call. I think I'm going to head over to the park here in just a couple minutes to hang out and read and wait for them to call me.

so screwed up - and my phone #

Okay. I am hoping that that last post was only totally screwed up on my computer. If you look through, you should be able to see the whole thing. Dang! And I still haven't figured out how to make spaces between paragraphs yet. So, apologies to all if its a pain in the butt.

And if you ever want to call me, its free for me to receive calls. My number is (from the US) 011 64 21 070 8816. Your evening is my afternoon the next day. Right now it is 4:30pm here and 10:30pm yesterday back home in MN, just to give you an idea of timing.

Okay. I hope you all are well and I'll hear from ya soon! I am loving getting your emails. AND THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE LETTERS, to those of you who have mailed me. You are awesome!!!

Bay of Islands

Alrighty, so now that it is totally out of my mind and past, I will give you all a brief synopsis of the Bay of Islands. I have been back here in Auckland for a week now, so this might not be quite as good a telling as it might have been earlier. Oh well. At least it'll be short and sweet for ya!

First off, we went to the Waitangi Treaty grounds, the location where the treaty between the British and the Maori was signed in 1840. It is officially the most beautiful place ever to have had a treaty signed, I'm sure. It is up on this hillside overlooking the amazingy turquoise waters of the bay. Add to that the fabulous gardens and enormous trees on the grounds themselves and it is really, really lovely. They also have a Waka (ENORMOUS war canoe) that holds 155 people! Can you imagine?! I went on a tour up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point on the North Island of New Zealand. It was an incredibly fun day with everything anyone could ever want to do all crammed into it, but it was also my realization that I am definitely NOT a tour person. I felt so pent up on the bus. And only 45 minutes at the Cape?! I could have stayed there and stared for hours! The Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet there at the Cape and you can see the green of the Tasman mixing with the blue of the Pacific amidst waves and swirls of white. Sitting atop the hill amongst the grass in the sun watching the oceans curl together was absolutely entrancing.

I must admit that despite the shorcomings of the tour thing, I had quite the evidence of a good day. I came home with icecream dripped down my shirt (blackcurrant honey - YUM!!!!!!!!!!), sand all over me from sandboarding (I will have to say a bit more about that below), sticky fingers from the fish and chips stop at Mangonui (which means big shark in Maori - did you know Mango means shark??? I thought that was pretty cool), AND my face was all sticky with fruit juice from the fruit stand where we'd stopped in Kerikeri. I was just like a little kid after a good, long day at the beach. Just had to laugh at myself. Especially when I saw my reflection with sand all over my face. It looked like I was growing a beard! Or 5:00 shadow, at least! Sandboarding was soooooo cool. It was like sledding, only down an ENORMOUS sand dune on a boogy board. So it was a lot smoother than sledding and it was definitely higher than any hill I've ever sledded down. I don't think I have a picture of that one on the digital to show you guys, but just think of a sand dune so high you didn't REALLY think you'd be climbing the whole thing. But we ended up climbing it twice! And I had one of the longest runs. Yay for those balance skills from my years of dance and skiing. :)

I went swimming with dolphins as well. Although tell me you wouldn't be a bit freaked out if the guide started your talk by telling you the signal for "dolphins over there - swim that way" and then proceeded to "return to the boat IMMEDIATELY." Just as I was wondering what that was all about, she explained by asking if everyone had seen the news. Well, apparently I was the only one who hadn't seen the news since everyone else nodded knowingly. I turned to the person next to me and asked "what was the news?" "Oh, there was a big shark spotted in the bay last week." Great... and I was already worried about swimming in the ocean, wondering whether there was any truth to the advice not to swim in the ocean when you have your period because sharks can smell you, and now this on top of it! Well, I may have been the most anxious one jumping in that water off the stearn, but I made it out safe and sound. Didn't see any dolphins, but I'd already seen them from the boat, which was enough for me. They were beautiful! And so close. I could have touched them, but you aren't supposed to, so I restrained myself. And the cruise around the islands was worth it in and of itself. And mom - hahaha - I wore a size XS flippers!!! So I don't want to hear you singin' "Can't Love Ya Cuz Your Feets Too Big" anymore. So there! :)

