Crikey! It AppearsThat We've Got Another Blog Post!

G'Day, mates! Australians don't really say that...but let's just pretend. It's been a few days since I got home from Sydney, but since my PARENTS arrived (!!!!!!), I was a bit preoccupied. Now that they have heartlessly abandoned me in favor of traveling around the South Island, I have time to bury my sorrows in blogging. So enjoy.

I flew out of Chch at 6:35am on Monday morning. I had homework that I needed to finish before I left, so as to not have to work on it while traveling, so I wisely decided to stay up all night before my flight and bang it out. I managed to achieve my goal, but I was then completely exhausted. After making it to my gate with no trouble, I realized that in a fit of hazy tiredness, I had forgotten to bring my camera. Just....why. After flipping out about that for a good twenty minutes, I forced myself to get over it. My flight was smooth, and I landed in Sydney around 7:30 local time (they are two hours ahead of Chch). I navigated my way to our hotel fairly easily, taking the train downtown and wandering only a little bit more than necessary before locating my destination! Only problem: the room wasn't ready yet. So I dropped my stuff and headed out to explore.

I have never fallen in love with a place so quickly. Sydney is the only city I've ever traveled to fully alone, with no one waiting to meet me, but I instantly felt comfortable and safe. I grabbed a map from an information kiosk and made my way down to Circular Quay, which is right on the water. There I had my first sighting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House--both incredibly breathtaking!! Being camera-less was actually kind of nice, because I focused on the moment instead of focusing on getting a good shot. I sat on a bench overlooking the water for awhile, and soaked up the lovely sun that was beating down on me. Lots of people stopped and asked me to take their pictures, so I met and chatted with people from all over the world (however briefly). Then I walked around the downtown for awhile longer, went to a Starbucks and treated myself to a frappucino, and promptly fell asleep in one of their armchairs. I was exhausted, after all.

Finally, later that afternoon, I went back to the hotel and took a real nap in a real bed. I ventured out later in the evening for dinner, then went back to the room to await my Aunt Susan's arrival! It was so so great to see her, and we stayed up far too late giggling and gabbing about things we wanted to see and do. The next morning we set of for Circular Quay again, this time with camera in hand! Because I had explored this area thoroughly the day before, we barely needed maps!

First stop along the way: Herald Square! We were so lucky to have 70 degree weather that day. It sure felt good to break out the shorts after a few chilly weeks in Christchurch.

We kept seeing all kinds of weird sculptures and things around the city, only to learn that they were being set up in preparation for VIVID, a light/art festival. This guy is made out of traffic cones!

First sighting of the Opera House!! I can't even count how many pictures we took of this baby, but I'll try to cut down for your sakes.

Sydney Harbour Bridge! Also a ferry named Charlotte.

What a beaut. Fun fact: the roof shell of the Opera House contains four times the amount of steel that was used for the bridge. Think about that as you look at the size of this thing!

The skyline was feeling a bit neglected.

Luna Park! The face is creepy, I'll admit, but I still wanted to ride the ferris wheel soooo badly. Unfortunately, it's very infrequently open.

Another cool sculpture. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

After wandering around by the water, we decided to explore the Royal Botanic Gardens, located just past the Opera House. It was so beautiful, especially because you still get amazing views of the harbour! There were countless numbers of people working out, running, reading--just being generally active in and around the park. Yet another reason why I fell in love with Sydney--it's really young, alive, and active. Aunt Susan and I enjoyed a fairly extensive walk through the gardens before our tour of the Opera House.

I was overwhelmed with the urge to climb this tree. After the fact we learned that it was a New Zealand Christmas tree! Clearly my NZ senses are bomb.

Aunt Susan in the umbrella tree!

Cool rock/cement sculpture thing. It creates habitats for bugs, birds, and bats.

The Government House within the Botanic Gardens.

