I am once again stateside, after a 30 hour journey and being in two places for a full day. Kind of trippy, but kind of cool. I slept for fifteen hours last night, and I feel like I'm slowly getting used to the time change. It's wonderful to be back in warm weather and to see friends and family again. I had a delightful welcoming party at the airport, and no issues with my bags or anything so it's all good. I start work tomorrow, so it'll certainly be a busy next few days.
This will be it for my blog, seeing as I am no longer exploring Oceania, so everyone can turn their full attention to South America and Michelle's adventures there.
Hope all is well with everybody! Lots of love!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
I'm going ho-ho-ho-home!
Exam went fine. I know I missed some of the multi-choice ones, but it's not my fault that I wasn't prepared to know the Hawaiian word for "slack-key guitar." I kicked bootay on the essays though.
I am living off of a loaf of $1.05 bread and a half-carton of milk, plus two green capsicums and three hard kiwifruits. Thankfully Dan and I are going out for dinner tonight so I won't be stuck trying to cook some weird toast with kiwifruit concoction. I am on cup two of tea, and only have six bags left. Hopefully I'll be able to use them up before tomorrow.
I am trying to figure out why I thought it was imperative to bring so much stuff over here. Next time I go anywhere, I'm just bringing three t-shirts and a pair of pants and enough socks and underwear to last me the whole time.
I am living off of a loaf of $1.05 bread and a half-carton of milk, plus two green capsicums and three hard kiwifruits. Thankfully Dan and I are going out for dinner tonight so I won't be stuck trying to cook some weird toast with kiwifruit concoction. I am on cup two of tea, and only have six bags left. Hopefully I'll be able to use them up before tomorrow.
I am trying to figure out why I thought it was imperative to bring so much stuff over here. Next time I go anywhere, I'm just bringing three t-shirts and a pair of pants and enough socks and underwear to last me the whole time.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
2 posts in less than 24 hours, WHAT?
I have nothing to do before my exam. I feel fine about it, I'm not worried about it, and I don't feel like studying any more will help me. In that spirit, I've spent the last hour playing Text Twist online, making lunch, and getting my room checked by Tony from Uni Flats instead of studying. I just want this exam to be over. In the spirit of procrastination, I present to you a series of lists describing the leaving-NZ-coming-home process.
Things I Am Going to Miss About NZ:
1. Traveling every weekend to heaps of gorgeous new places that all look shockingly different, despite the small geographic size of the South Island
2. The Arcadia students that came on my program, and being able to drop by everybody's flat in a matter of minutes walking distance
3. Seeing sheep everywhere, even five minutes outside major metropolitan areas
4. Gladys the Gladiator, our strongas car who survived driving miles and miles over gravel roads, thousands of miles up and down the country, fording a few streams, and 24 years of life. She will be missed.
5. The friendly people everywhere, and how eager they are to talk to you, and how when they ask "where are you from" and you say "the States," they laugh and say "I know, but WHERE in the States?"
7. Living next to the childcare center and waving at the kids, especially when they're outside playing and wearing these goofy bright red hats to keep them warm
