I’VE MADE IT TO NEW ZELAND! Tēnā koutou katoa (Welcome) I’ll be trying to use as many Maori words as I can from now on but I’ll be sure to put the English translation in parenthesis. I’ve officially been here for about 5 days and it has already been the most action packed 5 days of my life. I’ll start off with the airplane travel, which not going to lie I wasn’t looking forward to the longest plane ride I had been on pre-kiwi adventure was about 2 hours, but the flight to San Francisco from DC was 7 hours. Then the New Zealand flight was about 13 hours long, but if I’m completely honest flying Air New Zealand was the best flight I’ve ever been on. They provide you with your own pillow and blanket to sleep with and you have access to endless movies, TV shows and music. I took advantage of this and started listening to some popular NZ bands. The food on the flight was also very delicious. They fed us dinner and breakfast. We landed in Auckland around 6 am on Feb 12 and from there we headed for the YMCA Shakespear Regional Park. Here we had our orientation and our welcome into the New Zealand culture. My program was led by IFSA-Butler and they did an amazing job. There were about 50 US students at orientation, going to 3 different campuses across New Zealand. We did so much during these days I’m going to break it up day by day:
DAY 1:
It started with a beautiful tramp (hike) around the regional park and I got my first taste of the beautiful views of New Zealand. I think it’s going to be difficult to look at landscapes after this experience. We were incredibly lucky when we were tramping around we ran into this group of Kiwi high school boys (they were on a field trip) but they gave us a crazy New Zealand welcome and preformed the Haka for us. I thought watching it at a Rugby game eventually would be sweet as (awesome) but this was incredibly to see the New Zealand culture and pride so alive and welcoming us in. The day doesn’t end there though we went on to learn and play Cricket and Touch Rugby. I’d never really seen Cricket before so that was pretty awesome! It’s similar to a combination of Baseball and Kickball but not really. I’d say definitely check it out a game and then learning Rugby was pretty cool too. By this point in day I was getting exhausted from the combination of sweat, jet lag, and walking. I was so thankful they took us to a Waiwera which was a water park with several pools. My favorite had to be the soaking in the hot springs. It helped soak up all the exhaustion and then it was time for Moe (sleep). I thought sleeping in a new place might be kind of difficult, but I slept like a rock.
DAY 2:
Started off with a sunrise tramp around the regional park, it was a wee bit to cloudy so we couldn’t see the sun actually rise, but it was still a beautiful morning. I learned New Zealand is the first place in the world to see the sun rise, so that’s incredible. I didn’t mention this earlier, but we were eating Kai (food) every few hours, it was simply perfect. I tried a lot of new food in this short amount of time and to be honest everything I tired I liked a lot. So far New Zealand has been a box of fluffies! It’s so sweet to a very common meal here is putting spaghetti on toast and eating it for breakfast. Sounds odd but was actually delicious. Some other foods I tired were lamb with mint sauce, and again I was hesitant but it was fantastic. During day 2 we had some briefing about Health and safety and an academic briefing. Most important thing they said was NZ doesn’t have any crazy animals that can kill you, but the weather and your own stupidity are what will. Suntan lotion is not something you take lightly here. You have to apply it or you can burn within minutes. I’ve already seen the weather can be rather bipolar and unpredictable, one minute it’s sunny and the next it’s cold and cloudy. This is also the day I got to go Kayaking and sailing across the ocean. I’ve been kayaking before but never on the ocean so it was slightly harder than I thought, but it was such a beautiful day all the pain and sweat was worth it. You have to be careful when you get in the water here though because there are oysters everywhere and they are right sharp and painful if you hit them. I lucked out and hit a few while swimming and they tear up your skin real easily. More moe (sleep) came that night too. Sleep has been one of my best friends so far.
DAY 3:
This was our last day at Shakespear Regional Park because we were spending our last night in Auckland at an educational Marae, and I’ll explain more later about that, but we said our Poroporoaki (thank you and farewell) to the YMCA staff and headed for a few hours in the city of Auckland. The city was absolutely beautiful and so very easy to walk around. It was here that I got my New Zealand cell phone and really met and interacted with the Kiwi culture. It was rather fun trying to adjust to the fact that even the walking traffic is the opposite of what I’m used to in the states. They walk and drive on the opposite side of the road. After that we took a bus to the Te Hana marae. This was our last night of the IFSA Orientation and probably my favorite night thus far. It was time to Whakawhanaugatanga (get to know each other). We went through a traditional ceremony filled with marae songs and traditions. It was this night we also received a tour of the village and heard the stories of the marae. My favorite tale was that of the beautiful Te Hana Princess that watched over the village. During the night we introduced ourselves in the traditional marae way and I’ll show you now how we did it.
Tēnā koutou katoa
Ko Sugarloaf te māunga
Ko Susuquehanna te awa
Ko Linganore to roto
Ko Kacy ahau.
No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tena koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
This translates to:
Greetings to you all
The mountain that I affiliate to is Sugarloaf
The river I affiliate to is the Susquehanna
The lake that I affiliate to is Linganore
My name is Kacy
Therefore, greetings, thrice over.
The marae experience as a whole was just beautiful and I loved learning and preforming the ceremony of exchanging breath. This ceremony was extending forearms and shaking hands and then making nose to nose and forehead to forehead contact. It was something I’m not accused to because it the states we always seem to keep our distance when greeting strangers, but this was something special. So to summarize New Zealand has been incredible!
Tēnā koutou katoa
Ko Sugarloaf te māunga
Ko Susuquehanna te awa
Ko Linganore to roto
Ko Kacy ahau.
No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tena koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
This translates to:
Greetings to you all
The mountain that I affiliate to is Sugarloaf
The river I affiliate to is the Susquehanna
The lake that I affiliate to is Linganore
My name is Kacy
Therefore, greetings, thrice over.
The marae experience as a whole was just beautiful and I loved learning and preforming the ceremony of exchanging breath. This ceremony was extending forearms and shaking hands and then making nose to nose and forehead to forehead contact. It was something I’m not accused to because it the states we always seem to keep our distance when greeting strangers, but this was something special. So to summarize New Zealand has been incredible!
DAY 4:
This was our day of good byes and it was time to head to our universities and move into our dorms we’d be staying in. That meant it was time to say cheers (good bye/good luck) to Sarah, and be on my way to Wellington. Which was a just a short 50 minute plane ride from Auckland. My first impression of Wellington was whoa. I’m living in a city and yes of course I knew that was coming, but it’s definitely going to be an adjustment. I’m very accused to the more relaxed, simple country style living, but I’m super excited for this new experience. Massey University is a 5 minute walk up the street so that is really nice. The city itself or at least what I’ve seen so far is very eclectic and culturally diverse. I’ve loved walking the streets and seeing what I’ll find.