These last days have all been spent doing the EAP orientation in Auckland. The group of us are all from different UCs and going to different New Zealand Universities. We have people staying in Auckland University, and going to Waikato University in Hamilton, Massey University in Christchurch, Victoria University in Wellington, Lincoln University in Christchurch and Otago University in Dunedin. Each day we've had different talks from people somehow associated to the program on things we should know before living in NZ on our own. The topics have been things like 'NZ social and political scene', 'do we speak the same language?' and 'the great outdoors'. These have been mostly interesting and funny, but we'll see how much help they really are. Whenever a presenter asks if there are any questions, they end up being something like 'will I make friends?' and 'what's the bar scene like?'. Each day we have morning tea, something we should definitely start having in the states! It's about an hour after breakfast and about an hour before lunch. We have tea or coffee, little fried cheese rice balls, muffins, scones with jam and cream and different kinds of tarts. It's delicious and full of regret.
One of the highlights during orientation was the Maori cultural performance at the Auckland Museum. It was a dancing and singing performance and was surprisingly intense. There was a performance of poi, which I didn't know came from the Maori. I had only ever seen fire poi before, so this was lighthearted and fun in comparison. The most powerful dance was definitely the last one, the Haka. It was used to mentally prepare the men for battle and call upon the Gods to support them along the way. The men were slapping their hands against their bodies and stomping the floor, the women had their eyes opened so widely it was scary. I was sitting in the second row and my heart was still beating fast!
We had what we all thought would be our first Kiwi University Experience on the night of the 22nd when the All Blacks had a game. A barbecue was put together for us, and we had drinks paid for by the university (incredible!). The game was projected onto a wall in the hall of residence we had been having all our meals at, and the residents of that hall came down to watch the game. Everybody was really enthusiastic about the whole idea, even though it was finals season. You'd never seen something like that back at UCSD. I heard that the game was good, but I don't know that for sure because I don't really understand rugby. I also fell asleep before halftime.
Every orientation they run has an outing. Usually it's a beach day trip, but seeing as it's winter, Ivan decided to find something a little more season appropriate. We traveled North to Wenderholm Regional Park. It was stunningly beautiful there. The grass here is vibrantly green and everything stays damp and clean because of the constant rain. The park was an estuary and from the beach we could see different islands and peninsulas. Because I'm so used to the coast of California, standing on the beach and being able to see more land masses is really strange. I'm used to places like Big Sur, where you can look out into the ocean and believe wholeheartedly that there won't be land no matter how far you travel. We then went to Waiwera, a little hot springs pool resort. It was okay, but I soon ended up walking back to the beach, even in the wind and rain.
On the last night of orientation, we had a closing ceremony of sorts with the whole EAP group. The program had reserved a restaurant called Duder's at Devonport, and we were given ferry tickets in order to get there. We were all doing our best to pretend to know where the ferry building was and that we remembered where the directions that Ivan, our director, had rattled off earlier in the day. Eventually we all made it to the restaurant where we had the best food so far in the program. I was lucky enough to sit at a table with Ivan, and we all giggled and egged him on to tell more stories as he got tipsier and tipsier as the night went on.
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My closest friends and I had all decided that since we hadn't gone out to a bar yet during orientation, the last night was the night to do it! We drank just a little and headed out on the town, expected to find a wild and fun place. It wasn't until we had seen the streets that we realized we were trying to find a party at 11pm on a Monday night in the middle of winter. We eventually ended up running into another big group of EAP people at a place called the Family Bar, a dingy American wild west saloon themed gay karaoke bar. We were the only ones there and that's why it ended up being such a fun night, we danced and winced at drink prices as long as we were able to stay awake.
And that was the end of the orientation to the country I'll be staying in for the next 6 months. Up next is a road trip to Northland!
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