kazimierz: cool, artsy, well worth any time spent there. awesome bars and cafes. bagelmama with delicious bagels (including the obama mama...offensive and perfect). some great shops. old cemetery once covered by sand and synagogues. the old stuff's not as cool as prague's josefov, but the district overall is way better. feels like a real place where people go.

auschwitz: hits far harder than dachau. huge. 3 hour tour well worth it. very difficult to get back from -- we spent 1.5 hours standing in a minibus that the driver seemed to think it was ok to continue to pack people into the whole way there. then again, thinking about where we were coming from, it didn't seem right to complain.

wawel castle, the main square, awesome awesome. plus we do not miss the euro at all. life is so cheap here. we have been badasses, camping in thunderstorms. warsaw tomorrow, and berlin soon after. we both agreed yesterday that we miss germany -- a lot. wir freuen uns auf berlin...

kracked out remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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steaky
ryby (ribs)
alkoholy

...i mean, come on. that's funny.

when we arrived, i took 2000 kc out of the atm (a little over $100). the atm gave it to me in one 2000 kc bill. the woman at the internet cafe looked at us like we were crazy when we tried to pay for 30 minutes of internet (30 kc) with a 2000 kc bill. all we needed was to look up our hostel information (that's right, ladies and gents, we forgot to write down what hostel we had booked and how to get there before leaving for prague).

today we bought tickets to see the czech premiere of august: osage county on sunday.

me: do you have tickets available for this show?
ticket lady: we don't perform this show in english.
me: oh that's ok.
ticket lady: that's ok?
me: yes, that's ok.
ticket lady: ...ok.

dear world: we like to see theatre even when we don't understand the language of performance. get used to it.

today, we (that's me, lauren, parag, and christina) wandered around the jewish quarter of prague. it is stunning. the old cemetery: mounds and mounds of graves, over 12,000 stones and there are far more people than that buried there, the stones sticking out at crazy packed-in angles like the snaggleteeth of a hick horde. giant hicks. the golem rabbi is buried there. and the old-new synagogue, the oldest extant synagogue in europe. and another, the pinska (i think that's right) synagogue, painted with the names of czech jews killed in the holocaust.

there is a display upstairs in pinska of pictures drawn by children in theresienstadt, the propoganda camp. one of the most intense holocaust-related things i have ever seen. children were still children.

czeching out prague remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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we weren't the only ones who'd had this excellent idea, so we hit a bit of traffic heading into the town. once there though it's beautiful, never mind how touristy: dirndl outlets and brezen fade into the background when you look up and see the german alps considering you from above.

we climbed and climbed, and then paid 3 euro each to climb some more. past a great glacier, of course, rained on by melting ice, glad of my accidentally-brought poncho, though it makes me look like frodo. at the hut at the end of the trail we lunched. nora, vinz, simon and i lagged behind on the hike down. basti taught the others a dirty rhyme game. in the car, i taught parag, nora, and simon the "one day as i walked through the woods" song. basti and simon stole wood.

at the campsite, parag terrified a biergarten full of people with his antics in the car. an asthmatic lady asked us not to build a fire. we said we needed to cook our dinner and that was that. later, some kids stole half our beer from the river where it was cooling. we found more wood after a long search, me dragging back two giant pieces of a dismembered fence (the "bastard logs"). no s'mores due to the woeful lack of marshmallows in this country, but steaks and sausages and delicious feta-vegetable foil packets. in spite of the stolen beer we managed well with four bottles of wine (one XXL-sized).

the stars were beyond incredible. simon kept saying he'd found "the horse," "the elephant," "the frog." turned out he was making them up. we tried to sleep four in a tent. we didn't sleep well. but we slept happy. the asthma lady whined. we slept on.

today before our drive back we stopped at a lake. freezing water that we nonetheless swam in, me holding my ground until simon and i spotted a water snake that i thought at first was a stick. sunned, dodged giant bugs. a shirtless sleepy simon drove parag, nora, and i back to augsburg, with sleepy hilarity along the way. we were all in fine fettle. and it had really been a glorious trip.

wandern gehen remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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luckily i don't have too many real ones this time around -- many of my good friends are coming with me, and for those who won't, two months will fly. last night, though, i said an indefinite goodbye to chris, who is moving to los angeles in a week and a half. jerk made me tear up on my way out of the squirrel cage. embarrassing. i hope los angeles is everything he hopes it's going to be.

the apartment's empty. parag's in memphis with the baby. charlie is on a road trip with leonie, joel, and max. i'm not packed yet and i leave in 24 hours, 5 minutes. no, 4 minutes now.

goodbye is too good a word, babe remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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our last full day on the track we were starting to feel the burn. blisters. aching shoulders. we split up the tent between us, which made for much smarter carrying, though it also tripled my width. we crossed a long swing bridge (which i had to sidle down sideways, thanks tent) and took a side trip to cleopatra's pool, where we lunched and dozed on the sunny boulders that form the pool's bowl. luckily we didn't fall into any ditches because our provisions were running low -- perfect amount for the trip, if only that duck hadn't stolen a piece of bread.

less up-and-down than on the previous day, which was good, given our sore muscles. we camped in appletree bay, one of the small campsites not associated with the track's four huts. tried to pitch the tent right on the beach but the intense wind kept blowing it away, so we took shelter behind a big bush and even then had to zip the tarp into the tent to keep it from flying off. stakes and sand aren't friends. played boggle: zack beat me for once. early night and i found a little nook in the sand and the combination of exhaustion and sandy nook meant i slept quite well.

