Today, we arrived in Auckland, New Zealand. It was absolutely stunning. The rolling green hills, the far-off dark mountains, the thousands and thousands of farm animals -- the whole country called to me to explore and discover parts of the world -- as well as parts of my own personality -- that I'd never seen before. The bus ride to Rotorua was three hours long, but that didn't faze me one bit. I was actually really looking forward to it, because I could see more of the gorgeous landscape. We stopped for lunch in a quaint town named "Hobbiton" (Matamata), where there was a statue of Gollum and even a building front that looked like a Hobbit-hole in the Shire. I had a delicious meat pie (I think it was lamb) with seasoned potato on top, thick-cut chips, and a Sprite. It was my first "Kiwi" meal in New Zealand, and I loved it. Later, we went luging, which is basically riding a little go-cart down a hillside through a crazy trail of twists and sharp turns that kept me screaming all the way down. It was exhilarating! I went down three times, and I never got bored. It felt like I was flying, I was moving so fast. It felt like I was going to crash any second, but that only added to the thrill. Finally, we reached Rotorua, which, yes, smelled like eggs, but luckily, that became normal after a while, and I got used to it quickly. After dinner, we went to the glorious Pak n' Save, which we all decided was the Kiwi child of Sam's Club and the Home Depot. It was huge, it was full of merchandise, and best of all, almost everything was cheap! Sadly, there was no Arnold Palmer's, but I did get some delicious spring water, three liters for $1.95NZ. It was an unforgettable first day in New Zealand.
What were your first impressions? Any culture shocks? What do you think will happen in the next few days?
I was really excited, because I've never been to another country before. Also, I've always wanted to go to Australia and New Zealand, especially because New Zealand is the setting for all three LOTR movies (Lord of the Rings), and is the setting of The Hobbit as well. hence, as soon as I could see New Zealand, I was surprised that I didn't really feel like I was in a different country, although the grass was so much greener than our grass here in the states. I think the reason why I didn't feel like I was abroad was because the main language of NZ is English, so I don't feel like I'm fully immersed in a different culture. Truth be told, I feel like I'm only in an exotic part of the States sometimes. However, I did experience some large culture shocks already just today. Firstly, there are a lot of livestock here. We learned that for every person in New Zealand, there are ten sheep. That's a total of forty million sheep in one country! However, I definitely saw many more cows than sheep when we were driving through Auckland. It seems like the animals are forming themselves into a massive livestock army that's going to take over New Zealand in the next few years. Just a thought. Furthermore, what I believe may be the "classic" culture shock is the sight of Kiwis driving on the left side of the road, from the right-side driver's seat (and no, I don't mean the flightless bird kiwis but the New Zealand people Kiwis). I knew that almost all (if not every) other country drives on the left side of the road and uses Celsius and the metric system, but it still slightly shocked me to see it happening before my own eyes. Thirdly, the food shocks me. Along with your much-beloved classic American cuisine like hamburgers and fries (which Kiwis call chips) and Coca-Cola sodas, there's mince pies (beef in a pastry), Karamura chips (thick-cut, well-seasoned potato wedges), and L&P, which tastes like Sprite, but has an aftertaste reminiscent of a lemon drop. What I think will happen in the next few days is that I hope it will rain again tomorrow because today looked really pretty when it was cloudy but the sun was shining very brightly. Also, I'm really excited for the hungi tomorrow night, because I want to be able to experience Maori culture firsthand. Whatever happens the next few days, I'm really excited, because we're finally here!
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