Kiwi'd

posted by Hoot @ 10:49 PM 0 comments

Rugby Game

Later on Saturday, March 18th: Anjali and I went to the rugby game.
First lesson learned was that getting tickets through one of the local bars would have been smarter. You can purchase tickets through the local bars, and they not only provide you with a beverage prior to your gaming experience, but also a bus to get to the rugby game. But since we were not aware that one could do this, we ended up walking to the game. Carisbrook, the stadium at which the Otago Highlanders play, is far, far away from our meager little flat complex. I think one can safetly say we got our workout.
Upon arrival to the stadium, we stood in line to get standing-only tickets, which were $13 NZ as opposed to the $25 NZ for seats. This, my knee feels, was a mistake. Standing for hours is not so good. Particularly when you are two young women, neither of whom are really 'into' rugby as a sport.
This was our third error: Attending the rugby game without anyone there to explain the rules. Or, who, well, was into sports. Anjali doesn't attending sport games period, and bless her heart is about as far removed from being a sporting fan as one can possibly get. I am what one could call a 'medicore' fan. I sometimes get excited, I sometimes don't. I enjoy going to sporting games because of the atmosphere and the chance to watch people, in addition to the game. But it is rather difficult to get excited over a foreign team (in this sense, just meaning a team that I'm not familar with) in a foreign game surrounded by strangers. Sporting events are definitely best enjoyed in large groups of people in such instances as this.
Thus it was that we stood there for an hour or so, munching on delicious fatty chips and corndogs (the best corndog I've had in a while, actually), trying to figure out what was going on while being swarmed by drunken teenage Kiwis who didn't seem to be really paying attention to the game...exception being the few people I photographed above.

Observations
From an anthropology of sport point of view, it was an interesting event to see. The stadium was not as large as I would have imagined it to be, particularly since this was supposed to be the equivalent to American football. It was by no means as small as a high school stadium, but I've seen US university stadiums that are larger. Concessions were also -extremely- limited. Whereas when I go to the MCI Center in D.C., there are about 25 different places to get food, and it's all extremely expensive...the variety at this stadium was even smaller, and about equivalently priced, to my high school's concesion stand.
That being said, one other difference that I noticed concerned alcohol.
Kiwis are very keen on their alcohol. Very keen. In the States, there seems to be this overreaching desire to limit the amount of alcohol one can consume at a sporting event, in order to prevent violence or havoc, and so forth, from happening, not to mention to promote a more healthy family atmosphere....this is not the case in Dunedin. One could purchase a case of beer right there in the stadium, and there didn't seem to be any restrictions on how many you could purchase over the course of a game.
This led to another interesting observation. The majority of people, at least in the standing section, were teenagers. Young teenagers, even, not even college-aged students, but mostly high school aged. In small groups, in large groups, there were tons of young adults roaming around. Drunk, or tipsy, and unsupervised. The above pictures of the children and the older gent are exceptions to this rule. I definitely felt like we were surrounded by young people.
This is interesting for me because, in my limited experience with sporting games at this professional level, this is not the case in the States. Most professional-level sporting events are attended by older people, especially middle-aged men. What could this age differential indicate about New Zealand culture? I wonder if this is simply because the tickets were so cheap, or if the tickets are made cheap so as to encourage a younger crowd to attend?
In the end, I still know nothing about rugby.

posted by Hoot @ 3:58 PM 0 comments

Friday March 17th/Saturday March 18th

This will be short, because I can't remember what else we did that weekend.
Anjali and I had a 'girls weekend', with a few exceptions. St. Patricks Day caught us in a bar, where we downed an entire -glass- of Guinneas each. We both decided that it was definitely a girlie beer, or, as Sean put it, 'a beer milkshake'. The rest of the evening was spent discussing the prison camps in North Korea.


