Inside the Overlander...def not the LIRR...
Wellington Harbour
Final exams:
Not much to say here…hopefully the grades will not reflect that I went to samoa for a week up til one day before my first two tests and that my tests were all within one week (exams are usually more spread out since the exam period is june 6th-june 29th). Its really tough to gauge how I did because they’re all essay questions (which could mean more chances at partial credit or, alternatively, you just may not be able to remember enough to write sufficiently about the essay topic). What is frustrating about this is that these exams count for 50% of my grade in two courses and 60% in the other two….so I have no idea how I did on very important tests effectively. Oh well, its over.
Wellington Weekend:
The day after exams, I flew down to Wellington, the other major city on the North Island and the capital of the country. I arrived in the afternoon, before a lot of my other friends who were either driving that day or flying down the next. The weather was perfect and I walked down the harbor to Oriental Bay. I love Wellington Harbor, mountains in the distance, lots of walkways along the water ala Riverside Drive (but with mountains…). Met up with Duffer, Paul, Rike and her friend Ann from Germany and went to the Mac’s brewery for a beer and wedges (think steak fries, but yummier). Mac’s Wheat ale was a lot like Blue Moon, minus the bit of citrus. Spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city with the boys while the girls shopped. The Beehive, the capital building essentially, reminded me of a SUNY college building, which is not saying much (architecture kids, feel free to explain that better). Went to dinner in a sports bar with the girls to watch rugby games so everyone could refresh their knowledge of rugby for the All-Blacks/France game (if you don’t know who the All Blacks are, look em up) everyone was going to the night afterwards.
We all went to the Te Papa National museum the next day, to see such things as THE COLOSSAL SQUID and a collection of whale/dolphin skeletons. The squid was indeed colossal, although not that well-preserved, and unfortunately the skeletons were all behind glass in a big room so it was difficult to see them. Also, the blue whale skeleton had no vestigial hind legs on it…lame. Maybe my expectations were set really high and maybe my own museum ideal is odd, but I wasn’t all that impressed by the collections in the museum. This was one of those interactive/watch the videos/lots of reading museums, whereas I guess I prefer large collections of works and specimen without so much interpretation and explanation…but not everyone goes into museums with the same level of knowledge, so I guess its better to educate besides just showing specimens, etc.
After the marathon museum tour, with a lunch break, we were all zonked and either napped or just hung out til everyone headed to the game and I moved my stuff to a hostel closer to the train station. I opted not to spend the 102NZD for tickets to the game, and although it was a good game (I watched in the room in the hostel) it was pouring and freezing and, quite honestly, no sports event is worth that level of discomfort for me. I did watch the victory/loss of the Gallagher trophy on tv, as I said, and then the beginning of an Australia/Italy game and a Lions/South Africa game and came to the conclusion that I really love watching rugby and that it should replace football in America. It’s a faster game, actually easier to understand, the players look a lot better in the uniforms…its really a win-win situation.
Caught the Overlander train to Auckland at 7:25 the next day…got into Auckland at 9:10pm that same night….yeah, a very long train ride. But it was thoroughly enjoyable, I’d never been south of Auckland before and its all that classic North Island landscape of rolling green hills with sheep and cows dotting the foreground. Went through Tongariro National Park, which I was excited about since I just never had the time before the autumn/winter snows to do the Tongariro crossing, aka the best day walk in NZ. Its basically a cluster of active cone volcanoes, which, in this case, were perfectly snow covered. Very pretty. I forgot how much I love riding the train, even for 14 hours-ish. I kept nodding off (sopite syndrome like crazy) and waking up thinking I was on the LIRR late at night, as that’s usually where I get equally narcoleptic, except the seats were waaay more comfortable. Overall, a fantastic experience. I look forward to the transcoastal and transalpine in the next two weeks.