8. Living within walking distance of everything I need
9. The view of the mountains and Mt. Cargill and the park from my flat
10. Eating heaps of pumpkin and parsnip and other seasonal veggies
11. The phrases "heaps," "mate," "good on ya," "sweetas"
12. Actually, just being able to add "as" to the end of any word
13. Driving on the left side of the road (it's really grown on me)
14. Ending websites with ".co.nz" and reading it aloud as "dot co dot en zed"
15. Being able to buy Tim Tams at every grocery store, convenience store, dairy, gas station, etc.
16. Jane (our Arcadia program leader) and her giant grin and enthusiasm whenever we share our adventures with her and her cute emails that always start with "kia ora, Otago-possums" and end with "huge hugs, Jane"
17. Walking by extraordinarily cool gothic architecture on an average stroll through town
18. Joe's pineapple macaroni and cheese and quiche, the only two foods that he cooked almost the entire semester; Evan's food experiments that sometimes turned out delicious and sometimes turned out overspiced; how Jane always made me special lentil patties every time she made hamburgers; Jess's choco-nana muffins; the fact that Joe always hid in the pantry and tried to scare people by popping out; all of us shoving into the lounge to cuddle on the couch to warm up; the fact that Evan left coffee grounds EVERYWHERE whenever he tried to make coffee (actually, I might not miss that so much); playing Scrabble at dinner when nobody wanted to do homework; and generally anything related to the shenanigans of 515 Great King Street
19. The fact that as much as I loved my flat, I spent equally as much time at Dan and Patrick's because they heated their flat and how by the end of the semester, I had practically moved into their kitchen to get my studying done in a warm place (don't worry, I chipped in for their power bill too).
20. Getting a student discount almost everywhere in Dunedin
Things I Am Not Really Going to Miss About NZ :
1. Eating PBJs every weekend we go hiking--who woulda thunk they'd get so average after a while?
2. Seeing my breath indoors
3. Really, just constantly being cold whether it's indoors or outside
4. Having to wash my clothes 4 days before I'll need them because that's how long they take to dry
5. Never having a dry towel because things don't dry fast enough in our flat
6. Always having to eat Watties brand "tomato sauce" instead of regular ketchup
7. The fact that they have no idea what Mexican food is supposed to taste like and add celery and cabbage to burritos
8. Seeing sheep poop on the road constantly and wondering if you're stepping on it every time you walk through farmland
9. The kiwi mullet and the boys that thing they look cool with it (side note: Dan went to get his haircut yesterday, and the barber asked "do you want me to leave some in the back?"). Also, all the boys running around in short shorts that flap up all the time and the way they awkwardly don't even seem to notice.
Things I Am Looking Forward to at Home:
1. Seeing friends and family again
2. Lots and lots of food: cheerios, my SmartStart GoLean Crunch cereal, safeway brand macaroni and cheese, anything purchased from Trader Joe's, bagels and cream cheese, having fresh summer fruit veggies in season (pleeeeease say strawberries and blueberries and cherries are cheap now)
3. My hugeas bed and the fact that I won't have to put a hot water bottle in it to warm it up before I get in
4. Being able to turn right on red lights legally, and just generally being back in The Rock
5. Portland and subsequently, #6 and being able to explore even more areas of #5 now that I'll be allowed in
6. My birthday!
7. Summer weather and being able to wear all the tank tops I thought maybe I'd have a chance to wear in Dunedin (yeah right)
8. Having a more fully-stocked pantry and fridge
9. A fuller collection of shoes and clothes to choose from
10. Eventually going back to Oxy and seeing friends I haven't seen in eight months, and some in over a year
Things I Am Going to Miss About NZ:
1. Traveling every weekend to heaps of gorgeous new places that all look shockingly different, despite the small geographic size of the South Island
2. The Arcadia students that came on my program, and being able to drop by everybody's flat in a matter of minutes walking distance
3. Seeing sheep everywhere, even five minutes outside major metropolitan areas
4. Gladys the Gladiator, our strongas car who survived driving miles and miles over gravel roads, thousands of miles up and down the country, fording a few streams, and 24 years of life. She will be missed.
5. The friendly people everywhere, and how eager they are to talk to you, and how when they ask "where are you from" and you say "the States," they laugh and say "I know, but WHERE in the States?"
7. Living next to the childcare center and waving at the kids, especially when they're outside playing and wearing these goofy bright red hats to keep them warm
