A Grotto-ing Experience

Hooroo! Today was our last port, Auckland. We had a long bus ride to visit the glow worm grotto, a unique limestone tunnel of stalactites and stalagmites that are home to a worm that glows. These worms hatch after a few days, spend nine months as a worm, a few days in a cocoon, and then 5 days as a flying insect. Since they’re in a dark tunnel, they have a single thread web that hangs down to catch insects to feed on, and they glow to attract insects to them. We took a boat through the tunnel, and it looks just like millions of stars glowing in a pitch black sky, pretty neat. When you shine a light on them, you can see all of the single thread webs hanging down- that is a bit trippy. Once the glow worms graduate to flying insects, they apparently only live for 5 days because their only purpose is to reproduce, so they don’t even have mouths. Disturbing… Afterward, we had the best meal I’ve had yet on this trip. It was a cruise-sponsored tour, which meant we had 50 people on it; however, the lunch spot was out of a local’s home who had set it up specifically for cruise tours. They had their home decorated in an old English style, and I think it is one of the most beautiful homes I’ve ever seen. The garden area was spectacular, and that’s where they had a dozen big tables set up for lunch. It was a simple meal, but it tasted amazing; roast lamb, meatloaf, potatoes and tomatoes and wine carafes with fresh berries and ice cream for dessert. Sounds simple, but it was drool-worthy. All the ducks and cows were there to watch us eat lunch as they have a large farm as well. Pretty cool experience compared to the normal restaurant scene.

So now we’re back on the ship for the next three days before we arrive back in Melbourne and fly up to Sydney. Our dinner partners unfortunately got off on Auckland not to return, so it is now my father and I alone for dinner. We have dinner in the dining room each night, where you are assigned a table and sit with the same people each night. It’s a good way to build relationships with other people on the ship, some sort of consistency. In the past, we’ve been sat at tables of 6 or 8 where you have plenty of people to talk to each night. This trip, we had a table of 4, and we were sat with two women. One of the women is an independent cruise agent who books them for people and will act as a tour guide if needed, so she came on this cruise as a ‘familiarization cruise’ and brought her friend along with. When we had dinner the first night, I thought they were pleasant enough, but was not happy because I felt our conversations would dry up quickly and it would be awful to be stuck together just the 4 of us day in and day out. Turns out our conversations only got better and better, we loved their company and actually looked forward to dinners with them, and we were really sad to see them getting off the ship early since they worked in Auckland and didn’t want to have to pay to fly back from Sydney. Tonight it was just my dad and I, and although we had good conversations, we see each other all day and enjoyed having other people to talk to =P Our two waiters are very entertaining though; the head waiter is Thai and has made my dad very happy by bringing him Nam-pla, fish sauce. The other waiter is Filipino, he’s been working on the ships for much less time and seems more nervous, but he finally seems comfortable as he’s joking and singing to us during dinners now. He has two children; he works for 7 months and then gets a 3 month break, so he goes a long time without seeing them. That seems very difficult, I feel for some of the workers here; it’s good money for them, but it’s difficult to leave everything behind for long periods of time.

The ship is rocking pretty hard tonight for some reason… always an adventure when you’re trying to walk down halls and everyone is pinballing off of each other. Then, you finally get your sea legs and can account for the constant rocking so that you’re not swaying down the halls, and you get off the ship and start zigzagging down the street trying to account for rocking that is no longer occurring. I’ve also been trying to work out on each of our at-sea days, which is an experience in itself to be running on a treadmill while watching the Australian Open on individual TVs with the ocean spanning in front of you through the huge windows the machines are all set up in front of. It is much harder to account for rocking while running on a treadmill, so it is an adventure to try to keep from falling off the sides of the machines constantly and maintain speed.

Here’s to hoping the tipping and turning doesn’t get to my stomach tonight, or my father’s. And although if everyone else on the ship were sick, it would mean less people at activities tomorrow, I don’t think I could wish seasickness upon anyone…not a fun way to spend a holiday!

I leave you with the glow worm song that our driver sang to us following our grotto experience:

I wish a I were a glow worm
Because a glow worm’s never glum.
How can you be unhappy
When the sun’s shining from your bum?!

