Otehake Springs

Hey everyone!

Rachel and I finally went on an adventure with the Tramping Club (CUTC) this past weekend! She took a bunch of pictures, whereas I got to our starting point and realized my camera was dead. Epic fail.

Three other kids from our Butler group came on the trip too—Jasmine, Dale and Nora. Jas had never been tramping before, but Dale and Nora are fairly experienced, so we were in good hands. There were about forty people in all. We rode in vans for about two hours Saturday morning and then started off on our hike to Otehake Springs, natural hot pools in Arthur’s Pass National Park. Brian, the trip leader, said that the trip would be fairly easy. Brian lied. It was actually quite pleasant at first, since we were walking on a gravel road. But soon enough it was time to cross the river, which we did a number of times (sixty-five thousand, at a conservative estimate) over the next day and a half. It wasn’t so bad when the water was just up to our ankles or knees, but a few times it came past my ribs. Short people shouldn’t go river-crossing, or hiking in general. We tramped for a while through dense woods mainly consisting, from my angle, of tree roots, mud and thorns. In retrospect, though, the woods were the least taxing part of the whole hike. The incline became really steep by the end of the day, and being 5’2” on a hill like that pretty much necessitates climbing on your hands and knees, so I was sure that by the end of the trip my knees would look like Hannibal Lector got ahold of them. They’re not really so bad, but I now have a serious new appreciation for level ground. Dale had brought river-crossing poles, and he took pity on me and lent me one for the rest of the tramp. It was great, like having a third leg. The high point of the day was definitely when a girl came up to me and said, “I haven’t met you yet, but I just wanted to tell you that I think you look like Rachel McAdams.” I replied, “I haven’t met you yet, but I love you.” For those of you who are cultural holdouts and haven’t seen Wedding Crashers, Rachel McAdams is a beautiful actress whom I apparently resemble when I’m wearing ill-fitting clothes, no makeup, and a lot of sweat and dirt. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to make that a regular thing. Anyway, we finished our hike to the hot pools in the dark—poor Rachel had to cross the river in the dark—but the upside was that we got to use our sweet head lamps. Those things are so wonderful. Rach and I are like little kids at Christmas with our headlamps.

After climbing up to our campsite, we pitched our tents in the dark and then a lot of people changed into bathing suits and hopped into the hot pools. Being from the South, Rach and I are not quite that hardcore when it comes to the cold, so we decided not to strip down outside on a winter night in New Zealand. But we did sit around with our feet in the pools for a few hours and helped some of the guys put away the wine they had brought. Dale brought a bottle of Villa Maria, because he’s awesome. Some of the Kiwis had brought an iPod and speakers, and I think they played the entire works of the Chili Peppers. Afterward it was snuggle time in the tents. We had borrowed a CUTC tent for the four of us girls, which turned out to barely fit three of us, so I begged a spot in a tent with one of the group leaders, Monique. There were eventually five of us in her three-man tent. We had two Americans join us, Luke and Julia; Luke told me that he doesn’t usually sleep with a girl on the first date, but it was so cold that he would make an exception. After we were all cozy in the tent, some guy came straight from the hot pools in his swim trunks and hopped in next to Monique, so we were mighty cramped. I think I slept for maybe an hour or two. Julia actually left in the middle of the night and slept outside rather than endure our snuggle fest. Rachel said her tent was pretty cramped too, but that she slept well anyway.

Sunday morning, Brian told us we were taking the “easy way” back home. I think I already mentioned that Brian is a liar, yeah? Well, I suppose this way was, technically, easier. It was fairly flat, and anything would be better than climbing back up Saturday’s hill from hell. We basically just followed the river home, which meant crossing from side to side to find the best place for walking when your two choices are wet rocks and dry rocks. Let me tell you something about rocks. Big rocks are okay to walk on; leapfrogging on them is actually fun and a fairly quick way to travel. Little gravelly rocks are fine too. But medium-size rocks are impossible, because they aren’t stable enough to really walk on, so you have to walk between them, and after a few hours your feet are threatening mutiny. I was really thankful that my hiking boots came up so high, or I’m sure I would have twisted an ankle. I said a lot of bad words to those rocks. We sometimes came upon grass, and I was more thankful to see grass than I ever have been in my life. We walked for a while on mossy, rocky ground that looked just like the landscape in that scene in The Two Towers where Sam is cooking rabbits and then he and Frodo get captured by Faramir. (I am such a Lord of the Rings dork, I admit it.) In fact, you’re probably thinking, at least we got to see some beautiful scenery, right? False. The only scenery I saw was the rocks I was walking on. I scrutinized the heck out of those rocks, lest I fall again and do some more damage to my knees. No, actually, it was beautiful out there. Although the rocks put me in mind of Mordor more than anything else, we were tramping around the Southern Alps, where Peter Jackson filmed a fair amount of movies scenes, including the ones in Edoras and Pelennor Fields. They filmed most of the movies on the North Island, actually. And I promise I don’t just know this stuff off the top of my head. I’m not Leslie Venable : ) I just found a sweet website with a map of NZ and you can click on locations and it tells you which LOTR scenes were filmed there: http://www.filmnz.com/middleearth/locations/index.html. You know you want to check it out.

