I'm alive!

I haven't been feeling the urge to blog lately... writing up everything I've been doing just doesn't appeal to me as much as I thought it would. If you're still out there reading though, I'm still here and having a great time. All I'm going to tell you about what I've been up to is that yesterday, I learned to surf which was awesome. 

While I love this country and most things about it, there are a few things that have been bugging me. Therefor, my traveling companions and I have begun writing a list of grievences to present to the New Zealand Parliament:

1.) Your ketchup tastes funny and, to add insult to injury, you call it Tomato (pronounced toh-mah-toe) Sauce which is confusing.

2.) Your spoons are always either too big or too small, you don't seem to have embraced the teaspoon.

3.) In case you haven't noticed, you drive on the wrong side of the road. This confuses us in simple street crossings, not to mention the awful roundabouts where we are constantly reminded to "give way", but we can't figure out to whom. 

4.) Sometimes you call dinner 'tea', sometimes it's 'dinner', other times it's 'supper', but sometimes 'supper' means dessert and 'tea' means tea... we are never sure what meal we're about to eat.

5.) Your birds fly too fast. We try to watch them to add them to our species lists, then they fly away before we can figure out what they are... what's with that?

6.) We still haven't figured out how to order a cup of coffee. What does "flat white" even mean, what about "long black"? Why does the barrista give me such a mean look when i tell her I just want a cup of coffee?

7.) Your milkshakes suck. Room temperature milk mixed with artificially flavored syrup is not what milkshake means.

I'm sure there are more to come, living in another country is confusing! On the other hand, we have found many things to embrace about our new land, including but not limited to: the all blacks, hokey-pokey (not the dance), mac's, tip top, hangis and hongis, 'good on you', 'mean feeds', and much more. 

Having a great time, miss you all.

-Kathleen

Whanganui

Goodness! The internet at my current home, the Whanganui Quaker Settlement, is not the most reliable system ever, hence the lack of recent posts. I had to come into town for a beer to get reliable internet, but I'm making do. I've been having a great time so far, but very busy. Not only have we been doing lots of activities and exploring, but we've also had quite a bit of reading for our classes so far, so it's not exactly a vacation. The weather though, is perfect. Every day so far has been sunny and in the mid to high seventies, although I got a pretty nasty sunburn at the beach this weekend. On the upside of that though, I did get to spend all of Saturday afternoon playing in the Tasman Sea and making castles on the black sand beach.
Hopefully all is well stateside or wherever you may be. It's certainly lovely down here.

Arrival

I'm here! We got into Auckland yesterday afternoon after many, many hours of traveling. The trip was long and not the most enjoyable experience of my life, but the important thing is that we're here. Last night, in an attempt to get over jet lag by not going to sleep at 3pm, we went out for dinner at a sweet Greek restaurant called the Bar and the Baa and I had my first taste of New Zealand lamb (and New Zealand beer). After dinner, we took the bus into the city and walked around for awhile, then settled into an Irish pub, playing American pop music, serving New Zealand beer. I was totally exhausted, but I think it's a good thing that I gave in and went out.

As soon as we got back to the lodge (a hostel, of sorts), I went to bed for a very, very good sleep. We got up and went to a strawberry farm and had pancakes for breakfast. Today, we're headed to Whanganui to stay at a Quaker retreat center, but not before a very long bus ride. I'm so excited and relieved to be here, even if I'm still pretty tired.

That's all for now, hope all is well wherever you are.

Host Family

Unlike many other abroad programs, we were fortunate enough to find out the names and contact information for our Christchurch homestay families in mid December. This knowledge has really helped relieve some of my anxieties, as it makes things much more familiar. Armed with names, professions, and an e-mail address, I set out to contact the McCormack family.

Just by the little bit of information we got at orientation, I knew that my host parents, Karen and Michael were both teachers (certainly a good sign) with eleven year old twins, Holly and Theo. This is where the coincidences begin. Obviously, I have a fondness for teachers and want to teach elementary school myself someday, and I just so happen to be enamored with eleven year olds in particular, both as campers and as students... now I have them as a temporary brother and sister.

These coincidences are ordinary enough. The organization that arranged our homestays asked us some information about ourselves to help find good matches, and it seemed right off the bat that they had done well. Little did I know at the time just how well.

After e-mailing the McCormacks to introduce myself, a few days later I heard back from both Karen and Holly. This is the crazy part, Karen is originally from my hometown: Bloomington, Indiana. Of all of the things in the world, she just happened to be an elementary (primary) school teacher from right here at home. Her whole family still lives in Bloomington and, as we continued to talk, I realized that her niece, Gabi, was one of my favorite campers when I worked at Kid City.

Michael is a native New Zealander, and Karen has lived there for 18 years, so I still feel like I'm getting the international experience I was hoping for, but there is something comforting knowing that there will, in some ways, be a little bit of home waiting for me on the other side of the world.

Three days

The newly-arrived 2008 is undoubtedly going to be an exciting year. My semester abroad, which for so long has loomed as some abstract excitement for the future, has nearly arrived. I can't say that I'm prepared. On Friday night, my best friends of ten years are driving me up to Indianapolis for a last supper of sorts, actually a nice dinner at Palomino, then dropping me off at the Holiday Inn Express at the airport. Only the best for me, it's sure to be a classy night personified by the low rumble of the hallway ice machine.

After what I'm sure will be a less-than satisfying sleep, I'm getting up at some ungodly hour to go to the airport for a 7:45AM flight to Los Angeles. Why I have to fly out so early, only to arrive in LA for a 14 hour layover, is beyond me, but I'm trying not to dwell. At 1:30AM, EST, our plane leaves from LA to Fiji. Jay, our program leader, warns that the Fijian airline, Air Pacific, makes a habit of playing perpetual tropical tunes on board. It may be a long night. Many, many, many hours later, we'll arrive in Fiji, then it's on to Auckland where we'll stop to rest for a night.

I haven't allowed myself to calculate how many hours of travel this turns out to be, and with the jet-lag that will accompany an 18-hour time change, I'm sure it won't matter all that much. I'll work my way through the rest of the itinerary as it comes up, but it promises to be a busy semester.

I haven't finished packing and I can't what outfit to wear on the plane (this is a bigger deal than it seems, as it will turn out to be one of the few outfits I'll be equipped with for the semester). Between all of the gear required for our wilderness adventures, and other necessary supplies, luggage space is a limited commodity and packing, which has never been my favorite pastime, is proving to be particularly stressful.

All of these little struggles are defining the moment I'm in right now, I'm ready to just be there so that I can let them go. I have never been much of a journal writer, and I'm certainly no "blogger", but this documentation of my travels is something that I've promised people, and myself. Two years ago, my New Year's Resolution was to drink more water. Last year it was to floss regularly. This year, I'm resolving to give this blog a try. If I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of it, I will undoubtedly abandon it, but for the time being, I'll give it a whirl.

After all, everything else is about to change, why should this be any different?