This poor guy fell over several years ago but miraculously is still growing. They can't raise it back up, though, because the trunk would likely snap. So it just sits as this cool sideways tree now.

OKAY. This post is getting lengthy so I will try to speed things along. Next up came our Opera House tour! It was really cool to go inside and see the theaters. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures in the actual halls, but the rest of the inside was still beautiful. The Opera House was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon as a result of a worldwide design contest in 1953. Interestingly, Utzon's groundbreaking design was initially thrown into the "no" pile by the original group of judges, but a later addition to the group insisted on viewing said pile, and pulled the unique design from the bunch. It took about 20 years to complete, mainly because although they loved his unprecidented design, no one actually knew how to build it. 

One thing that particularly set Utzon's design apart was that he envisioned the two halls side by side, whereas almost every other submission had one in front of the other. Utzon's design allows both halls to enjoy stunning harbour views. Genius! Also, note the perfect bird swoop in this photo. I mean.

The roof shell is made up of 1,056,006 ceramic tiles. The original budget for the project was 7 million dollars. It ended up costing 102 million.

According to our tour guide, Lyn, the roof shell is a stand alone structure. It's made of concrete and steel, and if it could be done, the whole thing could be lifted off the building and both parts would stay intact. 

All of the wood inside is either white birch or Australian eucalyptus, seen here.

Me singing on the Opera House steps. Casual.

After the amazing Opera House tour, Aunt Susan and I walked along the water past the botanic gardens and found a good spot to watch the sunset. It was so beautiful and surreal to watch the sky light up behind the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. I'll try and be selective about the photos.

Dynamic Duo! I've got a pretty cool Aunt.

Okay, this was the busiest day by far, so I will speed through the rest. Hang in there team, there are cute animal pictures coming your way!

The next day we went to Paddy's market and got our shop on! We found ton of souvenirs for insanely cheap, then ventured into Chinatown for some lunch! I had delicious sweet and sour pork, while Aunt Susan had a less than delicious prawn mush thing. But we went into a Chinese supermarket afterwards and found all sorts of goodies, so that kind of made up for it.

Welcome to Chinatownnnn

After Chinatown, we walked around downtown and looked at some of the older buildings. It also started to rain, so that was a bit of a bummer. But it sort of worked out I suppose, since we were doing mostly inside stuff at that point.

Awesome clock inside the Queen Victoria Building, which now acts as the fanciest mall I have ever set foot in.

Creepin on wedding photos in the Queen Victoria. 

Town Hall, built in honor of Queen Elizabeth's golden jubilee

Gorgeous ceiling inside Town Hall

Also home to the largest organ in the southern hemisphere--8600 pipes!

The next (and final) day was D-day, or should I say K-day: KOALAS. As you may have guessed by my koala pillow pet (named Sherman), I LOVE koalas. So we ventured to Sydney Wildlife Adventures for some animal interactions. We saw lots of cool things, but I was on a mission. When I finally turned the corner and spotted one, I literally yelled, "KOALA! KOALA! KOALA!" and scared a family behind me. Oops. But I was so excited. 

LOOK AT THAT NOSEEEEE.

AHHHHH. These are the males, sleeping away. So. Cute.

We also saw a prehistoric beast, aka a four meter crocodile, that was placed into captivity after people's dogs started going missing. He also had to be isolated because he killed his two former girlfriends, according to the zoo guy. No big deal.

Yikes.

Then we got to see Aunt Susan's favorite--kangaroos! Two had joeys, and they were SO CUTE. 

Hehehehe. Oh hey.

Kanga

WITH THE CUTE LITTLE JOEY SAYING HI OMG TOO CUTE

More koala pictures...how did those get in here? Hehe. These are the females now. Fun fact: Although this lady looks drenched and miserable, she's not! Koalas have two layers of fur, and the outer one can act as a raincoat, so this gal feels warm and dry as can be! I can't comment on the miserable part, however.

That was pretty much my face for about two hours straight.