we woke at 5am. troopers. packed up the tent, ate. ate the entire apple. ritual by this point. from the track we saw the sun rising behind the clouds. an hour and a half and we were hiking across the last stretch, a long boardwalk across an estuary where messages nestled in the sand, spelled out with heavy rocks that the tide leaves untouched. names. love vows.

our little nissan was waiting in the aquataxi parking lot. i drove us to picton, kirstin and zack often dozing along the way. we got there with plenty of time to spare before the ferry, and it's a sleepy town, not much to do, wandered into some souvenir shops, ate at the third best bakery in nz. the ferry was easy and not at all exciting. big, slow, ponderous, not much view.

friendly familiar wellington welcomed us and we checked in to the same hostel we'd been at exactly two weeks before: this time, though, in time for free dinner. small portion of fish and chips that we decided to treat as appetizers. had a few beers and played in the short pub quiz and were ONE POINT away from winning and very angry, because:

- answered "83" to "how old is the queen of england?" and she's 82
- answered "160" to "how many liters in a barrel of oil?" and it's 159
- answered "mt. cook" to "what's the highest peak in nz?" and it was mt. cook before a recent earthquake but now it's ruapehu

we got prizes anyway, two shirts and a frisbee. then we ate delicious indian food. then we slept. next day, nine-hour drive, took a different route than last time and drove through beautiful tongariro and chatted about marxism and communism and passed dozens of wineries and ate the last of our salami on bread from the bakery and tried not to think about our exams and that was our trip, a good one to end on, no question.

south island trip, part 4 remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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the second day on the track was a day on a deadline. we had to cross the awaroa and onetahuti estuaries, which can only be crossed close to low tide (10:26 that morning). the awaroa took about twenty minutes of picking our way across seas of small sharp shells, multitudinous, literally unavoidable -- and wading through water that at times rose past our knees. by the time we crossed it we were quite tired and hungry, but didn't have time to stop for lunch because we needed to make the next crossing within three hours past low tide. we cracked open the jerky and trekked on.

of course, after a couple of hours of worrying and hurrying and panting, it turned out that the onetahuti crossing was tiny, and not even worth being concerned about. we flopped down on the beach just past it, settling on a log for lunch. a duck sidled up to us to make friends. zack tossed it a crumb, and next thing we knew, it stole zack's sandwich while we weren't looking (making us ultimately one slice of bread short of having even sandwiches, stupid duck). we relaxed our sore muscles on that beach for a good long while.

went on a mini-spelunk of a small cave at one end of the beach. it was a wide crack in the rock that narrowed quickly to a crawl space; i brought in my flashlight, and kirstin and i wriggled in. at the end of the crawl space was an even smaller hole that i decided to see if i could squeeze through. when i got close, i realized that a) i couldn't, and b) there was a living creature inside it: a white duck's head blinked at me in the flashlight's beam. fuck. would it attack if cornered? i backed out right quick. when we told zack about it, he stole the flashlight, went in, and threw things at the duck, but poor bugger didn't move. so i guess there was no danger.

we also scrambled around on the rough rocks to peer down into a water cave and to clamber up on a rock shelf above it.

there is one event that i have to mention, although i can't remember what day of the trip it happened on, or where, just that it was on one of the beaches. it involves this freaky motherfucker,

the toreapango, or variable oystercatcher, i am almost certain. one of them was standing on the beach, a striking sight with his blood-red beak and legs and his shining black feathers. he was perched on one leg, and zack came up close to take a picture. close -- closer -- closer -- always expecting that the bird would get scared and fly off.

instead, it was joined by another bird. the two stood shoulder to shoulder, lurking bullies on the sand. suddenly, they both flew at zack and kirstin, squawking. they are not small birds. now we were just trying to get past unscathed. they didn't like that. they didn't like our look. they didn't like our voices. they didn't like anything about us, basically, and they wanted us dead. we got off that beach right quick and couldn't shake the feeling that they were following us through the undergrowth.

zack: "those birds hate everything living and life itself."

we spent our second night at bark bay, where we met a girl named emily from philadelphia and her british friend whose great-uncle owns three pubs in harvard square. "how long have you guys known each other?" -- expecting the answer to number in the years. "oh, about four...four nights? days?" emily, stoned, had picked up the other girl, who was hitchhiking, and on the spur of the moment they decided to do the track. they'd each hauled a giant bottle of wine in with them and emily could no longer feel her right hand. they were hilarious to talk to but unfortunately we were too tired to be truly social.

instead, we made a sad fire that lived long enough to toast our sandwiches and melt some chocolate on our crackers (and infuse my shirts with a smoke-salami scent that still lingers). and then, ahh, slept.

south island trip, part 3 remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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ahhhhhhhhhem.

the abel tasman's a one-way track, takes 3-4 days to tramp. you can turn it into a loop if you add the inland track, but we chose the one-way option with our limited time and resources, which meant we planned to take a water taxi to the north end of the track and hiked south.

in the morning we rushed from the barn to the aquataxi office, suddenly scared by our lack of bookings. before we could catch a breath we found ourselves being towed in the water taxi across a watery estuary by a big tractor, which pushed us backwards into the sea. kirstin, zack, and i sat in the back, because we're the cool kids. that meant we had to stand up as we were being backed in, to avoid getting drenched.

our taxi ride was a bit like a two-hour tour, pretty decent for fifty bucks. we swung by split apple rock, a halved granite fruit resting on a bed of rock marshmallows, before heading for mutton cove, the furthest stop along the track.

