Week 11: A Wormy Weekend
- Bryce Bozadjian
- Sep 19, 2017
- 2 min read
Haere mai!
This past week was filled with FaceTiming a bunch of friends from back home – shout out to Ellen at Ithaca, Taylor (and briefly Owen) at ASU, and Joy/Court/Alex at ASU! It was good to catch up. Other friends, feel free to FaceTime me as well, I want to keep in touch! :)
Thursday was a uni-wide holiday called Kingitanga day (supposed to be a macron on the first "i" but I can't figure out how to add it), celebrating the Maori people. I asked around and no one seemed to know what it specifically was in celebration of, but there were a bunch of activities and guest panels on campus. I saw part of a kapa haka, or war dance, and also heard a really pretty song!
I'm not sure if I've touched on this before, but students get "allowances" from the government here. It depends on your parents' incomes, but it does not have to be paid back ever – jealous! Also, they have interest-free student loans. I wish!
Terms:
"I rate it" means I like it, or I'm a fan.
"Scuffs" are slide-on flip flops. The ones without the piece in between your toes.
"Star jumps" = jumping jacks.
"Zebra crossings" are crosswalks. And remember – it's z pronounced zed, so zebra is actually pronounced zehbra here!
I've got heaps of work coming up as the semester nears a close. I have to memorize my 2-minute whakapapa (family tree) for my Maori class and present it next Tuesday! Estoy nerviosa! Oops, wrong language.
On Sunday, Chenay, Kailana, and I went to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves! We ate at BurgerFuel first and I did hit the curb parallel parking, but it was all good. The caves are just over an hour away from campus.
We ended up missing our tour at 2 but the guy in charge was super nice and let us join the 2:30 tour. He was apologizing to us even though we were late! So NZ.
Sadly, we couldn't take any pictures inside the caves, but they were breathtaking. We started by walking through a giant cave and seeing a couple of glowworms, which looked like teeny tiny stars. Our tour guide, Hadia, was informative and we learned about the limestone, porous rocks (so no echo), and wormies!! (I want one as a pet).
Then we squeezed into a small metal boat in the pitch black and oogled at the thousands of glowing creatures. It was spooky being on a boat in the darkness and super trippy looking up at the worms. Was it everything I expected it to be? To be honest, no, but it was still otherworldly and I'd do it again! (Why is everything I imagine better than real life?!)
Chenay, Kailana, and I then did a quick hike up to a lookout that had pretty views of the rolling hills before heading back to campus.
Next Up: Umm...Cathedral Cove, Tongariro Crossing? I probably will wait til my fam comes to do those things when it's warmer. Working out to get bikini-body ready for Aussie!
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