Goodbye Charlie

It was a sticky summer day. Someone had left the gate in front of our house partially unlatched. That was all the encouragement he needed.

Soon a white blur was seen terrorizing through the neighborhood--chasing squirrels, barking at robins, blazing through mud and burs not thinking about the bath he was securing for later. I called, I yelled, I screeched, I attempted a meager whistle, but nothing could stop him when he got into one of his wild n' free states. I was chasing him up and down the steep hills leading to the golf course. He was leaping over yards as if they were puddles, speeding through gardens, knocking over flower pots on his way.

My dad caught up with us as we were circling an old brick building sticking out from the forrest. Soon Charlie was racing through dense Pine trees, bounding through piles of needles and leaves. My dad managed to cut him off on one side of a hill. He turned. There I was.

It was a face off.

Only ten feet stood between me and my dog who wasn't quite trained enough to be left with unlatched gates. Suddenly, as if inspired by Charlie's own running and leaping skills, I dove. Arms outstretched, flying through the air, I straight up tackled that dang dog. He of course, thought this was great fun and proceeded to lick my face off.

Just a week ago, Charlie went for one last freedom run. I'm sure he ran through yards and knocked over flowerpots, chased squirrels into trees and barked wildly beneath the taunting robins. He said goodbye to the burs and the mud puddles, to the neighbors yelling at him as he ran through their gardens, to the wildlife that would learn to miss the excitement he had provided them. Although I wasn't there to tackle him, Charlie had since learned how to come home after being left with unlatched gates. He came home that evening after saying goodbye to the running adventures he lived for.

A week later, his cancer made it impossible for him to live the active life he loved. After only 8 years of being my favorite dog in the world, Charlie left it.

Cheers to my speedy dog who will be greatly missed.

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

It seems the Minnesota weather has followed me cross hemispheres.

It snowed today on a blustery September day (like April-May snow in MN). Although it rarely snows in Dunedin, and most of the snow was in fact hail that melted approximately ten minutes after it fell, I still couldn't help immediately feeling a surge of delight.

I rushed to put on my boots, grabbed my camera, ran into the streets, threw open my arms under the gentle tingle of small hail/snow and yelled, "I'M HOME!"

I could feel my wintery Nordic ancestors speaking, their windy words echoing down to the depths of my soul. It was clear as the cold ice chunks being flung in my face.

Kelsey! You need to bake something, Ya!

According to my flatmates, I'm a true Midwesterner.

So after throwing on a nice thick Christmas sweater, turning on the Holiday tunes, and preheating the oven, I proceeded to bake sugar cookies. They weren't close to living up to my grandma's delicious ones (I've come to realize that no food ever comes close to my parent's/grandma's cooking, which I make sure to tell everyone I have a culinary conversation with), and we were in short supply of sprinkles and cookie cutters. But I worked with what I had, and managed to improvise a few nice snowmen and snowwomen.

Here are a few pictures of the lovely weather and subsequent cookies, enjoy. Cheers!

A snow family!

Our snowwoman!!

My cold flatmates!

Our very snowy frontyard

Cup o' Tea

I have found that my fellow kiwis and I have heaps in common. We watch similar American television shows, we enjoy common forms of socializing, we like to eat chocolate and pizza (separately, although now that I say it, a chocolate pizza sounds delicious!), and so on. However, I am still confronted with instances where I feel completely and utterly "different" than my New Zealand counterparts, due to a lack of shared experiences. One such example of this gap occurred in my Maori class just the other day when a guest lecturer came to speak to us about traditional Maori attitudes to land. He was attempting to stimulate our understanding by connecting examples from our assumed everyday lives to some of the land concepts. But you know what happens when you assume...

His example was this,

"Do you remember when you were younger, and every day you would run home for afternoon tea? Sometimes you would bring your mates home, and someone else might bring their mates home as well. So the mums were never quite sure how many people would show up, and would worry about if everyone would get an equal share of the pie. That is why mums use a circular dish instead of a box, so everyone would get a bit of the juicy and a bit of the crust--exactly like the Polynesian philosophy of land division!"