Kai Ora (hello in Maori)

Kai Ora, welcome to February! It is Day 8 or 9 of our New Zealand cruise (we’re not really counting, but it’s somewhere over the halfway point), and we are currently in Tauranga, NZ- home of the kiwi fruit, kiwi bird, and Maori people (who consider themselves Kiwis ;))

Two days ago we ported in Wellington, the country’s capital city. We had a city/Middle Earth tour scheduled, which ended up once again being a private tour since no one else had signed up! We walked some nature paths through the wooded areas surrounding the city that were used in scenes in the LOTR movies, and our tour guide made me be a hobbit to get reenactment photos. I don’t think I did the best job, despite my natural shortness. Turns out our tour guide and her husband helped start the movie industry in Wellington and they both work for Peter Jackson now (or Peter or Pete as she called him all day). I didn’t realize how big of a movie industry Wellington actually had until the tour; Miramar is based there, and Peter Jackson has made all of his movies here. Weta, a big company that does a lot of costume design and digital effects, is also based here (Peter Jackson was one of the people that helped create it). Avatar was completed here through them. We had the opportunity to go by it’s showroom and see some of the things they’ve done, and we ran into one of the owners (Richard something-or-other… you can tell he made an impression…). They’re very obsessed with their movie industry, or at least our tour guide was. We also saw all of their parliament buildings, such as the Beehive… a building that took the place of the second half of the original parliament building that never got finished being built because funds ran out, and rather than completing the original, the beehive was instead designed by one of their drunken governors back in the day. We also saw Te Papa, the national museum. And I had lamb for dinner, mm.

Yesterday we were supposed to port in Napier; however, there were bad storms that got worse throughout the day, so they chose not to dock. Although it was disappointing, it was our shortest port of the trip, only a half day, and we have had absolutely gorgeous weather other than this one day. Considering my grandparents went on this cruise last year and missed 3 of their ports and got rained out at one port during their trip, I’m not going to complain too loudly. It was supposed to be our souvenir shopping day, so in some ways, it saved me money, though still disappointing. We did, however, win trivia once again with our trivia buddies. This time, we won a bottle of champagne, so we all sat around and celebrated with champagne and sandwiches. I then continued celebrating with an afternoon nap, which was even better. And then I ate duck and lamb for dinner, mmm.

Which brings us to today- Tauranga. We had another tour, though this one did not end up being as private. No complaints though, there were only 4 other people who were all together, and they were about as picky about things as we are, which is very little. First we stopped at a kiwi orchard, where we learned kiwis grow on vines and tried various gold and green kiwi wines and juices. We then went to Rotorua, a geothermal area that the Maori inhabited. It STUNK. You could smell the sulfur from miles away. However, you quickly adapt, and by the end of the day, you couldn’t smell it at all. I have a feelng my clothes smell like sulfur and I just can’t tell any longer. The entire region had underground geothermal springs, and every house had it’s own thermal well in it’s front yard. We walked Te Puia, an area with geysers and hot springs, and saw a cultural performance by the Maoris. We also saw Hell’s Gate, another area of sulfur hot springs that was slowly killing everything around them. And we saw sheep (and lambs mmm… and cows, and horses, oh my!).

Tomorrow is our last port we stop at in New Zealand, Auckland. My last chance to illegally immigrate over here, maybe I’ll get lost on our ride to the worm grotto ;) We can only hope. Cheers mates!

Sheep!

I LOVE New Zealand. Two ports and the Fjordlands down, and I am more than ready to leave everything and move here. To say I like New Zealand more than Australia would be unfair since I have only seen the big cities of Australia, but what I’ve seen of New Zealand is far closer to my taste. The towns are quaint, the scenery is quite lovely, and everything is so much simpler. Each town is working hard to increase it’s tourism and bring more people in, and I’m pretty sure they’re not using MBAs in order to accomplish that. Or working as hard as possible to get a plethora of business experience in order to get to the top. I digress.

The Fiordlands were a unique experience. I learned a lot about New Zealand’s history while we sailed through the Fiordlands since that’s the first thing that Captain Cook saw and documented when he discovered New Zealand in the 1770’s. It finally clicked for me that Australia and New Zealand are far younger countries than even the USA. This was surprising since I have grown accustomed to being one of the youngest countries in the world, and for some reason I had it in my head that Australia had been discovered long before America had. I was of course wrong. The Fiordlands are water straits that have been cut by glaciers, and they are all over the north-western side of the south island. We had a local forest ranger on board that told us their history as we sailed through many of them. It was quite lovely. Captain Cook had a bit of fun naming the hundreds of islands along the waterway… I’m pretty sure he ran out of names quickly and just started naming them whatever word came to mind first.

