Breaking in my Merrels

By: Christina Vy Pham

The past few weeks have been a kaleidoscope of work, play, and heat exhaustion. With my first semester here already wrapping up it's hard to believe that I've been here for over a month now. I just had my last class yesterday and my last final is scheduled for Monday. I'm sad to see my two classes on New Zealand culture coming to a close but I've learned so much about the history and the people of New Zealand in the past few weeks that I'm satisfied with my "background" knowledge of how this place runs. Now that this semester is essentially over school will be much more lax as I will have the same two classes from march until the end of June. Not to mention that since this is the fall semester, many kids will be moving back on campus for the start of the school year which means that Auckland will get a breath of new young life, something that its been lacking in the past few weeks. Not to say that the kids run the town here, it's just that it has proved to be harder than expected to meet and befriend kiwis when they are illusive during the summer sessions. I'm excited to start my new classes but even more excited for my two week inter semester break that starts on Tuesday. Two of my friends and I are flying out of Auckland down to Christchurch in the south island and spending 10 days road tripping around the whole place. I cant wait to get out and hike, camp and meet locals in what will hopefully prove to be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in.


I went to see Laneway festival with my friend Christina a few weeks ago and it ruled. It was so nice to have such good music playing with such a smaller scale crowd than i'm used to. We had gotten to the front for almost everything. Blonde Redhead, Warpaint, and Beach house rocked my shit all over again. So glad i went. And so glad i could finally drink at a festival! We also saw these adorable kids doing haka on the street. Guess which one was the loudest.


A few weeks ago Brittney, Navah and I had taken a day trip to Rangitoto, which is a small volcanic island situated in the bay. It's literally just a volcano that exploded out of the water and became an island, though apparently, this is how it always happens. I remember watching a terrible reenactment of the "birth" of Rangitoto while on the bus to our classes Bay of Islands trip of a stoic Maori man standing on the shores of Auckland gazing on, completely unfazed as the water before him burst into flames and made an island. I know that the Maori are bad asses, but I don't care how many enemy's you've eaten, if you see that happen, you're going to shit bricks.


When we arrived at Rangitoto we were pleasantly surprised to see that the entire island was a preserved nature reserve, completely free of touristy stalls, uppity cafes, and slummy youth hostels. We quickly began our climb to the summit as we only had about two and a half hours to explore the place. The hike was fairly easy, we passed through basalt fields and German tour groups for the first part of the trip. Eventually we began the less than easy climb to the top. It was hot, there was no wind and at times the trail was so steep it seemed like we were going nowhere. After being passed by a group of Asian girls wearing flats we decided that in order to regain our honor as "trampers" we had to pick up the pace.


When we finally summited Rangitoto we were pretty spent. The views from the top were spectacular from every point. After catching our breath we headed to the lava caves. As we walked to the caves I could hear Germans faintly talking on the trail behind us, and while i'd like to say that watching Shindlers List and reading The Diary of Anne Frank didn't predispose me to get REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE when being followed by people speaking in German, it did. I feigned tying my shoe and let them pass before we made it to the caves. The caves, in all honesty were pretty fucking cool. They were a bit slimy with moss but it never ceases to amaze me how they always have a cool breeze coming from inside of them. After taking a few pictures posing like smeagol we headed back to the ferry and headed home.


This past weekend with the weather finally permitting, the girls and I rented a car for the for our first real North Island road trip. We were headed to Whirinaki Forest park to do some hiking and camping for the weekend. I've noticed that while on these long road trips, regardless of who your with, where your going, or what you've brought to distract you, the scenery itself is enough to keep you entertained for the duration of the trip. The main highways twist and turn through the mountains, steep lush green hills roll around either side and cows and sheep pepper the hillsides. It was enough to keep me with my head out the window pointing and awing at the landscape. I wanted to conceptually make love to what was going outside of the car AT ALL TIMES.


That being said, it was a 4 hour trip in a place we had never been to before, naturally we got lost a few times. Not without a little bit of personal gain though. Driving by a town near by Rotorua, we all became incredibly hungry and turned into one of the small towns on the way to grab some lunch. We found this cafe that didn't look like very much from the outside. The sign read, food GLORIOUS food and with navah spotting the Oliver Twist reference we decided to eat there. The decor was actually quite chic for being in the middle of nowhere and we were greeted by a bubbly middle aged man at the counter. After showing us all of the available options and commenting about the suggested age of the sandwiches in the showcase we ordered and waited to be served. When this food came out, I thought I was in fucking kitchen stadium. My chicken sandwich was absolutely beautiful, and tasted even better. We scarfed our food down and mumbled things like "ohhhmahhhgaaahh duuuss usss soooo guuuhh". Incredible. We payed, promised to return and headed back out on the road.


After about 30 km of sickeningly twisting and dirt roads we found our way to the park at about 16:00. We gathered our packs left a note in the window and set out for the forest. Entering this forest feels like your entering another world, so different from any other forest I've ever been in, smelling so sweet, and completely pristine, lush and green. The trail itself was relatively easy going; it winded along with the river up and down the terrain. We passed a few small waterfalls took pictures and ate god knows how many energy bars. About an hour or so into the hike we came to a portion that leveled out a bit with the river and neglecting the "WARNING KEEP STRICTLY TO THE TRAIL" sign we jumped off the track and went for a Ryan McGinley-esque swim in the river. We continued on the trail for a while and after realizing that it was already 19:30 we had to hoof it in order to get to camp before night fall as we knew that hiking in the forest at night is nearly impossible. We picked up the pace and made it to the last waterfall, from there we hiked another hour to get to camp. I, the anxious one, trailblazed at the front batting vegetation and spiderwebs from my face with exhaustion and anxiety setting in at the same time. Its true, this one hour was hell, and I thought as though I was loosing my mind. The distant calls of weird birds and the forever swelling of the buzz of cicadas filled my head. It felt more like the scene out of a movie, you know, the one right before the person looses their shit or gets eaten by monsters or whatever. In any event, my freaking out was not in vain as we made it to Vern's camp just as the sun was starting to truly set.