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh I want one.

Okay. The next day we flew back to Christchurch, and pretty much relaxed after our busy Australian adventures. The next morning, my mom and dad arrived!! It is wonderful to have them here, and also really weird to have my two worlds colliding. Although they were jetlagged, they were troopers, and managed to make it through an afternoon of walking around Chch before hitting the wall. We walked through Hagley Park, had lunch at the Boat Shed, saw Re:Start container mall and Cathedral Square, and then drove out to Victoria Park to watch the sunset. A pretty busy day for weary travelers! 

We're pretty happy to be in the same place, especially since that place is New Zealand.

Amazing sunset driving back to my flat. I'm gonna miss this place.

You made it to the end. Cheers!

Fun Facts/Updates:

-I used many fun facts in my captions, so I will keep these brief. I have a crap ton of school work to do this week in preparation for my 10 day trip with my fam bam, so I will be very busy. But it's totally worth it, and once I finish, I'll be one final away from finishing my Junior year! Feels pretty crazy.

-Special shout out to Mrs. Schulz's third grade class, who sent me some awesome letters! Thank you all so much, I really loved reading them! Sadly, as far as I can tell, P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way is not a real location...believe me, I looked. I'm glad you guys have been enjoying my blog and my pictures, and I hope you make it to New Zealand some day :)

-I come home in 25 days. I truly cannot comprehend this.

LONG Overdue: Raro Part II

Kia Ora, friends. I have gotten several complaints about my lack of posting--tough crowd! But it's true that it's been forever, and I'm sure you are dying to hear about the rest of my time in Rarotonga. So I won't keep you in suspense any longer. (Also this is really long but I don't want to do three parts....so enjoy.)

The day after the opening festivities was Sunday, so we headed to church. It was super hot, so the required shoulder-covering outfits we were wearing were a bit stifling, but we survived. The service was cool, mainly because the singing was awesome. Everything was in Maori except for the last song, and the congregation immediately harmonized. It was beautiful. But also a little disappointing, because I really wanted to sing along, and it was pretty much impossible to do so. However, the opening hymn was called "Tapu, Tapu, Tapu," which was VERY familiar. Any guesses?? I'll put the answer at the bottom so you have some time to think about it! (Come on, Schulzes!) By far my favorite part of the service was when the pastor randomly put on aviators...and proceeded to preach his entire sermon in them. I nearly died. And I am still in mourning that I couldn't snap a picture of it.

There it is, the Cook Islands Christian Church! There are actually a zillion churches on Rarotonga. I even spotted a few Latter-Day Saints and even a Ba'hai worship space, but the predominant religion by far is Christianity.

The group all gussied up and ready for the after church refreshments! Which were soooooooooo good. So good.

The gang at the beach right outside the church. Love these crazy cats!

After church, we headed to The Dive Centre to get geared up for snorkeling! I was really looking forward to this, because my last experience snorkeling was a bit tainted, so I was ready to redeem it from the bad memory zone. After an excruciatingly long talk about marine life and conservation (very important and interesting, but sooo long), we finally got fitted for fins and masks and headed out! The lagoon that we explored was really shallow, so it was cool to see everything up close. This also gave us the ability to dive down and investigate things on the ocean floor/peek under coral, etc. I personally saw tons of different fish, but the names I remember are box fish, puffer fish, sea cucumbers....and that's it. Yeah, it's been three weeks. BUT I stole some pictures from people's underwater cameras, so there's that. We also saw Gill from Finding Nemo, which of course made me a happy camper.

Rainbow things! 

A school of striped things!

Oh heyyy. The fish are really friendly and sort of follow you around, because they're used to tourists feeding them. This is actually really bad for the reef, because then the fish don't eat the bacteria on the coral and the coral dies. BAD TOURISTS.

This baby is the most aggressive fish in Raro. If you piss it off, a little horn thing pokes out of the top of it and it charges at you. Common theme of marine life: If it's beautiful or hideous, it's poisonous. 

