University Life Reboot: Friends, Freebies and Forests!

Kia Ora,

So the semester has started and I can once again class myself as a participating student. I will now be (potentially) studying until the day I leave New Zealand (depending on how my exams fall) and so my life returns to a balancing act of work and play. This is going to be tough after such an amazing summer!

In week one we discovered that our new cosy little flat can actually hold a fair few people. We invited everybody over because Hanne had offered to make cookies for the occasion (well, we all pretended she had and thankfully she played along and brought some anyway)! We were even treated to crepes amongst some other tasty snacks. But it was great to see the crowd again; this was our first gathering as a large group for quite some time!

The following night me and Dannii were out on the Domain to watch "Group F: Skin On Fire" with Soph and Kelly. And after spending a bit of time mocking me for failing to give up sugar for lent (yeah, I don't really know why I even started, instead I now only eat it at social occasions) we watched an amazing hour long lighting/firework display! The fireworks were incredible and definitely better than the New Year display, especially with the fire canons and really creative projections across the museum walls themed around the top concerns in the 21st century. The "actors" were also interesting; the show definitely wasn't about choreography (critic time: this was the only thing lacking on the night), but if their role can be evaluated on their array of props then it was quite impressive.  They controlled objects such as giant people and fire helmets whilst other "actors" were suspended amongst fire rings. Unfortunately my camera doesn't work well in the dark, but here's an idea of what went down.

Projections on the museum whilst the light men wandered through the crowd

On this photo and the one above there's a man running on top of the world!

FIRE!

The first weekend came pretty quickly and I was booked on to a tramping trip in the Waitakere Ranges. This is one of the first "walks" I did in my previous semester, so it seemed fitting to relive it. Only this time I'd be camping out there too.

Thomas joined me on this trip. However he arrived hungover and of course I could only do the right thing on the bus :-)

Bus Selfie!

But he perked up a little through the day! We ventured through the ranges on one of the harder walks offered. Unfortunately, thinking I was being wise I took a bag with some spare room and consequently I got lumbered with a huge speaker required for the party at the hut. That weighed a bit and certainly took some effort to carry. But it didn't spoil the walk; it's always nice to get out of the city.

At the hut we ate a great feast of Burritos and trifle (wait, who gave up sugar for lent?) before playing party games, such as balance on multiples of yellow pages phone books, sock wrestling and climbing around the table!

Thomas looking a bit more alive ;-)

On the second day a team of 5 (disappointingly out of 70+ people) chose to do the harder walk. It was a good route and good old Rik got us lost again (as he did the day before haha). We stopped by an old freind, waterfall #1 (out of waterfall #789 in NZ), Kerikeri Falls! It's definietely one of my favourite waterfalls in NZ, and this time I succeeded in a bit of rock climbing next to the falls. After all this we were the last group to arrive in Piha (my third time at Piha beach in total! Love that place!) and only got 10 minutes to sample it before heading on the bus home. It was a great little trip and I met some more really great people!

4 of the 5 strong team on day two!

Me on a rock :-)

Still so beautiful!

Beautiful Piha, NZs deadliest beach

Ah look what happened on the journey home!

The next week was littered with occasions to meet new people and take advantage of those university freebies! Such as a wine tasting night put on for international students only. There were so few of us there, but it was great to sample wine form the universities own vineyard on Waiheke Island and pretend we actually knew what we were sampling. Oh yes, quite.

On another night, we were eating free pizza with the international society! FREEBIES! And more friends made too!

And there was also an event by the harbour put on for us internationals. In fact this was a bit dull. But look, me and Scott found a tank!

See?!

Lets round of this return to uni with a mention of weekend football with the law students and an evening spent at White Night, an arts festival across Auckland in which public buildings open their doors with their own exhibitions. As with many modern art festivals, it didn't really make sense. From brochures being placed across the floor, to a giant fried egg, to an interpretive dancer in a fluorescent room. It was kind of weird. But we had a cool time wandering around the city. Although I'm sure the others had a highlight finding the play area in the park... Haha.

