Weekend at a Marae

Now, on to August. Over the weekend of August 14th, we stayed at a Marae, which is more or less the home base for the Maori tribes of New Zealand. Each tribe has a Marae which is their spiritual home and meeting place, and we went about an hour and a half north of Auckland to the Omaha Marae. When we arrived, our group welcomed onto the Marae by an old Maori man who told us about his tribe and family's culture, including a funny story about how they used to all live on an island that was barely visible out in the horizon. The settler's wanted the island for their own purposes, and forced the tribe to come to the mainland, but every time they brought the family's matriarch over she would wait until night fell and swim back to the island by herself. This apparently happened several times. Next, we had a little snack then did what is called a Whakawhanaungatanga, which is where everyone gets up and tells a little about themselves, but that was largely pointless. The rest of the night, we all just hung out.

The next day was much more eventful. In the morning, we went to a local farmer's market. After lunch, we had our first of many weather-related schedule changes. When it's raining or has been raining, the Maori think it is wrong to cut flax (palm) leaves, so we couldn't do the raft-building that was planned. Instead, we split up into two groups and took turns fishing and kayaking. The fishing was interesting for a while, and the kayaking was lots of fun until it started pouring while we were out on the water. Regardless, it was nice to be back outside. Being outside in Auckland has that inauthentic feel that being outdoors in any city gives you. It's still fresh air, but it's nothing like being by the water or in the woods.

That night, we went to a nearby sawmill-turned-tavern, where a local band was supposed to be playing. The band was decent, and the bar was a little expensive for our tastes, but added entertainment was free of charge courtesy of the bachelor party and their guest of honor.

An integral part of the stag here in New Zealand is dressing up in costumes. Recently, I saw a Superman, Spiderman, Batman, and a fairy princess walk into a bar around 4 in the afternoon, presumably getting an early start on the fairy princess' last night of freedom. But at this place, everyone was dressed in white haz-mat suits except for the man of the hour, who was dressed as a green fairy. While we were waiting for the band to start, it was clear that the green fairy was making the most of his evening. He stumbled around with a dazed look in his eyes, and often stopped for minutes at a time and just stared into nothingness. It was at this point when one of his mates told us that the green fairy had been over-served on the way up (in vans driven by some hired ladies) with absinthe, hence the green fairy. I know, very clever. But needless to say, they were a fun group of guys to be around. Much to their dissatisfaction, however (because I'm sure none of them expected to encounter any college girls on that particular evening), we had to retire back to the Marae early.

The next day's initial plans of going boogie boarding out on the water was given the ax because it was too rough, so instead we went to the nearby Goat Island marine reserve. In the summer, you can wade in and all kinds of fish will swim right up to you, but in the winter, all you can really do is stand on the beach and take pictures, and take pictures we did. Next, our guide Pete took us to a beach where we played some touch rugby. It was my first rugby playing experience, and while a little better than watching it in person, it's still a strange, strange game. There just isn't much enjoyment in it. And on top of that, it's usually a poor idea to have 8 athletes who haven't played sports in months do anything competitive. True colors tend to shine through, but luckily for me, my true colors show that I'm a winner. We won handily.

Lastly, after a pointless stop at a honey factory, we came back to the Auckland War Museum, which is about a five minute walk from Huia and struck us as an unnecessary extension of a weekend that needed to end. Though we had all already been there, we hadn't been with a knowledgeable Maori guide who could give us some insight into what we were seeing. Before we even got inside, we realized how much different the experiences would be when B, the owner of the company who was giving us the trip, told off the museum receptionist and refused to have us all pay the suggested $5 donation for entry because they had stolen many of the artifacts from her people and we weren't going to pay to see things she should have been able to show us elsewhere for free. It was fun to see, plus we didn't actually have to pay five bucks, so it was even better.

Inside, we learned about some specific exhibits, mainly the war canoe. The tribes fought over it for centuries before the British sunk it in the Auckland harbor, and it was recovered and restored for the museum. We also learned about some of the weapons and face tattoos the natives used to use. For all the complaining we initially did about having to go to the museum, it turned out to be a worthwhile trip. And so ends the long-winded recap of our Marae trip. Here are the pictures to go along with it. The second half of that album, my weekend at the Uni ski lodge, is worthy of and will get its own post.

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.

Getting Right To It

So it's finally hit me that this isn't forever. Not that I've been biding my time and waiting for a reason to start enjoying myself. On the contrary, my time in Auckland has been a great experience. I've met a lot of great people and am getting a University experience that I would never have before (and academically, I can thankfully say I never will again.)

First, the logistics. I live in Huia Residence on Grafton Road, which has to be the steepest road in Auckland. It's an old nurses residence next to the Auckland City Hospital, which seemingly only gets patients delivered via helicopter between the hours of 10pm and 9am. I hope all of these patients leave in cars, healthy and happy, but their arrival is loud, unpleasant, and inconvenient. It's about a ten minute walk to campus, and about five minutes past that to get to Queen Street, where everything that is happening in Auckland gets to happening (bars, shopping, restaurants, like downtown Baltimore except I've never feared for my life.) Overall, it's an expensive city, and though the exchange rate works in our favor, some things are a bit exorbitant. There are no Taco Bell's in Auckland, but there is a Chipotle imitation that, as long as I can go back to Chipotle eventually, is a suitable temporary replacement. I cook most of the time, but that is limited to a wide array of pastas, grilled cheese, and when I'm ambitious, pasta AND grilled cheese. I also have become an expert at making ham, egg, and cheese sandwiches, but I have every confidence that I'll stop making them once I have the option of buying better ones. Lastly, there is a Dunkin Donuts on Queen Street, but in name only. Nothing like it should be.

Anyway, that's all of the logistics. I just finished my last assignment, and have done actual schoolwork for probably 8 of the days I've been here, which is good. It's left lots of time to explore the city, experience new and distinctly New Zealand things, and most importantly, have fun. This blog will mostly be a recap of what has happened for my travel writing class, but it will also give me a chance to let everyone know just what I've been up to for the last few months and hopefully, what I'll be doing now that the only non enjoyable things I have to do for the next month are 3 finals. So enjoy, and as I said, now I'll get right to the business of this.