He lost me at afternoon tea.

Then he lost me further when I thought about all those poor mums slaving over hot New Zealand ovens every single day baking huge pies for children who might not even show up, or worse, bring a bunch of their uninvited piggy "mates" to devour the object of her kindness and then be ungrateful if there wasn't enough good bits of pie!!

Ignoring my inherent womanly need to sympathize with the mothers for the moment, the concept of land division to reflect equal division of resources was not hard to grasp, nor was the concept that pies should be made in circular tins instead of boxes so that everyone has the same type of slice.

But I still left class examining the other students in awe. In my mind I saw them all dressed in Victorian garb, running in their little knickers and shiny shoes home to large apron-wearing "mums" who sat them down while they sipped tea with outstretched pinkies and nibbled on sandwiches far too small to ever appease my appetite. It seemed to me as though we were a completely different people--they were the kind who drank afternoon tea every day and I was from the type who as a child ran home to watch Arthur every afternoon. It was perplexing.

While I have since come to realize that of course there are more than the afternoon tea and non afternoon tea types of people in this world, I still find the lack of perceivably common ground that is present here interesting. New Zealand may be quite Americanized in its outpouring of pop culture, but at its heart it maintains a vibrant unique New Zealander-British-Maori mix of cultures that leaves much to be newly experienced for a person from any background.

Cheers!

Loopy Lingo

It's mid-September...which means my trip is officially half over.

Where has all the time gone?

I'll tell you where. All the time has gone into me being stumped by mumbling Kiwis and crazy slang.

But no longer. You see, today I actually thought to myself as I was watching some wild New Zealand television, "that ad was brilliant." Now to you this may seem minuscule, in fact you may be wondering what the point is. However, if you traveled back in time half of my stay ago, you would notice my thoughts to be thinking, "that commercial was cool," or even more likely, "are they really allowed to say that on network television??"

It's all adding up now, I have successful infiltrated the Kiwi dialect, no longer held back by an inability to translate the mumbles and bumbles of Kiwi jargon, I am one step closer to my ultimate goal of dual assimilation, only to follow by perhaps world domination, although those plans are still in process.

I feel my only duty now can be to teach the masses of the world who end every night with long desperate prayers to the heavens that someday somehow they will learn how to speak like Kiwis. Your prayers have been answered. I'm here to help.

Let's start with the accent and tone--the most difficult and easiest areas to master. Forget everything you've learned about annunciation. Kiwis never learned how. Close your mouth. Now speak. Don't open it though, keep it closed. Congratulations, you've just mastered the New Zealander mumble. Moving on.

Let's have a go with the accent now. A cross between Australian and British, the New Zealander accent is perhaps one of the most difficult to master. Why you ask? I'll tell you why, thanks for asking by the way. Because if you try to say a phrase like "G'day mate" in the accent you're used to hearing it in, you will ultimately sound like an Aussie and be brutally ridiculed and highly offensive to any Kiwi who is unlucky enough to hear you. The line between Australian and Kiwi is not a line, it is a high barbed wire electric fence with murderous guard dogs and snipers sporting those heat sensitive goggles that only super secretive agents can sneak through. To cross the two is to commit a heinous crime, and should not be done, or you may lose the power of speech altogether. That said, it is also extremely difficult to actually make yourself speak an accent that is not Australian when you attempt Kiwi (unless you are a Kiwi of course or an Aussie) but it is vital to your very soul that you do not mix the two. Keep that in mind when it comes to pronunciation time. Which is now.

The main thing with pronunciation, like most languages, is getting your vowels down. Most i's will be pronounced like u's, and e's will be so long you'll wonder when they will ever stop. For example, one of my favorite words, chocolate is pronounced like choc oh lut. The word milk is pronounced like mu-ell-k and the word yes is pronounced like yee-s, the city Wellington is pronounced Wullington. Put it in a sentence: Yes, I'll have your Wellington chocolate milk. Yees, Uh'll hu-v yur Wullington choc-oh-lut mu-ellk.

