The Journey, Part 3

At what I was informed was around 5:30 a.m. (I was taking anyone's word for it, at this point. It was an odd feeling), the wheels finally touched down on the ground. Being allowed into the country was a three part process. Auckland airport employed a small, furry dog to sniff all of our bags as we took them off baggage claim. The dog was looking less for drugs and illegal substances than for harmful agriculture and any sort of foreign food. The habitat of New Zealand is very fragile and is not used to any predators or viruses that living things might bring in with it. Because of this, most of the strict enforcement at customs dealt with food. I failed to get a picture, but it was a very funny image. I'm used to seeing more masculine, aggressive dogs in security roles like that in the states, but New Zealand reflected their laid back nature by using an animal that I could probably stepped on. After the excitement of chasing my bags down a conveyer belt, I went through a baggage scan area (where even my checked bags were x-rayed), a preliminary customs meeting ("what brings you to New Zealand?" "Why did you choose Wellington?" "What are you studying?") to get my visa stamped, I proceeded further through customs, where I declared nothing (I had two beautiful bags of trail mix that I decided not to risk and had thrown out as I exited the plane) and walked through a large archway into the airport. Though I was burdoned by many pounds of luggage, I felt a large weight come off of my shoulders. Nothing huge had gone wrong and I had made it to Auckland.

We were greeted immediately (There were about 50 of us from Australearn) by Joe and Alicia, two Australearn employees. Here they are by the table:


Joe is a native New Zealander who lives in Auckland. He was a funny guy and carried his acoustic guitar around with him wherever we went, even on the busses. Alicia was an American who had studied abroad in N.Z. during college and had went back after graduating to work for Australearn. She's lived in New Zealand now for about four years, and the New Zealand accent has been curiously interjected into her American accent; she says certain words and phonetic noises a bit differently. I thought it was very interesting to see how your own mode of speech is affected if you hear another mode for long enough. As you can see, they passed out nametags and shepherded us directly onto a bus that was to take us to Rotorua for a three day orientation. It was at this point that I made my way to the nearest bathroom and began what has now become a large, extensive photo library of things or terms that I find curiously different from what I'm used to or just plain odd.


This actually makes much, much more sense than "restroom" or "bathroom" once you get over the intial hilarity of the sheer blunt nature of it. So yes, there's no such thing as a bathroom or restroom here. We have Toilets.


This was also in the bathroom. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explaination for this but I still can't figure out what you would be doing with any sort of "sharps" in an airport bathroom. Sorry, "Toilet". I'm getting better.

McDonalds has a "KiwiBurger" here. It's a hamburger with and egg in it. I have yet to try it.

I received a phone card with my name tag and made a call to home for about 15 minutes. After my card had pretty much run out, I joined my friend William whom I'd met on the plane and proceeded to set foot on New Zealand land for the first time. This banner was over the archway out of the airport. Big fan.



The walk to the bus was a bit longer than I would have liked with all of my luggage, but I found my way alright in the end. I was very out of it and disoriented at this point, and had a very one track mind to get to the bus and rest a bit, enjoying being on solid ground. After a short journey, I found myself at the foot of the official Magic Bus. That's right.

"Every day I get in the queue (Too muuch, the Magic Bus)"

The ride upon the Magic Bus to Rotorua was a bit humerous as it involved two people trying to milk as much enthusiasm and excitement out of a bunch of tired, greasy, and disoriented 20 year olds who wanted nothing more than to get some time to rest. Everyone had to get up and say their name, where they were from, what they were studying, and tell what the "craziest thing you've ever done." Most answers to the last question were "this," including my own. The driver of the Magic Bus went by the name of "Crutchie". This was due to some horrible nickname that stuck after he injured himself in college. He was a fully funcitonal human being, which sort of added to the hilarity of the nickname. Anyways, Cruchie was the man, and he tried his best to get some laughter out of what must have been the epidomy of a "tough crowd." I met a few kids and we engaged in small talk, but most of the ride was spent in quiet reverie as we took in the landscape of the North Island of Aotearoa. The morning was a overcast; the fog rolled in and the landscape took a foreboding air. Here are a few good shots that I got. Do yourself a favor, open these images and view them in high definition. They're beautiful.