On Saturday, we went to the Otago Museum, where we learned that Dunedin is a thriving metropolis. For anyone who has actually been to a thriving metropolis by US standards, this would make you giggle. The museum was otherwise -quite- delicious for any museumphile. Like myself. I particularly enjoyed the photographic exhibit on New Zealand flora and fauna, and the small expo on Chinese photographs. The exhibit on Scarfies, the term used to describe Uni students, left much to be desired.
One interesting point is that, apparently, one of the major things that students here are protesting is the price of education. There is apparently great concern over the financial burden of student loans, with the ideaology being that it is within the interest of the country to encourage as many of its younger generation to attain a higher education. It makes sense. But coming from the perspective of someone who is paying nearly $40,000 US per year for her college education..well, I have to confess that my first reaction, based on this worldview, was that the Kiwis were complaining over nothing. I take it for granted that in order to get a top-notch education, I'll have to pay for it, particularly since I'm from a demographic that has been -told- that we can pay for it.
I wonder what would happen in the US if college students protested more about the price of their higher education what the reaction would be.

Right, so speaking of protests... there was a minor protest that we saw the tail end of, which occured in the Octagon. I think there were about 25 people protesting the war in Iraq and, most specifically, President Bush. He is not much loved down here. Anjali and I were on our way to a movie, so I didn't get too many pictures. The above picture was taken when we were walking back and playing with the debris that was left behind.

The movie we saw was "No. 2", which is specifically about generational conflicts amongst Pacific Islanders who's families immigrated to New Zealand. It's a story that we're quite familiar with in the States, but I've never seen something from a Pacific Islander point of view. It's quite a good movie, and I highly recommend it. 

posted by Hoot @ 3:39 PM 0 comments

Mid-March Backlogged Entry

A collage of March...12th? weekend shinanigans.
Went to center city, and saw some interesting tagging. The graffiti in this area is primarily done with stencil, as opposed to the emphasis on free-hand that I've noticed in most American cities. It generates a much cleaner image, I feel, and is definitely fresh. I have no idea what these are supposed to represent, though.

The monkey (from a thrift shop, or, op-shop as they're called here) was a present for Thimo, who was at an ultimate tournament that weekend. Mostly I just used it as an excuse to walk around with a stuffed monkey all day and embarass Anjali by talking to it or..well..through it.
 

posted by Hoot @ 3:15 PM 0 comments

Dinner Party, Thursday March ....Something

Since other people (see below links) have talked about the dinner party itself, I'll focus on the making of the dinner party.

To cut to the end, the moral of this story is that you should never leave two Mawrters in the same room. This is a reoccuring moral, however. It's like leaving two Mawrters alone with an open window. It's just a Bad Idea.
But I guess this moral only holds water if the goal is to keep people away from food.

See, when you leave other people alone, they come up with fun things to do. Like, go to the movies. Something enjoyable, something not necessarily difficult. You leave two Mawrters in the same room and they come up with grand schemes to challenge themselves. It's just a fact of life. This is the basis of the dinner party.
So you've left two Mawrters in the same room. The next thing you want to make sure is you don't give us a cookbook. Or a kitchen. Taking away the kitchen is a good plan. And don't give us sugar. Or make us laugh or enjoy your company. In fact, just don't give us friends period. Giving us friends only makes us want to do things for them.
It is traditional in New Zealand culture to have a potluck. In fact, many people I know (not me), have been to potlucks already. This is a bad thing. See, knowing this little tidbit put the thought in my little head that a group social gathering with food would be a good idea for 'our' flat. And when I say food, I mean lots of food. I think I was really hungry when I proposed this idea to Anjali.
We decided a potluck would be too easy. But hosting a dinner party -ourselves-....now that is both challenging and fun! Grand planning and stupid doodles ensued. I thought it would be fantastic for us to have a Pirate Ninja themed party, or at least a But Why Is The Rum Gone? party. But Anjali is far wiser than I, and so grand plans for a Pirate Themed Extraganza were put aside in favor of a Formal Affair. We knew it was possible when it came to our attention that certain folks had formal clothes with them and basically no chance to wear them. The possibility that other people had fancy outfits was considered.

We in no way shape or form decided to have a formal party because we wanted to see menz looking sharp. But, well, we are Mawrters.

We decided on a guest list (namely, Flat J/K, but also some other people, coming to a total of 13 people or so). We consulted the cookbook and our mothers. I went OCD on poor Anjali and made about fifty different lists...for menus, for supplies, for possible costs, for the number of meat-lovers vs. veggies....it was quite insane. We bought things from the Farmer's Market and Countdown, etc, including a sparkly new pie pan.

