Volcanoes, Astronomers, and Bedbugs, Oh My!

Warning: This is a long one, so I included subtitles. Feel free to skim!

I left Auckland eager to discover the iconic green, bleating countryside of New Zealand, and find it I did. In the bus all the way to Taupo I feasted my eyes on green pastures, sheep and golfers. Then I arrived at my hostel and the romance was lost; I immediately missed my friends that I’d made at Oaklands Lodge in Mt Eden. However, it turned out to be a fantastic Christmas with some fun new friends, and I went skydiving for the first time. But in truth, I stayed in Taupo too long.

TongarirNo Crossing
I had wanted to stay in Taupo long enough to get one nice day for skydiving and one nice day for the Tongariro Crossing, the highly lauded “best day-hike in New Zealand” featuring blue crater lakes and Mount Ngauruhoe (the “Mt. Doom” volcano of Lord of the Rings fame), among other natural wonders. On the 10th day in Taupo I eagerly boarded the bus to the Crossing's trail head, happy to leave, and excited for the hike, but more than a little nervous about the looming clouds. The bus pulled into the car park (Kiwi for “parking lot”—still elicits visions of an amusement park for or with cars) from whence I was to start the tramp, and our driver promptly announced over the loud speaker, “Folks, you’re not going to like what I have to tell you now. We’ve just now received word that all walks for the day must be cancelled due to heavy rain and strong winds on the mountain.” BUMMER! I had had it with Taupo and was very much ready to move on from there, so I decided without reservation that Tongariro Crossing was just not meant to happen for me this time and I’ll just have to wait until next time. I did have a fantastic time skydiving at least!

Whakatane
Next on my agenda: Whakatane. Pronounced FAH-kuh-taun-ee, the small town at the mouth of the Whakatane River appealed to me from the moment I first heard of it. The word “Whakatane” means “to act like a man” in Maori. As legend has it, the first Maori men to arrive in what’s now Whakatane eagerly hopped out of the waka (canoe) soon after it was pulled up on the beach, leaving the first Maori women and children to arrive there sitting in the waka. The tide came in quickly, and began pulling the waka back out into the ocean. It is strictly forbidden for women to paddle the canoes, which are sacred (go figure), thus causing quite the conundrum. Wairaka, the daughter of the chief who captained the waka (canoe) declared “Kia whakatane ake au i ahau” (“Let me act as a man”), and paddled everyone and everything safely back to shore. There is a very beautiful statue of Wairake perched on a boulder at the mouth of the river. Though, I must say that there is nothing ‘whakatane’ about it, and I don’t quite see how it’s meant to represent “girl power” as it were. I reckon it might even offend the odd feminist, or seem a bit ironic at best. Perhaps I'm just missing the point.

Statue of Lady Wairaka

Anyway, I had actually never read anything about the town of Whakatane in my travel books and am happy to report that, for now, it is a well-kept secret! Christina (from Christmas in Taupo) showed me her pictures of Whakatane’s key feature, White Island, which is New Zealand’s only active marine volcano and lies about 50 km off the east coast from Whakatane. The brilliant sulfur color overwhelming present in Christina’s photos was more than enough to attract this chromophile to the charms of the island. I booked the tour for noon the day after I arrived and woke up that morning to the first cloudless day of my whole vacation. Yay!
White Island was extraordinary. It’s an extremely active rock, but is not the kind of volcano that spews molten lava. Instead it steams and bubbles, glowing yellow with hot sulfur. At its center is the crater lake which scientists estimate to be 90 meters deep. They can’t verify the guess very easily, as they are certain that the lake’s pH is a staggeringly acidic -1. It was like being on Mars walking across White Island, and apparently recent studies have shown that Mars and White Island are composed a lot of the same chemical or rock, the name of which I of course cannot remember! But it was just stunningly surreal, impressively interesting, and hauntingly memorable. I thoroughly loved it. We also saw some dolphins on the way there and they played in the wake of the boat.

Me, standing on White Island. For more pictures of White Island, click here.