8. Living within walking distance of everything I need
9. The view of the mountains and Mt. Cargill and the park from my flat
10. Eating heaps of pumpkin and parsnip and other seasonal veggies
11. The phrases "heaps," "mate," "good on ya," "sweetas"
12. Actually, just being able to add "as" to the end of any word
13. Driving on the left side of the road (it's really grown on me)
14. Ending websites with ".co.nz" and reading it aloud as "dot co dot en zed"
15. Being able to buy Tim Tams at every grocery store, convenience store, dairy, gas station, etc.
16. Jane (our Arcadia program leader) and her giant grin and enthusiasm whenever we share our adventures with her and her cute emails that always start with "kia ora, Otago-possums" and end with "huge hugs, Jane"
17. Walking by extraordinarily cool gothic architecture on an average stroll through town
18. Joe's pineapple macaroni and cheese and quiche, the only two foods that he cooked almost the entire semester; Evan's food experiments that sometimes turned out delicious and sometimes turned out overspiced; how Jane always made me special lentil patties every time she made hamburgers; Jess's choco-nana muffins; the fact that Joe always hid in the pantry and tried to scare people by popping out; all of us shoving into the lounge to cuddle on the couch to warm up; the fact that Evan left coffee grounds EVERYWHERE whenever he tried to make coffee (actually, I might not miss that so much); playing Scrabble at dinner when nobody wanted to do homework; and generally anything related to the shenanigans of 515 Great King Street
19. The fact that as much as I loved my flat, I spent equally as much time at Dan and Patrick's because they heated their flat and how by the end of the semester, I had practically moved into their kitchen to get my studying done in a warm place (don't worry, I chipped in for their power bill too).
20. Getting a student discount almost everywhere in Dunedin
Things I Am Not Really Going to Miss About NZ :
1. Eating PBJs every weekend we go hiking--who woulda thunk they'd get so average after a while?
2. Seeing my breath indoors
3. Really, just constantly being cold whether it's indoors or outside
4. Having to wash my clothes 4 days before I'll need them because that's how long they take to dry
5. Never having a dry towel because things don't dry fast enough in our flat
6. Always having to eat Watties brand "tomato sauce" instead of regular ketchup
7. The fact that they have no idea what Mexican food is supposed to taste like and add celery and cabbage to burritos
8. Seeing sheep poop on the road constantly and wondering if you're stepping on it every time you walk through farmland
9. The kiwi mullet and the boys that thing they look cool with it (side note: Dan went to get his haircut yesterday, and the barber asked "do you want me to leave some in the back?"). Also, all the boys running around in short shorts that flap up all the time and the way they awkwardly don't even seem to notice.
Things I Am Looking Forward to at Home:
1. Seeing friends and family again
2. Lots and lots of food: cheerios, my SmartStart GoLean Crunch cereal, safeway brand macaroni and cheese, anything purchased from Trader Joe's, bagels and cream cheese, having fresh summer fruit veggies in season (pleeeeease say strawberries and blueberries and cherries are cheap now)
3. My hugeas bed and the fact that I won't have to put a hot water bottle in it to warm it up before I get in
4. Being able to turn right on red lights legally, and just generally being back in The Rock
5. Portland and subsequently, #6 and being able to explore even more areas of #5 now that I'll be allowed in
6. My birthday!
7. Summer weather and being able to wear all the tank tops I thought maybe I'd have a chance to wear in Dunedin (yeah right)
8. Having a more fully-stocked pantry and fridge
9. A fuller collection of shoes and clothes to choose from
10. Eventually going back to Oxy and seeing friends I haven't seen in eight months, and some in over a year
Monday, June 16, 2008
One last hurrah
I have returned, back from my very last NZ adventure for now. We went out to Methven, this tiny ski town SW of Christchurch, and did some cool day hikes. The boys got some skiing and snowboarding in too while I took a day in to study for my last exam tomorrow. We stayed at this really fun hostel where everybody hung out together and met some hilariously funny British guys. One night, we went to one of the two pubs in town (the Blue Pub and the Brown Pub) to watch some rugby since we figured we might as well kiwi it up before we left, and had a great time talking with the Brits and learning their favorite slang (instead of saying, "that movie sucks," they would say "that movie was pants," they used the word "snog" instead of "kiss" and they also said "wanker" [pronounced wankah] a lot). It was great fun. Our hikes were pretty wicked too--one hike, we had to snake our way up this stream to get up to the waterfall and we ended up crossing the stream via unstable, slippery rocks thirty-one times. We managed to keep our feet dry until pretty close to the end, but we all ended up slipping in at one point. Dan and I did another one where we got to climb around some more rocks in a stream and took in this magnificent cliff view. It was a great last hurrah in NZ.