Things we learned:
1. Pie crust is NOT to be kneaded. Also, for my mother's recipe, you need wax paper to do the rolling. Or Al.
2. It is not necessarily a good idea to have over half of your items for a large dinner party to fall into the category of "Hey, this might taste good...we'll just toss something together!" Sometimes this is good, like in the case of the chicken. Sometimes this is bad, in the case of the sad little marrow pie I tried to make.
3. Starving yourself on the day of a big party is a bad idea. Also, sleep is probably important.
4. The veggie cutter likes Mawrter fingers way too much. But blood adds flavor to carrots...right?

That being said, it was insanely fun. Anjali and I definitely leveled up. +10 cooking experience, you gain Dinner Party skill...or something. And knowing what I know now I would definitely do it again. I don't have many chances to prance around in my Domokun shirt and beach shorts, singing along to Dar Williams while making mass amounts of food. Not to mention having so many people together in one room was a blast. Sadly, I think the cooks were too exhausted to do much more than slump down and get drunk.

Come to think of it, despite allllllll the work that Anjali and I put into the dinner party, I definitely think one of the big highlights for me at least was the pseudo-bartending contest that certain people had going on.

Sadly, I think I'm now addicted to white russians.

Oh, and just for shits and giggles, here's a list of what we made. I can't remember -specifically- what everything was called, so feel free to snerk at my creative titles.

Garlic Bread
Salad Thingy aka Lettuce In A Bowl
Guac (actually, Dan made this....need to remember to put avacados in his hands more often)
Honey Chicken Wings
Red Wine, Plum and Beef (which, um, didn't come out so terribly well....but wow was it -purple-)
Carrot Dish of Scrumptiousness
Mashed Ranch Taters
Lentil & Rice Dish of Delicious
Gone-In-60-Seconds Spinach Cheese Bake
Marrow...Pie...Thingy
Granny's Apple Pie

posted by Hoot @ 9:29 PM 0 comments

Intro: Holly, Dan, Thimo

I love the last panel.
This introduces all of the main-main characters in the comic.
Also, Holly is not 12. Really.

Here's the link to the Kiwi'd Comic Set. Hopefully it works.

posted by Hoot @ 5:45 PM 0 comments

Comic

This is me bring productive on the weekend.
I am definitely going to have to work on my doodle-skills, because right now, they're pretty subpar. But I think the characters at least vaguely resemble the people they're supposed to be...
Anyway, the art style is something of a hodgepodge between anime and 'other'. I'm trying not to be too anime-esk, but I don't know how else to draw my character that's quick and easy for me.

These are just some sketches...hopefully I'll get a finished story-arc or two actually done sometime in the near future.

posted by Hoot @ 5:11 PM 0 comments

Productivity in Class

This isn't to say anything negative about Kiwi-style of teaching, but today I was definitely in a 'mind wandering' mood during classes. And when my mind is off wandering, my hands tend to occupy themselves with doodling random characters. It took until my Maori lecture for me to be actually productive. Do not adjust your screen, my handiwork is just rather...sketchy. But I can be self-critical on my own time. The point of this is that it means I -might- just be able to summon up the energy to work on my comic, instead of hiding behind the excuse of a lack of a tablet pen.
From left to right: Holly, Dan, Anjali (discussing the gerbil song); Moi et Thimo (discussing...who knows what....but I did manage to shrink Thimo and give us both -really- weird body poses)


















Also, The Retrophonic Funk Machine.
That was the band that played last night. Brilliant blokes.

posted by Hoot @ 2:17 PM 0 comments

Almost There

I have only three more classes to get through before I'm free for the weekend. Yes, free, free I say. I plan to do loads of absolutely nothing so that I can enjoy myself. Or maybe I'll go out and see the glow worms.
For the past two nights I decided to take the plunge and act like a normal college student. Normal, not by Kiwi standards but by American standards. That's right, I went to a -real- bar on Thursday, where I basked in the glow of reggae and cheap beer. I also learned that there is a 'definite difference' between Kiwi-based reggae and 'real' reggae. Apparently it's faster down here. Since I don't listen to much reggae, I'll leave it to the experts.
Last night I went to what I shall call a 'pseudo-bar'. The 'bar', called Refuel, is actually located on campus. This isn't something you'd ever see at Bryn Mawr, or any of the Tri-Co. In any case, the band that played was stunning. Electric guitar, electric base, a synthesizer (?), drums, trumpet, two saxs, and a trombone comprised the band -- an eclectic mix which made for amazing music. I think the band was made of primarily students, and I think one of those students is in my Chinese Cinema class... so hopefully I can get a CD or something.

posted by Hoot @ 10:40 AM 0 comments

Culture Shock

In reference to the last post... thinking Deep Thoughts makes my brain hurt. Not because the exercise is particularly difficult, but because my brain operates much like a defunked version of google. The moment I do a search on a particular issue, too many search results come up and I have trouble putting them into a coherent format.
Plus it bums me out, since I know that somehow what I said could be construed as offensive.

