Update from Rotorua

see green arrow for my current location

Hello from Rotorua!  We traveled down to this town by bus and it was about a 3 hour trip from Auckland.  This is our second full day here and where we will have most of our orientation for Australearn, the program I'm studying through.  The first day we were here (yesterday) we did some lecture-type stuff, just informing us of cultural and school things we need to know.  Then later in the afternoon we had some of what I like to call "forced fun".  Nah, it wasn't that bad (but getting there).  The first part was cool though...we got to learn the history of the Haka, a traditional Maiori war dance.  If any of you are familiar with the All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team, they perform this dance/chant before each rugby match.  It was really interesting to learn the history and understand more about the purpose of the dance, which is solely based on protecting loved ones.  Now, things got really interesting when the Maiori man began to teach us the words to the Haka and then the motions.  I have a video of all of the Australearn students performing the dance but the connection is a little too slow to upload it for this post, so I'll have to put it one another time.  It’s quite violent, but supremely entertaining.  Click on this link to watch the All Blacks do the Haka.

Then last night we had a free evening and we walked around Rotorua to find a place to eat.  Big lesson that I’m learning really fast: things are really expensive here.  Every place we looked for food last night had prices around NZD $20 just for food alone.  So we (Alex, Kailey, Nia, and me) searched for a pizza place that we heard was good.  We found it – called Hell’s Pizza.  This place was COOL (actually hot! Hah, pun intended!).  It ended up only being about $8 a person after we spilt the cost and it was really really good.  When you order you choose a pizza based on which "sin" you want.  We got lust.  We got a six pack of beer and trekked to a park to see Lake Rotorua, a sulfur lake, which we quickly realized really stinks!  Like, literally, smells sooooo bad.  It was also pretty ugly too, but still a really fun experience and quite an adventure.  See this link to my Rotorua pictures.  In there you will find pictures of us and our Hell’s Pizza/beer/stinky lake trek and also a lot of rafting pictures.  That was today’s fun – today was called Australearn’s Day of Adventure.  We each got to pick what we wanted to do and there were a whole bunch of excursion options; I chose white water rafting.  They changed the river last minute because of the load of rain that the area got from the recent hurricanes and the river we were supposed to go on is currently flooded.  But it was all good because this river we went on - the Kaituna River - was so beautiful!  Also, it is class 4/5 rapids the entire way down, which is bigger than what I’ve been on before.  It was so much fun.  There was also a kayaking race happening at the same time we were there and apparently we saw the guy who won worlds, which I think is a big deal in the kayaking world.  Pretty cool, or as the kiwis say it, sweet as!  Also, a guy broke his paddle, which is really crazy.  Be sure to check out the facebook pictures for some really cool rafting shots.  In addition to all that, our New Zealand raft guide told us that we were lucky to have gotten to raft this river because it's only opened certain times for commercialized trips, i guess just 26 particular days out of the year.

All in all, things are going really well here.  New Zealand is just as stunningly beautiful as I’d imagined it to be, which is crazy because usually places don’t look the same as they do in pictures, but I feel like I am right in the middle of Lord of the Rings scenery all the time.  It’s really amazing and I wish you could all be here to see it.  I feel so insanely blessed not only to have the opportunity to be here, but to be surrounded by some really great people.  I have been so encouraged by the fact that I’ve already run into a bunch of people on this trip who are Christians and just that I have the chance here to be a light to those around me, and learn from them too.  Kiwis are really friendly, too, which is a nice step up from Europeans, who really don’t like us Americans, and for good reason as I witnessed a few years ago when there.  I also feel fortunate to have had some other experiences outside of the country and witnessed the stereotypical American way so that I can be really aware and not live out that stereotype.

Well, that’s about all for now.  Wi-fi is not free most places here (with the exception of McDonald’s) so I don’t know for sure when my next post will be.  We will be staying in Rotorua for the next 2 full days and then on the 16^th we fly to our schools, so hopefully I’ll be figuring out the internet situation by then.  Friends and family, know that I really miss you and I am thinking of you often.  I’m looking forward to skyping with many of you soon!