After our dolphin swimming, the boat dropped us off on Urupukapuka Island for coffee and tea and lounging for half an hour. Now, after the Cape Reinga tour the day before, I had had just about enough of the whole time limit thing, so I decided to stay and wait for the 3:30 ferry. Plenty of time to get back for my 4:15 bus, or so I was assured by the tour office anyway... As you can probably guess, after an afternoon of hiking on the trails around the island, lounging in the sunshine by the beautiful sandy beach and writing in my journal, the 3:30 ferry didn't quite show up as expected. In fact, it showed up half an hour late. Definitely NOT enough time for me to make my 4:15 departure. As Michelle, an English girl I'd been hanging out with pointed out, there are a lot worse things than being stuck in Paihia for an extra night! We agreed that I would run to the bus stop outside my hostel when our ferry docked and if I could catch the bus I would. Otherwise, I'd head back to the dock to meet her for icecream and we'd celebrate. Yup, that cookies and cream was quite delicious!

Since it was really not my fault that I'd missed the bus, the tour company had already set up for me to spend another night at the hostel. So no worries! Michelle and I took off to Russell, the first capital of New Zealand. Whereas Paihia is your party-hardy resort beach town, Russell is a beautiful, old, Victorian town. I bought a card to top up my phone, which I discovered was down to less than a dollar left already - whoops! But I caught it in time. We then had a fabulous dinner of Green Thai Chicken Curry on the lovely deck of the Duke of Marlborough Hotel, one of the oldest in the town. We walked down the waterfront after dinner and watched the sunset over the bay. I caught the ferry (on time, this time) back to Paihia and hung out with my hostel roomies for the night.

The next morning I was awakened by my roomies at 6:30am, but we were all having such a fun time, that I didn't mind at all. We were laughing, chatting and joking. I LOVE hostels! I went back over to Russell after waking up my friend Gemma's little brother and being his surrogate big sister (nagging him to check out on time since his sister was out kayaking). In Russell, Michelle and I checked out the Russell museum. They had all sortsa cool stuff, including a giant crayfish (Koura in Maori). This thing was caught in 1973 and weighed about 7 kilos! For those of you for whom that means nothing, this crayfish was about 2 and a half feet long and about 2 feet across, including the legs. Imagine if one of those showed up at Unistar!

I managed to make it back in time to catch the bus back to Auckland, which is where I am now. I am staying with Savage and his housemates, which I think I already told you guys is just great. Next time I will have to tell you some of our test-driving stories from my car search. Lets just say we've had 2 cars break down during our test drives already! I went to yoga on Monday, which felt so good. And we are going to the beach all day on Saturday. We are taking a picnic in the chilly bin (cooler - but isn't chilly bin just such a cute term?! I love it!).

Bay of Islands

So lets have some fun with color here. I think this may have been the color of the water in the Bay of Islands. Or maybe it was more like this. And the hillsides looked like this, and this and this. The gardens, oh where do I even begin??? They don't have a color on this thing that even approximates the sky, so you're just going to have to imagine it based on this one.

I am almost out of time right now, and I want to do some stuff today other than sit in the computer lab, so I'll have to tell you more about my trip later, but I'll post this anyway as an appetizer. :)

Auckland Unitarian Church

Well, first off, its been a bit of a long time, so this is rather outdated, but its cool, right? Internet was expensive out of Auckland, so I haven't been using it!

I went to visit the Unitarian Church here in Auckland last Sunday and it was everything one might hope. I love Unitarians. They are universally awesome all over the world! Another guy from my program came with me and we went out for lunch after the service with a bunch of people from the congregation. We ate lunch at this fabulous place that reminded me a bit of the Birchwood. They put fresh fruit in the water pitchers that they bring to the tables. It is a fabulous idea since it gives the water a great taste and then you get fresh fruit when you finish the water and you all know how much I like that!