the sun was out, from time to time. the sky wasn't clear and it was chilly with the brisk wind on the boat. the taxi operator poked fun at our ridiculous aeroflot-colored tent in its giant, unwieldy bag. we ate muffins and apples, and saw seals on tonga island, and the lone bottlenose dolphin that's been haunting torrent bay came out to play with us. as we motored on and on -- and on -- i watched the shore hurry by. i couldn't imagine ever walking that far. it seemed endless, thick trees punctuated by bay after bay, a few vacation homes in torrent bay and a few campsites in other bays visible but other than that no signs of civilization. and us with our last-minute water purification tablet purchase and our stupid tent and our salami and our two broken lighters.

no time for second thoughts. down the ramp at mutton cove, where we undertook our first small side tramp, to separation point, where we got up close and personal with some new zealand fur seals. zack dubbed them "bear ducks," which i think is awfully appropriate. such large, fuzzy, clumsy things, hobbled by the shore, with their cherry cordial eyes and their irritable yelps. but in the water they are slender and graceful, and their strange rubbery webbed gloves make sudden sense. we got into an argument about whether seals are faster than michael phelps. (they are, if you were wondering.)

it was our shortest day save the last, maybe four hours total of tramping to totaranui, our first campsite. we endured little rain, but certainly some wind and chill. the track took us alternately across beaches and through forests. we encountered stoat traps: an egg inside a rectangular wooden box with wire mesh at either end. apparently they somehow incorporate cyanide as well. at totaranui's visitor center we discovered the reason: stoats kill wekas, a very rare, flightless new zealand bird that they're trying to repopulate abel tasman with.

we managed, that night, to find a way to stretch our stupid tent with yellow twine so that none of the walls were particularly collapsed. it was warmer, and i slept with two layers of socks, and in the morning the sun burned off the clouds and -- magic: beautiful day.

south island trip, part 2 remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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a quite different feel from wellington. less artsy-fartsy, less hip and new. lots of churchy and cathedral-esque buildings everywhere. an older scent. as old as nz gets, anyway.

we had a ten-bed room at base christchurch. zack and i both slept on bottom bunks, and the slats supporting the mattresses above us were thickly graffitied -- his was racist-themed, mine focused on sex sex sex. (one memorable quote from mine: "i would swim up a river of shit with my mouth wide open just to suck on the cock of the guy who last banged you." classy.) there were a bunch of israelis in the room, and one kept talking to us about how stupid americans are. also classy. and a texan named troy who's studying in aussie and failing all of his exams...which probably just fueled the israeli's fire.

in the morning, i picked up the car from the airport, which all went smoothly; then i drove back to the hostel, which didn't. driving in christchurch reminds me of driving in pittsburgh, especially the north side: a maze of one-way streets, confusing signs that point to nowhere and then leave you hanging. eventually i found it and off we jetted towards abel tasman via greymouth and punakaiki, stopping on the way to shop for our 3.5-day backpacking trip:

- jerky
- trail mix (an accidental 1.5kg bag...bulk can be dangerous)
- 3 salami rolls
- cheese
- 2 loaves of bread
- peanut m&ms
- peanuts
- chocolate-covered raisins
- peanut butter
- jelly
- round tea crackers
- apples
- 28 muesli bars (essentially granola)

now listen. i know that i have used "all seasons in one day" on this blog many times to describe the nz weather. but this drive, it actually, really, literally applied, in a way that make all the other times look like big fat lies.

when we left christchurch, it was raining.

driving through gorges, it was alternately overcast and sleeting.

later, around the time we stopped for lunch in greymouth -- on the sea-foamy beach where we had a seafoam battle -- the sun was out.

in punakaiki, it HAILED for ten minutes.

from there, we drove right under a huge rainbow (we could see where it ended, in the half-dry riverbed beside us). then we drove through thick snow that stuck to street signs, trees, grass. and, finally, stiff gusts of wind that blew our practically weightless nissan heartlessly about the road, poor butterfly.

punakaiki: the pancake rocks. super. better even than i expected. they are apparently a geological mystery. they're stacked in layers, and the softer layers are eroding quicker, so the effect is even more pronounced; and geologists don't know why they formed that way. lots of cool natural formations, like the surge pool that seems a perfect place for a pirate to hide myriad treasure chests. i got a free coffee from a nearby cafe because the owner forgot to charge me, and when i told him, he said "well, it's not often that i do something like that, so consider it your lucky day."

i LOVE free things.

we got to the barn (our campsite outside abel tasman, in marahau) after dark, and set up the tent in the black and rain. and let me just say that this tent, which was to be our home for the next four nights, was broken.

"kirstin, didn't you say you checked the tent and it was going to work?"

"well, i never set it up all the way..."

let me also just say that this tent was clearly designed by idiots who attempt to cater to human laziness by making it TOO easy to set up and as a result making it extremely difficult to carry (the poles stay in the tent permanently) and to fix when broken. ultimately, though, it worked fine, though that first night we had one collapsed wall, which made it a bit cramped. it was freezing and raining and none of us slept well, which was not an auspicious beginning for our tramp...but do not, friends, judge a book by its cover.

south island trip, part 1 remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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it has a fun atmosphere, but soda is more expensive there. by nearly a dollar.

the fire spinning crowd was small, and mostly huddling on blankets, cold. kirstin got up the courage to light her devil sticks eventually, and she looked like she was having fun. i sat and talked to rebecca for a bit. then we went to catch the last bus.

except the bus schedules were confusing -- as always. the public transportation system here might be even worse than pittsburgh's. eventually we figured out that a bus was coming in about twenty minutes, so we got some burger king and sat at the stop.

familiar orange and blue of a new zealand police car pulled up. the same colors as aeroflot, or something james would wear.

"are you girls okay?"

"yeah we're fine -- just waiting for the bus."

