Auckland

OH MY! New Zealand has been awesome so far. I can't believe it's only been a week. It's been super intense. I'm so glad I came with next to no expectations. I really hadn't spent much time thinking about what this trip would be like other than imagining the landscape. I've seen so much but then I've also only seen a tiny chunk of what we will see by the end of the trip. Because we're together 24/7, I've made some great connections. There's a few of us that form what we call The Old Lady Crew (in jest). It was Amber's birthday on Saturday and we all (the whole group of 18) decided to make dinner and hit the town.

(Amber, doing The Carlton)

We found a cute little bar in Auckland with a drag show. This wasn't like lame old Neighbors... it was like something out of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Costume changes and choreography. Amazing! Some of us went out dancing afterwards. First night on the town! I discovered Amber is a dorky dancer too and she kept breaking out the Carlton (from Fresh Prince of Bel Air (???)) and I kept dropping it like it was hot. (Guess you'd have to see that move to understand...)

(Most of the group before our big meal)

Today we have to pack up all of our stuff and move on. We're heading to Northland, which is the rural northern tip of the island. Here we get to see the oldest Kauri tree (2000 years!). When Kauri's reach about 50 meters in height, they start to grow out instead of up. I can't wait to see how fat this thing is. We also get to see the Bay of Islands, where there are 200 little islands sprinkled out in the bay. We also go to some treaty sites and have lots of readings and observations to do (in case you started thinking there's no work going on here). Friday we had a class where we analized Marx's use-value structure. And wherever we go Dave is always asking us not-so-subtle questions about our experiences and relating them to our readings. We just learned what WWOOFing sites we'll be on next week. I'm going to a farm with Wilson, Hannah and Rebecca to do some end-of-season cleaning. The work in itself might not be exciting but the owners are surfers and offer the chance to learn in our off-time. I'm psyched about that.



More later! Off to "work"...