The Sunday hike was a little scary because we were walking on a rocky road for hours, and we weren’t sure that we were going the right way. Every so often, we’d hear a rustle and Brian would lope out of the woods, as if he’d just Apparated from a Red Bull factory, and say, “How’s it going?” Then he would disappear again. There was another experienced tramper named Sam bringing up the rear, but we were mostly just betting on the fact that the road would bring us back home. When we started seeing cow patties, we got excited, because cows = farms = people = civilization. And sure enough, we caught up to the rest of the group, and from there it was a quick walk back to the vans. Of course, there was a deep river crossing first, and I’m pretty sure that’s where I lost Mom’s gloves. Oops. (I’ll buy you some nice Merino ones for Christmas!) But then we drove to a café at Arthur’s Pass a little ways down the road and to warm up and reconvene, and two hours later we were home. The ride home was fun because a) I was sitting down and b) Sam put on a station that played American classic rock, and he and I had a discussion about how women should not be involved in rock music, ever, when “Barracuda” came on. Sorry, Mom. Also, I dozed off at one point and woke up to the Bohemian Rhapsody—not so much Freddie Mercury as the entire van going, “MOMMAAAA! OOOOOOOH!” in about three different keys. When we got back, we had showers and then Nora made the five of us dinner. I love Nora. She is wonderful.

So, to sum up, a few hours into Sunday’s tramp, Jas and I had the following exchange:
Me: “How do you like tramping?”
Jas: “It’s awesome. It’s the greatest experience of my life. So fantastic, in fact, that I will probably never do it again.”
I was feeling really crummy after the hike, like I’m the worst tramper in NZ (probably true), but Dale said it was more intense than even he was expecting, so I felt better. I’m alive, after all, and now that I can feel all my extremities again, I’m starting to forget how horrible it was. Rachel did a lot better than I did, because she’s the Little Engine That Could, whereas I was always last and I’m thinking of officially changing my name to The Caboose. I mean, I like nature as much as the next guy—unless the next guy is Bear Grylls—but I think day tramps may be the best way for me to go. I’m quite attached to civilization. Except tramping means I might get to use my head lamp, which makes it pretty darned worth it.

lots of love-
also write us letters-
Carie and Rachel

Kia Ora!

Hey everyone! It took us almost a month to get the blog started (oops), but here it is at last.

We moved into our on-campus apartments a few weekends ago, after spending our first weekend in Christchurch (herein referred to as CHCH) at a nice hostel in the city center. Rach and I are in adjacent buildings, but—trust her to luck out like this—hers is the building with the laundry room. She actually lives right across from it, on the first floor, whereas I live on the third level again. But on the bright side, my flatmates are awesome. Their names are Moana and Sina and they’re both from Samoa. They’re great to live with—clean, considerate, and hilarious. And given my past tumultuous history with roommates, I’m pretty thrilled to have a single. Rachel’s flatmates are Japanese and Malaysian. Their names are Misi, Wa-Wa, and Na-Na. (I am not making this up.) They’re great flatmates as well.

Our flats all have kitchens, but only the really big flats have ovens; the rest of us just have stoves. So if you have any great stove-top recipes, please send them along! There are 2 kids in our Butler group with ovens, so we go over to their flats to bake sometimes. We are less than ten minutes’ walk from the grocery store (where they sell giant Toblerone bars for a dollar) and less than half an hour from the mall, which is really nice. There are also buses running all the time and everywhere. Rachel, Briana and I discovered that the other weekend, accidentally getting on the wrong bus and ending up out in the woop-woops (i.e., the boonies), where the bus proceeded to break down. It was an adventure.