"oh yeah? where are you going?"

"back to the city center."

"...you want a ride?"

hell yes we wanted a ride. in the car we learned they have nothing better to do than drive around the city all night. they even dropped us right at our gate.

story #2: yesterday morning, i spilled water all over my bed. last night, it was still wet. LAME.

story #3: i was supposed to talk to sara this morning. however, (1) i forgot that she is in chicago and used the pittsburgh time conversion, and (2) nobody reminded me that it was daylight savings time there today. so i was two hours early.

international criminal remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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at waitomo we ate the remnants of our food -- the bread zack, cody and i were sharing made some pretty stupid sandwiches. when we went to check in, we discovered they had raised the price of the black abyss tour by about 20nzd sometime in october -- but we must have looked poor and pathetic, because the receptionist gave us a discount. fifty cents less than we originally thought we were going to pay, actually.

we squeezed ourselves into cold, damp wetsuits, learned how to abseil, and then threw ourselves down a hole that dropped many, many meters down into the mouths of the waiting cave monsters below:

while waiting for my turn to abseil, i concocted yet another brilliant movie plot that will rival ghost twin in its rapid climb to the top of the horror film genre. i don't have a title yet, but it involves a "caving company" that is actually being contracted by cave monsters to supply them with a steady supply of human victims to munch on. the monsters need to do this, of course, because they can't leave the cave...daylight kills them.

our time spent spelunking was a wet wild and cold three hours ziplining through pitchblack cave sky twinkling with glowworms, climbing up waterfalls, and getting thrown off of twenty foot ledges into black water on innertubes.

ahahahahaha.

the guides basically delight in keeping you in the dark the whole time as to what's coming next -- partially as a fear management control tool, partially just because they're dicks. but it was funny. of course, they couldn't refrain from making a descent joke or two.

i won the glowworm game, which means i never need feel shame for my incompetence at the skytower game ever again.

cody drove back to auckland and we all passed out -- but not after kirstin sent me to bed with the promise that she was going to take care of directions to karekare for the next morning. the world should note that carefully.

kirstin and i succeeded at waking up, getting to parnell, and leaving the city right on schedule in the morning. cody even elected to come with us, which was to say the least a (pleasant) surprise. then we got onto the northern motorway and drove for about fifteen minutes.

me: "so do you know how long we're supposed to be on the motorway before the next turn?"

kirstin: "no, i didn't write down the distances, really..." pause. "wait, do you not know where you're going?"

"no why would i? you're in charge of directions."

"yeah but you just seemed so sure of yourself."

"well, where are we supposed to be?"

"i dunno -- the northwestern motorway?"

"we're on the northern motorway...there IS no northwestern motorway..."

cody: "is this beach on the west coast or the east coast?"

us: "the west."

cody: "well, we're definitely heading towards the east coast."

the upshot is we turned around and somehow magically ended up on the northwestern motorway despite the fact that there were no signs for it until many kilometers after it had started. and got to karekare beach, a bit late, but still got there, with the weather shitting all over us, black sand stinging our legs in the wind. we wandered up and down the beach at the foot of soaring cliffs. it's right down the street from piha but i liked it even better. really, really beautiful. seems bigger, and more remote. more tracks you can do. if the weather had been better...

but kirstin and i, being the hardcore motherfuckers we are, found a waterfall that fed into a deep, clear pool, and then --

kirstin: "the water's not that cold."

[laughter. pause. i feel the water.]

me: "you know it's really not." pause. "we should probably swim."

[laughter.]

"no. seriously. we should."

"you're right. we should get towels from the car..."

"no. we shouldn't. because this is all about the impulsiveness. which we are already clearly losing by talking about it so much. so i really think we should just shut the fuck up and swim."

[pause.]

"yeah ok."

down to our bathing suits in ten seconds, we slipped and stumbled across the mossy, rocky bed of the pool, then swam, tingling with the cold, to touch the rock beneath the rushing falls. we held our heads under the falling stream, leaned against the mossy wet boulders. a family of ducks quacked disapproval, flaunted its waterproof feathers. cody stood on the shore, arms folded.

the air felt warmer when we emerged. the van of tourists at the trailheads staring at us laughing walking in our dripping togs didn't faze us. shit's real.

glowing poop remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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we (kirstin, zack, sam, cody, me) jumped on the overlander at the britomart travel center on sunday morning. train travel in europe is so fast-paced, so automated, so commonplace; here, we had to ask three employees before someone could tell us that we didn't need to pick up a ticket, we just had to check in with train staff. sam ended up having to spend most of the 12-hour journey sitting alone, towards the front of the train with her more expensive ticket (the cheap ones had been nearly sold out when we booked). however, there was a sweet "lounge area" at the rear of the train that we made use of for a good hour or possibly more, completely ignoring the "please don't spend more than 20 minutes here so that everyone can have a turn" rule. every train should have a lounge area, a semicircle of benches by a big bay window looking out over what you've just passed.

the ride was beautiful. it takes an hour or two to get out of industrial backyards and grubby suburbs, but once you're in it, new zealand scenery never fails to take breath. everything is green, and rivers and waterfalls spring on you out of nowhere. we spiraled up to the national park and rolled across five viaducts, one of which is "considered to be the largest on the north island." i don't know what it means for a viaduct to be "considered the largest," but it is, in any case.

i sat with zack. zack is a good travel buddy -- the time passes quickly but not in a way that makes you feel you're missing things. a large chunk of train time was devoted to a game he invented which i call "strangers on a train" and which basically involves taking pictures of people you don't know on the train. he has some gems.

