One Tree Hill (no, not the show)

Its a mountain! And its awesome! There used to be a huge tree at the top, but in the 70's or 80's a maori activist cut it down. More on that later, I think we have an upcoming lesson on it.

The mountains in Auckland are terraced, which was done by hand by the maori. It is definitely my favorite Auckland city volcano so far. Here is a link to see the arial view of the mountain.

I hiked up to the top with Lara, Lauren M. and Melissa last Saturday. We met the rest of the crew up there, but then the four of us split off to chase some sheep for a while. Every mama sheep always has two baby lambs, which is perfect if you are keen on lamb chasing. Lara and I are going to catch a lamb, or at least pet one, by the end of the trip. Unless we get attacked by a mother sheep, which many attempts have been made.

While we were at the top of the mountain, looking down at one of the terraced areas, we saw these boys being chased/ chasing an odd looking animal. The more we looked, we couldn't tell whether the animal was a monkey or a cat or what. Obviously the logical thing was to run, full speed, down the terraced hill, and find out. It turned out to be the coolest cat ever and despite my allergies, we cuddled. Then we went home. It was a grand ol' time.

Mama sheep and twin baby lambs, as per usual

 Controversial obelisk memorial at the top of One Tree Hill

Terracing found on the mountain. Each step is about 3 to 4 meters tall

Old volcanic rock becoming soil
(Makes me miss Lansing...)

   Another mama and her two babies

View from another part of the mountain, looking at obelisk

Bottom of the hill we ran down to investigate weird monkey/cat/creature

COOLEST CAT EVER!! Tags read "Alfie" and "please do not feed"

Restaurant in town - reminded of me DuPoste!! 05769 dreamin

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

After class on Friday, a group of us decided to head down to the free art gallery that just opened up in Auckland. My host brother works in the cafe there so Kathryn, Corinne, and I were looking to surprise him as well. The top floor of the art gallery was the contemporary art section, so basically we had no idea what was going on. There were holes in the walls and a wheel barrow on the ground, so I assumed it was under construction... guess it went a little far over my head. After we had the art majors of the group try, and consequently fail, to explain to us what was going on, we decided to head to another section of the building. We moved into the native art and the contemporary art exhibits of the museum, which were amazing.

Here is the "Flower Chandelier" in the atrium of the gallery.
The flowers open and close.

("I open at the close")

 Me (with all my friends) in front of the gallery

A photo of a photo of mudboils (awesome!!)

 Contemporary painting of a maori face

 Contemporary painting of a sunset

 Pacific face carving in wood

  Famous "LOVE" silkscreen from the 60's

 I just thought this looked cool with my reflection.. ha

 Lucia, rachel, and me on the floor inside the mirror cube

Another mirror cube shot
(Note: my beaut finger in the top left! woohoo!)

The Phantom Canoe: The Legend of Lake Tarawera

Beautiful painting of Milford Sound

Famous painting of the Maori's journey to New Zealand

(which isn't actually how it happened... at all)

Detail of painting (the starving Maori seeing land for the first time)

Last but not least, another classic picture of Lara.

Lara's new boyfriend

ELLO FRIENDS

Hi all! Sorry I have been neglecting my blog lately. I have a couple posts written that I am trying to sort through some formatting issues with. So if I do have anyone reading this ("Is there anybody out there?!?!"), thanks for having interest in my life, and I will reward you soon enough. Oh, and since you are probably related to me, I love you and miss you dearly.

Auckland Museum

Since it is difficult to fit everything in on the weekends, this past week we had some excursions after class. On Tuesday a bunch of us ventured across town to the Auckland Museum. Everyone said that we had to make a stop to this museum sometime during our stay as it is a point of pride for Aucklanders. I took a lot of pictures until my camera conveniently died before the ROCK EXHIBIT (Not like I'm bitter or anything...). Here are my favorites:

Here is a paua shell, which is found in a lot of Maori art.

The calcium on the outside of the shell is stripped away to reveal the texture underneath.

 Greenstone (nephrite jade)

Cross section of a Kauri tree, with me trying to look stoic.

....But really just looking ridiculous.

Opalized wood (Super cool!!)

Cross section of a geode from New Zealand

Kiwi, the national bird of New Zealand

Model of the type of sailing canoe that 

anthropologists think people traveled the Pacific

Traditional flax blanket made by Maori women

Detail of flax blankets (fibers made by the leaves of flax plants)

Greenstone (nephrite jade) carving of a hei-tiki

RWC '11: Ireland v. Australia

Somehow, four American girls with no understanding of rugby end up at a world cup game.

My host brother's company was selling tickets, and when our host parents asked Corinne, Kathryn and I if we wanted to go, we said YES. So one week, one Lara, and 290 big ones later, the four of us found ourselves walking into Eden Park. We ate dinner at home around 4 o'clock, and our host mom drove us to Kingsland to hang out until the game. We thought we might find a sports bar to spend some time in, but there were "queues" all the way down the street outside of every restaurant. Plus it was raining. Plus it was cold. Plus Lara does not currently own a raincoat. I began to lose my excitement.