We’ve been in class for a week now. Canterbury’s campus is much smaller than we expected, which is great since both of us are used to being on a campus the size of a teacup. Rach and I have two classes together, Russian history and Roman myth. Rachel is also in American lit and Kiwi history since 1940, and I’m taking Troy in ancient epic and the history of Nazi Germany. Our Roman myth professor is American. She has a Northern accent that makes us cringe, she told us she puts God on the same level as the Tooth Fairy, and she also announced that she doesn’t live in the States because she wants her taxes used for “health care and parks,” not an “imperialist war machine.” Charming. Rachel and I both feel that if we had wanted to listen to Americans complain about the US government, we would have just stayed in the States, but oh well. Surprise, though—not all Kiwis hate America, but there is still a prevailing attitude of pacifism in New Zealand. Our student advisor Kate read one of the guys in our group the riot act because he plans to join the Marines next summer. That really surprised me because in America, we tend to respect members of the armed forces, regardless of our own opinions about the current war. NZ may have a British heritage, just as America does, but we are definitely two distinct groups.

Rachel and I are trying to milk our break from Work Forest for all it’s worth. Last weekend almost everyone in our group went to see Harry Potter 6 together, and there were a couple of people at the cinema who looked exactly like the Weasleys. I mean exactly. It was awesome. And two nights ago we all went to play laser tag (or laser strike, as the Kiwis call it), and eat Japanese food, courtesy of our IFSA-Butler fees. There are more Butler events planned for the semester, including river rafting and an adventure weekend of four-wheeling, hiking, and hot springs. Rach and I both joined the Tramping Club, and we’re hiking to Hanmer Springs this weekend. We’ll take lots of pictures. The pictures up on Rachel’s Facebook are from an afternoon trip two weekends ago to a little town nearby called New Brighton. It has a library right on the beach, which is sweet as. One of the great things about this country is that you can hop on a bus and go right to the beach, or you can rent a car and drive a few hours to go skiing for the day. There are a ton of options.

Time for fun facts about Kiwis. Their accents are sweet as—“text” is pronounced “tixt,” “knackered” sounds like “naked,” and “netball” is a dead ringer for “nipple.” This is the type of fun you can have talking to Kiwis. In terms of friendliness, there really isn’t a fair generalization—some are polite and others are cold. I’ve met several really friendly Kiwis in my Nazi history class. One thing I can say about them as a group, though, is that they are terrible at sharing public spaces, whether they are walking on a sidewalk, driving in a parking lot, or wandering the grocery store aisles with a shopping trolley. Know how people in the States instinctively stay to the right when walking in public? Kiwis apparently think that keeping to one side is only for driving. It’s ridiculous. Also, the guys here wear really tight pants, so tight that we have to wonder how they get their feet in to begin with. And no self-respecting Kiwi wears sneakers with jeans, or sneans, as Kate calls them. Americans always give ourselves away by rocking the sneans. Another everyday difference between NZ and the States is the coffee. It’s like art to these people. I’ve dearly missed plastic to-go cups with plain old straightforward American coffee (that’s the first thing I’m buying at LAX when I fly home). People sit down and relax while they drink NZ coffee. It comes in a legit mug or even a tall glass, with foam in the shape of, I don’t know, a unicorn. No, seriously though, it’s usually in the shape of a leaf, and very pretty, but still. Our favorite coffee shop downtown sells a raspberry coffee called—really—a Ziggy Stardust. I like David Bowie as much as the next guy, but I think that in itself illustrates how seriously Kiwis take coffee. Starbucks, pretentious as it is, has nothing on New Zealand coffee.

Oh yeah, I though I’d mention who’s in our Butler group. There are ten guys: Pete from Wake, Kevin, Trevor, Nadav, Matt, Matt, Alex, Dale, Nick, and Andrew, and eight girls, Jasmine, Nora, Ashley, Briana, Katie, PT, Rach, and me. We’ve also picked up a few American kids who came here solo, Chris and Laura. They are all a lot of fun.

Rachel is the one with the sweet Nikon, so she’s in charge of pictures for the blog. Bug her if you think she’s slacking off. I, on the other hand, seldom remember that I even have a camera. (kidding, Mom, thanks for the camera)

We miss everyone back home tons. You should send us letters! Also Skype us! We’re 16 hours ahead of the East Coast and 19 ahead of the West.

love-

Carie and Rachel