i would just like to note before i forget that the exchange rate is going through the roof...you keep thinking it can't get better, but oh, it can, friends, it can. i guess i have my own country to thank for fucking up the global economy.

in wellington, we checked into our hostel and wandered around the city looking for dinner. it was around 9pm on a sunday by this point, the sunday of a holiday weekend no less, and so nearly everything was closed. we wandered past the most eclectic collection of statues and public art i've seen in one small city: scattered throughout wellington are a pirate ship bridge, a giant umbrella,

huge metal slabs with braille of matching size, a writhing fountain that possibly is meant to evoke the silver fern...more, more i can't remember. on the waterfront we finally found a place to sate our hunger with seafood ramen and after stuffing ourselves, stumbled across a fireworks show about to start. i think it was part of diwali. well, usually i am unimpressed by fireworks displays, they seem so random, so lacking in artistry; but this one was beautifully orchestrated -- it was actually a show, not just a random collection of colors and bangs.

monday was a lazy and indecisive day. the beautiful weather just fed into our collective want to wander instead of picking up the car or making a plan of action.

we ate a leisurely breakfast at the abovepictured location, attended by a bitter and lame seagull; happened across a free museum and spent a few hours learning about earthquakes and gondwanaland and nz bush; had a picnic and a nap. it ended up working out for the best in terms of picking up the car, which turned out to be something of a hassle that i don't really feel like going into. the moral of the story is, of course, that nothing is ever actually free.

we finally got on the road, headed to wanganui with no ideas as to where to stay or what to do there. on the way we stopped to get blown about by a stunning and windy view of the tasman sea and to buy fifty-cent ice cream at mcdonald's. in wanganui well after dark, we asked a taxi driver for the cheapest motel around and by some miracle managed to follow his directions to the sports lodge, which ended up (split between the five of us) being cheaper than our hostel and had free hot chocolate to boot. at first we hid zack in the car, thinking they might only have a room for four and we'd need to sneak him in. then we had an awkward encounter with the man at reception who thought we were some other group of people and kept telling us "they'll be right out, i'm sure, although -- well i don't see any movements in there -- but i'm sure they'll be out soon, sorry about that, as soon as you see them come out you can..."

eventually he figured out that our blank stares were actually of complete confusion, not anger.

tuesday morning i woke up early and drove alone up durie hill on the other side of town, listening to old, old songs on the radio, window down to catch the chilly post-sunrise air. at the top of durie hill is a tower, a memorial, with 176 steps that you can climb and look down over wanganui. it was like a castle turret, a beautifully solitary thing, and i felt very alone and able to see everything and peaceful, that feeling where everything inside of you is still and watchful.

later i found a playground: the best i have ever seen. it had:

- a castle with a moat and a train.
- a serpent with swings hanging from loops in its body.
- an octopus with swings hanging from its arms.
- a wide-mouthed whale you could climb inside.
- a water maze.
- humpty-dumpty, the old woman who lived in a shoe's shoe-cum-slide, little miss muffet baby swings, the three little bears.
- a giant pumpkin picnic area.
- an elaborate tree house section with a zipline.

the zipline was clearly made to be worked by at least two people -- one to drag the rope so that the zipliner, standing on the leaping platform, could grab it and pull it close enough to jump onto. i ingeniously beat the system by trapping the rope in some bolts under the leaping platform. but when i leapt, i banged my elbow on the metal crossbar and couldn't feel my hand for ten minutes.

the final leg of the adventure began with my return to the motel. but maybe i'd better have a separate entry for waitomo, because this is getting long, so i'd better stop, folks, right here.

trip-dub trip remains copyright of the author ctamler, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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it was really cool to look at. sam took some pictures, and when i acquire one from her, i'll post it. (EDIT: here's one.

sweet, no?)

a chill hippie vibe pervaded the park: spectators snuggled together on blankets, drank beer, drummed, strummed guitar. rebecca spun a couple of times (she does poi), and she was great to watch. she's only been doing it about a year, but she has some quite complicated moves and a certain style to her body while she does them that a lot of the other spinners didn't have. to watch her is to watch a dance with fire.

marc-andre joined us, and eventually, after the evening chill got to us, we left the spinners for the wine cellar on k'road, a place i didn't know existed: down some stairs, underneath thrift stores we visited a few weeks ago. they have a back room for gigs where the seating is all couches and chairs ripped out of automobiles and benches -- a cool, dirty, converted-garage feel. kirstin, marc-andre, and i split a bottle of plum liqueur. with it, the bartender gives you a bowl of ice and a bottle of soda water, and you put a bit of liqueur over ice and top off with the bubbly and it's delicious, tastes like italian soda. two random drunk-but-not-intolerably-so dudes, charlie and chad, came over to make friends with us. we stuffed chad's t-shirts into a pitcher. charlie was talking to kirstin:

"so how long are you here for?"

"um, only about another month, and then i go back to the states."

"oh. wow." pause. "like a soldier."

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personally, i think the shitty quality merely adds to its charm. also, who has mad impromptu skills with imovie hd? that would be me. taught myself. not bad for 3 hours.