Dunedin (pronounced Dune-eedin) was the first port we’ve stopped at. We booked a tour with a local company apart from the cruise line since the cruise is overpriced for anything additional once you’re aboard, and there are always local tours at a fraction of the cost, which are easy to find now that the internet has made the world so much smaller. We choose a wildlife tour so that we would be able to see most of the New Zealand-specific animals. We were chosen to go through customs (2% of the passengers, and somehow we were chosen!), which worked out nicely because we ended up being one of the first off the ship. We found our tour guide and discovered we were the only two booked for the tour- a private tour! Apparently they had 27 people the day before, so we lucked out that no one else had booked with them from our cruise. I thank all the old people on the ship who could not handle the walking. Although there wasn’t a whole lot of walking for the tour, New Zealand does appear to be made up purely of hills, so if you are walking, it’s either at a 45 degree angle up or down at all times, which wears on you quickly. Dunedin has the steepest road in the world according to Guinness World Records; however, I’m pretty sure almost every road we traveled on was just as steep as the steepest. Beat that San Francisco.

We traveled around the countryside, taking in the thousands of sheep in all of the pastures surrounding the town, and went to Tiger Peninsula, where the only Royal Albatross colony is located in New Zealand (the only other place in the world is a tiny island a thousand miles off the coast). They have a wingspan of 3 meters (I love you, metric system!), and we were fortunate enough to be there right after some of the hatchlings had been born, which we got to see. We also had the opportunity to go to a private beach owned by the owner of the tour company, which had a view of a fur seal breeding ground where we saw pups running around playing with their moms, as well as massive sea lions that we stood 5 feet from since they don’t have any fear of humans, yellow-eyed penguins and their young, blue penguins (the smallest penguin in the world), and more sheep. We went four-wheeling through the pastures in a small van, and all I could keep thinking was that if those brakes went out, we were at a 45 degree angle right down to the cliffs over the water. During the off-roading adventure, my dad and our tour guide discovered they both shared an interest in beer snobbery. Our guide brews his own beer, and he knew all of the microbreweries in town, so upon completing our tour early since it was just the three of us, we went over to one of the microbreweries, tried all of their beers, got the t-shirt, and then went on to a local pub. I’m pretty sure this has been the highlight to my dad’s trip thus far.

Today we went to Christchurch/Lyttelton. We had no tours scheduled for the day, so we took the shuttle into town and walked around. There were no sheep there. New Zealand has heavy European influences all through it, so it looks and feels like many of the small towns you’d find in Europe. We found another microbrewery to make my dad’s day, then walked through the botanic gardens, through a couple local markets, and watched as people punted through the park (similar to taking a gondola along the river flowing through the city). Lyttelton was a tiny town along the water that is trying very hard to bring tourists to it… however, it was scarcer than even Midland or Golden’s downtowns, so our walkthrough there did not last long to say the least. They did however, have a time ball- it’s a tower on a building with a ball similar to the ball setup for new years in Times Square… at 1 o clock every day, the ball is dropped. It was how in the old days people could set their clocks based on Greenwich time to ensure they were all set to the correct time. That would be about all that you can find in Lyttelton.

Food. Oh the food. Let me tell you about some of my meals. Today was an international dinner, so I had a Mediterranean salad with a duck appetizer followed by lamb with mint jelly and a chocolate passion fruit genache for dessert. I have found a new love in passion fruit… I’m not sure if I’ve ever had it before, but it’s a new favorite fruit. I’ve had passion fruit yogurt for breakfast every morning, yum! And kiwis, fresh kiwis! New Zealanders call themselves kiwis because of the native kiwi fruit grown here, as well as the kiwi bird, a national symbol of New Zealand. Yesterday was the Thai dinner, satay and panang curry. I had a rabbit appetizer a couple of days ago; rabbit is dry, I don’t recommend it. Lamb is amazing. Yesterday for lunch they brought us a takeaway. Here, fast food is called takeaways. We had a turkey/brie/cranberry sandwich with an apricot/poppy seed muffin and fresh New Zealand cherries. Drool. I just got back from dinner and am so stuffed I’m going to explode, and I’m still drooling.

Tomorrow, we will be in Wellington, where we have a city and Middle Earth tour. For now, I’m going to take my book and sit out on our balcony and watch the moon dancing on the waves. And dream of never having to go back to any other commitments. Cheers!

G'Day mate!

G’Day from the Tasmanian Sea on Australia Day! I am currently on Day 3 of my Australian cruise with my father. Today just happens to be Australia’s equivalent of the US Independence Day, and since it seems the majority of the ship is Australian, it is being celebrating with rigor around here. The Australian Open is also currently taking place in Melbourne and is all that we have been watching the past few days. We also have wifi on the entire cruise, so I figured while my dad naps, I could take the opportunity to write a quick update from the sea!