Now when it comes to consonants, think lazy mumbling again. Those on the end of words are usually completely left off. Instead of "but" say buh, instead of "school" say schoo-w. Put it in a sentence: But I don't want to go to school. Buh Ah don't wunt to g-uh to schoo-w.

Got it yet? Keep practicing.

Now to my favorite, and at times most mind boggling dialectal lesson: Vocabulary. I'll dive right in. The scene: your friend stops by your place on a warm sunny Friday evening. He has a proposition for you. Now decipher.

"Kia Ora bro!

Are you keen for a wee brekkie out on the barbie tomorrow? I've stuck heaps of bangers and bickies in the chilly bin out in the boot and I'm on my way to top up the petrol so we can take a drive out to that beaut spot near the bush. We can even stop at that one dairy afterward and pick up the lollies we liked, they were sweet as, eh? I'll ring my mates from Uni too. But I've got to run to the chemist's now, I'm a bit crook at the moment. Cheers!"

Having trouble? American-English equivalent.

"Hey man!

Do you want to have a barbecue for breakfast tomorrow? I put tons of sausages and biscuits in the cooler in the trunk and I'm on my way to fill up on gas so we can take a drive out to that awesome spot near the Native New Zealand Forest. We can even stop at that one cornerstore afterward and pick up the candy we like, they were awesome, don't you agree with this statement I'm currently making? I'll call my friends from school too. But I've got to scoot over to the drugstore now, feeling a bit under the weather currently. Laterz!"

How'd you do?

Really?

Sweet as bro, so proud. You did so well, I think a pop quiz is in order, the results can live as proof of your mastered Kiwi dialect for eternity...

Situation 1: Your friend leans on your shoulder, eyes droopy and lets out the phrase..."I'm knackered!"

Does this mean.

A. I am quite drunk.

B. I am quite sleepy.

C. I am quietly craving to go buy some knick knacks to clutter my shelves.

Situation 2: Your other friend leans on your other shoulder, and quietly reminds you about the gathering you're invited to that night. I say quietly because the other shoulder inhabiting friend isn't invited, she's too knackered. Anyways, this friend whispers: "Don't forget to bring the Jerseys we bought tonight!"

Does this mean.

A. Don't forget to bring the sports memorabilia purchased with your friend, so you must be going to some sort of Rugby match.

B. Don't forget to bring your sweatshirts purchased with your friend, so you must be staying inside the freezing flat tonight.

C. Don't forget to bring the entirety of Jersey Shore Season 1 with you tonight, enough said.

Situation 3: You're at the pub watching a Rugby game with aforementioned shoulder slouching friend. You have no idea what's going on in the game, so you decide to be nice and shout a round of handles...otherwise known as buying the next round of drinks on tap that come in mugs (Bet you thought I was going to test you on that, gotcha!). As you are away, everyone starts yelling. You turn around to see one of the players being "sin-binned."

Does this mean.

A. A player has just been discovered to have broken one of the Ten Commandments and is being shamed in front of the entire stadium by a group of nuns.

B. A player has fouled another and put in a penalty box for a few minutes.

C. A nerdy player has been thrown in a dumpster by some of the more popular players.

Test over. The answers were all B. Congratulations, you aced it!

You are now a Kiwi pro. No need to get a visa when you come visit me, you'll be able to fool immigration into believing you are a native with the knowledge you've acquired. Don't forget to invite the customs officer over for brekkie sometime!

Cheers!

Wild Wild West

Before I go into my Spring Break, I feel the need to retract my previous post on the whole Mom Approved: New Zealand business. Upon further consideration (ie the 7.3 mag Earthquake that hit the South Island earlier this morning) I have decided (with the counsel of my wise and beautiful sister) that New Zealand may not be so Mom Approved after all. My street cred could be on the rise after all. In all seriousness, the earthquake that hit did not do much damage to the town I live in, other than the damage to my wee heart from being woken up at 4 AM by shaking walls and rattling drawers for about a minute--although my raging imagination managed to work in my favor for once to convince myself it was just a dream and fall right back asleep. No one has been reported hurt yet, the most damage (mostly to cars, roads, and occasional buildings) occurred in the Christchurch area (a few hours straight north) where we have a few friends. Please say your prayers that the toll will remain injury-free.

