Orientation

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Alas I got back on the I am actually already in Dunedin but I wanted to catch myself up a little bit and let you all know what I have been up to.

I arrived in Auckland the morning of July 27th at 6am after traveling the long 22 hours from Boston, to LA to Auckland, and loosing an entire day of my life.... weird?

We met the rest of our Butler Orientation group at the airport and piled on a bus to drive an hour north west of Auckland to the YMCA Shakespere Lodge. It is a working farm, and old farm house camp on thousands of acres overlookin the bay and the city of Auckland directly across from the bay.

In stead of getting set up at the camp and crashing for the afternoon, we were kept wicked busy as our leaders tried to convince us that the best way to get over jet lag was to stay up for as long as possible! I dont think we beleived them but we did it anyways... and boy was it worth it.

We unpacked a little (which consisted of throwing our sleeping bags on bunk beds and throwing all of our shit around a tiny room with 6 other girls in it to try to find out waterproof shoes and bathing suits)...

We learned very quickly that the custom in New Zealand is to eat 5 times a day! Breakfast, Kai Time (which is like morning tea), Lunch, kai time (or afternoon tea), and then dinner!.

The rest of the orientation consisted of an amazing Sea Kyacking Tour around the islands and a ship reck.... we then were taken to Wiera which is a natural hot springs with a waterpark built on top of it. Probably one of the coolest things ive ever seen. There are different temperature hot tubs (one with a hug movie screen in it!) and a bunch of water slides.... oh and Wooy's bar right across the street.

Day two of orientation we went on a mountain biking trip around the farm, the hills here are seriously intense.. i almost died trying to peadle up some of them. But the views from the top were incredible.

On the next day we all packed up around stuff and piled back onto the bus to drive to the marae where we would particpate in a traditional maori's welcome ceremony, meals and dance for the next 48 hours. The experiance was unlike anything you could experiance anywhere else in the world. It truely was a once in a life time experiance. We were welcomed onto the marae, gave our welcome speaches and sang the star spangled banner and amazing grace, in return to their traditional maori songs.

The 40 of us all slept in their temple on matresses on the floor. I dont think ive ever shared a bunk with that many people! The head woman of the marae shared her peoples history with us before we had dinner and then of course played some rugby!

The sunrise the next morning along the river was amazing....

Next stop DUNEDIN! I'll try to write again soon!

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