As you may know, since New Zealand is on the bottom of the world, we are enjoying fall while the US is enjoying spring time. The growing cold and the few months has made the Americans homesick, so I decided to organize a thanksgiving meal. BU payed for the two imported turkeys, which were $75 a pop. Everyone who came had to bring a side or desert. I was in charge of cooking the turkeys and making the gravy. ( I also decorated my friend Joe's apple pie with an apple and leaves). It was my first time ever, and I think they came out quite well. The side and desserts were numerous and varied, ranging from traditional stuffing and potatoes to tacos and kumara gnocchi. Sorry the pictures are not great, but I was too busy eating and cooking most of the time.
Auckland is actually not that different than an American city. The biggest difference is the ethnic make up of the city. There is a vast amount of asain migrants and pacific islanders. The empire state building of Auckland is the skytower. It is not as tall, but there is a commerical form of base jumping off of the top. I live in the center of the city, and have a 10 minute walk to work (much better than some of my friends 2 hour bus drive). The pictures of natives is from the pacifica festival, which celebrates the culture of all the pacific island cultures.
There is a place called Fordes that is our local bar. It is right next to our residence (uni lodge, which looks like a lage tin can) and we have a lot of BU events there. The owner is Tom Forde, and Irish imigrant who loves to talk politics. He holds an American night every wednesday where we plug our ipods into the speakers and listen to our favorite classic songs and play american drinking games. Unfortunely the bar has recently closed, becasue Tom is starting a 6 month bike tri pfrom Asia to Western Europe, but it still holds many fond memories.
We also went to a Rugby league game. Rugby league is a different sport than Rugby, but please don't ask me the difference.
So last weekend was a sponsored trip by BU. We drove south from Auckland to Rotarua from Friday to Sunday. Friday we went zorbing. Zorbing is basically going inside a giant blown up gerbil ball with another human being and a little bit of water, and then being pushed haphazardly down a huge hill. Sufice to say it was ausome! I went withe a girl from my grou pnamed Deanna, and we tumbled on top of eachother all the way dodwn the hill unitl we emerged drenched and disoriented. We then stopped in the town of rotarua, where you instantly notice the appealing smell of rotten eggs, due to the high level of geothermal activity in this area. It is also called little vegas, but no one has any idea why, since there is absolutly no resemblence to Vegas. After lunch we went lugging, which is basically riding a go cart down an cement track on a mountain. I have learned my lesson about going to fast on these things back when I was little on a an alpine slide in Breckenridge Colorado, so I was carefull and for once did not get hurt (unlike many other people). By the time we wer done we tookt he gondola down the mountain, and watched hte sunset. That night we had a huge BBQ and a night hike, where we played many competitons on the beach. I am proud to say I won the crab race/ wheel barrell race.
The next day I woke up early to go kayaking on the lake. It was Abby, my roomate's, first time kayaking so it was very exciting. We procedde to go to Rotarua's thermal wonderland, whihc includes many boiling mud patches, sulfuric ditches, and geothermal lakes. We then proceded to a volcano where we climbed into jeeps that drove us most of the way up the volcano. We then followed a guide along hte edge of the huge voilcanic crator, raced down into the crator, and climbed out again. The crator was huge, and impossible to capture the magnitude on camera. On the way back to our campsites, we stopped at a geothermal pool, where a small hot spring ran into a larger river making natural hotsprings. It was incredibly relaxing. We had a quite night of BBQ and played cards.
The next day we woke up early, and drove over tot a a white water rafting company. The river we rafted upon claims to have the highest comercially ran waterfall in the world. The rafting was incredibly fun. We even jumped out and swam for a little bit! And that was the end of our advenutres of the wekend.
