My week in Auckland.

Wow. I can't believe how fast the last week went. Orientation started on Thursday and I had so much fun. The program director and all others in charge were some of the nicest and welcoming people I have ever met. They gave us lessons in Kiwi language, politics, culture and tons of other tips. Not to mention a few trips that were worth remembering. On Friday we went to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It was a cool place full of interesting history of New Zealand and full of information on the Maori people. We even saw a performance of their traditional song and dance including the famous Haka dance, performed by New Zealand's rugby team before every game. After we could take photos with one of the performers.

They informed us that the Maori people used to stick their tongues out and whiten their eyes to frighten away enemies and create fear. After the performance we wandered around the museum more and even experienced a volcano eruption simulator. It was exciting but kind of frightening? Haha.

On Saturday we took a trip out to the island of Tiritiri Mantangi. It was about an hour boat ride across the water from Auckland. This island is known as their bird sanctuary where they help bring back New Zealand's indigenous birds. It's interesting to me and I tend to forget that New Zealand does not have any land mammals other than a few species of bats, rats and possums. Squirrels don't even exist! So therefore, birds dominate the land and many are flightless. We went on a few hour hike around the island and watched for birds. Our guide was very nice and told us a lot of facts but I came to the conclusion that bird watching is not for me. I get a little bored staring at a tree waiting for a bird to land or determining what species is singing.

The coast line of Tiritiri Mantangi

After our hike we stopped for lunch at the top of the island and it was a beautiful view. We had a picnic beneath the lighthouse and were enjoying ourselves until Greg came along. The guides on the island warned us about him, he was a Takahe, a rare bird on this island that once was extinct but later found and taken to this island to increase the population. Apparently, Greg is a very old bird who has grown found of humans and despite the island's warnings, people have fed him human food. Now he can't seem to get enough and does whatever he can to get more. So once our group settled into a nice circle, Greg comes popping out of the nearby bushes. 

Here he comes, eying down every person with food.

 Greg circled around our entire group, not afraid of us but we were a little freaked out. He had a very sharp beak that looked a little scary and dinosaur like. He approached one of the people in our group, picking his victim.

 So Greg lunged, and got away with a sandwich. My friend snapped this picture just in time. We could not stop laughing for about 10 minutes. Especially when we realized Greg was eating a turkey sandwich. Cannibalism much?

After lunch we headed to the beach for some much needed swim time. The clouds broke away and the sun beat down on us and we were already dying from the humidity.  The water was clear and not too cold so we all felt great. We soon took the boat home and said bye to the beautiful Tiritiri island. Even though we all applied and reapplied sunblock every single person, including me, got sunburned. Some worse than others...the hole in the ozone layer is killer. Everyone went to dinner and got ready to go out and celebrate one of our last nights together.

Sunday we were allowed to sleep in and I slept right up to the beginning of lunch. It felt great! After lunch we had a few more meetings with information about our different schools and the academic system here. We then had afternoon tea and were dismissed to get ready for dinner! Our director took us to a cute little island called Devonport for a nice night out. It was about a ten minute ferry ride and the restaurant was great, right on the beach. The food was amazing and I got a little sad that I had to say bye to all the friends I had made over the past week. Just to prove how awesome our director was, he booked us a double decker party bus for the ride home. And we loved it! 

 View of the Devonport coast

Our party bus!

So today everyone heads off on their own adventures. I am planning to go with a group of people on a 6 day road trip around the North Island. I don't know how much internet access I will have but I'll probably update this once I return. I'll miss Auckland and the people here but I plan to come visit again. I am so excited for my next adventure and to get to my home in Christchurch!