When I arrived back at my hostel it was around 7pm and I wasn’t ready for the beautiful day to be over. I made dinner and consulted my Lonely Planet and Let’s Go books. I had read about an Astronomical Society in Whakatane with an observatory open to the public several nights a week. A German girl named Raissa who was also staying in my hostel decided that she wanted to come too, so I called and found out that it wasn’t open. But it was such a clear, lovely night that Norman, the “president” (?) of the astronomical society said he would be happy to show us some stars. Norman was probably hovering right around 70, and his astronomical knowledge of stars was proportionate. His enthusiasm for astronomy, though, was gleefully adolescent. Pretty much the most adorable man ever. In the end, we came home from the observatory around 12:30am a lot more knowledgeable about the universe. Norm showed us the moon and its craters, the Tarantula and Orion nebulae, and Venus in the telescope. It was the first time I ever looked through a telescope. It was very, very cool.
Norm, Raissa, and I were joined about two hours in by two more Germans staying at a different hostel. Norm was very happy to tell us everything he knew about the universe and would have kept us there until the sun came up if it hadn’t clouded over. He even showed us his “wishlist” which all donations from tours go toward fulfilling. It was very, very kind of him and he was just delightful. I forgot to mention that he picked us up from the hostel so we didn’t have to walk all the way up the bluff to the observatory and back to the hostel in the dark. He was one of those people that I’d like to shrink, put and my pocket and take out when I need to smile. The man was as sweet as a Kiwifruit.

A gorgeous sunset as seen from the front porch of my hostel in Whakatane.

"Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite" - seriously, you'll most certainly regret it if you do.

There's a reason why this saying exists. And it manifested itself all over approximately 50% of my upper body in the form of itchy, blisterlike welts. The first night I was in my hostel in Whakatane I was the last of the entire house (of maybe 10?) to go to sleep. As I crept into bed, the beam of my flashlight managed to spot 3-4 reddish brown mini-roachlike creatures apparently doing the same. Disgusted, I brushed them off my sheet, telling myself that there was nothing I could do about it right that second as everyone else was asleep, and that it was probably some weird New Zealand cockroach anyway. Bed bugs had crossed my mind, but, as I have the tendency to catastrophize, I told myself that they were far too big to be bed bugs, which must be as invisible as lice or fleas (cringe), right? Wrong. Two mornings later, this is what my arm looked like:

(And what my other arm, chest, and neck looked like too). Figuring that I'd been feasted upon by mosquitoes at the observatory (I have caramel blood, so hefty numbers of bug bites are not unusual to me), I went to town in search of some anti-itch cream. I was greeted by pharmacists and information center volunteers with cautious stares and the suggestion that I had fleas "or worse, bed bugs," respectively. Frantic, I returned home and logged onto the internet (blessedly pirated and therefore free, and therefore not leaching the bank account, as internet does in NZ) in order to Google Image 'bed bugs'. As I was very stressed about this, I had gotten myself a snack while I waited for the photo to load. As I saw the image of exactly what I'd brushed out of my sheets two nights prior appear in front of me, I nearly vomited up my snack.

After telling the hostel staff about what I'd seen, I set to washing all my clothes in the hottest water I could come by. The hostel manager set off a "bug bomb" in the bedroom, much to my relief which crumbled the minute she told me "It's for fleas". The closer bedtime came, the more panicked I became. I decided to scour the bed for any evidence of live bedbugs so that I could show the hostel staff and ask for a new bed. That evidence came in the form of a smaller bug about the size of a poppy seed whose coloring seemed suspiciously close to that of my own blood. I ziplocked the little guy and ran once again to my computer to find yet another image of bed bugs, this one showing the bed bug in all 6 of its wretched life cycles (the second of which resembled my ziplocked specimen, and the sixth of which looked like those who had escaped me two nights prior). I was given a new room.

Nearly a week later, the bites have almost healed completely. They still itch occasionally, but the swelling and redness have gone down to the point where people can look me in the eye again while conversing with me, which is good.

All in all, it was a wild trip stocked to the brim with high highs and low lows. I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad it's over!

My Newest Love: Skydiving

For more skydiving photos, click here.