So a lighter topic: Culture Shock 2.0!

Half of the culture shock that I've experienced while I've been here has NOT been a result of Kiwi-life. Visiting New Zealand is much visiting a part of the United States with a funky accent. Like when I go down to visit my relatives in Mississippi: The food is different, and they have different stores, but in the end it's pretty much all the same. Except here we don't have Walmart. Instead, they have pirate treasure for money.

So I guess most of my culture shock has simply been revolving around the issue that I'm going to a large university (the University of Otago is 10X larger than my home institution), it's co-ed, and it has different weather. The first two issues were relatively easy to adjust to -- I have rapidly fallen in love with the whole idea of 'flatting' (remind me of that statement when the bill comes), and the library is gorgeous. Being around male-folk isn't particularly 'scary' or 'weird' for me, since all of my siblings are brothers...but it still took some getting used to walking into a room of over 200 people and having the testosterone smack me in the face.

The other aspect of the 'big university' life that I'm still getting used to is this entire train of thought involving 'parties'. In my group of friends back at Bryn Mawr, our version of a 'party' involves us sitting around and watching a movie together. If we're feeling particularly frisky, we -might- even go out to see the movie in theaters. This isn't to say that parties are an alien concept to me, but they also aren't a big occurance at my college. Here, there are parties every night -- mostly in the area where I live. Keggers are a natural thing instead of being 'exciting' and 'new'. It's definitely still weird to me, this focusing on drinking. But what's even more odd is that it seems the group of people I've fallen in with also don't have this focus on drinking either -- not big keggers, anyway. I wonder if it's because we're international students, or it just happened that way? The impression we've definitely gotten is that Kiwis drink like fish.
Strange.

But not as strange as waking up every morning to the sound of a seagull screaming outside your window. Or seeing people dressed constantly in surfer wear, or barefoot. Or the fact that the weather changes every five minutes -- literally, one minute it's sunny, the next it's raining, and then hailing, and then raining, and then sunny...all in the span of one hour. I'm definitely going to need to get a new windbreaker and raincoat. I wonder if some of these oddities are just because I'm not used to living near the shore, or if it's New Zealand?

posted by Hoot @ 7:27 PM 0 comments

Influence of other Cultures

Looking back through some of my entries and I can see some of my frustration with blogger coming through. That and the fact that my tendency for sarcasm and irony just doesn't convey itself well through electronic mediums.

So. Scratch that plan.

Instead of going through my daily activities, I thought I'd try to take this blog into a different direction. More dangerous waters, as it were, since I'm going to wade through some of my observations about kiwi life. Not to make any grand sweeping statements, so much as to just be...well...more scientific. If I'm capable of such a thing. This isn't to say I won't still post the occasional blurb about my life, especially if I've done anything interesting... but I also want to take a moment to take aspects of the Kiwi culture and put it out there for other people to think about.

However.... I'm not an expert. I'm going to say things that are wrong. I'm going to be unable to find the proper phrasology or be unable to articulate my thoughts accurately. The latter is a problem I always have, the former is one I hope to overcome.

The first can of worms I want to open up is what will undoubtably be a reoccuring topic: The influence of other cultures upon New Zealand. The influence of their Scottish heritage, the influence of Maori, American (US) culture, Asian culture, etc. I'm going to try to be as politically correct as I possibly can, so I just want to preface by saying that my babblings are just a stream of consciousness, a breeding ground for thought, as opposed to an actual Statement of Fact.

One of the primary reasons I was excited about coming to New Zealand was because of the Maori culture. Being part Native American myself, and having studied Native Americans for years, I was absolutely thrilled to be given the chance to look at a different indigenous culture, particularly one that we don't hear about on the East Coast of the USA. To see how it was taught, to see what the influence of the past had on the present, to see how the two cultures (Euro and Maori) are influencing each other.