Now it's back to business--I took care of a bunch of errands today like trying to figure out how to get rid of our car (once it failed the Warrant of Fitness test, it made it virtually impossible to sell it to any private buyer), and doing some last-minute errands that we needed the car for. It looks like we're taking it to a European Auto Dismantler or something, and they're going to give us $200 for it. We calculated that we must have put over 5,000 miles on it, and that's a conservative estimate. Either way, we certainly got our money's worth out of it. Almost all of the other foreigners that bought cars over here have had something tragic happen to their car that's left them stranded, so we really lucked out. Tomorrow it's really going to sink in that I'm leaving soon--I'll take my last exam, I'll figure out all my finances and somehow I need to close my bank account. The boys will take the car in while I take my exam, so I'll be car-less and bank account-less, making me more of a tourist and less of a permanent resident.
Coming home is such a weird phenomenon--there's so many things to look forward to about home, and so many things to miss about New Zealand. I think every study abroad student goes through stages of being overwhelmingly excited to go home and overwhelmingly sad to close such an important chapter of their life. Even though I would desperately love to come back here, I know it's not going to be the same place as I left it and I certainly will be different when I come back. I think coming to terms with these changes and making them a positive part of your life is one of the hardest things about constantly leaving places and experiences and people you love. As one of my good friends Elizabeth wrote in her blog about leaving Chile after spending three plus months there (E-Cuts, I'm shamelessly stealing your words because you just expressed my feelings so eloquently), "It may seem a little silly but I am realizing that people and pets are not the only things we mourn; on the contrary, experiences and places are very much living, breathing entities to which we have to say good-bye in the same way we would a loved one." Still, saying goodbye to a country and to people I've grown to adore is a small price to pay for getting to spend four+ glorious months here, and isn't college supposed to be about finding new things that you love? It's so hard to express how important and shaping my time here has been and how much it's enriched my college experience and made it so much fuller.
So adding this ridiculous mix of emotions on top of a 19-hour jetlag and a 30+ hour series of flights, I have a feeling I'll be somewhat disoriented upon my arrival. I'll have to pull myself together quickly though, because I have less than 40 hours after I arrive before I have to be ready to get a zillion first and second graders excited to learn. If nothing else, jumping into work will force me to make the transition from NZ to home quickly, if not make it any easier.
To keep this entry from being entirely nostalgic and a free-for-all ramble on my transition, I'll save my lists of Favorite Things About NZ and Things I'm Looking Forward To About Home for an entry tomorrow when I won't be procrastinating on my studies.
Loooooove to everybody at home, and see you soon for those of you in the general NW region!
Now it's back to business--I took care of a bunch of errands today like trying to figure out how to get rid of our car (once it failed the Warrant of Fitness test, it made it virtually impossible to sell it to any private buyer), and doing some last-minute errands that we needed the car for. It looks like we're taking it to a European Auto Dismantler or something, and they're going to give us $200 for it. We calculated that we must have put over 5,000 miles on it, and that's a conservative estimate. Either way, we certainly got our money's worth out of it. Almost all of the other foreigners that bought cars over here have had something tragic happen to their car that's left them stranded, so we really lucked out. Tomorrow it's really going to sink in that I'm leaving soon--I'll take my last exam, I'll figure out all my finances and somehow I need to close my bank account. The boys will take the car in while I take my exam, so I'll be car-less and bank account-less, making me more of a tourist and less of a permanent resident.
Coming home is such a weird phenomenon--there's so many things to look forward to about home, and so many things to miss about New Zealand. I think every study abroad student goes through stages of being overwhelmingly excited to go home and overwhelmingly sad to close such an important chapter of their life. Even though I would desperately love to come back here, I know it's not going to be the same place as I left it and I certainly will be different when I come back. I think coming to terms with these changes and making them a positive part of your life is one of the hardest things about constantly leaving places and experiences and people you love. As one of my good friends Elizabeth wrote in her blog about leaving Chile after spending three plus months there (E-Cuts, I'm shamelessly stealing your words because you just expressed my feelings so eloquently), "It may seem a little silly but I am realizing that people and pets are not the only things we mourn; on the contrary, experiences and places are very much living, breathing entities to which we have to say good-bye in the same way we would a loved one." Still, saying goodbye to a country and to people I've grown to adore is a small price to pay for getting to spend four+ glorious months here, and isn't college supposed to be about finding new things that you love? It's so hard to express how important and shaping my time here has been and how much it's enriched my college experience and made it so much fuller.