Group photo with Andy and Andy at the bottom!

Our interpretive dancer

And the park that captured our group at Silo Park

And there's the first two weeks in a nutshell. But I've had some time to study also and now as I'm heading in to week 4 it's taking up the majority of my time. Exams, Labs and Assignments are all being thrown my way again! So for now,

Oh yeah, did I mention I casually met the PM of NZ? #PMSelfie

Kia Ora,

Ben

Bens World Tour New Zealand Returns

Kia Ora,

Let the adventures in New Zealand resume! I can't believe how long ago we were in Australia. This year is going incredibly quickly and I feel like there's still so much to do! I spent the last two weeks of summer in Auckland and here are the highlights...

Starting with a free movie is projected on to the side of a silo at Silo Park. These free showings are every Friday and on this occasion me and Dannii educated Loris with a bit of British film culture- The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Haha, poor Loris, I think it scarred him a little bit. We heard he spent the next few days in quite a confused state, but I think he has recovered now haha. Somehow he didn't seem to think there's a place for it in French culture.

A few days later me and Dannii found a new place to live. Unfortunately we had to leave 2C, #SadTimes , but everything has it's time. But I'm still popping over for the latest news/banter! Still, now I have a place with Dannii and we were so lucky to move in with three good friends: Scott, Marion and Ella! It's been good so far (top marks) including the luxury of sunlight in the apartment!

View from the balcony

With a new place set up and the summer coming quickly to a close I managed to show Dannii some of Aucklands sights she was still yet to see. So we visited the Domain Museum and One Tree Hill. Danniis scrapbook is never too full of photo's so this was a good chance to add some more!

WOW- Wearable Art temporary display

One Tree Hill- this time in the sun!

Even though New Zealand has some amazing attractions to visit, sometimes the amazing attractions come to visit New Zealand. And nothing is more amazing than Foo Fighters in Auckland! We bought the tickets months ago and finally we were seeing Foo Fighters for the first time! They were absolutely awesome!!! And played for nearly 3 hours. And supported by Rise Against. What a night! Please let me see them again soon! Awesome!

Dave Grohl- what a hero!

Performing AC/DC, Queen and other classics!

And then much quicker than I realised the last weekend of freedom encroached on us. I spent the Saturday exploring the viaduct as it had been prepared to welcome the Volvo Great Ocean Race. This is a near 10 month sailing race around the world and Auckland was one of few rest ports. The boats were due to dock at 10pm that night. So in the lead up to this I explored the harbour with Hanne and Andreas, finding some cool virtual reality exhibits. I then found an amazing party with a live band combining the steel drums, trumpets and bass. It was amazing! I later resorted to settling down and watching some easy-listening live performances whilst also watching the most anticipated match of the Cricket World Cup, New Zealand vs Australia. It seemed New Zealand were cruising to victory, but the final twenty minutes turned in to a nail-biter. New Zealand finally clinched victory and the atmosphere was amazing!

Beautiful Auckland!

Me interrupting Hanne on her volunteering job!

Before 10pm came I met up with friends to walk through the Chinese Lantern Festival at Albert Park. The lanterns were everywhere and pretty amazing! Although we didn't stay too long because there were so many people, so we went to the harbour to welcome to boats from the Volvo Ocean Race!

 The last day of freedom came, as did the day of the Mud Run! Me, Dannii, Scott, Ella, Liz, Thomas and Pauline started the day squeaky clean. 250 meters of "running" later we had failed to compete in the race and succeeded in making us all as muddy as possible! Thankfully we were hosed down by the fire service afterwards!

Ella and Liz getting selfie revenge

Time flew by so quickly this summer. It felt like four weeks whereas it was more like 14. I've had such a crazy time. Long let the craziness continue!

Kia Ora,

Ben

Bens World Tour Australia: Sydney

G'day mate,

After making a complex journey dropping off the car after the Great Ocean Road, we flew in to Sydney from Melbourne. This was our final installment of the World Tour Australia.

