visitors, classes, and further adventures

I realized this morning (March 18) that my time in New Zealand is about a quarter over, this fact is stunning to me.  While I definitely no longer feel like a fish out of water in my new surroundings, I cannot believe that I have been here for over four weeks... wow.

Reading over my last post (and making the necessary proof-reading corrections) I noticed that I had left out two rather trivial, yet very immensely enjoyable, events.  Early in the week there was a free train ride on the narrow-gauge Taieri Gorge Train which heads from the Dunedin Train Station through the Taieri Gorge and out into the plains of Southeastern New Zealand.  Towards the end of O Week, Arcadia had scheduled a free surf lesson for us at a beach at the Northern end of the city.  The same beach in fact that Fleeting Mel (because I have a curious tendency to spot her for a brief moment everywhere I go on campus), Scruffy Ethan, Kiwi Justin, Laughing Dillon, CKJ (short for Convo-Killah Jay, who has the uncanny ability to kill all conversation with one tossed-in comment), and I checked out early in O Week.  While not as windy as the day we had all gone down to St. Clair Beach, the surf lesson day was brisk, to say the least.  Dressed in wetsuits, which were of only moderate affect against the cold air and water, we headed down to the beach with boards under arm.  After a brief tutorial about mounting the board and catching waves we charged out into the water.  Surfing, as I have come to know, is one of the most exhausting physical challenges, and requires several steps. Step one: fight the waves just to get out into the water.  Step two: once far enough out that the water is at an appropriate depth, one must continue to fight the waves in order to stay in that place until the right wave comes along.  Step three: when a wave has been selected one has to jump on their board and start swimming back towards shore until the wave is directly astern when one should leap to their feet and ride the wave... for a generous three seconds.  Step four, repeat, and repeat again.  In any case, I did get up on my board and by the end of our "lesson" was able to pretty consistently ride waves for five seconds or so.  Despite the brevity of the ride, surfing is still a lot of fun.

the Taieri Gorge Railway

St. Clair Beach (not the surfing day)

Anywho, now that I have corrected my previous oversight, I come to trying to (once again) bring readers up to speed.  To catch up from my last post until now will be a major undertaking considering that in the two weeks past I have been on several more plane rides, many more bus rides, walked hundreds (or so it feels) of miles, taken a bajillion pictures, oh yeah, and I went to class a couple times too.

As I left you, I had survived the grueling process of registering for classes and was about to embark on my first week of actually going to them.  I went to sleep Sunday night considering the fact that I hadn't sat in a classroom since early December, three months previous!  Just as I was dozing off I was re-awakened by someone banging on the front door upstairs.  As my flatmates go to bed significantly earlier than I, I headed upstairs to figure out what was going on.  Upon reaching the front door I was stunned to find my good friend from Denison, Louis, standing on my front porch.  Party Lou (not because he loves to party, but because the addition of Louis to any situation can make it a party) was one of the first people I met at Denison Freshman year.  A fellow ultimate player and chill dude, we spent a lot of time together until he graduated last May.  I had been aware that he was in New Zealand as part of a several month long trip through Southeastern Asia and Oceania.  Louis actually studied at Otago during his Junior year and was my inspiration for choosing this particular city in New Zealand.  Apparently when Party Lou and I discussed him hitching down from Christchurch where he had been tramping (kiwi for backpacking) for a week or so, he had copied down my phone number wrong.  He insists that I gave him the wrong number, but thats just simply not true at all.  Hahah.  Surprised and groggy I took my old friend down to my room and set him up with a very cushy spot on the floor.

Syllabus week -- as we call it at Denison because one usually does little more in the first week of class than go over the syllabus, as if we couldn't physically read it ourselves -- began as most do, with head-nodding and painfully boring classes taken up reading, line by line, the syllabus for the course.  Monday, Wednesday and Friday each held a grand total of one class - The Environmental History of New Zealand.  While this could have been a compelling class that I would have enjoyed going to and would have increased by knowledge and enjoyment of my surroundings, it was, unfortunately, not.  What that class did in fact entail was a review of the existence of trees and rocks (in case one hasn't looked outside their window recently, trees and rocks are still out there.  A fact the professor felt obligated to remind us of) and a thorough "summary" of the industrial and societal history of the world.  If I remember correctly I went to this class all week before realizing that if I were to keep my sanity it would be necessary to not go anymore.

Tuesday and Thursday were my "tough" days, these each had three classes: Art History, Linguistics, and Maori Society.  Art History was... well I can't actually tell you much because I only went once.  The. Professor. Spoke. In. One. Word. Sentences... which meant it took her about three minutes to say her name - Margaret Thatcher (the only thing in the class that I felt was at all interesting).  Linguistics is by far my most interesting class; an analysis of language, its sounds, how it comes to exist and the such.  Maori Society, while not exactly what I would call "riveting," is actually fairly interesting and a class I feel compelled to go to given the fact that I am in New Zealand.

Taken out the window of one of Envi-Hi looking North over
Dunedin.  My flat would beoff to the right, the Waters of
Leith are front and center.

Now I'm sure many of you (by this I mean those concerned for my educational well-being, MOM) are now wondering if I go to class at all, considering I just told you I stopped going to two of my classes.  Well, because I am a responsible college student I did in fact officially drop Envi-Hi and Art-Hi and pick up an upper level Politcal Science class called Theories of Justice.  As difficult as it was to register for classes, dropping and switching classes was quite easy, a process that required printing out my schedule, crossing out the classes I was dropping, writing in the one I intended to pick up, and getting it signed by any faculty member.