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the rain had stopped by the time we pulled up, although it was still overcast and chilly. we wandered down the black sand beach towards lion rock. black sand is really black. but it is also a different consistency than white sand -- at least, this black sand was: almost like mud, but grainier; it would cling together, and we had a sandball fight or two. we ought to have built a sandcastle, it would've made a killer one.

when the sun came out and hit the sand, it glittered. like those sidewalks that i always used to thrill at finding as a kid, the sparkly fairytale sidewalks. there were parts where the sand was so black that it was purple, in painted-on streaks. it held footprints.

we climbed lion rock, which was once a maori pa (fortified settlement) and gave a nice view of the beach. not many surfers that day in the chill and choppiness, but there was still a class or two; apparently it's great for that sort of thing. alex rented a surfboard and ingrid a boogie board later in the day. before that, though, ingrid, abbie, meghan and i went on a short hike that we found. it wound up and around some low hills, and if you slipped down a little side path you found yourself on this big rock jutting out and overlooking a narrow pass between another rock and the shore. at the narrowest bit there was a series of stone ledges, like giant steps, and the waves would crash into them from behind and then the white foam would tumble down, thickly, so that they seemed covered in snow. it was an incredible sight. my camera is broken and so i couldn't take pictures. but incredible.

the sun was out for a while, though there was still too much breeze for real warmth. some of us lay on the beach, others wandered or played in the water (too cold without a wetsuit). we took jumping pictures, which seem to be meghan's new obsession. i always find them annoying when other people take them, but they are really fun to be in, and to look at if you're in them.

i guess by that logic the above picture will be annoying to everyone and not fun to look at for anyone.

it rained on and off throughout the day, always quite suddenly, so there were several dashes to the car. there were also several excursions to the fish and chips stall, which seemed to be the only place to obtain food for miles around -- oddly, considering piha's supposedly a very popular place in the summer. they had all the requisites: toasties, fish, chips, burgers with beets and eggs on them.

we stayed til around sunset at bayan's impassioned request, because he and ingrid wanted to film for their dance and technology project. unfortunately, sunset was less than spectacular, because as the day wore on the sky became more and more insistently overcast.

we returned home to a frustrating fire alarm that chased us to starbucks for a little while. later, cody and zack came to wellesley, and we played cards with kirstin and sam and went to the viaduct. a late night for all. sunday i lazed and half-heartedly did some homework and wrote a bit. now it's monday morning of our last week of school, oh my.

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(i didn't take that picture, by the way.)

the other night on the way to parnell, kirstin and i encountered hordes of pink-clad people. most of them, actually, were dressed as pink fairies. we witnessed one catch her wing on a street lamp. we'd forgotten about bca month, so we asked a pack of fairies (flock of fairies? gaggle of fairies? ring of fairies?) what they were doing. some bca 5k walk in the domain.

we passed through the domain. floodlights all gelled pink. fairies flitting to and fro. costume contest. a pink inflatable arch. pink fireworks. we lugged our case of steinlager and i wished i was doing something. my aunt just found out she has breast cancer. i sent her a card today. it seems weak, like watery tea. they caught it early, so fingers crossed, she'll be ok.

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1. boxhead.
2. the game card.
3. the forehead-on-the-table-if-you-swear rule.
4. paddling.
5. a modification of "four floor."

additionally, there was a game involving dice and cups which was also choice.

my lingering illness has made the last week and a half not quite as excellent as it's had the potential to be, but i think i am finally kicking it in the proverbial balls.

the weekend prior to the ski trip (i'm jumping all over the place here, and you will just have to deal with it), i went to work with prayas, an indian theatre group, in mt. albert. i'd seen them perform in an original production jointly created with another local group, called our street, a few weeks ago; again, had the experience that i was learning far more about local culture and issues in that hour and a half of theatre than in almost all the rest of my time here put together. the piece was set on a particular street that most of the people in the cast live on or are very familiar with, and there were a lot of projections showing the street, characters based on people who live on the street, and so on. the big, boisterous audience clearly had a large contingent of non-regular theatregoers, family and friends of the big, boisterous cast, and it was absolutely charming to watch them get excited to recognize themselves and the place they call home up on the stage.

i sent one of the organizers an email afterwards, not expecting anything to come from it, but nearly a month after the show i got a call from sudeepta, prayas' secretary, asking if i wanted to come in and volunteer with them. so, that was my sunday september 28: five hours with prayas.

they are writing a new play, based on stories from a book by an indian man who moved to canada, to which they are adding their own experiences as immigrants to new zealand. this was their first meeting to start to collect some of those stories, and though it was more sparsely attended than they'd hoped, the stories were fascinating to listen to. makes you want to visit india -- someplace noisy, dirty, friendly; someplace full of family, where you squeeze twelve people into a tiny toyota and drive down the street blasting your horn. where the food and the smells and sounds are strong, rich, and bright. the antithesis of empty little new zealand: huge, jam-packed india, with a sour note of social and gender discrimination, beamed on by bollywood's shimmery lipsticked mouth. these people are homesick for india in a way that can never be cured, because they themselves will tell you that they can never really go back -- only as a visitor. and you feel their homesickness and even begin to internalize it, make it your own, want to share in it.

or maybe it is just how much i miss pittsburgh peeking through.

for the last two hours of the workshop, auckland playback theatre came in and performed. cool to see, because i've never gotten to experience playback in action before. i left with an invitation to come back to the next meeting (tomorrow), the suggestion that i might be able to help them with the writing of the play before i leave, and the promise that the next meeting would have many more people with "lots of interesting boys" (mainly a comment on how female-dominated the group was on the 28th).

other than that, my life's been mostly about german, writing essays, and trying to plan a trip back to the south island. by the bye, i discovered this wonderful website that's enabled kirstin, zack and i to grab a free car for a week to drive around the south island and back to auckland. it seems like it's legit. i'll report back on that once the trip's successfully over (scheduled for november 4-12).

