Wait!

I should at least tell you what's in the below pictures, although I know its apparent that there are mountains, etc.

The first is of myself and Merilynn (my American neighbour) not too far from the summit of Mt. John, taken on Saturday. Lake Tekapo is actually that blue due to glacial silt that remains in it.

Then there is me with the lake looking overly tired.

Then there is Laura (my American flattmate--> yes there are a lot of Americans here- they're everywhere) and myself in front of Mt. Cook. Aka Mordor. I just had to reference that, sorry.

Kayak trip #1

So this weekend was the Kayak trip out to Lake Tekapo, in the shadow of Mt. Cook, which is the tallest mountain in NZ. The area is located in the province of Otago although much closer to the western coast and farther north than Dunedin. Given this, the weather was really warm and sunny, and the scenery was fantastic!

On Friday night we headed out from the "Clubs & Socs" building of campus. There were probably 20 people in total from the Kayak club on the trip- we travelled in a white van pulling the world's ghetto-est trailer containing 20 boats, paddles, helmets etc. and some assorted cars. Laura, my flatmate and I went with Mike and Phil, (pronounced Myke and Phull), two lovely Kiwi specimins! Both were tres built- Phil was ex-military, and Mike has been nationally competitive in surfing and swimming for years.

Moving on, it took us more than four hours to get to the campground and lets just say that coordination is a bit of a problem when you're this laid back. In the end we pitched our tents in the darkness, had a bit of a group chat session where the Kiwi's blamed the Americans for the world's problems (I didn't object. In hindsight, this was probably very wise) and then we collapsed to sleep on the nice soft ground (!).

Saturday morning we got up, set up some ghetto gas cookers, made some greasies, and got into gear for kayaking, which was to start at 11am. Why that arbitrary time? Well, folks, we live in a day and age where Lake Tekapo is dammed up and they open the river that leads out of it for 5-8 hours per day depending on electricity needs. So get this: at 11am they opened the river to 30 cubic meters of water/second and the river connecting the two lakes began. Rapids formed quite... rapidly, and we were off. I should also mention that like everything else including driving, kayaking in NZ is an extreme sport. Beginner means that you are OK with Grade 3 rapids, upwellings and generally being upside down in the river stuck inside your kayak, literally panicing. I love the feeling of no control so I was generally down with this- however I don't think Krystle and Laura felt the same way. On the first trip down the river I flipped a couple of times but only swam when practicing it. The best rescue so far for me is the T-rescue. If I get pushed under by a current then I reach up and bang my hands on the side of the boat so that they'll hear me. Then I begin to run my hands along the side of the boat so that another boat will come up and make a T with my boat. At this point I'm supposed to grab the bow and then pull myself up for air and flip my hips over in the correct direction. This is pretty good in practice and works very well in theory. However there was a time or two when nobody was near enough to me to flip me over in time... and after about 30 seconds of floating through rocks and rapids upside down I just bailed out and swam with the kayak.

The weather was absolutely incredible however, and there was a really nice swimming hole on the river by our campsite. We were dropped off for kayaking at the start of the river and basically went downstream until we hit the camp (this took between 2 and 4 hours) when we bailed and just went home. All in all it was pretty fantastic. On Saturday and Sunday later afternoon's little groups of us went on tramps in the area and I scaled Mt. John to have the birds-eye view of Lake Tekapo.

The weekend was really fun too because I've made a lot more Kiwi friends and they all seem pretty swayetaseuhbro! More Speight's Pride of the South! was consumed and good times were had by all. On the way back we stopped to take some photos of Mt. Cook and we also saw some really neat Maiori drawings on some rocks. By Sunday night I was in pain from the sunburn I somehow got on my back. Its not really that pretty. At all. I also have a WETSUIT tan from the kayaking. Nothing says sophisticated like a line halfway down your arms and legs... its the farmer tan to the max!

Today was good and fairly productive- learned about the lac operon. It may have to do with E. coli and catobolites or something. I think it has to do with glucose and lactose. I'm not too sure because I have never learned about the lac operon before. With the obvious exceptions I guess of every microbiologically, genetically, cellular or biochemically based class I've ever taken. In Ethics, we talked about the Environment and who/what really matters ethically, or realistically what should matter ethically and why we don't prioritize the way we should.

