City life, Homestays and Yoga!

Well it has been a wicked long time! Sorry to leave you guys hanging. It has been pretty stressful here with lots to do and lots of assignments. You know how I get when I get stressed out and pimples start growing.

Field trip to the city. Lame. We went to Wellington the capital of New Zealand in the previous week. It was a good trip that started out with us driving a few hours north to get on a ferry. The ride was wicked long. That morning I had to get a lot of work done so I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get my papers in before we could leave. Here they really discourage the use of paper (printing paper, toilet paper, napkins, tissues but I’m from Maine so I’m like, hey use the paper!).  I had to try to figure out how to get the paper from my computer to the Mac desktop. One would think it would be as easy as a flash drive but oh no, nothing is that easy.  It took a good twenty minutes so I missed breakfast before we went so that means no coffee. And you guys know how I travel without coffee. 

We get to the ferry and its pretty exciting the whole thing felt like a bunch of cows getting herded into a cow trailer. Then we drove on and for some reason we had to park our cold, war styled van with all the tractor trailer trucks and dog kennel--there were so many dogs barking echoing off metal of the ferry. This boat was probably three times as big as the Atlantic Cat that goes to Nova Scotia. So, you can get out of your car and go into 2 or 3 restaurants and a few gift shops or sitting rooms or walk around the deck or go up to the top. It was pretty nifty and it was really swanky. So no one got sea sick or anything but the whole thing had a Titanic feel it and I felt like we were going to be going down any minute. 

On the ferry we saw lots of sea birds and even BLUE PENQUINS. They had about four tractor-trailer loads of cows on the boat which was pretty cool-so many cows packed into the trucks and they were stacked two high in the box. Wellington was a pretty nice clean city; not too many skyscrapers because of the earth quakes they don’t build tall buildings. A city is a city. (Except New York, Portland and Boston). We visited all kinds of different places; some cool and some really lame. I don’t have much to say about it but the trip lasted a week and it made me really home sick because I got pretty sick of being with the same people; staying with them for so long.

 It was also a field trip. We had to listen to a lot of guest speakers talk about pretty radical views of stuff most of which was hard to digest and overly opinionated. Lisa the funny kiwi women didn’t go with us so it was wicked quiet most of the time on the trip. We stayed in a place called a “marai.” It’s a religious type of building that the natives use and for worship and ritual. We stayed there and attached to it is a bingo hall type part with a kitchen. We ate and slept there and during the day they herded us around to different parts of the city. It was located in a neighborhood that reminded me of Fleming Street in Lincoln.

It was a really tiring trip that went on longer than I would have liked it to. We saw a stuffed Moe at the nation museum. (Extinct flightless bird, similar to an ostrich), climbed a really tall tower type thing on the waterfront (just for a photo opp.), saw the world’s largest giant squid at the national museum, toured a bunch of places: city gardens (vegetables), city forest, boardwalks and religious places. It rained most of the time. We also went to this off the grid, religious commune (I would describe it as a place where retired circus workers all go live somewhere in weird trailers, yurts, campers, and a few little metal buildings). I went down their steep drive way on a mountain board (like a skateboard on bigger wheels) and wiped out on the speed bump leaving lots of my skin and blood on the drive way. We came back to the nun house and Lisa greeted us and it was great! Felt so good to be at the convent and vent a little bit. After we came back we had to dive into an intense week of class on “sustainable community development” after not having a week of class. Having come back the day before I was wicked tired and not ready for class at all. 

One afternoon I had to mail some postcards for Hillary and dad’s birthday and rode in with my friend Emma. We decide we should exercise more so when we came back we got right into things and started Monday yoga on the deck. We did some downward dog and warrior position. And we breathed deep to let the oxygen flow from our mouths all the way to our muscles then relaxed as we exhaled until we have emptied ourselves of all the oxygen in our lungs... anyway I think yoga is great and we are going to try to keep things going and maybe get more people involved. Who doesn’t like yoga? 

Home stays. Well the only thing exciting I have to talk about is our home stay. So each American goes to stay with a kiwi family for a weekend to learn about the culture a little bit: it’s pretty fun. Leah (curly haired cow farmer) and I were assigned together to go to the same house for the weekend which is nice so it wouldn’t be as awkward and she could help carry the conversation. It was the same sheep farm I went to visit at the start of being here in New Zealand. There are some pictures in my previous blog. So, I had been there before and had seen them a bunch of times around town. Thankfully, I got to stay with someone that wasn’t a complete stranger.  

