Week 6: A Busy Week

Kia ora,

This week I socialized outside of school more than any previous week so far. The only thing of note I did on my own was make a visit to the Maritime Museum. It was quite interesting to learn about the history of New Zealand from a maritime perspective. The museum started out with an exhibit on Māori and other pacific islander seacrafts, explaining how they were (& are still) used and for what purposes. After this, the museum detailed how Europeans found and charted New Zealand, along with the Oceania region as a whole. After this, I walked through life-size replicas of boat interiors that immigrants might have taken to New Zealand in the 19th and 20th centuries while also learning more about New Zealand's allure in its early years. Unlike Australia, New Zealand was not a penal colony, with most migrants coming to escape poverty and start a new life abroad. The final parts of the museum displayed boats from more recent years and also included a walk-through replica of a classic Beach Store and Bach.

On Wednesday evening, I made a visit to a place I had wanted to visit since my first week in Auckland: Mount Eden. It is just south of the downtown CBD (central business district) and is one of the taller volcanoes in the city. It is dormant, and you get a fantastic view of the city from all angles. Being able to see downtown, the north shore, Rangitoto, and other parts of the city I haven't visited was quite neat, especially at sunset. My friend Sam, one of the other Global Gateway students, is staying downtown and has visited Mount Eden multiple times, so he joined me so he could show me which paths to take and the best spots to go to on the mountain.

Since Thanksgiving was this past week back in the States, and it is not celebrated in New Zealand, several of us in the cohort got together for dinner on both Thursday and Friday evenings. On Thursday evening, we got Mexican food in Milford, then stopped for ice cream afterward. On Friday evening, we went to a Korean BBQ and Hot Pot buffet, and we were absolutely clueless about what to do. If the stupid American stereotype exists in New Zealand, we definitely lived it out that night by mistake. Then, we went to an Irish Pub afterward where they happened to have a band covering famous rock hits.

A light-up ornament in Takapuna

Saturday was a tiring day, as I went with a group of my Global Gateway friends to the island of Rangitoto, a dormant volcano that erupted 600 years ago and is the largest volcano in the Auckland region. Walking up the summit track, through the lava caves, around the crater, and back down the mountain took several hours, the most I've walked in a single day since I've been in New Zealand. I'm glad that I have been walking consistently and across further distances since I arrived, otherwise, the climb up Rangitoto would have been far more brutal than it already was. The views were fantastic, so the journey up was worth it.

The next day, I went with a group to the Waitomo Glow Worm caves. Our tour driver was half an hour late to pick us up, so we nearly canceled the tour. Luckily, we were still able to go despite the hiccup. The cave tour was much shorter than I expected, but seeing the glow worms was still neat. The glowworms essentially formed a starry sky inside the cave, it reminded me of having glow-in-the-dark stars on my bedroom ceiling, except much much smaller, and sometimes the worms would wiggle. The cathedral of the cave was also neat, apparently, it was visited by Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The acoustics of the cathedral are fantastic, and the natural design of the cave suits singing voices quite well.

It is hard to believe that I only have two weeks left in New Zealand, I've done most of the things I had hoped to do while I've been here, but there are still some sights left for me to see and things to do. I've fully adjusted to life here, so it feels like I've been here for much longer than I've been. I hope to make the most of my final two weeks here, continuing to see and experience new things while I have the opportunity! I'm sure these last two weeks will fly by, and I'll be back in Indiana before I know it.

Bye for now!