New Zealand: Week One

11/7/13

    This entry marks the end of my first week in New Zealand.  After about 20 hours of flying, my buddy Allen Kellogg and I arrived in Auckland, where we spent the first seven days at a hostel called Silverfern backpackers.  To you and to me, this is the land of literally everything being backwards-from the side of the road that the locals drive on to the direction in which the water flows when you flush the toilet.  It's typically warmer in the north and colder in the south, and the Kiwis even mix up some parts of the English vocabulary, calling shrimp prawns and gas petrol.  In New Zealand, there is no such thing as a cooler; rather, it is called a chilly bin.  I've never even seen a hostel before this week, but I will say for my part that they are extremely welcoming and bustling places.  You are provided virtually everything you could need at a flat rate of about 20-30 dollars a night, depending on the number of roommates you choose.  The people here are remarkably nice and outgoing-and to us, their names are similarly outlandish.  Dardan, Leonie, Fabio, Dirkje, Felicitas, Ulysse...one of our closest friends has a name that sounds exactly like Jah Rule, but he shakes his head every time we butcher his name like that so we just call him Belgium because that's where he's from.  Then there's Andrea, the guy with the girl's name...it's a bit of a headache to keep them all straight, but we do it because the kindness of each of these people is unforgettable.
    I suppose we spent most of our time in Auckland hanging out in the hostel lounge, drinking the nights away with our incredibly diverse group of newly made friends and teaching them American card games.  I just realize, I've forgotten to tell you where they all are from...so far, we have met people from Ireland, France, Sweden, Italy, Albania, Austria, the Netherlands, Argentina, Chile, Australia, South Africa, Scotland, the Philippines, and, most of all, Germany.  Upon arriving in New Zealand, we managed to walk across all of Auckland in just 15 minutes-we panicked for a moment, thinking we'd surely be out of things to do in this, the biggest city in all New Zealand, in three days or less, and with a whole week booked in the same hostel.  This of course proved to be untrue.  In that short week, we went to the incredible Auckland city museum, learned the native Maori Haka dance, climbed a volcano, toured an island military outpost, visited nigh on every park in the city at least once, and went through an unreal LED light saturated dreamworld called the "Odyssey Sensory Maze" twice over.  I will pause here to express my amazement with the Auckland parks-these places were mini jungles, and if you walked just ninety or so paces into the place, you would look all around and feel certain you had gotten hopelessly lost in the heart of an endless rainforest.  Similarly, the Auckland museum was a sight worth every penny; it had exhibits on the native Maori culture, all the indigenous flora and fauna, the volcanoes and the formation of the beautiful landscapes in New Zealand, every military engagement the country has ever been involved in, and even a 19th century reconstruction of colonial Auckland. 
    These were our daytime activities; at night, we would go out to a local restaurant that looked good and affordable to us and then hang out, usually at the hostel, with our international friends as we sipped on Kiwi brews and swapped stories about back home and also our time in New Zealand.  Alcohol, by the way, is outrageously expensive here-I've seen a six pack selling for 30 New Zealand dollars, and the average one goes for about 15-20.  A handle of Jack Daniels will cost you over a hundred dollars here.  As for pubs, we would point you in the direction of Mac's, by the harbor, which brews all its own beers, or the Albion on Hobson Street, right across from our hostel.  We went out to the Auckland clubs one night to celebrate our close German friend Dardan's birthday, where we ran into nothing but sticky floors and even more young world travelers, and a mosh pit in one especially sticky place.  A word from the wise on going out with internationals-don't dare attempt to keep up on drinking with a German, because it will, sure as Death himself, kill you.  The food we've typically been eating here is Asian.  There are a ton of Asian immigrants here, and consequently a ridiculous number of Asian restaurants on every block, so we've been frequenting Indian, Thai, Turkish, and all that sort of places for a new kind of curry every day.  Our favorite place to go is a road called K Street, where all of the food is, by New Zealand standards, awesomely cheap and equally good.
    Yesterday, we left the bustling city of Auckland to head south for the rural region of Waikato, where we're taking up work on a local Hereford cattle farm in exchange for rooms and hot food.  In New Zealand, this arrangement is called WWOOFing.  We were very sad to break up our little fellowship of new friends at the hostel (which in fact was not so little, by the end of a week), but we were sure to trade numbers with everyone and promise to keep in regular touch.  Fortunately, one of the best friends we have yet made was able to come with us to our new home on the farm...he is from Sweden, and his name is Simon (in the fellowship, we equate him to the hobbit Merry.  You're welcome, fellow Tolkien fanatics).  As I sit down to write this, I have just finished my first day's work, which I spent cutting down trees and clearing them out, along with heaps of overgrown brush.  It's hard work, but not so hard that you can't enjoy the rolling hillsides that extend for miles all around you or the music of the local birds that are constantly chirping their encouragement (or disapproval, now that I've thought on it...but at any rate, it's quite a soundtrack for us).  After work, we get to pass the rest of the day as we please, and we need only put in four solid hours a day, so we will always have plenty of time to soak up the Kiwi life in our own way and at our own pace.  Our gracious host Michelle cooks a hot meal for us every night, and she also packs a hearty lunch for us every day alongside a thermos full of tea.  Milk, she says, is an essential part of a good cup of tea; they don't take it any other way here.  Last night, which was our first night on the farm, she prepared for us a dinner of farm raised sausages, potatoes, and assorted vegetables, and served for dessert a piping hot rhubarb and apple tart with steaming homemade custard.  Our other host is Michelle's husband Graham.  Though we can never get him to stop talking, we similarly can never stop eagerly listening.  Their farm is so beautiful that even language of utmost eloquence can never do it justice, but to put an accurate picture in your mind, we are just about an hour outside of Hobbiton, so you might as well think about this place as our own kind of hobbit hole.  It certainly feels it, with the warmest kind of coziness and more food and brew than even our American stomachs could ever hope to handle.  To put a price on experiences like this is not a doable thing, and I can say with confidence that the memories of these places we are seeing and these people we are meeting will be forever engraved upon our beating hearts.  I will close here to step outside and take some photos to share with you all, and I will do my best to keep this blog updated with the experiences I'm yet to have in such an amazing country.  Though it goes without saying, of course, that you'd do just as well to get out here and live this Kiwi life for yourself.  Cheers, mates!

Kindest regards, your friend,
Jack