Tuesday, tomorrow, is my day of catch up, Microbiology Lab, and Rugby practice. Then after- at about 7pm, Krystle's parents (who have come on vacation here from N. Carolina!) are taking the flat out for dinner, which is very very nice of them. Maybe somebody could come and visit ME!? It does get a little lonely, you know. Nobody here appreciates what continental means and understands that the ocean is very very far away.

Ummm Hi, can I play too?

So, just yesterday, I found out that there are no less than three girls on my club rugby team that are also on the Black Ferns. The Black Ferns are the National Women's Rugby team of NZ. They are the women All Blacks. They won the world cup in 2006, in Edmonton of all places- how is it even possible that we are on the same team? I mean, of course I knew they were good, but I didn't realize just how good they were. Thinking back, their passes are always right on- meaning I can take the ball and pour on the gas, which is probably all I'm good for anyway.

Following my astonishment that you can read all about them on the All Blacks website, I suppose I'll get ready for school.

This weekend the Kayak club (including some flattmates and myself) is going to kayak near Mt. Cook. All weekend there is supposed to be nice weather. I'm very excited, and will update this sometime once I'm back. Don't worry, I do actually have good experience kayaking (unlike rugby!) and there are lots of instructors and lifeguards (hah!) on the trip.

Jessica, hope you're doing good after the peanuts! Evil creatures those Type I hypersensitivity reactions. What has happened is a mass degranulation of mast cells and eosinophils throughout your body at approximately the same time causing massive inflamation of everything, selective vasodilation and other things which I can't remember anymore. My brain is now mush. I think interferon was involved. Help?

Part 2: Pictures!

Here are a few of the pictures that we got on the Pukerangi to Middlemarch trip last weekend. They take forever to upload because wireless here is just not the same. Neither is the ozone layer. Yes kids, all those stories you've heard about the ozone hole are true. Most of me is fine, but i missed sunscreaning a bit of my front and it is brutally purple and it really really hurts. I never ever get burns like this, I'm too yellow! But not here. Here the sun is king and all that polution is starting to really hurt. In the first picture- what is to the best of our knowledge and references is a rock that is used in the Two Towers (!) There were lots of sheep around it, but I guess they just edited them out or cleared the fields. The next two are of what we could see leaning out of the train on the way here. The scenery changes pretty rapidly. At first there were very high moutains (like in BC, not the Rockys) and they were covered with pines and palm trees! Then it evens out and becomes more arid and populated by sheep. The next morning on our trek out to the train again we of course had to take a picture beside the one billboard in Middlemarch. What else but Speights! Pride of the South! We love the Southern Man.

Tramping from Pukerangi to Middlemarch, Otago

As we were told, we ended up in the middle of the wop-wops. It was wonderful.

Saturday morning, we woke up a little groggy from the night before and walked to the train station, which happens to be the second most photographed building in NZ. We walked there via the farmer's market and bought breakfast- my apricot thing was good. We got tickets found the correct train (!) and left the station at about 9:30am. On the trip we marvelled at the great views from the 1920s vintage train along the Taieri Gorge Railway. We stood on the platforms between cars and then found the back of the train. We could see mountain chains and forests and rivers from the train- and also its pretty marvelous that they even built the railroad at all. About 2.513 hours later we arrived at Pukerangi population unknown but <10. style="font-style: italic;">nowhere. Rigor mortis was setting in at 8km for some of us, but I was on my 4th wind by then. I think everyone else may hate me. Approximately 4, 123, 114 sheep were seen (exactly the population of NZ) vs. 5 houses, and 6 cars.

We reached the real highway SH87 and found out that the next 8km were along the main highway. It also should be considered that "main highway" is not really what it sounds like. Immensley proud of the 12km walked so far in high heat and humidity (note I took off my shirt (!)) we trudged for quite some time to see that according to the next sign we had gone only one more km. K, L, and N's spirits dropped. So we did something "down-rayght bahrbaric" (that's Krystle's NC accent) and had peanut butter on a stick. When we got up, I accidently left my camera there. And so it sat, in the middle of the wop-wops making friends with the sheep.