Needle fish things! I should've written these names down...

This is a fishbowl. A huge group of fish like this congregate and then freeze. They literally aren't moving at all. It's so surreal!

Proof that I was in fact snorkeling. You can tell by the arm full of bracelets. Stunning photo, no?

After about two hours of snorkeling, we started to get cold, so we headed up to the beach to dry off. It was so fun to have the whole group together just hanging out. The guys broke out the frisbee and a bunch of us joined in as the sun went down. Tough life. We then finished the day with dinner at Coco Putt, which is a minigolf place. I had low expectations, imagining crappy concession food that would likely be served at an American minigolf course. But I was totally wrong. Yet again, we were served fresh, traditional food, and it was delicious and amazing. We also had a game of mini golf...and I came in fifth. Out of six. Meh.

Here is the now infamous picture Sam took of me outside of the Coco Putt. It still cracks me up that the stunning scenery is part of a crummy minigolf course.

Coco Putt!

The next day we had our visit to the Takitumu Primary School. We arrived in the morning, and the kids were itching with excitement. It was a really incredible experience, but a little part of me always struggles with visits like these, because I feel like a tourist in their lives. But a really cool moment happened before we even went in. We were lining up outside and the kids were singing--and it took me a moment to notice what they were singing: "This is the Day," which is a song I sang every morning in first grade. It was crazy to think how far that song had reached. It was a cool moment. Anyway, the kids sang for us, which was really cute, and then the sixth graders taught us some Maori (like "my name is ____", basic things). We also sang the Cook Islands National Anthem, which Eunice had secretly made us practice beforehand so that we wouldn't look like idiots.

The school from the outside--try getting things done with that view!

Adorable preschoolers performing for us. The song was about transportation.

Bebeeeees.

After that, we had free time with the kids.

For most people, that ended up looking a little something like this.

But I noticed this cutie sitting off to the side all by herself, so I went and talked to her. Her name is Jette, and her family moved from Wellington about four years ago. My heart just immediately went out to her, because she got picked on for being white and missed New Zealand a lot. It was hard for me to say goodbye to her.

                                                       

                  This is Jette's dog, Taringa, who happened to follow her to school that day. She is the cutest puppy ever. Incidentally, "taringa" means "ears" in Maori. I wonder how she got that name...

After the school visit we headed to Muri beach, which is where the painfully beautiful beach pictures I promised come in. This may be the most stunning beach I've ever seen. The sand was white, the water a perfectly clear turquoise...just unreal. We had about four hours to just relax and explore the lagoon, and it was lovely. 

Paradise.

Panoramic Paradise. Oh hay.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.

The boys being awesome and building a sandcastle. The water side was fortified with rocks so that the waves wouldn't destroy it. Can you tell two of them are engineers?

Lounging. I am on the far left if that matters. Also notice the dogs...EVERYWHERE.

The next day was probably the hottest we experienced on the trip, around 85 degrees. Luckily, that was the day we were schedule to do the cross island hike! Convenient. Anyway, we met up with our guide, a super old school guy named Rua Henry, around 10:30 am, and set off. The hike was basically a climb (joy), so lots of people were struggling with the heat. Rua Henry somehow overheard that I was carrying the group's first aid kit in my backpack, and he wouldn't hear of it, so he basically ripped my backpack off and insisted on carrying it the whole way. So that was interesting. He also kept making the guys stop and allow the girls to pass first, which was unnecessary. I told you he was old school.

 

This gives you a taste of what we did for 2.5 hours! It was pretty darn cool, though.

This is one of eight river crossings that we made. Rua Henry kept running ahead so he could give his hand to all the girls.

View from The Needle!

Me retrieving my backback from Rua Henry. Thanks, bro! (It took me a few days to get the sweaty man smell out. Blegh)

The Needle! Second highest point on the island.

