Arrival, the Bay of Islands, and the All Blacks

Unfortunately, there are no pictures to accompany these first few items as I hadn't gotten used to being a camera-toting tourist quite yet, but it was eventful first week here. I consider getting to see my brother, Jesse, out in L.A. a part of the trip as well, and it was great to see him. I'm looking forward to spending a few days out there with him when we get back, but it was nice to get a little glimpse of his life before I left. The flight over was long, and we had a day here to get our bearings (and cell phones) before we shipped up the Bay of Islands for our first Loyola-sponsored trip.

As it's name denotes, the Bay of Islands is much more of a summer destination, but it was a fun trip nonetheless. We stayed at a nice hostel and ate nice (free) meals. The day we got there, we went on a jet boat called the Mac Attack, which took us out to see some cool rock formations. It was pretty rough, and this boat was equipped to get some serious air, but our captain slowed down long enough for us to look around at the miles of ocean around us and the flush green islands and realize that we were in New Zealand, and that New Zealand was absolutely beautiful.

The next day, we hopped back on a bus and went up north to Cape Reinga, the northern-most point in New Zealand. The trip there was pretty stale, but once we got there and got to see the waves coming from the Tasman to our west and crashing into the waves from the Pacific to our east, it was well worth it. After that, we got to go sand boarding on some nearby dunes, which is basically just boogie-boarding down a big sand dune. Standing up wasn't exactly encouraged, but our guide told us that we were sissies if we didn't at least try and after a few tries, I succeed. As for the rest of the attempts, just know that a mouthful of sand tastes the same no matter where you are.

On the last day, the weather finally gave way and it poured. Sadly, this coincided with our least fun activity. We had a tour of the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, which is where the first treaty between the native Maori people and the British settlers was signed (and soon ignored, but we know how that whole process goes. Colonization, where natives learn that contracts can be voided and people aren't to be trusted. The British didn't have as much luck with the Maori's as they did with the Native American's, though.) It would have been interesting in better conditions, but I think our tour guide wanted to be walking around in the rain even less than we did. And with that, we came back to Auckland and had over a week before classes started to explore and get situated.

The only real "New Zealand" thing that we did that week was a day trip to Devonport, an island about 20 minutes off the coast of Auckland. It has a nice little town on it, and we climbed Mt. Victoria, which isn't really a mountain but was still physically taxing and gave us an incredible view of Auckland across the bay.

But then came the weekend, and with it, the much anticipated trip to nearby Eden Park for the All Blacks v. Australia, the first match of the Tri-Nations Cup between New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. Think Spain, Argentina, and Brazil get together and decide to play only each other for two months and sell the TV rights for about a trillion dollars, only it's the most important thing that happens every year. We were all very excited, and took the occasion to break Huia's rules and get nice and sauced before the game... but then the game started. I'll touch on it more later, as I'm writing one of my travel writing pieces about it, but let's just say it wasn't the experience we hoped for. It was still a great time, but that was of our own doing. The rugby had little to do with it.

And with that event comes the first set of pictures, combined into one album with our trip to the Auckland Zoo. I don't really have much to say about that, though. It was a zoo. Regardless, most of the pictures are uploaded (but hidden) so I'll make them available as I write about them, which should be relatively soon.