"...but where our hearts truly lie...is in peace...and quiet...and good, tilled earth."

We made a couple of rest stops. One of these stops was to get some breakfast. Most of us (myself included) ate our first meal in New Zealand at an exotic McDonalds. We had no choice, the rest of the food there was about 20 dollars. This stop was the beginning of what was to become a familiar format: The introductory conversation. Questions belonging to this conversation include, and are mostly limited to: "What's your name?", "Where are you from?", "What school are you going to?" "What are you going to study there?", and "How long was your flight to L.A.?" It got a bit tiring but it guaranteed a conversation with anyone you came in contact with, and the entire weekend involved this nonstop act of stepping outside of you comfort zone and meeting strangers. I would also occasionally throw in a joke about a screaming baby that was on the plane ride to New Zealand. It was mostly a hit. The second stop was at a very touristy attraction/rest stop where the entire building was shaped like a dog. I don't understand the significance or the relevance. A bit odd and unnecessary, but you can't blame them for wanting to attract tourists. As if their entire country and its natural beauty wasn't enough.



After a few more hours of driving, awkward and aggravating (for the love of god, let us sleep) introductory exercises, and some acoustic guitar jamming by Joe, we arrived at Kiwipaka (a tourist hotel) in Rotorua at about 9:30 a.m on Friday, or 5:30 p.m. on Thursday Eastern Time. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the next few days.

Part 4 coming up.

Good News

Quick thoughts: 

In the last week, a 7.8 richtered earthquake went off within 50 miles of my house and two of my directly-across-the-street neighbors have been diagnosed and quarantined with the swine flu. So yes, I survived my first week of classes.

The Journey, Part 2

After pulling off the personally gratifying feat of carrying all of my 130 pounds of luggage up several stairs and hallways, I made my way to the Air New Zealand gate. I was once again decently sneaky and grabbed an exciting, captivating picture of the fine ANZ employee checking my luggage. I kept worrying that I would be over the weight limit at some point in my many stopovers, but the baggage check process continued to surprise me with is efficiency and relative simplicity. My final ticket was printed out and I felt a rush of excitement to have such concrete evidence of my departure in my hands.

A note on security gates at the airport: I am not a fan. There's really no way to do it without feeling awkward. Putting my own shoes in a bin and opening my luggage to dig out electronics and metal objects in a long line of rushed people is not my idea of a fun time. I'm sure many citizens share this sentiment, but I just wanted to put my feelings out there. I've said it, and I won't say one more word about that. Not a fan.

Carrying on, L.A.X. was the first taste of an "international" flavor in my journey. I began to notice different languages in different gates, clearly reflecting the multinational hub that the airport was. I was under the impression that my plane was chartered for students only, but the crowd was far larger than I had anticipated and there were clearly more than Australearn kids journeying to New Zealand on this fine night. It was an odd sight; most people hugged a pillow or blanket, just waiting to get onto the plane so that they might fall asleep. 

I took a stealth, cool approach by quietly walking amongst the various people, waiting to overhear discussions of Australearn or studying abroad. Took a couple of minutes but I managed to end up meeting a group of kids going with the program. Conversation flowed pretty freely. I've noticed these last few weeks that when you're going through something as exciting and crazy as this with someone else, it's really easy to find things to talk about because you're going through a lot of the same interesting experiences. It's not as if you met someone at a library; the only thing you'd immediately have in common was that you're both looking at a lot of books. When you're leaving your home and traveling 14 hours to a foreign country, it's not difficult at all to find interesting common ground for conversation. I also soon realized that I should have and could have taken my guitar as a piece of checked luggage; I met at least three other people lugging their ax across the Oceans to New Zealand. 

