Day 23- 3 Bales a' Sitting

A Christmas tree with gifts on hay-bales in the dining hall.  Welcome to ag school...

Day 12- Not a Penny More

Celebrated an early Thanksgiving dinner with some members of The Wildlife Society today.  Thanks for a delicious meal ladies!

Pavlova: A National Dish at it's Finest

As per request, this here blog is about the lovely group dinner we had... two weeks ago?!  Holy moly time is flying.  Anyways, this request was put through by Nic, my lovely boyfriend.  I'm not really sure what he wants me to say about it.  How delicious the food was, how awesome the hot tub was, how fun it was to get everyone together?  Because it was all that.  I guess I'll just give a little run down and let the pictures do the talking...

So, Nic lives about 20 minutes away from Palmerston North in the tiny town of Ashhurst.  He lives on a small sheep farm with his parents and brothers (when they're home).  So our first obvious stop, for carload one anyways, was the pasture so we could say hello to the sheep.  There were three main sheep we were looking for, Chop, Scarface, and Pippa.  Chop is a lamb from this past season who was raised in the house and is thus not afraid of people and is utterly amusing.  He wasn't hard to find.  As soon as he saw people coming he was at the fence baa-ing his little heart out. It was love at first sight for Kristen...

Our next conquests were Scarface and Pippa.  Scarface is a really old sheep and Pippa is a ewe who was raised inside a couple years ago and is only slightly skittish.  Here's Scarface-

Interestingly enough, he lost his eye after he got his name. From there we moved back inside where it was time to prep dinner.  We beasted some potatoes and kumara (a sort of sweet potato) while Nic prepped the lamb (sorry no pictures).  Just after we finished that task the second carload made it in.  It was the whole crew now, all nine of us.  Of course plenty of goofing around and talking ensued, along with some wine drinking and plenty of snack munching.

There's Platinum in These Hills!

My oh my.  How the time is speeding by.  It’s June!!  It’s just surreal to me.  What do you mean I’ve been here for four months?  What kind of joke is that?  *sigh*  As you can probably tell I’m just a little frazzled by the complete lack of time I have left here.  22 days.  The past 31 have gone by in the blink of an eye!  And I can tell you already that this next month is going to do the same. 

Tomorrow is the last day of classes here at Massey Palmerston North.  Next week is a full week dedicated to studying and the two weeks following belong to exams.  You know what that means?  I have exactly three days within the next three weeks that I have plans.  June 14, June 16, and June 18.  The last two on which I have two exams a piece.  This free time would be absolutely awesome except for my complete and utter lack of money.  That’s alright though; it just means spontaneous activities are more plausible now.  Oh!  And I need to pack.  I guess I’ll devote my last two days here to that.

To steer away from that depressing (at least to me) topic, I will tell you about my most recent weekend.  On Saturday May 28 I went with a portion of MUAC (Massey University Alpine Club) and did a tramp into the nearby wilderness.  If you can call it wilderness…  Anyways, we walked the Sledge Track, about 20 minutes from campus. 

I don’t have a whole lot to say about the whole trip.  I can tell you there were around 700 stairs one way (yes I counted), it was super muddy, and it took us around 6 hours to complete the circuit.  The first stopping point of the trek was at a river.  There were some really nice boulders there, which I decided to climb.  I was doing well until I slipped and bashed my knee on the top of it.  That would have lasting effects throughout the day.  I had a nice view of the river, though.

Jesus, Rabbits, and Eggs. Happy Easter Everyone!

4/24/11     Franz Josef -> Wanaka

I would like to start this day off by saying Happy Easter!  I didn’t even realize it was Easter until someone said it to me.  And even then I doubted it.  How could it be Easter?  It’s so early!  And it’s autumn, not spring.  Confusing!

But anyways, we started out early again this morning, 7:30 am.  We headed out along a very twisty road to hit up Lake Matheson.  Due to the cloudy weather we did not “catch the perfect mirror reflection of Mt. Cook.”  But we did spend an hour or so walking around the lake.  It was still pretty, despite the clouds and brief rain.

Most of the rest of the day was spent driving.  We stopped at the Gates of Haast (which is a bridge) and checked out the river.  I have seen so many rushing rivers in the past few days and yet I’m still amazed at each one. 

After regaining the road we traveled up and over the Southern Alps, leaving the west coast behind.  We were soon captivated by the beauty of Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea and stopped to take pictures of the latter.

Who Wears Short Shorts?

Alright.  Here we go.  My first real blog in a long time.  And by ‘real’ I mean a blog in which I do something other than describe my day.  And the topic of the day is…Short Shorts!!  YAY!

Some of you may be thinking “Yeah, alright.  Short shorts are pretty common in summer.”  To which I would respond, “Yes, yes they are.”  However, the main subject area of this short shorts discussion is men.  Yes, men.  Men in short shorts.  Now you’re probably thinking something along the lines of “…oh.  Hahahahahahaha.”  However, before you go and start judging all the short shorts wearing Kiwi boys, just hear me out. 

If you see boys in short shorts in the States, it’s either in a picture from the 70s, or they’re involved in a sport (cough cough drum corps).  If it’s the former you just giggle but give them some slack because, let’s face it, it was the 70s.  If it’s the latter, again you just giggle and again give them slack because they’re usually pretty built.  Generally any other viewing of boys in short shorts is just weird.  But here, oh no.  Here it’s common place to see short shorts.  In class, in the dining hall, at the supermarket, whatever.  And after some deliberation with my female companions we have determined the reason that it’s not strange (and actually quite attractive) here: no tan lines.  These guys do not have pasty legs.  If boys do wear short shorts, it is so much more attractive when their legs don’t blind you if struck by a ray of sun. 

But every good thing must come to an end.  In this case, I was unfortunate enough to discover the limits of short shorts, while eating dinner, I might add.  There we were, having ourselves a nice, processed, school provided meal when BAM!  What do I see?  Man ass. Yep, right there in the dining hall.  This particular pair of short shorts managed to cover everything important but as soon as their occupant bent over, for whatever reason, we were treated to a fully fledged view of some unknown guy’s lower man ass.  It was at this point that all of us at the table became a little weary of short shorts.  So here’s my advice:  admire them all you want, just be aware that you might see a little bit more than you were planning for…

Māori Tour pt. 2

Continuing on now from the previous blog, which you can find here... Maori Tour

After getting wiped out by a very sneaky wave in rugby, we changed into our bathing suits and went swimming!! ...in a waterfall.  We walked maybe five minutes up the road from the beach to a pretty little waterfall. 

The water was absolutely freezing, but I was determined to touch the rocks under the waterfall.  By the time I got out there, aka after my lower half went numb, there were only five of us left in the water, everyone else having bailed.

Fear us, we are strong women!!  As soon as this picture was taken though, we got out too.  No need to turn blue or anything.  It seemed almost planned that as feeling was returning to my lower half Staci began a little weaving tutorial.  We each cut a flax stem and proceeded to make a very simple... thing.  I don't recall the name, but it was supposed to represent a flower.