oh, and last night, we had our farewell ies meeting and dinner. gael warned us all about reverse culture shock and showed us some pictures of our first days here. i'm not worried about reverse culture shock (which i am now choosing to hip-ly abbreviate "rcs"). i've been places much more unlike the states (mongolia, anyone?) and didn't experience it. in fact i don't think i've experienced regular culture shock here, either. i think you have to just expect the culture to be different, and then there's no real "shock" to have. i'm more concerned about what everyone's lives have become, how i fit back into that six and a half months later. many friends have been great about keeping in touch. but even with the ones who're good, i've missed more than half a year of day to day experiences, and that is the kind of thing you can't remedy, should it be something that seems to need remedy.

it's almost time for life in pittsburgh to end for me, anyway, so maybe it's fine if i don't really fit back in to things easily. maybe it will make me more ready to leave at the end of next summer. it's not a good thing to feel too settled.

dinner was incredible: denise and i split appetizer (or entrée, in weird nz terms) and dessert, which meant crumbed mushrooms and pavlova, a very nz dessert and delicious, made of egg white on top of cream -- a melt-in-your-mouth meringue. for my main i had kumara gnocchi, which was basically one of the best things i've ever eaten.

afterwards i let denise, charlie, dbo and laurie take my ih virginity with a game of mafia (including a pile of other ih people). then a night that looked like it might be going to fizzle disappointingly ended up panning out: we actually made it to a sake bar just off of customs, where we broke five glasses doing makeshift sake bombs. hilarious. the first couple of rounds we tried to do them the "real" way, by laying chopsticks over the beer glasses and balancing the sake shots on them, then chanting and banging the table to make the sake shots fall in (which is how the glasses kept breaking). this didn't work particularly well as the sake shots kept falling in of their own accord, before we were ready, and you would have to chug the thing without sufficient mental preparation. this was, i repeat, hilarious.

it was a good night that ended up with us laughing our asses off at this video, still one of my all-time favorites:

in dbo's room; i passed out on his bed and later was transferred to brian's extra bed. so i didn't go to german this morning, following my usual trend of not skipping classes until the final weeks of a given semester, and then skipping. a lot.

i'll bring it all back home with a quote from last night: this is what happens when you say you're going to lick a butt and you don't lick a butt.

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my favorite adventures:

1. biking around the island. i think it's about 32km in circumference, and quite flat, so not a bad ride; but the day was unbelievably blustery, and about half the group turned around before we got halfway. the rest of us trooped it out, though. there were about 15 minutes when i thought i wouldn't be able to make it: pedaling right into winds of near-cyclone proportions (that's what we found out later! not exaggeration), you literally feel like you're going nowhere. but it was absolutely worth it, especially since we could hop off any time we needed a break and run down to the beach a few meters away for a dip or a coconut.

2. the cross-island hike with pa, our bleach-dreaded tour guide who always referred to himself in the third person. a pathological liar (or a compulsive storyteller), but a good guide. he took us up and over rarotonga, including to the base of the needle, the huge rock somewhere in the center-ish of the island:

it was quite steep a lot of the way, with twisted tree roots forming natural ladders to clamber on. old, old trees with folds in the trunk like cardboard slabs. curled ferns. a clear stream you could drink from. trees with trunks and branches that curved around in slender parabolae, creating a three-dimensional web. beautiful, strenuous, exhilarating.

3. boggle. zack, kirstin, dan b., and others, we played a lot of boggle. it's a rediscovered addiction.

4. the stars. on the few clear nights, they were breathtaking.

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and then we performed them.

the first piece happened in the quad. the group, decked out in lab coats, cleared a grassy section, expelling a pair of students eating lunch at a picnic table. they moved the tables, staked out the area, and threaded the stakes with caution tape. after they hung a sign that read "PIGEON ERADICATION IN PROGRESS" they proceeded to spray the area thoroughly with liquid from a container clearly marked corrosive. they took notes and samples, and sprinkled bait (bread crumbs from a bag) on the ground. when some pigeons actually appeared, they lured them closer with bait and sprayed them with their corrosive liquid.

a man looking on: "what the fuck did those pigeons ever do to those fucking nerds?" pause. "that's what's wrong with this fucking country."

then one of the scientists began to act odd. he tried to peck up bits of bait. he tried to flap his wings. the other scientists' eyes widened in terror. he came at them. they flurried and fled, scattering through the quad. a bit animal farm at the end of it.

i missed the second piece while helping the pigeon eradicators clean up, but it had something to do with a cult.

the third piece took place in albert park. we sat on benches around the empty fountain. a woman in a tall wig (think marge simpson hair, only neon pink) led a troupe of four girls in flowered bathing caps and striped suits down the path. they halted at her whistle and she placed her giant yellow bag on a bench, producing a boombox that she placed on the edge of the fountain. some fifties era music played from it. the girls got into formation and dove into the fountain. there, dead serious and supremely committed, they executed a synchronized swimming routine that lasted for a good five minutes. when they climbed out, their pink-haired coach gave them each towels. (remember the fountain was empty.)

my group was last. we headed down to the queen street crossing in front of the whitcoulls -- it's a big, crowded crossing with animated walk/don't walk signs that feature loud beeping and strolling green or frozen red men. our three athletes, representing france, nigeria, and new zealand, stripped off their track suits to reveal their spandex unitards and numbers while rebecca (the olympic official) and i (the coach) set the props. kayleigh looked particularly stellar in a hot pink unitard over a fatsuit.

when we were prepped, we waited for a crossing light while the olympians continued to warm up. at the light, rebecca and i ran out into the crossing, a ribbon stretched between us: diagonal crossing first. rebecca blew her whistle to start the race and the three athletes sprinted through the ribbon.

from the next corner we had a relay race, the next slow-motion, the next a hurdles race (involving crates!) and the last, an egg-and-spoon race. the fat olympian dropped her egg.

our medal ceremony was last, and i think a picture will speak louder than words:

i'm off camera, throwing the confetti.

and verdict? it was awesome. so much fun. it makes me want to do street theatre all of the time. we got countless stares. some guy stopped us to take our picture. we were being cheered on from various corners. we also had a donut thrown at nigeria and we got called fags and fairies, but that's part of the fun, too.