I went skydiving today. And I can't wait to go again. It was the most surreal and amazing experience of my life. Perhaps the greatest rush I've ever felt. I was told it would feel like you're falling, and I was told my ears would hurt, and I was told many, many things. But I think everyone's experience is unique. I can say that my very sensitive ears did not become apparent to me until my parachute opened. And I never felt like I was falling, but as close to flying as I've ever come. I cannot describe how thoroughly I enjoyed myself.

I jumped from 15,000 feet, strapped to the tummy of a man who has been skydiving longer than I've been alive--17,000 jumps; highest jump: 48,000 feet, highest jump without oxygen: 35,000 feet. The man was a professional.

For my dive, we jumped at 15,000 ft, the max for a tandem dive. We reached 200k/h and fell over 10,000 feet before the parachute opened, for a total of around 1 minute free falling. It was absolutely incredible. I would recommend skydiving to anybody. I think I'm going to try Queenstown next for a snow-capped peak backdrop. CANNOT wait!

I'm going to try to upload my DVD from the jump, so check back for that in a bit!

Happy Kiwi Christmas!

Christina, Abi, and me at Huka Falls, Chrsitmas Day. To see more pictures from the day, click here

I had an absolutely lovely Christmas day. I arrived in Taupo on Christmas Eve and was told that there would be a potluck dinner the next day. I hurried to the Pak n’ Save (a New Zealand grocery store not unlike Meijer, but yellow and black instead of red and blue, not to mention somehow more dismal…and you thought it was impossible to top the dismalness of Meijer, hah!) and got some grocery to stock up for Christmas and Boxing Days, which both close down a lot of NZ civilization. I was all excited because I decided I’d make a red and green Christmas fruit salad, complete with pomegranate seeds! I got strawberries, kiwifruit (of course), cherries, a green pear and the pomegranit and went back to the hostel. Shortly thereafter, I met my roommates, Abi (British transplanted to NZ’s capitol, Wellington) and Christina (German). They were both a bit older than me but probably by only 10 years at the very most.

Christmas morning I got up and had breakfast, then began assembling my fruit salad. There were very few serving dishes available, so I decided to use a bunt cake tin, which ended up looking interesting and different. Anyway, afterwards I went on a little run along Lake Taupo, which is just lovely. I then showered and headed up to the kitchen for the potluck. There was a very interesting variety of foods present, as our chefs hail from far flung corners of the globe. There were several varieties of German potato salad (surprise, surprise!) and some French potatoes too. I walked up to this ADORABLE Frenchman standing at the stove over a steaming pan of partiflette (not sure if that’s the right spelling…) He smiled and asked if I wanted to try some and I was like “Sure!”, of course, and he proceeded to heap a mound of it onto my plate, which was ok because it was delicious. Apparently it’s from around les Alps. Anyway, some people just used whatever was on hand to come up with some interesting pasta salads…some of these pasta adventures turned out better than others. I was beyond delighted to see my fruit salad not only disappear rather quickly, but also being photographed by one of the guests! It melted my heart, this girl was just taking great care to get a good shot of it. And then a Yugoslavian woman told me that she thought it was really nice. It made my day!

Abi, Christina, and I had decided the day before that we’d try to hike to the Huka Falls on Christmas Day if the weather cooperated. We set out around 4 and returned around 8. It was a perfectly beautiful day and we passed everything from Silver Ferns (New Zealand’s native national tree and a proud symbol of NZ’s spirit of beauty and uniqueness) to hot spring rivers. We saw lots of families out and about enjoying the day; lots of people were bathing in the hot rivers. There was this crazed Rottweiler that we spotted wresting something in the water, and I was bracing myself for the trauma of watching it haul out a wriggling, bloody, 50 pound trout up to the shore (yes, my mind was just running wild). I was even more shocked to watch it finally dig out a rock the size of a soccer ball and gingerly muzzle it up to the shore at least 15 feet away. It could barely keep its head upright the thing was so heavy—it made my teeth just ache, watching. Anyway, then it just went to town on the thing before it’s dad managed to get its attention away from the rock, which the dog seemed to be convinced was alive but really needed to be dead. It was hilarious. Anyway, can you tell I miss Miss Rosie Pose heaps?

