Sooo…first 3 weeks in New Zealand. What have I learned/seen/tasted??
Well first of all I had one heck of a long flight here. 35 hours in total! Glad I’m not getting on any planes in the near future. Going to another country is always a great way to notice differences. On the flight to LA I was handed the green immigrations form and I had to answer a lot of questions about terrorism and if I had ever been involved in any sort of crime. I’ve filled out a couple of these before so it was easy to check no all the way down. Then after landing in LA all passengers had to go to the immigrations and hand in the green form, have it stamped, handed it back to you, go back op to the transit area and then hand it to a lady. That was it!! It took 2 hours to do this! For what reason?!
Back on the plane on my way to NZ I was handed a new form and I thought: Joesses!! Not again!! But these questions were not about terrorism or if I had ever smoked weed. No no…NZ wanted to know if I was bringing any food, plants and if I had been hiking in the forest within the last month and if I was bringing any hiking boots. Now here were some questions that made sense to me! NZ is overrun by invasive species both flora and fauna and they don’t want any more!! One of the worst examples is possums. More than 60.000.000 of them are destroying the flora. The wrong flora though because another problem is gorse (tornblad og man kan kalde den for gyvlens onde faetter.). It is all over the park but that is one plant the possums don’t eat! So when I landed my hiking boots were scrubbed very thoroughly. They haven’t been that clean since the day I bought them!
I don’t want to get into a looong discussion about one country versus the other but I have my thoughts…
Gorse...brome's very evil cousin...!
I learned
* that you don’t have to put eggs in the fridge! But I still do though.
* how to drive on the right side of the road, which of course is the left.
* that wh in Maori makes an f and how to say Mangakopikupiku!
I tasted
* “homemade” yoghurt. Powder + water + thermos = yoghurt
* honey made from native NZ plants
* ginger beer! Yum! Not ginger ale but ginger beer. No alcohol in it though…
I saw
* a penguin
* a tree fern. Lots of them…
And probably a whole lot more!
Unfolding mysteries...
I’m staying in a flat at Ric and his family’s house and I’m loving it!! Have my own kitchen and so on which I was really missing living at the school. The cats visit me some times which is fun although they tend to get into everything!! Curiosity killed the cat…?!
My second day here I went with Ric, Holly, Lillian and Fiona to the airport of Tauranga. It was father’s day and Holly had arranged for Ric to go fly in a biplane! Man was I envious of him!! That looked like so much fun!
Off we...erh he goes...
Hotlips Ottesen, Lillian and Fiona...
Afterwards we went for a walk around Mount Maunganui. The weather was absolutely beautiful and it was nice stretching my legs after all the flights. There's a rock shaped like a dragon's head on the beach. Pretty cool when nature forms things...
No fire...? Hmm...
I miss sailing...
The weather here is a bit like spring at home. Some sunny days and some rainy days but I’m definitely looking forward to the nice warm summer. Hoping to learn how to kite surf…finally!
All in all I’m having the best time here. Can’t wait to go road tripping and see the country. My car is all ready to go and I’m getting used to driving it. It has an automatic transmission so I have slammed the breaks a couple of times thinking it was the clutch. Ooops…! But I now know that the breaks work perfectly!
My nice and CHEAP kick ass car! He he...
Oh right…then there’s the whole pronouncing my name thing. It always amuses me how many ways people say it. Here’s the option from the Council (it was posted on the front page of the intranet.):
“Irene (pronounced urr raina) is here with Council for the next 10 months working with Ric and Jarron as an unpaid TECT All Terrain Park assistant. She is from the Forest and Landscape Engineering program at Copenhagen University in Denmark and this is a practical experience placement required of all graduates. She will return to Denmark next July to complete her final year of study.”
Good thing I have a name tag…although then people will start calling me Ajriiiiin…! Crap…! He he...it's good fun though...
I’m working together with Ric, who is the park manager and Jarron, who is the park ranger. A small but very effective team. There are a ton of jobs regarding the park and I’m trying to help the best I know how. Right now we are planning the TECT All Terrain Park Discovery Day in October which is a good opportunity for user groups and the public to get together. Also some of our contractors are coming to show what they do. The coolest thing is that I might get the chance to see the park from a helicopter that day! Woohoo…! I’ll definitely get some pictures of it if it happens.
Aaa’righty…gotta go!
