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Published: August 27th 2006
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Railway Campus
My home in Auckland, The Railway Campus, is 10 minutes from campus and 15 minutes from Queen Street - where the Boobs on Bikes parade was a recently held (self-explanatory). There are signs inside the grand foyer of the building saying: "this is not the railway station," just in case anyone gets confused. I am taking two geology papers (classes) - structure, and geology and biota of New Zealand, one civil and environmental engineering paper - engineering hydrology, and one philosophy paper (with Megan!) - intro to symbolic logic. My geology lecturers are awesome, and there is a girl from UCD Geology in my NZ Geology class named Natalie. I met Ouadhah (pronounced water in a Jersey accent) in my hydrology lecture on the first day of class. He just finished a semester abroad in England and befriended me right away because he was so thankful to the people who did that for him in England. That Saturday night, the 22nd of July, he picked up Megan, Annie and me (after we finished watching a All Blacks rugby match and eating fish and chips at the Strand, yay!) and drove us to his fellow civil engineer Simon’s 21st (birthday party). There I met a lot of Ouadhah and Simon’s friends: Sarah, Pete, Ben, Alice, Frazer, Jake, James, Sam, Chris, and Ross (who’s married at 24…sketchy, but kind of cute too). We had a great time at the party and then went into town, near Queen Street in an area called the Viaduct, which is
view across Mechanics Bay from Fred Amber lookout in Parnell
Megan and I went on a walk on July 22nd from the Railway Campus through Parnell. The ports of Auckland are in the foreground of this picture, then on the peninsula across Mechanics Bay Devonport is on the left and Northhead on the right. Rangitoto is in the background. on the water. We ended up at a very crowded bar with a great live band and lots of dancing.
The next weekend, 28th-30th of July, all of the Butler students piled onto a bus traveling south of Auckland, and the Bombay hills to Huntly and Rangiriri. Groups of 4 of us went with different families to spend the weekend helping them out on the farm, and learning more about country life in New Zealand. Samantha, Chris, Matt and I stayed with the Hendriks on their dairy farm. We played with the kids, watched them milk the cows and feed the calves, ate wonderful food, slept a lot and I went to Hamilton with Lorna for Melanie’s (15 years old) netball game on Saturday the 29th of July. One calf was born while we were there; we saw it about one hour after it was born trying to walk around. It was still soaking wet and steam was rising from it (whoa…not looking forward to giving birth). The family was very welcoming and interested in our lives, beliefs, and customs.
Megan, Chris (the Kiwi, not Butler Chris), and Kyle (Chris the Kiwi’s flat mate from Denver) drove to
Meg and me
We are standing on a bridge on our walk through Parnell. Chris’s parents house near Whitianga (usually pronounced fit-ee-ang-uh) on the Coromandel Peninsula, east of Auckland on Friday August 4th. We ate a delicious dinner with his parents, had two desserts, played monopoly NZ edition by the fire, and slept at his log cabin meets Pottery Barn house (mm).
The rest of the weekend was really fun, but the weather was horrible. We woke up early in the morning so we could make it to Hot Water Beach at low tide. Unfortunately, due to the storm that had moved in overnight, when we arrived at the beach the tide had already risen past the area where you can dig to get hot water (then you’re supposed to sit in these pools of hot water that form on the beach…so cool, well…hypothetically).
We had to give up on the beach, but we headed to Cathedral Cove immediately after, which was gorgeous. I did my geology project (geoflyer! explaining the geological features of the area) on the Cove, how it formed, the type of rock structures found, etc. I took a thousand and one pictures - many of which you can see right here, but I tried to leave out some
Ouadhah and me
At Simon's 21st at the Yacht Club on Mechanics Bay (photo courtesy of Annie) of the ones of rocks, because I realize most of you are not as interested as I am in them. While we were at Cathedral Cove, it was like an hour-long walk to get there from where we parked, it began to rain. This proved to be a theme of the weekend. It rained for the rest of the day, through the night, and into the next day…strong enough that some of the roads washed out and getting home proved a bit challenging, but we’ll get there. After Cathedral Cove, we returned home to Chris’s house for lunch with his extended family - it was his sister’s birthday. They were all nice and beautiful (he has one of those oddly attractive families) and we had the best cake I’ve had in months. Mm….it was fantastic. Chocolate and orange liquor and frosting and just heaven in a pastry. I’m still thinking about that cake and it made me crave chocolate zucchini cake (which is still even better).
After lunch, we went to Shakespeare’s Cliff, which provided a gorgeous, but rather misty, view of the bay and the islands within it. New Zealand is as beautiful as you’ve all heard, and
American Girls
Annie, me and Megan at Simon's 21st. (photo corutesy of Annie) all of the guide books underestimate rather than over.
That evening we returned to Chris’s house for dinner, after which we decided to make a second foray to Hot Water Beach. It was nine o’clock, dark, cold (it’s winter here) and pouring rain. It was a rather traumatic experience, but it was fun as (hehe, Kiwi term, means really). So basically it went like this: four of us in togs and raincoats dashing across a deserted beach at night, pelted by semi-freezing rain, our feet greeted by icy waves and then…no hot water. Shockingly enough, seeing as the storm had only worsened rather than lifted, the tide was once again too high, and we could not dig holes in search of hot water. It was so much fun though and I will never forget it. Megan kept thinking about Jaws and glancing over her shoulder for fear of Freddy and Jason, so I know she won’t either.
The next day we went out for a really wonderful breakfast (blueberry pancakes and bacon, oh my god bacon! - Megan), and explored the small but cheerful town of Whitianga. We also saw Chris’s family’s boat, which sleeps nine and is
Bar on the viaduct
Ben and me as we are leaving a bar on the viaduct where we went dancing after Simon's 21st. (photo courtesy of Annie) a truly awesome catamaran. Unfortunately, seeing as it was still raining, we got soaked in this pursuit (ugh, wet jeans). We returned to Chris’s house and warmed up in front of the fire, then left to attempt to drive home despite the washed out roads. We made it, but it was a good four-hour drive.
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