We successfully arrived in Sydney Saturday morning (roughly 5:30pm EST Friday!!) after a very long flight (my ankles swelled again! NOT good) and spent the day exploring the city. It was in the 90s the entire day, which is quite the shock coming from the freezing temperatures of Michigan. We walked the Botanic Gardens, which are inhabited by thousands of bats, all waiting to poop on you as they sleep during the day in the trees. Luckily, I had no such incidents. We also took a harbor cruise around the city since it is almost all along the water to see the historic districts and the Sydney Opera house and harbor bridge. We’ll be back in Sydney for the last two days of our trip and will be visiting the Aquarium and Wildlife exhibits to see the ‘roos and koalas that I otherwise won’t have the opportunity to see this trip.

Sunday was boarding day for the cruise. We hopped on a plane to Melbourne and headed for the pier. Turned out the ship was 3 hours late getting back because of bad seas during its last sea day, which meant we had 3 hours to burn at the pier before they started loading. We walked the harbor and had fresh fish and chips at a small little restaurant. We also discovered that about 90% of the people on our cruise seem to be above the ripe age of 60. I have the feeling I am the only single twenty-something (outside of staff) on this cruise… and even honeymooners are scarce! This, however, means that there are certain times of the day when the ship seems deserted… before 9am, after 8pm, and the apparent naptime from 3-5pm. It also means that they can’t judge ages and keep thinking I’m much older and that my dad and I are married. CREEPY. That mistake has only been made twice, but that’s 2 too many times for me.
The last two days has also reminded me of a conversation Kelsey and I had before I left regarding how people feel rejuvenated…whether it be alone, or by being around other people. We discussed it from the standpoint of hanging out with friends and such, but I have now been regarding it from the standpoint of strangers. Being on a ship of 2000 passengers where you get sat with random people for every meal, it is easy to determine where you stand on the issue. My dad is the type to love sitting with new people each time, make small talk, tell the same stories over and over. I, however, have already grown tired of it, and although I prefer the seated meals, I have started thinking more and more that I’d prefer to do the buffet just to have a break from trying to keep up conversation with strangers. We have table assignments for dinners, and somehow we ended up at a table of 4 with two other women. After dinner with them for one night, I feel like the conversation has already dried up and have no idea how we will possibly be able to continue coming up with new topics for 10 more nights!! Thus, I’ve once again put myself into the loner category for rejuvenation regardless of the fact that I rejuvenate better in the presence of friends.

Despite my introverted tendencies with strangers, we have still found ourselves some companions in some of our activities. We both enjoy doing the daily trivia that is offered, and on the first day we teamed up with an older couple to better our odds. And wouldn’t you know it, we won! We beat somewhere around 30 other teams. We haven’t been as fortunate in the last two rounds of trivia, but we have decided to stick together and continue to be a team throughout the cruise on sea days. We also played carpet bowling today, and our team of approximately 10 people beat out 3 other teams , and we all won gold medals. I have won a gold medal for some competition on every cruise I have been on thus far… so either my family is overly competitive, or the old people are making it too easy on us J I think it is partly due to the fact that we enjoy the activities, so we participate in everything offered that we can fit in. My dad was 1 point away from winning a golf chipping –into-the-pool contest today.

Tonight is formal night, and tomorrow is cruising through the Fjordlands of New Zealand, the first contact we’ll have with New Zealand. If I knew how to easily load up pictures, I might show them here..but as it is, I don’t, so you don’t get any… so sorry!

And as one final note….it seems almost everyone on board is either Australian/New Zealander/British. So I am surrounded by a similar accent everywhere I go… I’m not going to be surprised if I start picking it up without noticing, I’ve already repeated random phrases I’d never otherwise use. Now I must sign off, good show ole chap!

Thanksgiving in Oz

I'm off to see the wizard tomorrow....the wizard being my family of course. Although nowhere near Kansas, it will be quite the adventure. My car Oz and I will be trekking the 15 hour cross country trip together (yes, I did in fact name my car Oz, but no relation to the wizard). I've thoroughly prepared for this trip. And by thoroughly, I mean I have waited until the last minute to determine some of the things I need to shop for, decide that I want to try an audiobook for the first time without having yet procurred one, and, oh yes...do laundry. Somewhat essential when you're trying to pack clothes.