So adding this ridiculous mix of emotions on top of a 19-hour jetlag and a 30+ hour series of flights, I have a feeling I'll be somewhat disoriented upon my arrival. I'll have to pull myself together quickly though, because I have less than 40 hours after I arrive before I have to be ready to get a zillion first and second graders excited to learn. If nothing else, jumping into work will force me to make the transition from NZ to home quickly, if not make it any easier.
To keep this entry from being entirely nostalgic and a free-for-all ramble on my transition, I'll save my lists of Favorite Things About NZ and Things I'm Looking Forward To About Home for an entry tomorrow when I won't be procrastinating on my studies.
Loooooove to everybody at home, and see you soon for those of you in the general NW region!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Rachel 1, Exams 0
So I totally DOMINATED on my first exam, I think (knock on wood). I totally overstudied, which is better than the alternative of understudying, and I knew the information in a much more nuanced context than we needed to. Hopefully that came through in my answers. All the questions were pretty simple and basic, and I was confident that I knew the correct answers and more to the questions. I suppose that makes sense--it's a 200-level class, and at this point in my academic career, I should be prepared to do well in a 200-level class.
Going to the exam itself was terrifying--there was this scary old man proctoring the exam and he kept pacing up and down, yelling at people who weren't properly filling out their cover forms on the Official Test-Taking Booklet, and glancing neurotically at the clock. We had to leave all our bags at the front of this giant auditorium with our cell phones off, and they had cell phone detectors to see if anybody secretly had theirs. If people had to leave, they had to sign a "T" with their hands and then a proctor would escort them to the restroom. You can't leave the exam during the first hour or during the last fifteen minutes, and they scan your ID card to make sure it's not a fake one. It's crazy! I can't believe they take their exams so seriously.
That being said, my first one is DONE! And my second one is a 100-level class, which means the exam is going to be ridiculously easy. I hope. Not that I'm not studying. It's not till the 18th, and today I brought out my notebook and started making flashcards, so I'm on a roll.
Loooooove to the warmer United States folk from the freezing Antarctic-esque NZ folk!
Going to the exam itself was terrifying--there was this scary old man proctoring the exam and he kept pacing up and down, yelling at people who weren't properly filling out their cover forms on the Official Test-Taking Booklet, and glancing neurotically at the clock. We had to leave all our bags at the front of this giant auditorium with our cell phones off, and they had cell phone detectors to see if anybody secretly had theirs. If people had to leave, they had to sign a "T" with their hands and then a proctor would escort them to the restroom. You can't leave the exam during the first hour or during the last fifteen minutes, and they scan your ID card to make sure it's not a fake one. It's crazy! I can't believe they take their exams so seriously.
That being said, my first one is DONE! And my second one is a 100-level class, which means the exam is going to be ridiculously easy. I hope. Not that I'm not studying. It's not till the 18th, and today I brought out my notebook and started making flashcards, so I'm on a roll.
Loooooove to the warmer United States folk from the freezing Antarctic-esque NZ folk!
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Exams are stealing my soul
Okay, first off, muchas gracias to the many comments on the last entry...though perhaps it was a result of my shameless begging on Michelle's blog, it was much appreciated and it's always exciting to come home and see a new comment on my blog.
That being said, I am officially sick of social constructs. According to my media studies class, everything is a social construct: Orientalism is a social construct designed by the West to appropriate themselves as superior to the East, national identity is a social construct furthered by the development of print technology, and nations are social constructs with imagined communities within them defined by political borders. It's like Oxy all over again.
My first exam is tomorrow, and I'm not pleased with the exam process: I have to bring my ID card and placed in the top right-hand corner of the desk, it's held in a room I've never been to, if I bring in liquids, it has to be in a sealed clear bottle with a pop-top (making my Nalgene unacceptable), I can't bring food, if I need to go to the bathroom, I have to raise my hand second-grade-style and someone escorts me and stands outside the stall while I do my business. That sounds incredibly over-the-top. AND it's on a Saturday, and that's just really unnecessary.