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i guess you could also watch flight of the conchords...but that would take effort eh?

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now there is a major reforestation project on the island. they hold the current guinness record for most trees planted in one session -- i forget the exact figure, but it's over 5,000, planted by 200-some volunteers. our group, about a quarter of the size, dampened by hours of rain, managed only about 1,200 -- pretty decent, still, i'd have to say.

one group (sarah and me included) went planting in the morning, when the rain was heaviest. we braved it for a couple of hours, taking turns digging and planting the tiny seedlings and a sapling or two. one thing about kiwis, they're used to being shat on by weather with how variable it always is here. so they were staunchly cheerful in the face of the steady wet and cold, and jollily cautioned everyone not to get hypothermia (they were being serious, of course).

we headed down to the shed for lunch, looking a bit like this:

...and while the afternoon group went out to plant, we got a treat: in better conditions we'd all have planted all day, but because of the rain we got to dry off a bit and then keep warm with a hike. i didn't bring my camera, but soon regretted it. we got to see what the fruits of our efforts will look like not long from now. a grove planted five years ago boasted trees taller than me; a grove planted ten or fifteen years past was really beginning to look like a forest.

where we emerged, a road divided the replanted chunk from an unplanted one, and we saw the stark contrast, the empty and sterile farmland dotted by mournful and curious cattle, and the thick, drooping leaves of trees and ferns, birdsong, life renewing itself.

they use seeds from within a 100-meter radius only, and this summer are carrying out a massive pest destruction project to rid the island of its feral cats and stoats and porcupines and so on, so that they can introduce native birds when it's clean.

we were fucking cold and wet by the time the ferry came to take us home. but the end-of-the-day sizzle was hot, the company good, and libby, gael's friend, gave us some fudge cake. and we left some trees for new zealand to remember us by.

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-- and, what is probably more dangerous, i drove. probably for a total of 6 hours or so...now before you scoff please take a moment to remember that in this country they drive on the left side of the road. driving here is like learning to drive all over again -- especially because the controls are on opposite sides too...turn signal on the RIGHT. it's practically inconceivable. it's a damn good thing they don't switch gas and brakes (the only thing they don't switch...), otherwise accidents would definitely occur.

anyway, i was a rockstar, although every time i made a turn i had to keep telling myself "think left think left think left."

the left-side-driving thing has another interesting effect: people walk on the lefthand side of the sidewalk/other walkways here. so i am always running into people. but of course, the few times i remember to stay to the left as a walker, i inevitably come across other people who are for some reason staying to the right -- rebels? americans? idiots? who knows. walking here is hard.

my friend thomas fell into a river over the weekend when we were in rotorua. another friend zach jumped across it, and thomas wanted to do it too, but he jumped short of the bank by about a foot and fell in instead. it made me think of christina because my first reaction was to laugh hysterically at him as i'm sure she would have done too. let's face it, it was hilarious.

i saw a live kiwi bird for the first time, and one thing you should know about kiwis is they are much bigger than you think they will be from pictures. like the size of small dogs.

thomas, kirstin, zach, fabian and i went to hell's gate: a geothermal reserve near rotorua.

it takes its name from one of its thermal pools, christened by george bernard shaw, who named a lot of the other things there too. like "the infants," a spread of bubbling pools that reminded him of children at play. or "sodom and gomorra." at the end we got to carve little plaques. i love free souvenirs.

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alan lightman is coming here. he's going to be giving a lecture as part of a science-humanities symposium they're doing in october, and is also supposed to deliver one lecture in the literature and science class i'm taking.

we saw romeo and juliet the ballet version the other night (both of my roommates are dance/psych majors). it was good, although it was also three hours long. that's a lot of ballet. i went to see another play on my own last night -- still nobody wants to come see plays with me. it was pretty cool, it was created and performed by a group of 11 girls aged 16-22 with a company called MASSIVE that did the same thing with a group of boys not too long ago. singing, dancing, stories from their diaries about growing up in auckland. this is a very multicultural city and the show highlighted that -- a vietnamese girl born in hong kong grown in auckland, a half-chinese girl, a samoan, maori, kiwis (white new zealanders), etc. i actually had emailed the company a little while ago telling them i'm interested in this sort of thing and asking if they had any opportunities for me to work with them, and i'll be meeting with one of the artistic directors (or something) sometime soon. so that might turn into something cool. i hope so, because there isn't really a student theatre scene at the university to speak of, not much, but there's a lot of culture and a lot of new theatre happening in auckland. i hope i can get involved in some of it.

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stuff is still really expensive here, though. i've just resigned myself to being painfully in debt to my parents when i get home -- i mean this is despite the fact that the program is almost completely paid for by my chancellor's scholarship/other scholarships. i save as much money as i can by never eating out, getting cheap groceries, not drinking in bars (a pint's usually $6 or $7, mixed drinks can be twice that), washing my clothes in the sink...but everything you do costs money and there is just so much to do here. when am i ever again going to get the chance to see the nz rugby team play the australians? or the royal new zealand ballet perform romeo and juliet? go skydiving in THE place that started it all? see a cave full of glowworms? i have to do it while i'm here. it's not like europe, where it's likely i'll be back many times. nz isn't really close to anyplace else or on the way to anywhere. so this may be it.

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