There and Back Again

Wow! In all of the rush and craziness, I have neglected to update this blog over the past two weeks. Now, to update you on my comings and goings.
I am continuing to have a blast over here in New Zealand. Seriously, it has been one of the best experiences of my life for many reasons. I love the country and the people and the place. From an environmental perspective, it is a fantastic place to be, for a significant percentage of New Zealand is conserved or protected land. My classes have been extremely interesting as well; in ethics, we have been transitioning into talking about actual environmental ethics (moving to a biocentric mindset), and we have been reading/discussing through the history of the movement. We are tackling Aldo Leopold's quintessential Sand County Almanac today, which is a fantastic read for anyone that has not read it before. This has caused me to think a lot about my future career path within the environmental sector. Last summer, my internship dealt with appropriate technologies, and I am hoping to continue pursuing that field as well. I have been thinking of marrying these ideas with tackling homelessness and using appropriate technologies to benefit homeless people and bring them into a better relationship with the environment. How to do that? Well, I have some ideas, but I still have more time to let this seed germinate. In my other class, Environmental Politics, I am doing a paper analyzing the relationship between land degradation and poverty, so that should provide me with some good insight. In that class, we are also looking at international relations (IR) theory and thinking/talking about global cooperation, which is something important to consider.
In other news, I have been traveling a lot! The weekend before last, we traversed the North Island a good bit. We drove up SH 1, 3, and 4 to reach Te Kuiti, the location of our first hostel. The drive was gorgeous; we took this one windy valley road that was a real peach to drive. Sunsets seem to always be spectacular in New Zealand, and the one we witnessed from the road was no exception. On the first day, we went on a glowworm caves tour! We rappelled down into a cave, and "black water rafted" (tubed) through these underground caves that have these bioluminescent worms. It was a spectacular sight to see, like nothing that I have ever seen before. The rest of the day was pretty chill; everyone was tired, but the three guys went and did some amateur "caving" and drove around the area. We made significant communal meals that day (there were 9 of us) and called it a night.
On Saturday, we went in and around Rotorua. We went to some hot springs, a geothermal park, and a Maori cultural show and dinner. The dinner was a fantastic buffet! It was a real treat after so many simple meals and PB&J sandwiches. The show and hot springs were fun, so it was overall another fantastic day. Upon arriving at our second hostel, we encountered some Kiwi Karate Punks, and I had a little talk with them about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. But they were cool.
On Sunday, Google Maps failed us. We had Google Maps'ed all of our weekend locations, but it was off on the canoeing outfitter by about 30 km. Therefore, we were late and they left without us. After some negotiations and waiting, they reappeared and took us out in kayaks. It was gorgeous kayaking on the Whanganui River. We did a four hour paddle and loved every minute of it. After we reached the pullout point, we had a little extra time, so I decided to explore. Here is when I made my poorest decision of 2010 so far. I decided to go down some rapids and try to paddle back upstream. Did not happen. I was out of strength, and I flipped out of my kayak and was taken under. Scariest moment of 2010 so far for sure. I do not like the thought of drowning. However, I managed to get to shore after a while and bushwacked back through the forest to let my companions know that I had not died. A jetboat was luckily there to retrieve the kayak, but overall it was an embarrassing and humbling experience.
We drove back afterwards and got back in Wellington at 12:30am.
I am not sure I remember too much about that week at this point, other than I went to Te Papa again (The NZ Smithsonian), we went to this cool "roots" concert, and we all went out dancing one night. It was a good week, but passed quickly, as we left again Thursday morning.
As a program, we went up to Taupo this past weekend. It is situated on Lake Taupo, which is a gigantic caldera. We saw many rocks and much volcanic activity, as was the objective of this "eduational" field trip. Two other activities that we did are of recognizable import. On Friday, we hiked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which is purportedly the nicest day hike in the entire world. And it was. There's Red Crater, the Emerald Lakes, nine ecosystems, Mt. Ngaruhoe (Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings!), and much more. Hopefully, I can find some pictures to post next time, which reminds me. My camera went into a coma when I fell out of my kayak that prior weeekend, but it has been slowly recovering. Hopefully, it will be fully resuscitated this week. The other cool thing I did was skydiving! It was an incredible experience, falling through clouds and seeing the world up there. I tandem jumped with Albert, this German who holds some record for skydiving in the world. It was so much fun, and I got to do it with really good friends, so I loved it.
We returned yesterday, and I was able to go to church for the first time since I've been in NZ! It was beautiful, and I am going to a Bible study this Wednesday. I ate some Baltistani food for dinner (anyone read Three Cups of Tea?), and ended with some Lord of the Rings with friends. Now, it is raining and Wellington is gross, but my spirits soar high.

Off Again!