First night we got picked up, the radio was playing Maroon5. The women, Sandy, said “sometimes I like this kind of music but sometimes I just want to ask them what in world they are saying!” She is an older women around 65 and full of life. She drove us up to her sheep farm that is about 20 minutes out of town and sits between two big mountains. On our way up we saw some wild pheasants, wild goats and lots of their sheep on the hillsides. Kevin met us in the driveway and was holding a little lamb. The lamb was wicked cute and blind in one eye, which is why he was keeping an eye on it. Their house used to be a bed and breakfast so I had a really nice bathroom and hot shower with the shower head that was high enough for me to stand under! What a change from the nun house; I got my own room with a huge double bed, soft sheets, and four pillows. It was the best sleep I had gotten since I have been here. Also THEY HEAT THEIR HOUSE so when I put my contacts in it wasn’t like stabbing my eyes with ice cubes! Isn’t that amazing? Someone finally heats their house. That night we had Crayfish for supper (like lobster but cost 65 bucks each...) and other sea fish like pauwa, and grilled fish. Wicked good super and dessert. Then we fed the lamb, locked up all 8 of their dogs, fed the chickens and went in to clean the kitchen. Well, I didn’t have to lift a finger! Me and Kevin went in to watch rugby as Leah and Sandy cleaned up everything. It was great. They also brought us dessert with tea so I didn’t have to get up.

We talked about solar powered hot water and stuff while watching rugby. After ruby we watched paid programing a little bit: flash backs to Grammy and Papa! Luckily, I don’t think Grammy Pelkey watches it. When I rolled out of bed at 9:00 the next morning, they had toast with different spreads; it was good! We could see some cows that got out so we had to go round those up and get them in the pastures. He drove us around the property and told us stories; it was great! We were supposed to get on the 4weeler and go check on some sheep way up in the mountain but when Leah and I sat on it, Leah’s side had a flat tire, so that was disappointing and we couldn’t go. 

Kevin and Sandy have a swinging bridge on their property that goes over the river near their house. It’s pretty dilapidated now, but if I lived there I would fix it up. They also have a Tennis court on their property. They made it out of packed limestone and it is so funny. It looks really funny. It’s the first of the season so Leah and I had to “scrape it” and “pack it” and put the net up to get it ready. Then after we set it up Leah and I played some tennis. She was really pompous saying, “I played tennis in advanced PE I’m really good”. And I was like, “I go to Lincoln Tennis League once a month and I stink.” Well let me tell you, Leah’s strong point is not tennis. She was so bad. But she was playing in her gum rubbers. Then, Sandy came out and was wicked good. I was so surprised. And she had been to the Wimbledon. 

The Topps took Leah and I to church on Sunday; we hit a bird on the way. Then went to church and there were lots of people camping in the parking lot for some reason? It was a weird sight. After church, we left Kevin at church because he was talking too much and Sandy took us down to go on a cave tour. Well, this was my first cave and it was pretty cool. It wasn’t too big but it had the stalagmites and stalactites in them and they found fossilized penguins in them! Our guide, Barry, was a really “colorful” old man who couldn’t believe we didn’t eat cow stomach. He also couldn’t understand a word me and Leah said!!  I think it was also because he was half deaf, but I’m used to that from living with mom.

Character development:

Sandy: She is a great tennis player on her little limestone court: full of life and always has a good laugh. She’s is a great cook, has 4 dogs, 3 cats, and 20 chickens. She made us listen to children’s Sunday school songs on the way to church Sunday morning. It was pretty funny.

Kevin: He is a great story teller, loves to talk about his sheep, he has 4 dogs of his own (not Sandy’s dogs), 3000 sheep, 150 cattle and 1 horse. He is also a pastor; he told me and Leah the story of Jacob and Leah in the Bible. Well, in the Bible, Jacob and Leah get married and have 7 kids... He thought that was a good laugh because Leah and I came to stay at his house.

Leah: still the cow farmer with curly hair. She has started to call herself my sister (sorry Hillary, Elizabeth and Mary) because our bedroom doors were across from one another and she told me, “night” every night during the homestay.