I cannot help but think, from the perspective of Native North Americans and just minority studies in general, that New Zealand is making amazing leaps with addressing minority-group discrimination. This isn't to say that the Maori aren't discriminated against, because that would be far, far far far from the truth. It's just that, through the rose colored glasses of an outsider, and one who is studying at a university (where social change often takes place in the first place), it just seems like they're doing at least Something Right.
It's not just that the signs are in English and Maori. It's not just that they have a center devoted to Maori, or that they push awareness of Maori and Pacific Islander issues out into the public eye. There seems to be this tremendous movement to not so much as integrate Maori into mainstream society so much as form a symbiotic relationship between Euro-culture and Maori-culture. My rose-colored glasses give me such great hope for the future.

It is remarkable for me that New Zealand is putting this much effort into being political correct. I'm still making generalization here, but let me put it this way: to most Americans, Native Americans are still exotic. They are an unknown quantity. Many people are vaguely aware that many, many tribes are stuck on reservations somewhere in the West, and that they're suffering because of it. More people know that Native Americans run casinos...and many of those people actually think that they're making money off of it, and thus don't need support. But I would also be willing to bank that more people are aware of the social strife of other ethnic minority groups in the States. We're a large, diverse country, and it's -hard- to be aware of 'all the issues'...but because the Native Americans are not in the public eye, except in the occasional advert for Land O' Lakes butter or Western reruns, most people don't know that they're some of the poorest people in the nation.
To New Zealanders, Maori are people. At least, that's what I see at the University of Otago. They aren't something exotic, they're the guy who sits next to you in Geography 101. They're the people in your clubs, and their issues matter because they're as much a part of the university as you are. But even in the greater nation, I would imagine that many people are still -more- than well aware that Maori exist. They have their own TV station, a BRILLIANT move imho on utilizing mass media. At the very least, people will see their station as they flip through the channels.
This isn't to say that I haven't noticed where their presence is lacking. In many, many of the adverts on TV, it seems like they have the 'token Maori' character. Or none at all. Many of the TV programmes here still feature primarily white actors....meaning, the TV programmes they don't import from the UK or US.

In any case, I'm not trying to say that Maori have it 'better' than the Native Americans. I just feel like there is progress being made here for this indigenious culture that is not being made in the US. And it makes me wonder -why-. Is it the small size of New Zealand? The fact that Maori have, nearly since the beginning, 'stood' as a relatively unified group of people since the introduction of Europeans to their land? That they still stand unified? Is it because Maori are making use of the Euro-based culture, alla TV?

One aspect that I really want to study more while I'm here is how the Maori culture is preserving their traditional identity while yet straddling the (for lack of a better term) 'modernization' going on around them... most cultures (not just cultures like Native Americans, but -any- group of people that have a combined cultural identity) have to deal with change. It's always fascinating for me to figure out how they go about it.



It's definitely an issue that I am eager to learn about... and as I learn more about the Maori, hopefully I'll be able to tell where their culture interacts and influences the Euro-culture.


I got a little off-topic here... oh well, that's what you get for stream of thought.

posted by Hoot @ 2:37 PM 0 comments

February 27th and 28th

First Official Day of Classes

I can't recall if I remembered to write it here, but last Friday the Uni has something called 'preliminary lectures'. This basically means that you get to run around campus trying to figure out where your lecture is being held, only to be informed at the preliminary lecture that you'll never have to set foot in that room again because the -official- room for the class is over in Building XYZ. You also learn about any required textbooks, and get to figure out who your lecturer (I was told they don't use the word 'professor' here unless the person is at the top of their department) is, so that when you're wandernig around lost next Monday you can hopefully recognize at least that much. Oh, and each lecture lasts for 15-30 minutes.
It was quite hectic for me...I had to wake up at 9am, go to the Geo preliminary lecture...which was a snore. Then I had a long wait, where I figured out that my Chinese Cinema class didn't even have a preliminary lecture. Off to Anthro, which was a much smaller class than Geo. Then it was off to Maori, which was at least vaguely interesting. With Anthro and Maori, the prelinary lecture was for all of the 200 or 100 level courses in those respective departments, so it was hard to get a good idea of who was in the class. Maori's class was so huge that it had to be divided up by the first letter of your surname...one half of the alphabet at one time.