Robbie (fellow Minnesotan!), Deanna, and I chillin' at the top!

After the cross island hike we were all pretty wiped, so we went back to the beach for a bit of down time. Eunice had also planned for Emily and her cousin to teach us about traditional paddling, and when we arrived there were two canoe things waiting for us. Unfortunately we didn't get any context or explanation of technique/history, but we did get to try it out, so that was fun!

The canoes!

Yep. I had fun.

The next day, we started with two lectures on biodiversity and climate change. Both interesting, but I was just itching to get outside. After the "class" portion of the morning, we headed over to Matutu Brewery for a tasting and tour, which was fascinating. These two guys moved from New Zealand and just decided to start up a local company. We learned all about the process, got to sample three different brews, and tour their tiny facility. It was incredible and made me want to try brewing beer at home (which probably won't happen, but at least I have a much deeper appreciation for the process now).

Their super high tech ordering system. This is literally how they do it! Amazing.

The main area--the bottles are from all over the world. Fun fact: when they were doing research on what kind of beer they wanted to brew, they traveled to the Summit Brewery in Minnesota! So cool.

The bottling station, where each one is filled BY HAND. Nuts.

Their facility. Another fun fact: the name, Matutu, means "strength" in Maori. They wanted something that was significant but also easy for tourists to pronounce.

After the tour we had down time. 

Next and final day! We had a totally free day, so I opted to spend it at the beach (shock). Sam and I had a glorious few hours reading and basking in the sun before getting ready for the last big event, the progressive dinner. This involved visiting three different family homes and eating traditional food. It was pretty cool, although the first location is where I had my encounter with the demonic fire ants. 

The first location! Pretty interesting family, because the husband was Maori and the wife was Irish.

This is the family from the second home. The host explained that there were ten siblings and that they had all come to Raro the week before because their mother (in the wheelchair) had been near death. They all sang for us and the grandmother was clapping and singing and I bawled. So that was fun.

Da ladiez (well, some of us). Sasha and I are both wearing 100 Way Skirts, so you can get an idea of how they work! And what mine looks like, I suppose.

WOO. Mostly done! That night a bunch of us went to one of the three clubs on the island and danced the night away. It was a great time. Ironically, the club was called "Rehab." Lolz.

Fun Facts/Updates:

Here are some Rarotonga specific ones first:

-The maximum speed limit on the island is 55kph.

-There is only one stop sign on the entire island, and it's not on the main road around.

-There are two buses on the island: one runs clockwise and one runs counterclockwise.

-The puffer fish only "puffs" seven times in its whole life. Scientists speculate this is because of the stress it causes its body; it's basically like having a stroke.

-70% of Cook Islanders live abroad, and 60% of those live in New Zealand.

-Answer to the trivia question: The hymn was "Holy, Holy, Holy."

-Since Rarotonga, I have been super boring. Mostly because of the nonexistence of my bank account, but also because three weeks in a row of traveling is a lot. So it's been nice to have some down time, although I'm trying to do something this weekend. Time is fleeting, after all.

-Also since Rarotonga, I was recommended for an awesome internship with Teach For America, so a ton of my time was taken up completing the application for that. I'm really excited and praying that I will move forward in the process. Here's hoping!

-ONLY 11 DAYS UNTIL I AM IN AUSTRALIA!! And only 16 until Mark and Nancy arrive. What is my life?! I am so lucky.

-Recently, and today especially, I have been overwhelmed with a lot of emotions. Laurel and Swensie are both home already. And although I miss home and Gustavus and choir and Greeters and my roomies more than I can say, I'm also reminded of how incredibly lucky I am to be here and to have the experiences I'm having. It will be over before I know it, so I'm trying to soak it all up.

Anywho. I probably won't update again until Aus, unless I manage to throw a trip together for the weekend. But I tried to include lots of pictures to make up for the lull. 

Cheers!