Walking on the plane was a little bit intimidating but much more exciting. After a quick passport check (for what seemed to be at least the fifth time), I joined a long queue and found my way on board. I was greeted by a heavily kiwi-accented flight crew and began my attempt to find my seat. I had hoped to grab some of the bed seats that I had seen on wikipedia, but alas, those were reserved for the very rich people. Walking to my seat, I bumped into a middle-aged man and quickly apologized. I was quickly acknowledged and forgiven by a hearty New Zealand-sounding "No worries, mate". I subsequently geeked out with excitement for about five minutes. I eventually found myself once again seated in a regular person's plane seat. Not to complain, though, because the fates continued to be in my favor. I grabbed a great window seat and had a very nice woman across from me in the aisle seat. Not only this, but the person who was supposed to be sitting between us apparently decided he DIDN'T want to go to New Zealand that day! Because of this, we were both able to stretch out the entire flight as if we were on a couch. The first thing I saw as I sat down was the greeting screen that contained the now familiar New Zealand greeting "Kia Ora" and "welcome to our world". A feeling of relief and a new wave of anticipation shot through me. I had passed through the archway.

I will never, for as long as I live, forget how I felt as the wheels of the plane lifted off of the ground. It was surreal. I watched the bright lights of Los Angeles and of America for a good ten minutes as they disappeared into the distance. I finally forced myself to take a deep breath and to look forward and ahead. 

Quick list of things that made this flight awesome: 

1) it was very spacious and comfortable, 

2) they served hot meals that were quite amazing, 

3) people came around with drinks of any variety every ten minutes for the entire flight, 

4) each seat had a small screen that played hundreds of movies and TV shows, and most importantly, 

5) these T.Vs also had a full fledged interactive Who Wants To Be A Millionaire game available for play the entire flight. Everyone should know that after a couple hours of playing, I got to 200,000 absolutely fake dollars. I was happy with it.

Yeah, I got this one right.

Keep in mind that this was legitimately a 14 hour flight. 14 hours is a long time, and I truly believe that I exhausted every single thing I could possibly do in this time span. I watched two movies (I Love You, Man and Watchmen), Played Millionaire for a few hours, urinated, slept sporadically, stared into the abyss, Did laps around the dark and quiet cockpit, spoke to the woman next to me about Australia, read my book, wrote, ate, drank, stared into the abyss some more, and finished off the last two hours watching what had become my favorite feature on the plane: 

This program was nothing short of fascinating. Starting with the liftoff, it provided an up to date computer simulation of exactly where over the world the plane was at any given moment. It also provided our speed, altitude, Time since departure, time to arrival, and compass direction. Every once in a while it showed a satellite image of the area below us. It really helped to pass the time and to accentuate the feeling of a progressively forward-moving amazing journey.

My headphones stopped working about three hours before landing. I reserved myself to watching the movie the girl in front of me was watching through the two seats and without the audio. It turned out to be the Hannah Montana movie. I was out of things to do. Here's an exciting picture of what I watched for an hour or so. I'm telling you, I was completely out of things to do. Don't judge me.

It took up the time!

As I've said before, I got up a few times to stretch my legs on the plane. At this point it was in the middle of the night, and most people on the plane were either sleeping or were deeply involved in a movie. The knowledge that I was miles over the middle of the Pacific Ocean in this vessel suspended in the air coupled with my increasingly slipping grasp on time as a static property evoked an indescribably Twilight Zone-esque feeling. It was very quiet, very still, and very eerie. 

Around 1:00 in the morning, not long after I took the above photo, our jet passed through the earth's equator and was subject to intense turbulence. Everyone was awakened and told to fasten their seat-belts. This carried on for about 25 minutes. It was very awe-inspiring and made me aware of the power of the earth and the fragility of our seemingly indestructible, mammoth Air New Zealand vessel. Right outside of this calm, eerie environment, millions of moving pieces and powerful turbines were working to keep all of these people alive and healthy. It felt very small and ant-like compared to the earth with all its vastness and power.

I took a picture of the first toilet that I experienced south of the equator. Contrary to popular belief and teachings, it did not flush backwards. It was very, very much normal. Disillusioned by the lies of my teachers and society in general, I returned to my seat. Here is a photo of the flush that crushed my dreams.

Part Three within the day.

The Journey, Part 1

Hello everyone, apologies for the lack of posts and the infrequent timing, but as I've said, internet has been a bit of a problem. That said, I'm going to do my best to chronicle the last couple of weeks with pictures and narrative. It's taking a lot longer to jot down all of my experiences so far, so it'll probably be in a few parts so I don't keep everyone waiting too long.