Back to social constructs, diasporic communities, and armchair imperialism (furthered by the globalisation of modern media). Wish me luck tomorrow!
That being said, I am officially sick of social constructs. According to my media studies class, everything is a social construct: Orientalism is a social construct designed by the West to appropriate themselves as superior to the East, national identity is a social construct furthered by the development of print technology, and nations are social constructs with imagined communities within them defined by political borders. It's like Oxy all over again.
My first exam is tomorrow, and I'm not pleased with the exam process: I have to bring my ID card and placed in the top right-hand corner of the desk, it's held in a room I've never been to, if I bring in liquids, it has to be in a sealed clear bottle with a pop-top (making my Nalgene unacceptable), I can't bring food, if I need to go to the bathroom, I have to raise my hand second-grade-style and someone escorts me and stands outside the stall while I do my business. That sounds incredibly over-the-top. AND it's on a Saturday, and that's just really unnecessary.
Back to social constructs, diasporic communities, and armchair imperialism (furthered by the globalisation of modern media). Wish me luck tomorrow!
Monday, June 2, 2008
Franz Josef glacier
If finals weren't looming in the not-so-distant future, I would be glowing with happiness from the last weekend, but alas, finals have cut my happiness-basking short. Still, this weekend was fabulous and was definitely one of the highlights of my semester (though really, what part of this semester hasn't been part of the highlights?). We went out to the West Coast to Franz Josef glacier, one of two magnificently huge glaciers that dominate NZ's west coast and provide a much-needed tourist base to sustain the communities out there. It's about a seven hour drive from Dunedin, and it's almost entirely windy, sickening roads. We didn't leave till 5, so it was a really long night full of carsickness from almost everybody in the car, extreme exhaustion, and general crankiness. We had booked an 8:15 AM full-day hike on the glacier, so we were really short on sleep the next day. Despite the not-so-pleasant beginning to the trip, the glacier was totally worth any grumblings at the beginning. We walked through the forest to get there, and then climbed over this giant rock (ordinarily, you can just walk out directly, but the glacier river had recently changed paths, so we had to maneuver the rock) complete with ladders, chains, and rails. It was pretty cool. We got to wear crampon spikes, and then we climbed up onto the ice!
Climbing up the glacier wasn't as dramatic as it sounds, since the guides cut out stairs from the ice to climb up, but it's pretty slippery and you have to make sure you're using your crampons right. The first part of the glacier is kind of this ugly gray, dirty color, but once you get past that, it's really wavy bright white ice that's really cool. We got to go through lots of really narrow channels, which are the most fun part because you kind of feel like a penguin sliding around in-between cracks. There were some parts where we got to climb up an ice cave, walk through crevasses, and one part we got to do some ice climbing and pull ourselves up with a rope through this super narrow area (I actually got stuck...my pack was too fat, and I couldn't move for a couple seconds...it was kind of embarrassing). Since we did a full-day hike, we got to hike up high enough so that we could see blue ice and go through one of the biggest ice caves on the entire glacier. We got really lucky too, and got gorgeously clear weather even though by all forecasts it was supposed to rain (both NZ weather and NZ forecasts are notoriously unpredictable and unreliable).
After a nice long day on the glacier, we came back to our super-cute hostel and lounged in the outdoor hot tub (so nice!) and made some really yummy pumpkin/roast garlic risotto, and watched terrible New Zealand soap operas and called it an early night. The next day we had a cruisy, relaxing morning and spent the whole day just exploring town, walking around, taking in views of the glacier, eating good food, and generally enjoying ourselves. It was really nice to have some down-time.
My first final exam is this Saturday--that's right, it's on a Saturday...it's every student's worst nightmare to have to study for an exam on Friday night and take it on Saturday--and I actually ran into the lecturer at the supermarket today. I felt like a second-grader who's just discovered that teachers live in town and go out and do things, but I got nervous and didn't want him to see me when I could have been studying for his exam, so I hid behind the bread display until he passed. It was mildly mortifying.