Anyway, it was a lovely hike and I really enjoyed Christina and Abi’s company. When we arrived home we pooled our resources and managed to produce a beyond satiating steak and salad dinner—perfect for a cool summer night. A few glasses of wine and some chocolate, and the day was complete and perfect, as Christmas Days thousands of miles away from friends and family go. If New Years is even half as good I’ll be thrilled.

In case I never wished you Merry Christmas, and even if I did, I hope it was wonderful for you.

Fotos!

Me, at the Wintergarden in the Auckland Domain.

Actually, this is me, at Wintergarden in the Auckland Domain. Such a beautiful place. The picture above is of a statue at the Wintergarden.

View of Mt Eden Village from the bus stop to Auckland City. You can see Mt Eden in the background.

Steffi, Me, and Nicola walking in a "winter wonderland" at Christmas In The Park.

Not sure why uploading photos worked today but didn't work yesterday or the day before that. I did nothing differently today except expect less. Hmm.

I'd really like to make my regalings complete with photos...

Does anyone out there (who ideally has more experience blogging than me) know anything about getting pictures onto the thing? Why isn't it working? It worked last week. What happened between then and now? I am quite irritated with this situation. Anyone have any advice?

Christmas in the summer might be less weird than having Easter in the fall and and Halloween in the spring, but it's still pretty weird...

My God, how the time flies. I have been here now for a grand total of 16 days. Which sounds like a lot more when you say "over two weeks", but it still feels long. I have been a bad blogger for the last week, so I'll have to do a quick wrap up of the weekend.

Mt Eden has been an interesting experience. Within the first hours even, I had dubbed my hostel "a haven to hipster British ex-pats and awkward German tourists", which is in ways an apt description and in others a bit unfair. In truth, I have come to like this place which I prematurely judged as unfriendly. It couldn't be further from unfriendly, especially, as I've found, when you make an effort with people and don't write them off at a glance (this sounds obvious, but the crowd here seems rather unapproachable in the beginning). I have met some really interesting people and had some great conversations with the people who've stayed for days, weeks, months in this little house. Anyway, there are a lot of Brits and even more Germans, but there have also been a few French, one Dutch, one Spanish, and one friend I was particularly fond of from Poland named Yhatzig. I have done everything from clean out the drains in the kitchen sinks and showers to lend a pair of my jeans to a (male) Liverpudlian who needed something "more presentable" to wear out, here at my hostel where I have now been staying for almost two weeks. I agreed to clean for accommodation, which is actually a rather common way for backpackers to save money here in NZ, and wanted to leave immediately when I arrived. But I am feeling differently now, and might even miss the place when I go.

Anyway, there is a German girl named Steffi who is staying in the same room with me and even arrived the same day, also to clean. She is doing the whole working-holiday scheme too, from Germany, through another affiliate organization of IEP. She is very sweet and we've become friends in our time here. It's nice to have someone to talk to, hang out with, and occasionally go places with here.

Last weekend, Steffi, Nicola (another German from IEP) and I went to a music festival in Auckland called "Christmas in the Park." It's an annual free event hosted by Auckland City Council and Coca-Cola and it's basically like a big summer party for all ages complete with music, fireworks, carnival rides and Christmas music performed by rising local and some well-known national performers. It was fun, though it got a little too cold once the sun started to go down, as it does here in Auckland.

Let me just say that Christmas in the summer is, ("a joke", suggests my singularly fellow American in the hostel), I'd say it's a weird parallel universe. I have witnessed the following and subsequently pondered the oddity of a summertime Christmas: Eating a candy cane on the beach...ice cream trucks playing Greensleeves...fireworks in the park to the tune of Jingle Bells (which many Kiwi's cannily sing "Oh what fun it is to have a Kiwi holiday, hey!") I learned the alternative lyrics to this Christmas standby in a rather adorable way. Which, oddly enough, brings me to the subject of my employment situation.