Also on Sunday, I was finally able to get ahold of Laura's friend Savage, who lives here in Auckland. We headed out to explore Devonport, a really pretty area across the bay from central Auckland. We stopped for gelato (I got plum - yummy) that we ate as we hiked up Mount Victoria, an extinct volcano. Did you know that there are 48 extinct volcanoes in Auckland? We hung out with Savage's flatmates over home-made vegetarian Indian dinner. They are such a cool group of people. I am actually staying with them right now and I just like them even better as I get to know them more! Yay for cool people! Oh, and we found digestive biscuits. Mmmmmm!!!!

Ilana in heaven at the fruit stands in the Otara Market, Auckland.

Dana and I visit the SS. Puke and start to feel a little sick...

My dad's unfelted (i.e. ginormous) mittens!

My family wearing their mittens that I made them for Christmas.

I found a double pack of "juicy mango" flavored yogurt. Does that make these my "juicy, juicy mangoes"??? Can anyone other than Meredith and Anne name that quote?

L.O.T.K.

Yup. Lord of the Rings has permeated even the fast-food kebab market. I had lunch at Lord of the Kebabs yesterday, where employees wear the shirts with their L.O.T.K. logo. You gotta love it. The food wasn't anything great, but how you you pass up a chance to eat at a place like that?!

I should warn you now that this post will be a bit of a mish mash. So be ready for some random subject changes. It has been rainy since I got here, but finally cleared up today in time for us to hike up to Mount Eden, the highest mountain in Auckland. It felt SO GOOD to be out there in the grass and under a blue sky. We were revelling in the view and the wind and... ahhhhh! Mount Eden is an extinct volcano and let me just tell you that the crater is awfully impressive. I am sure it is small as craters go, but for someone who has never seen a crater before, it was really deep and steep.

We (Dana, Lindsay and I - other girls from my program) ventured out to the Otara Market, which we had heard was a Polynesian-type market that is held on Saturday mornings. We weren't altogether impressed. It was kinda like a big flea market. BUT they did have a fabulous fruit and vegetable section. (I was in heavan). We bought some amazingly sweet, red strawberries at one stand and ate them as a little treat when we arrived back at the hostel.

Also, for some of you that I haven't talked to in a while, I hear that you don't know quite what on earth I am doing here. So, here's the brief on that: I am doing a working holiday special visa program through BUNAC in the US, IEP in New Zealand. I am over here, allowed to take any job for up to a year. The idea is that I can travel around and earn money to pay for it. Its a pretty cool set-up. My current plan is to travel around a bit here (maybe a month or so) and then pick a place to settle down with a job for a bit.

Okay. I am going to see if I can figure out this photo thing now. Maybe I'll have a couple up here soon.

I've arrived... and before...

FIJI

Well, after a 10 hour, 45 minute flight (that is what my interary says, anyway - I didn't actually check the timing myself), I arrived in Nadi, Fiji at 6:15am Thursday the 6th local time. That's 10:15am Los Angeles time.. on Wednesday the 5th! I still don't entirely understand how the Internatioal Dateline actually works, but it certainly makes for interesting travel adjustment.

I slept quite well on the plane. A HUGE thank you to Beth for suggesting that I bring an inflatable neck pillow. That thing saved my sanity!

Upon our arrival into the terminal, we were greeted by the 'Bula Band' welcoming us to Fiji. Ironically, the band had set up shop right next to the line of travellers who were transferring to different international destinations. People staying in Fiji were routed directly along to baggage claim and customs and didn't get the benefit of listening to the band for more than the 20 seconds that it took them to walk by. Those of us who weren't actually staying in Fiji got a nice, extended welcome serenade. I tried not to think too much about that one...