Now because we were beside the highway there actually were occasional cars who honked and waved- I guess we really were coming in from the mountains. Apparently the word spread in the village (pop. 250) that we were approaching. We hobbled into town and stopped for ice cream at the one store aka the General Store where they looked at us suspiciously. The teenage boys (all 3 of them) played loud music from their car. It seemed pretty typical. We wandered around and found 3 places that were full. Finally there was found refuge at Blind Billy's Holiday Resort, which was funnily enough owned by blind Billy. Check-in consisted of handing over very little money and one of us writing down her name on the sheet. His wife was very kind when shortly later we discovered that my camera was missing! If you can believe Blind Billy's wife drove us all 5km back down the road to recover the camera and all is well. It was a close call but I almost left my camera in the middle of the Taieri Gorge in Otago.

So in Middlemarch there is always this "Single's Ball" that is widely attended by people all over the province, such that the town increases in size by about 1000%. We thought this was hilarious and asked Blind Billy's wife about it. She said "Girls. If you saw the bachelors in this town you'd be sick! They're all these dirty sheep shearers and you can't get a hooker in Dunedin that night cause they all come up here!" We then went to the pub for dinner where we ate everything but the kitchen sink, drank some Speight's Pride of the South, and watched some Rugby with the local middleaged sheepshearers, one of whom seemed interested in Nanette. Afterwards, we went back to our bunks and slept a lot.

On Sunday morning we got up to the dull roar of Laura's alarm clock (the girl packed a friggen drug store!) , I went on a run and everyone else limped out of bed. I'm pretty sure they despise me, but I can't help but be awesome (!). We kind of washed ourselves. This is great: the bathrooms at the camp have "Rams" and "Ewes"on the doors. Classy.

Then we had breakfast at the Kissing Gate Cafe where we saw the same people working there as at the bar the night before. It was pretty great! We walked around a bit more, got more ice cream (!) and then took the train back to Dunedin where we passed the 21.5km tramp (up many many mountainous hills!) we did the previous day (in 6.5 hours) in about 20 minutes, which was a little depressing. At that point the conductor pointed out the road we tramped and said "That's the road you take to hike from Pukerangi to MM- its awfully hard. Don't do it." The rest of the trip was the day before's trip in reverse although no less awesome.

We got home after failed attempts at hitchhiking, I made everyone dinner (it was my turn) and yes, they are all still alive. Later, I went to Mass and read a little Microbiology for tomorrow, and am now going to bed. This was quite the adventure and I can't wait for the next one- maybe to the Fiordlands!

Today's lesson.

Last week was my first week of school here in Dunedin. (What? School?). There was major pain and agony, but I survived and prospered in the end. I am taking three papers here, all at the 300 level. They are Marine Ecology, Biomedical Ethics, and Advanced Regulation of Microbial Gene Expression (!). Both the Marine Ecology and The Microbiology have lab components which I am looking forward to (go Team Nerd!). In M.E. we will visit various harbours, fiords, soft shores and hard shores during the labs and even go on a few field trips! It helps that Dunedin is on the ocean, as is most of NZ (or so it seems anyway). The university campus is wonderful and beautiful. It is complete with really old buildings, a quaint river, many bars, and people with funny accents. I'm making some friends in classes pretty quickly as the accent factor has proven to be a point of interest. The classes are all pretty small compared to what I'm used to: 20-50 students, rather than 100+ per class. The profs also baby the students more and give nice handouts before each lecture. This is good because it will ensure maximum slacking capacity.

This week I sampled more of Dunedin bars, hung out with a few more locals, bought some pretty flashy children's size rugby boots and almost (!) learned to surf. High tides and very rough seas prevailed, but Markus says we will not give up and if he has to swim beside me and hold the board steady he will!

On another note, Krystle and I have decided that boys (especially Kiwi boys) are like their cars. We know a kid named Sam- and like his car he is very nice to look at and is intreguing because the handle is broken. However it is not very reliable and neither is he: we cannot find our vodka and suspect him and his antics. On the other hand we have Markus, another friend who is a bit less flaky and much more reliable: he took me to get rugby boots, to random parties, rugby practice and almost surfing at the beach. However, like his car, he is not quite as special to see as is the first case. We almost have a theory here.

And that is today's lesson.

Rugby game!

On Saturday, last weekend, we went to see the Highlanders play the Stormers (South Africa) in the big stadium in Dunedin. It was a good game with the Stormers going down to the Highlanders 24-35. The game was of course sponsored by Speights! Beer of the South. And so there was a lot of it consumed. And also after the game. On Sunday last weekend we went to the beach with a bunch of our Kiwi friends and played some touch Rugby, Cricket and swam in the (very cold) waves. I wore the wetsuit and was glad that I did.