Woke up at around 7:30 on Wednesday with my bags all packed and on the floor. Going through my morning routine was a bit surreal; I couldn't get it into my head exactly what I was about to embark upon. Mostly at this point I felt nervous anticipation, and it was hard to eat the bagel that I dug out of a Dunkin' Donuts bag. The best way to sum up my feelings is the scene in Jaws when Hooper is about to be lowered into the ocean in the shark cage and tries to spit into his goggles to wipe them off. He realizes it's not working, laughs nervously and whispers to Brody: "...I got no spit." I experienced this exact side effect of anxiety and anticipation...it's very hard to eat a bagel with no saliva. I admit that Hooper's situation was a lot cooler than mine, but I couldn't resist a Jaws reference. My cousins James, Liam and Maura and my Aunt and Grandmother came to say goodbye just before I left. James made me a marvelous illustration of a Gecko which resides on my wall as we speak.

It was a bummer of a morning weather-wise, but I managed to snap a couple of good pictures off of my house and family before I left.

Not her best.

The drive to the airport was quiet and contemplative. Getting to the airport and walking inside was when it started to really sink in. Grabbed a couple pictures of T.F. Green before I left, including the sailboat that serves as a beacon to those entering the great state of Rhode Island.

Seeing the flag before leaving America for the first time invoked a sort of pride and fondness for my country that I had not never felt before. It was a great feeling.

I grabbed some airport food with the family before walking through security. I was worried I wouldn't have an appetite I ended up quite enjoying the food, especially for an airport. Dad called the waitress "Miss" and my mother worried that it would offend her for some reason. This made no sense to me and still doesn't.

It looks like somebody died in this picture

We got a stranger to take our picture just before I was to depart through the gates. Saying goodbye to my family was very tough, but getting past it and walking through security to the gates strengthened my resolve.

I had a lot on my mind. Getting from Warwick, Rhode Island to Wellington, New Zealand took a lot of planning and concentration to get in all the right vessels at the right time. I was a bit worried about pulling all of this off. However, as someone who's never flown before, I found airports to be very manageable and easy to navigate. It is at this point in my tale that we begin the first mini-chapter, a "tale within a tale", if you will. This is the story of how I almost lost 2,000 dollars.

As I've mentioned, the morning that I left was a dark and stormy one. "Oh, that's cute", you might say. You might think, ah, what an atmospheric way to depart your home country. Please reconsider this when I tell you that my plane out of Warwick was delayed for a solid two hours because of this weather. It is at this point in my story that I must introduce a friend of mine. His name is Frank Tucci.

This is Frank.

Frank was from Las Vegas and had apparently been at the poor receiving end of Rhode Island's bad weather for about a week now. He had planned on returning home about 6 days ago and, being denied his priviledge due to the weather, had been living in a cheap motel "watching seinfeld and the food network" for the entirety of his time there. Frank had taken this all in stride; his one ray of hope, one reason for going on, was that glorious sapphire SouthWest jet that would lift him out of Rhode Island and home to Las Vegas at 12:55 p.m. At approximately 1:10, the pilot informed the passangers to expect delays. Frank did not take kindly to this news. He decided to let everyone know who had the ears to listen. This man put his heart and soul into vocalizing just how he felt about each and every one of these delays for the next two hours. Good for you, Frank. Tell 'em. You're moving up in the world.

So that was a fantastic part of my journey. Frank slept the rest of the flight to Pheonix, and I was reminded of a small toddler who, after eating copious amounts of chocolate and throwing a massive tantrum, takes a nosedive into unconsciousness and crashes from lack of energy and nutrition. I was happy about this.

After Frank made his last stand, I began to settle in. The takeoff was exhilarating as I had no idea what to expect. Unfortunately, my first memorable plane trip was fraught with turbulence and nausea due to the poor weather. I felt like we were in an ascent for ages, and we were seldom steady during the seven hour flight. I had good book with me, and it passed the time.