I made brownies last night, marking the very first time I have ever made brownies from scratch! Until I was about fifteen, I legitimately thought that everybody made brownies from a box, since that's all we ever did. It was surprisingly easy though, and they turned out so good that I snuck out of bed at 6:30 this morning when I was awake to go eat one and then promptly went back to sleep.
PICTURES:
The glacier is absolutely huge and makes everybody look tiny.
Crampon attack! Except Patrick almost fell over and spiked me in the face and it was incredibly close to becoming a massive ice disaster.
Me in a really cool ice cave.
You can almost see how it looks like a giant wave just got frozen into ice instantaneously.
You can see just how high up the glacier goes--we went up there! Up to the blue/clean white part.
Ice tunnel! So cool! This is after I un-stuck myself.
Crevasse.
You can see that at the beginning, our guide chopped out stairs with his ice pick for us to climb up.
Me and Patrick in a narrow part.
The full glacier, looming ahead.
From here, the glacier was still 2.3 km away! It is so huge.
Dan, me, Drea, Alice, Patrick.
Me and Patrick again.
You can see that all of the ice is really bumpy, not so smooth.
Climbing up the glacier wasn't as dramatic as it sounds, since the guides cut out stairs from the ice to climb up, but it's pretty slippery and you have to make sure you're using your crampons right. The first part of the glacier is kind of this ugly gray, dirty color, but once you get past that, it's really wavy bright white ice that's really cool. We got to go through lots of really narrow channels, which are the most fun part because you kind of feel like a penguin sliding around in-between cracks. There were some parts where we got to climb up an ice cave, walk through crevasses, and one part we got to do some ice climbing and pull ourselves up with a rope through this super narrow area (I actually got stuck...my pack was too fat, and I couldn't move for a couple seconds...it was kind of embarrassing). Since we did a full-day hike, we got to hike up high enough so that we could see blue ice and go through one of the biggest ice caves on the entire glacier. We got really lucky too, and got gorgeously clear weather even though by all forecasts it was supposed to rain (both NZ weather and NZ forecasts are notoriously unpredictable and unreliable).
After a nice long day on the glacier, we came back to our super-cute hostel and lounged in the outdoor hot tub (so nice!) and made some really yummy pumpkin/roast garlic risotto, and watched terrible New Zealand soap operas and called it an early night. The next day we had a cruisy, relaxing morning and spent the whole day just exploring town, walking around, taking in views of the glacier, eating good food, and generally enjoying ourselves. It was really nice to have some down-time.
My first final exam is this Saturday--that's right, it's on a Saturday...it's every student's worst nightmare to have to study for an exam on Friday night and take it on Saturday--and I actually ran into the lecturer at the supermarket today. I felt like a second-grader who's just discovered that teachers live in town and go out and do things, but I got nervous and didn't want him to see me when I could have been studying for his exam, so I hid behind the bread display until he passed. It was mildly mortifying.
I made brownies last night, marking the very first time I have ever made brownies from scratch! Until I was about fifteen, I legitimately thought that everybody made brownies from a box, since that's all we ever did. It was surprisingly easy though, and they turned out so good that I snuck out of bed at 6:30 this morning when I was awake to go eat one and then promptly went back to sleep.
PICTURES:
The glacier is absolutely huge and makes everybody look tiny.
Crampon attack! Except Patrick almost fell over and spiked me in the face and it was incredibly close to becoming a massive ice disaster.
Me in a really cool ice cave.
You can almost see how it looks like a giant wave just got frozen into ice instantaneously.
You can see just how high up the glacier goes--we went up there! Up to the blue/clean white part.
Ice tunnel! So cool! This is after I un-stuck myself.
Crevasse.
You can see that at the beginning, our guide chopped out stairs with his ice pick for us to climb up.
Me and Patrick in a narrow part.
The full glacier, looming ahead.
From here, the glacier was still 2.3 km away! It is so huge.
Dan, me, Drea, Alice, Patrick.
Me and Patrick again.
You can see that all of the ice is really bumpy, not so smooth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)