Pacifika Festival

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I went to the Pacifika Festival this weekend in Auckland. This year was the celebration of 20 years. There was music, food, arts, and dance from 10 different cultures (Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Cook Islands, Tokelau, Niue, Tahiti, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Aotearoa ). When we got there I was not expecting it to be as big as it was. It was spread out throughout the entire park. We were there for abour 4 hours. We saw many performances in each of the different culture locations. Along with many vibrant art tents, jewlery tents, and delicious smelling food tents. While I was there I bought watermelon ice cream. Which is simply a half of watermelon with a few scopes of ice cream on the top. (see picture) They also had the same thing with a pineapple as well. We also met up with Paul (one of our AustraLearn leaders) there and he took us around the festival a bit and bought us each a pork bun. It was very delicious. The weather at the festival was cloudy so it got a little chilly at times, but it wasn't too bad. Of course on our bus ride back home the sun came out! 😞

Earlier this week I went to a wine tasting event. We got to try five different New Zealand wines. One of my friends wrote down the different kinds we tried so I will get those to you at a later date. The first two wines we tried were white wine, and the last three were red. The first one ended up being my favorite and I wasn't particularly fond of the red wines at all. In fact, Meredith and I didn't like the last one we had, so we decided to chug it. (we felt bad wasting it) The professor of the wine making class was there to explain the each kind. He told us which part of the island they were made, the process of each, and the price. Overall, it was a fun event and I enjoyed trying the different kinds of wine. Also this past week, I went to a movie and pizza event. The movie that played was called 'Boy.' A New Zealand film. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't my kind of movie so I probably wouldn't watch it again. The pizza here is different then at home too. I feel like a lot of the kinds here have BBQ sauce on them. Which I probably never would have tried at home, but it's actually really good. I have yet to see a simple pepporoni pizza. Other than that, I've basically just been hanging out and reading for my classes.

Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather back home in the U.S.

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Photos

Watermelon Ice Cream
(sorry for the picture quality)