The woman next to me was reading and underlining some sort of religious text. It looked ALMOST like a Bible and I was going to ask her out of curiosity, but then I thought, "eh." I instead ordered a coke and had my mind subsequently blown. The coke had the coolest ice I had ever seen in my life. They were essentially shaped like cylinders with the core hollowed out. The sheer genius didn't strike me for several minutes. I snuck a picture. Check it out.

About halfway through the flight I decided to casually glance at the ticket for my connecting flight. The flight was departing at 4 p.m., which was awesome because it was about 4:10 p.m. and we had just started our descent. I hadn't taken into account the two hours we spent sitting on the runway due to the weather. The pilot announced our alternative connecting flights and dropped us off. Making my way to the gate, I began to feel the effects of time change for the first time in my life. I felt fairly disoriented and tired. Consequently, this was a great time for the desk woman to inform me that I'd been placed on a waiting list and probably would have to get an even later connecting flight. This later flight would effectively make me miss my chartered flight to New Zealand and put me out of a 2,000 dollar flight scholarship and throw me into a hell of a lot of logistical problems. The woman at the desk informed me that since I had not booked my entire flight through their airline (which is absolutely absurd in retrospect; isn't Southwest a domestic airline?), she could not prioritize me on the wait list to get on the connecting flight. I took a deep breath, walked about twenty feet to my right, ordered a cheeseburger, and threw a few up to the big man.

There is a man on this planet named Rob. I don't know much about Rob. I know that he lives somewhere in Los Angeles. I know that he has a really cool beard, is about 5' 9", and has a funky black hat. I know that he carries with him a hardcover leatherbound edition of Moby Dick. I also know that Rob most certainly saved my life. Upon overhearing my predicament, Rob gave up his first place spot on the wait list so that I could make it to L.A. on time. He was a really cool guy and I'm going to look him up one day when I'm a powerful and rich man. Anyways, it was a great stroke of luck and a very much appreciated act of kindness.

My near-disastrous experience gave me a fresh new perspective and increased my energy and confidence after being so fatigued. However, the adventure wasn't over yet. Upon entering the plane, I sensed from my initial scan that there were no seats on the plane. Absurd, I thought to myself. What a silly notion. I soon found myself at the back of the plane with no a seat in sight. I thought to myself, "be cool, be cool" and slowly did an about face and walked back up the plane with a sense of purpose, like I had meant to do that all along. The stewardess ended up having to ask another Southwest employee to take a roll call of EVERYONE ON BOARD to figure out what went wrong. This was fun for me, because I got to stand in front of 150 people while in the front of the plane while this happened. I eventually found a small hiding place out of everyone's sight. Fun times. At this point, one man, one lone ranger on the plane decided to do something far too epic and dramatic for the situation at hand, but undisputedly epic nonetheless. A man with a cowboy hat and a goatee stood up and shouted triumphantly: "I am going to save this plane!" and proceeded to dramatically galavant across the aisle and exit to plane, giving up his seat and leaving a clapping mass of citizens behind him. Unfortunately, this display of heroism didn't end up helping much, as there was still the issue of why there were too many people on Southwest's plane. The man with the cowboy hat doesn't need to know that, though. He rode off into the sunset in his own mind. And so they sat, and I stood, for another 15 minutes or so. Once everything was sorted out and I finally got my seat, I spent the better part of the one hour flight to L.A. listening to a small girl talk to another 20 something year old girl in front of me. They carried on a very light, juvenile conversation, but something about listening to a child talk helps stress and makes you a bit calmer. Incidentally, this plane had the genius ice as well. In meaning to snap a picture of the cool Southwest logo, I actually captured the girl who was talking with the kid. So yes, this is my creepy stalker photo. Everyone has to have one, I suppose. In any case, cool logo.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, I was just about ready to sit in any chair available to me and fall asleep. I grabbed my last American meal (some sort of turkey panini; it was quite good) and exchanged the 50 or so dollars I had at the currency exchange. My first impressions of New Zealand money was that of childlike fascination. Every bill is of a different color, size, and illustration, and they use awesome, huge coins for 1 dollars and 2 dollars, making me feel like I'm carrying around Galleons and Sickles. Lesson number #1 learned from my trip: American currency is boring.

Working on part 2, I think I'll just throw this up quick so you're all semi-updated. Part 2 on the way within several hours.