Then we walked to the stadium, and the excitement returned. The stadium is smaller then most American stadiums, and even though we had seats that were high up we could still see everything very well. When we got to our seats, we were underneath a huge overhang and were safe from the rain - more excitement. Then the players came out to do their warmups and stretches... attractive and exciting.

Things got better and better from there. We became fast friends with all of our surrounding Ireland supporters, who were eager to explain to us how rugby is played (even though I thought I had a pretty good idea, I must say I was terribly terribly wrong. Rugby is freakin' complicated). We met SO many people who have taken time off/ quit their jobs to travel down here to support their team. It was a very low scoring game, only one successful try (?) from Ireland - all the other points were penalty goals (kicking...).

I walked in to the game not sure who I was going to cheer for, because my beloved grandmother was an Aussie. The energy in the stadium was almost overwhelmingly Irish. Regardless of who I was cheering for, it was a once in a lifetime experience and although it was pricey, it was worth it.*

*(Sidenote: 4 beers with 5% alcoholic content for $30... NOT worth it.)

Mature Adults

Most mature adults would handle a noisy household in other ways. I am not a mature adult, so I made this video.

Awkward Accounts: Week II

- The family went to grandpas for father's day, so I'd thought I'd venture out onto the porch to give the dog some attention (he lives outside). I gave him a nice back-scratch which he loved, and for a moment I thought I had a new best friend. It all turned out to be too good to be true when the needs-to-be-neutered pup mounted me and was ready for action (note: he probably weighs over 100 lbs). I had to run inside, and no one saw me. He now thinks we are friends with benefits. He watches me while I sleep.

Two separate mornings, waking up to this.

This is not a joke.

-I texted my host dad telling him that I would be staying in the city for dinner and he did not have to cook for me. his response read "swt as". I was offended/ confused because I thought it was weird to say "sweet ass" to someone, but apparently its a popular enough saying that while I was walking and mulling it over on Queen st., I saw a sweatshirt in the window that read "sweet as, bro". I felt stupid.

-My first day at MAGS, I was sitting in the Science department office eating my sandwich quietly and alone while the teachers were socializing. An older male teacher sitting next to me proclaimed that America was the world's reason for poor water quality, destruction of the ozone, and world wide poverty and starvation. The dept. head thought this was a good idea to stop him mid-cnversation and introduce me to the department as the "new American student teacher". Yay.

-While discussing food over dinner with my host family ("we eat this in America""we don't eat this in NZ" etc), they asked me if I had ever eaten a pig's head. I thought they were kidding. They weren't. Its for special occasions, and they are going to make me one.

Mt. Eden

On Saturday, to get the blood flowing Lara took a few of us on a hike up Mt. Eden, the tallest volcano in Auckland proper (excluding the volcanic island, Rangitoto). It was AWESOME. The weekend’s rugby excitement and quality hws-mate-time definitely made up for my week of emotional struggle.

Here are the some of the views captured by my iphone from the top of Mt. Eden, which do not give them the full beauty they have in person.

Rangitoto. Future conquest.

Me and some babe by the crater

Lara.

The crater at the top of Mt. Eden with the sky tower in the background

Tune in for a future challenge: One Tree Hill (used to have a tree, now has an obelisk... I'll get back to you on that one)

RWC '11

Friday marked the opening day of the Rugby World Cup (WOOHOO we are American so this means nothing to us)!!! After class, a bunch of us headed down the waterfront to watch the opening festivities. Trying to get a view of the water was an event in itself. The five of us were jammed between thousands of people with the same intentions.

just a taste of the crowd

In true Maori spirit, a waka (canoe) from each country came into the port. All of the waka were packed with maori people in traditional dress, riding low to the water (and taking on some water that was later bailed by buckets, not so ceremonious).

"waka waka eh eh..."

"...this time for af-ri-caaaa"

We figured seeking shade under a tree by the water would be a smart move. We were wrong. Too many people climbed/ hoisted up their children into the small tree so we were on the constant lookout for cracking branches that could lead to potential death, which I guess upped the ante and made the experience more “exciting”.

After the waka came in, we watched the maori come up onto the wharf. As they ran up, they ran in unison and twisted their paddles in their hands with every stride. One of our brand new friends from the crowd told us that this was the Orc run from LOTR! Pretty badass.

Once they were on land, we watched them perform the haka, the ceremonial dance that is done during things like powhiris, battles, rugby games, etc. This was followed by a parade through the street, which is where I took this super awesome interesting fun shnazzy video (the best part is at the end):

We decided to stay downtown and enjoy the festivities into the night. After snagging an early bird dinner at a Thai restaurant (and chasing down our waitress repeatedly so we could pay the check), we headed back to Princes wharf to watch the fireworks. They came over the bay, off the sky tower, over the city, and the air-show was accompanied by tree-light-silhouetted boats in the harbor. Americans we be, we were pretty used to these big boom bangs that lit up the sky, but for NZed, this was the biggest firework display ever to happen in the history of the country! Yippee ki yay, motha kiwis! (for some reason I needed to say that)

"I'm on boat and, its all lit up and..."

Happy 4th of July!! Wait a sec...