LOS ANGELES

Just a quick little shout-out to all the fabulous people in LA. You guys gave me the most wonderful send-off to newly redubbed New Ziggitty (no, this has no relation to Fort Diggitty unless you count the abundance of farm animals!). I could not have asked to have more fun or been with more wonderful, caring friends before my big trip (don't worry everyone else - you guys are wonderful too, you just don't live in Southern Cali!). I still have to laugh about the masses of us blonde Minnesota girls taking over Garf's. And our visit to the Toybox. And Keasha's scheduled cadaver scalping. And the girl with the cool earings ("well, if by earings you mean..."). And Jury's surprise early arrival on Tuesday afternoon. And EVERYTHING ELSE!!!! You guys make me smile and I miss you so much!!! Lundi, I was straight up about to cry at the airport! All will be well and we will have more heart-to-hearts soon.

AUKLAND

Yep, I'm finally on to the New Zealand portion of all of this. A couple things you guys will appreciate that I witnessed on my wanderings this afternoon:

- T. Bell Plumber's (hmmmm - what kinda plumbing is T. Bell working, anyway???)
- An add for Pepsi Max that has a pop cup with 5 straws bent to look like a hand giving someone the finger and the caption "give sugar the flick." Hmmm. I don't think that would pass in the US.
- And here's my favorite: I am walking down Queen street (a main street in Aukland) toward Aukland Harbor. I arrive at the intersection with Customs Street and I'm standing there, checking out the 'Champions of the World' Store full of New Zealand All Blacks (their Nat'l Rugby team) gear, when the stoplight flashes to walk. Now, I don't know how crosswalks are for all of you, but for me, I have always seen them allowing pedestrians to cross with the traffic. This one, not so much. As soon as it flashed to walk, people started taking off every which direction in the intersection. I was disoriented and a little out of it (remember, I just completed that 10hr 45 minute flight to Fiji, plus another 3-something hours to Aukland, PLUS I lost a day somewhere in there), so I walked straight across the street, trying to wrap my mind around this new concept of a crosswalk in which you didn't have to stay in the crosswalk. On my way back from the harbor, I was ready when the light changed: I took off right into the middle of the intersection with everyone else, walking kitty corner just because I could. Let me just tell you how cool it feels to be walking kitty corner across a busy intersection in downtown Aukland. Its kind of like those times at ski practice when the whole team of 60-something of us was running down the street holding up cars in our wake. Very empowering. Okay. Maybe I'm over-reacting. But it was pretty darn cool.

I also stopped in at Kathmandu and bought a backpacking stove 50% off. The guy I talked to said he has that one and likes it, so hopefully I will too! I didn't like their pot set, so I stopped over at Snowgum (another outdoor store) and found one that I liked better. Plus, I talked to the girls that were working there about cool places to go in New Zealand. They had lots of good ideas for me! I am going to go home tonight and look through my guidbook a bit before I fall asleep. I have my orientation tomorrow, so maybe that will help me to feel a bit more settled as well. I am a bit overwhelmed and feeling like I need to be settled somewhere for a bit. We'll see.

Only Half an Hour until I leave for the Airport

OH MY GOD!!! The time is actually here! I head out for LA via Phoenix in just a couple hours. I am finally packed, although my pack is so much bigger than I had hoped. My sister assures me that it is entirely reasonable, but I'm still disappointed. I can't think of anything else to cut out though. Oh well. I've got everything I need (as far as I know!!), so hopefully I won't have to add anything bulky.

I have been running around like a madwoman this past week trying to see everyone and finish up everything before I head off. I did make time to finish up my dad's mittens and we felted them yesterday. If I can figure out how to post pictures on this thing, (Jury is picking me up at the airport tonight, so I should be able to figure out everything I need to know from him), I will put up a photo of my dad wearing the unfelted mittens, cuz its pretty funny.

And after a frantic search for my notebook in which I'd written down all sorts of people's advice, I found it (whew!). So, straight from the first page of my notebook, here is my list of must-dos in New Zealand:

- learn Maori dances
- tramping - lots of it!!
- kayaking
- xc skiing (?? is there enough snow?? there isn't here. grr...)
- wine country tastings
- diving/snorkeling
- biking (road, maybe some mountain)
- hot springs/mud baths

I am sure I will add to this, but when I was brainstorming, that's what I got. Okay. We are leaving ahorita, so I have to go. More later.