I'm also in the process of trying to borrow a GPS, because over the course of 15 hours, I'd rather not have to look down every half hour at a Google Maps printout and try to figure out where I am, I'd rather it be told to me. I'm not quite sure how people survived in the stone age 20 years ago when they had to map out routes themselves and weren't instantly told that the route they *thought* would be the quickest is in fact 2 hours longer than other routes on their 90 minute trip. I remember a cross-country road trip with my family going from Colorado out to South Carolina one summer, and my mom wasn't able to come with us, so I took my natural birthright, sat up front, and was in charge of the map. I soon found that as a preteen, this was a very mundane task, and there were far more enjoyable things to do, like sleep or melt crayons on the truck seats. The minute we hit Dallas/Ft. Worth, the road T'd in 4 directions, my dad had no idea which one he was supposed to take, and there were enough cars on the road to sink a battleship. I don't react well under pressure, so the instant my dad started stressing, I started panicking and blanked. What was this sheet in front of me? Why did it have lines with numbers? I wouldn't know. After 20 minutes of battling traffic with only ONE (that's, right, count them!) wrong turn, we made it out safely. And I made a vow 10 years later to never take a roadtrip based on a human's mapping skills alone again.

So wish me luck as I start my journey at the unreal hour of 4am. And pray that, unlike my brother's last cross-country roadtrip, my credit card isn't cancelled and my cell phone doesn't get turned off because my bill can't be paid since I have no credit card...

J&M to the C

The past few weeks have been a flurry of transition. Jon and Mandy are officially gone and Christina is officially moved in. J&M left this morning for training in Philadelphia for the next couple of days, and then off to Kenya for the Peace Corp. We spent all afternoon Friday helping them pack up their apartment into a Uhaul followed by goodbyes. It's like the end of an era; the 5 of us started together two years ago, and now with J&M gone, there's only 2 of us left. The Scoobies have been some of my closest friends here in Midland, and I think the rest of us will fall away from each other somewhat now. But it's been easier to say goodbye knowing what an exciting experience and opportunity J&M are off to. We're continuing our shelf-hanging party tradition tonight in memory of them, so at least we're making efforts to hang out still.

Outside of trying to spend as much time with J&M before they left, I've been spending the rest of my time helping Christina get moved in. We spent the last couple of weekends painting and fixing things up... for having been there a week, it looks amazingly impressive. We had a Halloween "party" Saturday.... consisting of 7 people since we did it last minute, and it was really just hanging out. But it was an opportunity for her to show off her new place a little, and an excuse for the rest of us to dress up like nerds. Jen and I were coming from chaperoning the Xtreeme costume party; I opted to be a Greek goddess this year, mostly because I somehow magically had everything I needed except the white dress, so I got a few yards of fabric from Joann's for $10 and Christina pinned it into a really cool garment. One of my favorite costumes ever.

Currently, I am working with my dad on our trip to Australia/New Zealand. I've been so busy, I haven't been able to think about it, and considering I have a Thanksgiving trip to South Carolina for a week and a Christmas trip to Colorado for likely two weeks, it seems like it's eons away... but recently my dad reminded me that it's less than 90 days away (which suddenly makes me realize that I'll be doing 5 weeks of traveling in the next 90 days!!). So I'm finally getting pumped up about New Zealand, especially looking at all of our excursion options.

It's going to be great that it is just my dad and I because we have the same personality and interests, so we don't have to compromise with anyone else. As we've been going through the excursions, we've been automatically eliminating many of the sightseeing tours and instead looking at things like blackwater rafting in caves and kayaking to remote albatross breeding grounds. Not sure how much of that we will actually get to do because my dad, despite thinking he is invincible, does not have the knees anymore to do some of those things. However, we did recently have an argument about whether we should go bungee jumping or skydiving, so I'm sure we'll find adventurous things to do regardless. I'm also pushing to go on one of the Lord of the Rings tours, purely because I think that would be one of the coolest ways to see some of the awesome nature on the interior part of New Zealand.

Also, on a final note, I'd just like to say that TV tray Thai meals need far more than the 5 minutes it tells you for the noodles to soak... Thai just does not taste very good when the noodles are rubbery and wiry! Not a good lunch...

The food incident

In a valiant effort to escape consumption later this afternoon, my pasta attempted murder/foodicide (much like the newly learned term 'bullycide') this morning by opening it's container in hopes that it would spill out all over my bag and take down the rest of the food with it.

Little did it know that despite my carelessness, I was much looking forward to it's yumminess in a few hours and was not willing to allow any such spillages to occur. So now it is taking a time-out in the refrigerator.

Maybe someday you'll get a real post again =) Until then, au revoir senorita...