Ethan's Semester In the South Pacific: Next Stop: New Zealand

True to form, I’ve taken another week plus some to do my next update. In the time since, I spent a couple more days in Brisbane, endured a long travel day, spent a week in New Zealand for Spring Break with my dad, and now I’m on my own until the rest of the group flies into Christchurch, New Zealand late tonight to continue on with the rest of the trip. I thought in this entry that I would share some of my impressions of New Zealand and talk about the rest of my time in Australia, and then I’ll write one another one about spring break in New Zealand.

First Impressions of New Zealand:

1. Of the six countries I have spent time in throughout my lifetime, New Zealand is by far the most beautiful. I’m convinced that it’s the most beautiful country in the world. One of my favorite parts of the past week was just driving everywhere. No matter where we were (and we definitely covered the majority of the South Island), scenery was amazing and still very diverse. Te northern part was very tropical and rain-forest like with water that looked like the Florida key. The south has “The Southern Alps” which looked a lot like the Rockies (and probably the Alps too) and had big beautiful natural lakes everywhere with different shades of blue in each. Some looked like the water in the keys, while some looked like the color of the Pacific Ocean, and some were turquoise. Then, there was the Milford Sound in Fiordlands National Park and I can’t even come with a remote comparison to how incredible that was.

2. Everyone is extremely friendly, even nicer than in Australia. Everyone at the various hotels have been very accommodating including one lady who did my laundry for me at no charge.

3. Food is sub-par. I might have to say the thing I miss the most about home is being able to get a moderately priced decent meal, i.e. Chick-fil-A, Willy’s, Panera, Mexican food…All food is very expensive and is mostly English cuisine (which is not very good).

4. New Zealand feels very unpopulated. Christchurch is the biggest town we’ve been to and it couldn’t be any bigger than Sandy Springs and Queenstown is the second biggest and it seems like a town you’d see by a ski resort out west. Everything else is very rural, so much so that even major interstates are two-lane roads and have one-lane bridges.

5. The driving on the left side of the road thing still throws me off. I did, however, get to have my first experience behind the wheel which was definitely a thrill, but easier to get the hang of than I thought.

And back to Brisbane:

So we arrived at our hotel in Brisbane after our drive from Lady Elliot Island in the late afternoon. Having wrapped all of our modules until spring break, we decided to go out. I was pretty tired going into the night, so I knew it wouldn’t be that big of a night for me. We went out to eat at pizza place where we had eaten the last time we were in Brisbane. (When you find a moderately priced place with decent food, you need to just stick with it). We all split bottles of wine and then hit the local hotspot, the Down Under, full of skeazy old men and people unfamiliar with deodorant and complete with Billboard Hits from 2007-2010. (It is actually pretty fun despite my harping on all the negatives). As predicted, I went in pretty early around 11:15 to be exact to rest up for class in the morning.

The next day didn’t see too much action. I started the day with my Brisbane ritual of waking up early to go across the street for free Wifi and stopping for breakfast in the café next door to the hotel. We had class at 8:30 for what was technically our fourth and final Anthropology lecture. I say “technically” because pretty much everything we do in the field has something to with Anthropology. It was a three-hour lecture and definitely tough to sit through seeing as we had been in a classroom that long in over 2 weeks. Afterwards, we got a couple hours off for lunch before re-convening to see “the charismatic fauna of Australia” over at the park. It was actually a pretty cool presentation. I got to touch a crocodile, a python, and an owl, to name a few. You can see pictures of everything we saw on my Facebook page. We were there probably an hour and then went back to the hotel for a little before going to dinner a little later. That night, we stayed in and studied for our Anthropology exam the following morning. To be honest, it was definitely nothing like studying for an exam at school. I basically read over my notes a couple time and that was that.

The next morning, I did my Brisbane ritual obviously and then went to take the exam at 8:30. It really wasn’t that bad, only 30 multiple choice, 10 matching, and an essay. Don’t make fun of my workload, but our “essay” was for us to draw a picture our dream home in 30 years with colored pencils and to write down 5 words that described it. After the stressful exam, we had the day off. I had to take some time to catch up with some home business which took most of my afternoon so I had to skip the save the whales protest that everyone went to, but it felt good to be productive. That night, we had our Good-bye Australia dinner and then went out. We attempted to try to do something other than the Down Under, but it was inevitable. We tried a couple places, but ultimately found ourselves back in our scummy comfort zone of a bar known as the Down Under.

The next day, I awoke alone with everyone having already departed to go on their respective spring breaks. I enjoyed sleeping in, but my flight wasn’t until 5 PM so I had some time to kill. I had to check out by 10 AM, so my plan was to wait as long as possible, then go over to the Wifi park and use the Internet until my battery died. Because my four-year-old computer is so awesome, it lasted all of an hour and a half. So I bought my train ticket and headed to the airport. I would’ve explored Brisbane if I had been carrying a 50 lb suitcase and 20 lb backpack, so I decided it made the most sense to just go to airport. I ultimately arrived at the airport with about 4 hours to kill before my flight. Good news was there was free Wifi at the Brisbane Airport, Bad news was my laptop was dead and there weren’t any outlets. Therefore, I killed my phone by using the Internet the whole time. Finally, at 4:15 I got to board my Air New Zealand flight 804 with non-stop service to Christchurch. After the three hour flight, I arrived in New Zealand around 11 PM due to the time change. More good news/bad news: Good news- customs was empty/Bad news- I had to wait 30 minutes while they cleaned Australian dirt off my shoes. It was kind of a nice free shoe-cleaning service, but I was really in no mood to wait for 30 minutes. Finally, I cleared customs and met my dad right outside the airport (very different to Atlanta with no police officers pushing you along when you slow to less than 15 mph). It was definitely great to see family and we headed back to the hotel, caught up, and went to bed to rest up for the fun week ahead.

So this was the first update of the two that I owe. I’m exhausted so I’m going to call it quits for the night. Look for the next update tomorrow (or later today depending on your time zone perspective). Night Night.