Now, back to business...I can now say that I have survived not only an earthquake, but a cross country road trip! Barely. For 6 days, me, my two international flatmates from the States, another international student from France, and Dan--the lone Kiwi male who somehow was hypnotized into wanting to spend 6 straight days with 4 crazy girls, squished into a car and piled our belongings so high you could barely see out of any of the windows as we travelled the West Coast of the South Island. I outlined our trip in Purple on this tiny tiny map of the South Island--starting in the bottom right orange star in Dunedin, then up and over to the next orange star--Greymouth, below that is Franz Josef, and the bottom left orange star is Queenstown.

Day 1:

We left at 8 AM on a cloudy Saturday Morning, ready for a week of some serious travelling. Ok, we didn't leave at 8 AM, but we tried. We ended up leaving at about 9:30 I think, which is pretty good--at least we were within 2 hours of our time frame! Our goal was to make it up about half of the South Island and then completely across to the Western Coastline (see above map), passing through the Alps on our way. Normally this is about an 8-10 hour drive, even with stops we managed to make it in about 8, we have a speedy French woman to thank for that....

Our first stop was the Moeraki Boulders--home to the fascinating naturally circular rocks. I managed to scale one, and I have the battle scars to prove it. I'm all smiles here, but when I soon put my thumbs away and look at my bloody pinkie, not so much.

Next came Arthur's Pass, the daunting trek through winding roads barely contained from the steep incline of the mountain, made even more exciting by Mother Nature's onslaught of pouring rain and raging winds. Caution: driving across the South Island is not for the faint of heart nor weak of stomach.

The Weather changed almost instantly a few times up in the mountains, luckily (sarcasm) we handed the wheel over to our French Friend as she said she had mountain driving experience. Apparent English Translation: She can floor the gas pedal through mountain passes as we in the backseat appear to be headbanging in terror as we are thrown around the car waiting for the doors to give way under our incessant crashing into them and the inevitable plunge off of the mountain side. After some severe whiplash where we almost died the 200th time, the clouds thought it would be really funny to terrify us even more by completely dumping the roads with rain, and she slowed (sort of). We survived, somehow.

Day 2:

The Second day was filled with one of my favourite things to do, walk. Now, if you know me, you know I actually am not usually a big fan of walking. I don't dislike it as much as running, but still, if you ask me whether I'd rather bike or walk, it'd be bike; drive or walk, it'd be drive; segway or walk, it'd definitely be segway; ride a sea turtle or walk--I'd be jumping on that turtle... However, it turns out, when I have some beautiful jungles and beaches to admire, I like walking for the first few hours, after which I admit I sort of just got bored. We started out our walking by stopping at one of the gazillion beaches dotting the West Coast to check out the view.

Next, we walked to go look at more rocks. If you think you are having deja vu, don't worry about it, you are. We made quite a few detours to look at New Zealand rocks; don't write it off yet, they're pretty interesting. Anyway, like I was saying, we walked through the "Pancake Rocks" where the rocks have formed to look like stacks of pancakes, and so came to be called "The Pancake Rocks." Straight to the point, just how I like it.

After our second rock-sight-seeing of the trip, we did a "short" lively 4 hour tramp through the New Zealand Rainforest/Jungle/Jurassic Park. No dinosaurs spotted, only prehistoric birds and the faint sensation of being tracked by a pack of Velociraptors.

To top off the evening, we were taken through a short tour of the Monteith's Brewery in Greymouth (where our backpacker's hostel was located). The tour was, interesting... actually to be honest it was pretty boring, the tour site was more like a garage with some scary looking machinery than a brewery, and our guide wasn't really a people person. But afterwards, we tried all the different brews (not my cup of tea err beer, but the apple cider was delicious!!) and even got to pretend to be bartenders and pour a few of our own.