Last Week in Auckland *sniff-sniff*
Honestly, didn’t do much expect shopping and sleeping. My big goal for the week was to finally get to Rangitoto, but it was closed June 19th-June 29th for pest control(I left Auckland June 27th).Thursday I got all sentimental about our last Huia dinner, lots of tearful goodbyes…I’ve moaned enough to you all about how hard its been to part with every one of my friends here, you know the sentiment. Caroline, Zoe, Jess and I all went to Waiheke Island Friday, despite the rain, which we moaned about until we went wine-tasting of course. Probably the coolest thing on the island was the Musical Museum, which essentially was started when people carted huge pianos to New Zealand and Waiheke but never wanted to ship them off the islands. All sorts of really cool old pianos, organs, dulcitones…pretty much any keyboard instrument you could think of, they had it! And the best part was that you could play almost any of them (I tried to get the guy to let me play the baroque flutes...no dice, understandably so). Went back and got ready for the final dinner and drinks, and man, did we do it up for our last night. No one was ridiculously drunk (or some were but not obnoxiously so) and we first fueled up at the Waterfront (I had a nice juicy steak!) and then hit just about every bar without a cover that we’d frequented in the past 5 months. Highlights include: every time “sex on fire” came on, b/c this was THE song at the time we all started hanging out and going out together, singing at the top of our lungs and crying at the Irish pub, every time Laura brought out the squid dance and when Phil brought us to the dock to see fish and we ended up just having spitting contests, etc. I couldn’t cry, I just wanted to enjoy the last night so I kept giggling instead.
When the airport shuttle came to pick Caroline and myself up at Huia Saturday, my heart started pounding. I’m super awkward at goodbyes, but I think we all know what we mean to each other, and I’ll see Duffer, Laura, Conor and Matt in Queenstown on Thursday. Saying goodbye to Caroline at the airport was equally rough b/c she was my first really close friend here.
Start of South Island take 2…and restart of South Island take 2:
So after saying my goodbyes on Saturday, I flew down to Wellington. Felt pretty queasy on the 45 minute plane ride, which had me worried for my flights home, but I figured it was the emotion of the day and lack of sleep the nights beforehand. Turns out it was one of those stomach-bug things that seem to get me a lot (maybe its actually an ibs thing? Or ibs makes me more sensitive to tham?). So, upon arrival, thinking nothing of my nausea, I went and got a sandwich at the only takeaway place open in within the very deserted part (it was Saturday night…) of Wellington my hostel and the train station was in: the Shell Gas Station. Well, still felt queasy, which was not aided by my very acrid-smelling room and constantly farting and phlegmy-snoring old woman roommate. Basically, you know how things deteriorated from there. At 5am, decided to abandon my travel plans (a 2.5 hour ferry ride across the often-rocky Cook Strait and a 3 hour train ride) and booked myself into a single room for the following night. Spent the day in bed watching Australian news (which also broadcasts ABC news from home) and movies, and worrying about the 60NZD I lost in pre-booked train and ferry fares as well as when I could get myself down to Kaikoura as planned. I was in panic-mode, b/c this situation was exactly what I feared, and apologies to those who I complained to in this state. Well, forced myself to eat a few crackers and got out of bed this morning and onto the ferry. It was a rough ride (waves had to be huge to rock a 10 story ferry twice the size of the CT ferries back home…), but exhaustion from 2 nights of barely sleeping and fever and puking made sopite syndrome kick in real quick…slept for most of the ride. Ate my first “meal” (a croissant and tea) at the ferry terminal and caught a bus down to Kaikoura. Bus ride down the coast was really cool. The southeasterly swells made the sea real rough (better clam down before my whalewatch tomorrow…) which drove all the sea lions (literally hundreds!) to just hang out on the side of the road…pretty cool. I love wild coastlines like that, waves crashing on rocks and gravel, monstrous frothy swells. Checked into my hostel and turns out I’m the only one staying here, so I have a double ensuite room all to myself. Nice and calm for recuperating. Hope the gales calm down for whalewatching tomorrow at 12:45. I want to see sperm whales but I’ve had enough nausea for the next month, thank you very much!