But Monday was the official first day of classes. I had only Geography and Anthro on monday, and there's a big time gap between them. It's interesting to see how the demographics of the two classes are different -- I think I'm one of a handful of international students who are in the Geography class, whereas my Contemporary Pacific Cultures Class (Anthro) is mostly international students. Geography has mostly male students enrolled in it, and the class is well over 100, maybe even 200 students. I'm not used to classes being that large, and I'm not used to having to sit in the nosebleed section. Anthro, on the other hand, is about the size of the 'large lecture classes' I'm used to at Bryn Mawr -- about 30 to 40 students. Both of these classes were yet another 'welcome to course' introduction type lesson.
I spent most of my freetime yesterday attending class or catching up on my blog, so, well, no stunning pictures. Hence the picture I borrowed from the library's website. This library is absolutely amazing.

Tuesday's Geography class was our actual first lesson. The room was so insanely hot...I hope it's not always going to be like that. It's most likely from all of the warm bodies, though, so when people start skipping class I should be able to breathe easier. But what I found interesting was that the professor had taught in California for nearly a decade before coming back home to New Zealand. There was one instance where she was giving an example of a fox and a rabbit, trying to relate it to who knows what, and she stopped herself to apologize. New Zealand doesn't have foxes. It was interesting that she was apologizing for having lived and taught in the US.
Tuesday is my busiest day -- after Geography, I had another brief break which I spent in front of a computer, before I hustled to the top floor of the library to my Chinese Cinema class. This really was the first class for me in this particular subject, and I was excited. The room has no desks, it's just a video viewing room, and I'm a little scared because the professor wants to teach this as less of a 'Chinese culture' course and more of a film studies course. She was also having a hard time trying to get us to talk today...hopefully that will change. But I noticed another pattern -- she was explaining her background, how she was born in Italy but she went to college in China for several years, and then how she taught at the University of Chicago and got her PhD there. Then, much later in the lecture, she was talking about exams and she went on to apologize about her spelling. In New Zealand, they use British-based English, so 'realized' becomes 'realised' and so forth. She had apparently done something like that on an exam, and a student had circled it and wrote a nastey note about how she was in New Zealand, and they speak properly down here...and she asked us not to do the same. Now me, being the only American in the class (for once), I was vaguely amused. But the reaction of the students wasn't really one of amusement....the air in the room felt more like a 'damn right you better try to spell properly'.
We had to go around the room and introduce ourselves in that class. This is where I realized I'm the only American in the class...and the moment I opened my mouth to introduce myself people turned around in their chairs to have a look at me. It was an interesting feeling to be, even momentarily, the center of attention. It's also a good thing because I was beginning to get worried that I was only going to meet international students; hopefully I'll get to meet a bunch of Kiwis in this class.
After that there was the Maori class, but this was basically an opportunity for her to pass out a handout and tell us to check Blackboard. The class lasted about 15 minutes. Like the geography class, it's a huge class. Unlike the geography class, it's almost entirely international students.
Soon I'll be off for my last class of the day, Anthro. We'll see how that goes.

posted by Hoot @ 2:24 PM 0 comments

Sunday Feb 26 : Botanical Gardens

video of kids feeding ducks here

posted by Hoot @ 10:21 PM 0 comments

Saturday Feb 25

These are a handful of images because I'm too exhausted with having to wrestle with stupid blogger to really talk about them much. On Saturday, I went to the farmer's market as well as the big craft fair that was being held in the octagon. There's a sign of a concession stand, because I thought candy floss was a clear mark I was in a different culture. There's pottery, which this region is noted for. Then there's the cathedral, which is the center of town, and the back of a can of drink which I thought was rich with Kiwi pride. The drink itself was something like a ginger rootbeer.

posted by Hoot @ 10:10 PM 0 comments

Thursday February 23rd 2006 : Otago Peninsula Day Trip

Taiaroa Head


The International Office sponsored a day trip for all of the International Students, a day trip to the Otago Peninsula to take in some of the local natural wonders. I have a map, but I forgot to take a picture of it so I'll post it later. We visited Taiaro Head, which hosts an albatross colony. Otago is known for being the only place in New Zealand with a sucessful breeding program for the Royal Albatross. The Royal Albatross are the largest flying bird, or at least the largest sea bird. I think. Somebody should probably check me on that.