Day 3:

Our third day, we wandered off the beaten treks to a little known spot hidden behind acres of farm land and sheep. We were searching for Natural Hot Pools in the bed of sand surrounding an eroded river bank. Although we did not find any large ones, and didn't have any shovels to dig them out if we had, we managed to find a few smaller ones to soak our feet in.

Our next stop was at the "Roadkill Cafe"--I did not partake of the "Bambi Burger" nor the "Roadkill Toasted Sandwiches," I just observed the eatings from afar.

Afterwards we rushed to our Kiwi Stalking appointment. Yes, you read that correctly, we went Kiwi stalking. Turns out even though Kiwis are only found in New Zealand, they're pretty near impossible to see up close in the wild, and that was our mission, to get close to a wild Kiwi. We succeeded. After running out in the woods to make it to a spot before dusk (Kiwis are nocturnal) we sat/stood for about 45 minutes as it got dark outside a Kiwi den (our guide had a red light to shine on the Kiwi so we could see her without her seeing us). Sure enough, the Momma Kiwi came out, got a whiff of us with her long beak pointed to the sky, and waddled into the bushes. We spent the next few hours stalking her and some of the other Kiwi, but only managed to hear their terifying Angry Cat Screeches as they warned us we were in their territory, and get scared by rustling possums. Although it was freezing cold, and after a few hours the tip toeing in mud got a bit overrated, looking up at the night sky was enough to distract me from this for the few hours. I have never seen so many stars in my life. They were twinkling so much I thought I'd have a seizure. It was absolutely breathtaking.

(The only Kiwis I was allowed to take pictures of--our Kiwi guide, and Kiwi friend leading the group into the Wild Unknown before the Sun went down)

Day 4:

Seeing as we had spent a whole day without looking at rocks, the next day we travelled to the Franz Josef glacier to walk across a desert of rocks (where the glacier used to extend but retreated, leaving behind a bed of rocks that won't grow vegetation for a long time). The glacier was not what I expected. It was icy--that I expected--but it was spring ice, very dirty and really unstable looking. There are tours available to hike the glaciers, but our wallets weren't thick enough to indulge in that danger.

My own tour of the glacier. I'm charging $200 a head to take groups onto this wee glacier for about 30 seconds. I think it'll be a profitable business venture.

One of the many many waterfalls dotting the landscape, complete with rainbow, pot of gold is not included.

The Kea-- aka Forest Parrot who rips the roofs off of cars, just for fun--they weren't hugged enough when they were little I think.

Day 5:

On our last full day of Road Trippin' we drove about 4 hours down to Queenstown--otherwise known as the adventure capital of the world, where the first Commercial Bungee Jump originates (Bungee Jumping in general originates from a tribal rite of passage for boys to enter "manhood," in case you were curious). On our way we stopped at another glacier--Fox Glacier.

Afterwards, we went Penguin Stalking to a beach where supposedly New Zealand Native Yellow Eyed Penguins make their homes. Unfortunately, the Penguins were off catching their lunch, but I did spot a baby fern!! In Maori, the symbol of the curl of the fern symbolizes a new beginning, and is often depicted in Maori artwork.

Of course, because we were taking to the winding roads again, it downpoured.

Queenstown! And more importantly CookieTime--a locally owned Kiwi chain dedicated to the happiness of humanity achieved through the selling of delicious chocolate chip (among others) cookies.

Queenstown at night

Day 6:

For our final day, while my companions risked their lives and spent their moneys jumping off of ledges tied to a measly rope, I walked around Queenstown and enjoyed some gourmet chocolates and freedom.

Goodbye Queenstown!

All in all, we had a wonderful trip. We made it safely to all of our destinations, had a lot of fun, and none of us wanted to kill the other one, yet. Perhaps my luck is on the rise along with my street cred? Only time will tell. Happy New Zealand Father's Day!!

Cheers!