We landed about 9am, dropped our bags at the hostel and explored a local market (to grab a yogurt for breakfast) and Darling Harbour. This place is pretty cool with shops and restaurants dotted around. We had enough time to cruise around before heading to meet Josh, nearly 3 months after he left our flat and downgraded to a normal life!

Darling Harbour attractions

Josh took us to his new place in Sydney which he had moved in to with Aisha. His window view had definitely improved from 2C! Though with his fear of heights (demonstrated whilst we visited) I fear he isn't making the most of it haha.

They drove us over to Bondi Beach, a surfing paradise in Sydney but perhaps more famous for its televised rescue services: "Bondi Rescue". It was soooo busy, so much so it spoiled what would have been a nice view. But we found enough space to play with the frisbee and get our feet (and shorts) wet.

It was so cool to see these guys again! Unfortunately our time seemed cut short at the end, but hopefully we'll meet again on European soil- hint hint if you're reading ;-).

Bondi Beach

Bondi Selfie!

Left again to explore the city, we strolled around the local area. We discovered that Sydney is a massive city and yet there is so much going on everywhere. We walked all day whilst there finding hidden attractions all around.

Court prepared ready for the upcoming Chinese New Year

That night we found a bar showing the all important Australian Open Mens Final. We saw Serena win the Womans in a motel the night before. Her tennis was one of the most impressive displays I have ever seen, especially knowing how ill she was feeling. But that night was all about crossing fingers for Andy Murray. In fact he played really well in the first two sets. He kept up with Djokovic and there was nothing to choose between them. But unfortunately he let his standards slip before giving up all together. The fourth set was incredibly disappointing and I have to wonder if Federer or Nadal would have lost it so meekly regardless of the situation. But hey ho, Djokovic was a worthy champion of course. I can still reminisce about seeing him on Rod Laver arena...

Our walking travel method continued the next day. We headed towards the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge via the high street and Botanical Gardens.

The sparse White Ibis

Local park with Sydney Tower Eye looming

 

Botanical Gardens!

A couple of photo's for Grandma ;-)

The main attraction!

One thing that really surprised me (especially true of the Harbour Bridge) was the scale of this landmark. It was much bigger than I imagined. Amazing engineering! And I was also surprised about the close-up appearance of the Opera House, a textile design which is not so easily seen in photographic form.

Sydney Opera House close-up

After a lot of walking we were ready to eat well, and where better to eat than the Hard Rock Cafe! We both enjoyed seeing a Darling Harbour in the dark and the memorabilia hosted in the restaurant. A stand out item for me, a dress worn by Taylor Swift at one of her gigs. Good times!

 After speaking with my grandparents and our roommates (a really nice Welsh couple) we decided to get on the water the next day. We took a ferry to Manly Beach. Manly is a quaint seaside-like town. The beach here was nicer than at Bondi Beach and we spent some more time reading, tanning and playing frisbee.

Feeling all relaxed we took the ferry back to the city during sunset. The views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge- Wow. Just wow!

We walked back after this partially through the Botanical Gardens to spy the massive fruit bats and possums, both easily spotted.

Our final day was similar to our first day, lots of walking, lots of great new finds and new sights. We went through the Botanical Gardens again through sections missed the first time, which actually turned out to be quite a bit. It seems we got mesmorised a bit to much by the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Botanical Gardens

 

We found ourselves walking across Harbour Bridge to get one last view of Sydneys most famous landmark.

View from the bridge

 

We had time for a quick hot chocolate pit stop before heading to the airport. Our cafe of choice, Guylian. It was a great hot chocolate clearly demonstrated in the following photo!

And that, as they say, was that. Australia was great to us, we met some great people in the hostels we stayed at, we saw some more wonderful sights. And we watched a surplus of Tennis. And the weather was generally warm and manageable. Thank you Australia. I hope it's not the last visit I have here! But I have some roles to pick up again in New Zealand, so for now,

G'day,

Ben