Party Louis and Affable Dave spent the time the rest of us were in class bumming around exploring Louis's old stomping grounds.  When not in class we all headed down to Logan Park right near my house played frisbee, pretended to know how to play rugby, and laid out in the sun and just generally took life waay too seriously.  Lou left on Thursday for Auckland and after a day there headed back to the States.  It was pretty awesome and crazy-coincidental having an old Denison friend come stay for a couple days, even more crazy considering he was more-or-less the reason I came to Dunedin.

Friday of that first week we all skipped class and left quite early on an Arcadia-sponsored trip to Queenstown for many activities, several of which posed varying levels of life-endangerment.  The bus ride to Queenstown was the first time I had really been anywhere on the South Island outside of Dunedin.  The first thing I noticed was NZed's profound lack of anything I would call a "highway."  The winding, curving, twisty roads of rural NZed are definitely not places one wants to traverse on a bus and by the time we got to Queenstown in the early afternoon I was pretty carsick.  We checked into our hotel/hostel/lodge type place around three and immediately headed off to the Shotover river for a jet boat ride.  [I don't have any pictures of this, but it was wicked cool: http://www.shotoverjet.com/the-video]  A Jet Boat is a boat that holds 18 people and requires a draft of about six inches in order to travel at up to 60mph.  It sucks water in from the river and then shoots it out the back with lightning speed allowing it to be a "propeller-less" boat.  Regardless of how its powered, the boat is incredibly nimble, able to do 360 degree turns and fly back and forth to within a foot or so  of the vertical canyon walls.  Girls screamed, guys laughed, and all had a great time as we explored the river.

On our way back to our accommodations for the weekend those fools desiring to fling themselves off of a perfectly good bridge (or cable car) into the abyss were directed to get off the bus and enter the AJ Hackett bungee shop right in the heart of Queenstown.  As I signed up for my jump at the 143 meter Nevis (not pronounced neeevis) it occurred to me that this was one of the biggest signatures of my short life.  Considering that I will most likely never sign any peace treaties or other globally-influential documents,  this signature ranks up there in terms of substance.

After signing our lives away, Scruffy E, Kiwi J, Football Jacob, Big Tim and I headed out to explore Queenstown.  We didn't get very far because we quickly found a pier/dock and decided that it was an excellent place to sit and spend the next couple hours marveling at the stunning beauty of this city.  We hung around our pier of choice until it was getting dark, at which time we decided it was necessary to find food and be warmer.  We headed to the fabled Ferg Burger for a little taste of America... actually not so much, the beef was pure NZ, but it was still delicious.  Bedtime came early that night, with everyone pretty tired from... life?  Who knows, we were all just tired.

from left: Football Jacob, Big Tim, and Kiwi Justin sittin' on our pier in Queenstown

Lake Wakatipu, from our pier

Our second day in Queenstown was to be spent hiking part of the Routeburn Track.  We awoke early in order to get on the bus and roll out to the trailhead, and arrived around 9 am.  The road to the trailhead had snaked around most of the Northern side of lake Wakatipu providing stunning views despite the deeply overcast sky.  We disembarked our bus, got the mandatory group photo, and started hiking.  As we were a group of about 35 or so, the trail was anything but quiet.  Eventually however people began to space out according to their preferred hiking speed.  I endured the constant struggle of attempting to walk at a speed which would put me alone between two larger groups, allowing me some illusion of solitude.  The trail started rising from an area that could easily have been the filming location for Lothlórien (forest home of Lady Galadriel of the Lord of the Rings trilogy), followed the path of a river up through a gorge, and then deposited us on a large plain with mountains rising steeply on all sides.  The track headed across the plain to ascend higher on the far side up to a series of waterfalls.  We ate our scheduled lunch at these waterfalls and for those who wished to hike up farther to he Harris Saddle, and eventually the peak at Conical Hill, headed out quickly.  From the huts we ate lunch at the trail got significantly steeper, but the rigor of the climb was rewarded with equally breathtaking vistas.  My knees began to give me problems as I reached the Saddle, and considering we hadn't even begun the descent which I knew would tear them up, I decided to call it quits there a kilometer or so short of the peak.  Apparently from the peak one could see the Tasman Sea (the sea that separates NZed from Australia), but I didn't get that high.  Having spent a good bit of time at my chosen turn around spot, and as more people began to pollute the solitude of the place, I began my walk down.  This was the best choice I made over the hike.  Walking at my own pace, and alone, I was able to spend lots of time taking in the beauty of the place and messing around with my camera as much as I wanted.  Reaching the spot where we had eaten lunch I checked in as a returner and continued my walk down.  When I reached the trail head where our bus was parked I checked a map and determined that those who had gotten to the Saddle had hiked about 18 miles and achieved over a mile and a half of elevation change - a very solid day of hiking.

The plain...

...with the clearest water I have ever seen. Glacial melt

The river on the right is where the above photos were taken.

I always tramp in style.

Alpine meadow

We returned to Queenstown exhausted.  Luckily for us, we were taken to Winnie Bagoes Pizza for some 'za.  The pizza was delicious, but one thing I am coming to learn is that in New Zealand, it seems completely appropriate to just throw whatever one pleases onto a basic cheese pizza and call it by some crazy name.  I have never had taco pizza, steak pizza, chili pizza, or pizza with some fried stuff on it ever before, and I doubt I will ever be tempted to try these again.  Curiosity, you have been satisfied.  Back at the hostel place, we all passed straight out.  In the Morrow we would be jumping...

[next post soon to come, I know I left you hanging.]