Wow, another week of classes has come and gone! I am off on a tour of the North Island this weekend, which will include some caving, canoeing, and hot springs. Major update when I get back!

Queen Charlotte Track

What an adventure! This past weekend, three of my friends from the Pacific Program and I hiked the Queen Charlotte Track (71 km) in 3 days! It was rather arduous, but totally worth it; the vegetation and views were gorgeous. I nearly missed my ferry, but a local Kiwi kindly gave me a ride to the ferry terminal in the nick of time. We stayed at a hostel the first night, and then proceeded to water-taxi out to the start of the track the following morning. The hiking was all over the place; occasionally flat, often hilly, but always beautiful. It was a great experience to have and a great way to experience New Zealand. The track basically follows a ridgeline between sounds and around bays, so we got a lot of sweet vistas of the surrounding hills and water. Luckily, I did not run out of food or water. Camping, like always, was a fun and interesting venture; my tent that I took to Guatemala held up just fine, and I slept reasonably well. The weather was great; perfect temperature (except a little cold at nights). Great company, too! Matt, Charity, and Sheri made for excellent fellow backpackers and I enjoyed getting to know each of them better. Getting back was rough; we were all exhausted from the weekend and had to do a presentation for the following morning. We all made it through, though, and I think that I earned a well-deserved nap.

Off to the South Island

Finished my first week of classes! Have some readings and a presentation to do, but that will have to wait. We are off on the ferry to the South Island to hike the Queen Charlotte Track. More pictures and stories to come about this weekend and I return! I hope that all of you have a weekend full of grace and wonder.
tomas

Settling In

Current location: Wellington, New Zealand. What a beautiful city! But before I get to that, I will start at the beginning...
I left the good ole United States on January 7th. En route, I stopped in Salt Lake City to meet up with Jonathan before he goes off on his mission to Brazil for two years. It was a splendid visit: I got to see Jonathan, snow, and eat at Carl's Jr. Then, I flew to LAX before going onto Auckland. I had the distinct pleasure of sitting next to a certain Steph, an Australian who was at the Passion Conference in Atlanta that I had been at in the week preceding my departure. Needless to say, we hit it off a while and had some great conversation. She gave me some good advice about NZ and AU (as I will henceforth refer to New Zealand and Australia for brevity's sake), and I may go visit her and her fiance in Melbourne when I head to Sydney later on. Anyways, we arrived in Auckland at 5:30 am on January 9th NZ time. NZ is very concerned with what comes into the country, so we had to go through "biosecurity," and my tent was tested in a lab for foreign contamination. I cleared, and we then boarded a flight to Wellington at 8:30. I sat next to a rather large Samoan man and inquired after his condition. He had quite the accent.
At this point, I was still feeling pretty okay, having slept a couple hours on the way across the ocean. We bussed up to Victoria University (which is where we are staying; I will refer to it as VUW), specifically Weir House, where our dorms are. It is up on a hill located next to a park and just below the Wellington Botanical Gardens. There are some beautiful vistas nearby, and I will post pictures soon. Most of the first day or two consisted of settling in and acclimating to our locale. It is a gorgeous city; a lot of green space and very safe. We managed to locate a restaurant for lunch the first day, and the owner engaged us in some classic NZ hospitality. So far, I have walked down to the coast, over to a beach, and to "The Warehouse," which is the closest that they have to a Walmart (I only bought chocolate milk there). We then had some orientations about VUW and Wellington. I went to sleep early those first days.
Class! I forgot that I have class on this seemingly carefree vacation. I have two classes while I am in NZ and two when I am in AU. I am taking PST 4176 Environmental Ethics and INTA 4040 Environmental Politics. Both are exceedingly interesting, and I like my professors very much. It is causing me to think a lot; being an engineering major, I have been used to math and science for a while, and now I am shifting back into reading and writing (scary!). We are focusing a lot on climate change and other global issues and policy making, so it will be extremely applicable for my field. I have class from 8 to 11:15 every morning, so then I have the full afternoon ahead of me. So far, I have used it to either do my work, leaving the evenings free, or gone exploring on pretty days.
Weather. It is much warmer than GA, but not too hot! It has ranged from 55 to 75, depending on whether it has rained and how much. I've been wearing my jacket a bit, but it is still rather pleasant.
Food: we have a meal plan at VUW from Monday through Thursday. The head chef is Indian, so we have had a lot of fried rice and curries, but it is all mostly good, except for the desserts, which have been rather disappointing aside from the chocolate cake last night.
I am looking for somewhere to volunteer perhaps while I am in Wellington. I passed by a Compassion House & Soup Kitchen the other day, so I might go explore that soon.
I think that is enough for now. That brings us up to speed, and I will record some of my more specific observations in the posts to come.
Cheers,
Tomas

Arrived in New Zealand!