Sept. 5, Update....

So we had our class orientation in the afternoon (yawn) and it sounded pretty intense. There was a man who came for lunch and spoke to us about natural gas and how he recycles everything and only brings one bag of trash to the dump each year. this dude was wicked oppionated so I pretty much just tuned him out. But I mean if your against deep sea oil than mabey he is a great guy. But he was pretty opionated and was talking out of his you know what most of the time.

 Later that night a guy came to teach us about the local indigenous people of New Zealand. He taught us a song and a war dance called the haka. Look it up on you tube, the all blacks ruby team does the best one. So im a pretty big ruby fan now and apparently im supposed to cheer for the all blacks. And im pretty good at the haka, but if I had war paint id be better.

Ocean walk:

Then we woke up and went on a hike around the bay for 2 hrs but we had to walk real fast because we had to walk while the tide was out. It was again wicked pretty aqua blue waters, not like the deep blue violent crashing Atlantic in maine. The cliffs are made of sandstone and are a polished white from all the waves they are about 200 feet high above the ocean and the seals are down at the bottom where we were walking. As we walked around the bottom the rocks are all white and polished, it feels like walking on the top of mount katahdin because the rocks move so much under your feet. I found all kinds of different sea sponges and corals and a few seal skulls and lots of dead birds. And these really pretty clam shells named “paua” they are real pretty so look those up on google too. The rule was to stay 10 meters away from the seals but hey im an ignorant American and cant convert that to feet so I got wicked close to the seals and there is like no way around them. We literaly walked for like half an hour amoung an entire colony of seals that were “wolfing” at us and baring their teeth. It was wicked cool but they smelt soo bad. Got a few pics but it was pretty hard.

Then we went to the “maori” peoples tabernacle and presented ourselves as people of piece. We sang them the song we learned the night before and then we had to touch noses. So you put one hand out to shake hands and take the other hand and put it on the back of their head then press your nose to their face without letting your forehead touch theirs. This is pretty hard when you are as tall as me and they are as short as they are. (wicked short, all of them). They had real tall carvings all round the property that looked like giant chickens. Hillary you would love them. Not. They are a very artistic people they are known for their carvings and arrangements of stones. We were not allowed to take pictures here so I cant show you much but the interior of the prayer room was completely carved with extreme detail of fish, birds, gods, and trees. The colors were very bright and the entire building was so cool.

So we got taken out to eat in something called our small groups. The group of kids were broken up into groups of 3 and then assigned a leader so my group is Steve, Rob, Adam (ccsp worker) and me. We went out to a great place with good food! Its right on the street by the ocean and we ate outside with the seagulls. So I got a burger because they don’t feed us much meet at the nunhouse where I stay. So catch this, ln the burger was a fried egg, pickled beets, sautéed onions, and lettuce on a homemade roll. But I laughed because it said it came with fries but it really only came with legit no more than 20 frenchfries on the plate but it was wicked good.

Also we went to the kiakoura dump today. It is really into recycling and after people recycle things that are obvious (cans glass bottles compost wood paper ect) they then take everything that is thought to be garbage and devert 75% of it to be recycled. So that is a crazy amount. That over 75% of the things people throw away is recycled. They also have a thrift shop that sells things for 4 dollars a bag full. Cheep. But it was very organized so it was king of hard work to find anything but Alex Monroe I found a pocket-tee!

Weather: So its early spring time, daffodil season with many flowering trees. It’s pretty most of the time. About 55 degrees most of the time and windy. About the area, its a lot like maine with very plain buildings with not much architecture. Very European with not much attention to detail. People landscape there yards very differently here than in America. They don’t use mulch much and it king of just looks like random overgrown bushes are around peoples houses. ALSO YOU HAVE TO MOW YEAR ROUND! So green grass year round. And its not cold enough to kill geraniums in the winter. So right now a lot of snapdragons are out which is odd because those are a late summer flower at home.

 

Character Development:

Kelsey. Well I finally got her to fall for me! Actually she fell for me two times in about a 30 second span. But it turns out shes just not too good on her feet and slipped on some rocks when we were walking among the seals. She is a sophomore at Messiah College studying nursing just like dad!

Lisa. I already told you about how great Lisa is but unfortunately this week she away for work so the convent is quite a bit quieter. I miss Lisa.

 

New Zealand fun facts:

                The west coast is made of mostly temperate rainforest. And we walked around a mature New Zealand forest with trees that are abour 400 years old as well as tree fusia. Same fusia that we grow at home in hanging plants can grow into tree form here in new Zealand.

                Surprisingly there is only 2 or 3 native plants from NZ that have berries on them. I would have thought there were more because of all the birds but nope.

                You can eat most of plants on the island, but for the most part most are hard they are not very palatable, meaning there isn’t much to each that would be very good if you got lost on the island.