I have agreed to work in Parnell, a sweet little suburb of Auckland that is really probably the one nested mostly closely within Auckland's city center, which is cool. Anyway, I will be an au pair there until the end of April, looking after two precious little Kiwi girls, Katie, 5, and Sophie, 3. I met with the family and their current au pair over the course of my first and second weeks here and had been corresponding with them online before I left the States. I think it will be a fun job. I basically take care of them and try to maintain the smooth-functioning of their house of 4 as best I can. I will live with them, work M-F 8-5 and occasional weekend nights. The one interesting twist is that Sophie goes to a French kindergarten/pre-school 2 days of the week (and Katie was going prior to being enrolled full time at kindergarten as of last year) , so I will be required to speak some French with them during the day. It should be interesting, and I think it will be fun. Fun fact: everyone refers to kindergarten here as "kindy" (pronounced kin-dee). (And this has nothing to do with the current subject, but they also sometimes refer to sandals as "jandals" and I have not yet stopped thinking that that's strange and incomprehensible...)

Anyway, I swear that that is related to Kiwi Jingle Bells, and here's how. I did a little trial run/torch passing couple of days last week with Katie, Sophie, and Beth, the current au pair. I was giving Sophie a bath and trying to distract her from thinking that she was getting water in her eyes, so I suggested singing a song and when I began singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" she immediately objected "Why can't we sing Christmas songs???" It being summer, this thought does not naturally occur to a Northern Hemispherian, so I thought, "Yes, excellent, what a great idea!" I started out with "Up On the Housetop"...Sophie had never heard it and neither had Katie. But when it was Sophie's turn to sing that's what I got--the adorable Kiwi version of Jingle Bells (insert Kiwi accent and trouble pronouncing most of the consonants that trip up a typical three-year-old and your heart will melt on the spot).

Anyway, this story is being told all out of order, but it doesn't really matter I guess. The Christmas in the Park concert happened on Saturday and then on Sunday Steffi and I went to the Wintergardens in the Auckland Domain (also the site of the Christmas concert, though slightly adjacent to the concert ground). The Domain is the oldest park in New Zealand, though I can't remember when it was set aside as such. It is beautiful. Imagine the Cleveland Metroparks having the spirit of Central Park and then consider it being about 10 times more gorgeous than both and choked with (extremely well-kept) rainforest greenery. It really is amazing.

I reckon that's about enough out of me for now. I'm experiencing technical difficulties due to which I was unable to post any photos to break up this rather lengthy post. So please check back later for pictures!

Where in the World is New Zealand?

I do not expect everyone who cares about my being away to actually know where I am, except that it's a place called New Zealand on the other side of the world. So, maps.

Here is Australia (which most travelers I run into down here affectionately call (and spell) "Oz"). The tiny island below it is Tasmania, and then further east from Tasmania are the two major islands that make up New Zealand. California makes a good comparison to New Zealand in terms of size. While California boasts a human population of 38 million, New Zealand only claims around 4 million. In spring time, New Zealand's sheep population reaches 44 million or so.






Here is a map of New Zealand. You can see that Auckland is in the northern part of the North Island. People generally refer to places in New Zealand as being on either the North or the South Island. I am super excited to make it to the South Island, which is generally regarded to be the wilder and more remote of the two. Wellington is the capitol, and also considered the cultural capital. People sometimes call it Well, (and they refer to Wellington boots as "gummies", for gumboots, which Brits generally refer to as Wellies). Anyway, Christchurch and Queenstown are the major cities of the South Island, Queenstown being known as the adventure sports capital and Christchurch, from what I know gets its reputation from its student population (and Kiwis often refer to Chritchurch's students as "scarfies"...I thought that might be because they wear school scarfs, but apparently it's just because they wear scarfs to keep warm down there!)

I am currently staying here in the city of Auckland, which has many smaller suburbs. About 1 million people live in Auckland and its suburbs. I drew a couple of circles and a line on this map. The line is Queen Street, the major artery of Auckland city (I've mentioned it a couple of times now). The circle to the left of the line indicates Parnell, the suburb where I'll be working as an au pair starting in January. And below the line is a circle indicating Mt. Eden, where I'm currently staying.



Thanks to everyone who has been posting. You make me smile!