Do you remember the scene in Rescuers Down Under?
When the big dopey 'seagull' is going to land on the little Australian mouse's runway? The mouse is sitting there going through his bird guide, trying to figure out what an albatross is so he can figure out how to change the runway....and when he figures out the albatross is the HUGE BIRD in the middle of the guide that is 200 times larger than anything else? Yeah. They're really, really big. The Royal Albatross has a winspan of about 10 feet.



We didn't really get to see any, but it was fortunately windy enough that the birds did take flight occasionally. See, when you're that big, you want a big bout of wind to help you with take off. Unfortunately, most of them took flight when we had already gotten back on the bus...so I didn't get a good picture.



But the rest of the place was pretty. We got to see seals playing off shore. The problem with them is that the camera is so shakey because it was really, really, really windy.
(Working clockwise from noon: seagulls chilling in a little bit of a wind break; albatross hovering above the welcome center; seal waving his flipper at us; and a scenic picture of Taiaroa Head)







Sandfly Bay? ... that can't be right

I can't remember the name of this beach. In any case, it was where we saw seal close up. We weren't there for very long, however. With many of these little points of interest that we went to, it would take 50%-75% of our time to simply trek through whatever farmland was surrounding the beach to get to the shore. It was also raining for the majority of the time we were there -- which dramatically cuts down on the amount of time I felt like frolicking around and taking pictures.



Like I said, we got to see a seal close up at this beach. I'm pretty sure it's just a plain old fur seal. There was no evidence of a pup or anything -- in fact, the seal was pretty much interested in sleeping. Some people got within what I'd like to call 'petting' distance. They didn't touch the seal, but they were within an arm's length.
(Working my way down from the top: Me, demonstrating how windy it was; a scenic picture of the beach; a fur seal snoozing his way through the day behind some boulders and some of the students getting close to said aforementioned seal)

Besides the constant wind and on and off rainfall, the only other thing of import about this beach was the penguin nests. The penguin 'nests' (boxes, really) are put up by the park to encourage the penguins to mate and procreate and all that good stuff. The adults were off fishing for the day when we visited, so we got the chance to look at the nests upclose. The problem was that the baby penguins were hiding back in the boxes -- see, what you're actually seeing in these pictures is just the doorway. Hidden away under rocks and tarp was a much, much larger box that would easily host multiple adult penguins. In any case, the baby penguins were difficult to see (some people couldn't see them at all) and only distinguished based on their white bits. I increased the contrast on one of the images so you could more easily see the penguins. (nest to the left, improved contrast to the right)



Along the Way
As we were tootling around on the bus, we saw lots of things on the side of the road. Mostly sheep. Lots of sheep. Some cows. And the occasional black swan. We also stopped at one point to admire the Maori Meeting House for the region. I could only get a good shot of the gate, though.
Hopefully I'll get to learn more about the Maori and even visit their meeting house as I continue with my classes. I love the colors they use, though. Just...wow.



Sandymount

Sandymount was our last stop before the dinner bbq, and wow. Was it a wonderful stop. I would have loved to spend more time there, and not simply because the walking to and from the beach took up 40 of our 45 minutes. It was out in the middle of farmland, but you could just tell how the weather was affecting the environment -- the trees, even before we got to the beach, were all bent over from prolonged exposure to the elements. And this was at the top of the cliff. Down at the bottom, the wind was blowing so hard I thought we were going to loose some of the smaller people in our group. It was amazing that the sheep that were in the uphill pastures didn't blow away.
Beyond that, it was an absolutely stunning beach. Just hard to get to and from... the cliff that we had to climb down was really steep. The way back up nearly killed me.

posted by Hoot @ 8:42 PM 0 comments

Omitted Part of Tuesday Feb 21st

I completely forgot this aspect of Tuesday. As a part of O-Week, the freshmen from all of the halls all over the university dress in togas for a big toga party. But it's not just a toga party -- they've taken an aspect of Greek life (they don't have, as far as I can defer, frats here) and run with it.
Quite literally, I mean. They run/walk down the streets, wearing togas. They go down George street towards the Octagon, where the Mayor of Dunedin gives them a greeting, and then they proceed to a movie screening and a concert (with booze!) in their honor.

....But I'll let the pictures do the talking now.

posted by Hoot @ 7:52 PM 0 comments