The camp was much more than I had expected. There was a large pavilion what had a wood burning stove, a sink with running water and plenty of left over supplies for us to use. We set up the tent and started a fire with purel, journal pages and left over wood and twigs from previous campers. We roasted hot dogs and pineapple over the open fire, drank whiskey and shared stories. I'll admit, being in the woods alone is fucking scary, and as much as I'd like be be all bad ass and Chris McCandles about it, this trip took me completely out of my comfort zone. It's not that I don't love nature, camping or hot dogs, its just that the three of us were completely alone and that's hard to fathom without wanting to die. As the night went on I began to get more comfortable and eventually began to legitimately dread leaving the forest in the morning. We slept in our tent, the girls eventually rolling onto me as the night went on considering it was pitched on a slant. The frequent calls of kiwi birds and the itching of mosquito bites didn't make for the best night sleep I'd ever had, but I was happy. We left early in the morning to hike and dive our way out.


Its weird, many people before I left for this trip asked me why the hell I wanted to go to New Zealand in the first place, and I would always make some snide remark about London being a hellhole or the fact that there were no other English speaking programs available, but really, I came here to confront my uneasiness with being disconnected with the world. Over the past few years I've become so dependent on the internet, phones, email everything to stay intouch with friends and family while I have been away in Boston; but I always felt like I was never really present, never really fully and completely where I was because my mind was always attached to the lives of people miles away. It's exhausting to say the least and something that I've always wanted to change about the way I interact with the world. I knew that coming to New Zealand would force me to actually be present, deal with reality and but my head back in synch with my body. The sheer remoteness of this place has put me in a healthier state of mind, one that can finally let me work on myself and make time to talk to others. As romantic as it may seem, I thought no better place to be alone then in the last place on earth. Now, putting myself smack dab in the middle of a sub equatorial rainforest, alone, with nothing but recent friends and hot dogs is quite a big "baby" step, but I don't want to waste any of my time here being afraid of anything. I'd rather be out there alone and exposed to the world than sitting home in my apartment on facebook. I just hope that my grand adventures end up a bit better than candide's.

"I should like to know which is worse, being raped a hundred times by negro pirates . . . or . . . just sitting here and doing nothing? "

The Devonport Folk Music Club

Before one of my program leaders, Jeff, left to go back to the states a few weeks ago he handed me a flyer for The Devonport Music Hall and urged me to take the trip out there to scope the place out. After seeing me lug around my ukulele Jeff had some idea of what I was into and after reading about their weekly ukulele jams I decided to give it a shot. Monday night after class the girls and I took the ferry out to Devonport in an attempt to locate it. After staring at google maps for a few minutes, we realize that this place is NOT on the map, nor does it have any type of address, in fact when putting the name of the venue in the search bar it came up with this:

With a crude idea of where we were going we wandered around Devonport until we found Mount Victoria. We walked around the base of the mountain with no luck. As the sun started to go down we decided that we might as well climb Mount Victoria just in case the map was right. We made it to the summit, looked around and got some beautiful shots of the city at sun down but didn't find any trace of a music venue. No parking lots, no music from afar, nothing. We continued to explore Mount Victoria, finding an old for and a radar station but no sign of the hall. After giving up on finding it and needing to pee badly after an hour, we began to look for some sort of bathroom. I walk around aimlessly on the summit and see a small shack attached to the side of the mountain. I ask Navah to investigate.
Painted mushrooms atop Mount Victoria

"The Devonport Folk Music Club" she says
"What? Stop fucking with us, is it a bathroom or not"
"No, It says the Devonport Folk Music Club."

I jump down from where I'm standing and low and behold, there it was, nuzzled into the side of the mountain almost completely underground. Roger, the owner, was standing in the doorway with a long white beard and after convincing him that we were in fact not lost and did intend to find the place he welcomed us in. After asking him about how the music was tonight, he shrugged his shoulders and pointed towards the door.

Opening the door revealed a scene out of my fucking dreams. There were people in their early 50's 60's and 70's sitting around, drinking beer and playing folk music. The lights were dimmed, antiques hanging on the walls and the faint smells of beer and tea radiating from the floor. Had i died and gone to heaven? Lord knows things couldn't get better. We took our seats in the back and watched Roger introduce each act, making dry comments about their talent's quality and listening to the barrage of witty comebacks that these old friends had derived over the years. The music itself was wonderful. Puts the all the hoots in Boston attics I've ever been to to complete shame. Their knowledge of old Irish, Scottish, and British folk tunes floored me not to mention just how good they were at doing it. The banter between songs was hysterical and it was apparent that these people have known each other, been playing with each other, and have been drinking together in this bunker for decades.
We spent the night stomping our feet, harmonizing where we could, and getting to know the friendly people sitting around us. One couple from Ireland were quite intrigued by us American girls and made us promise to come back the next week. The girls and I ended up buying memberships to the venue, for 10 NZ bucks we get discount admission, access to their incredible folk music library and get this, membership cards. With the threat of missing the last ferry back into Auckland, the girls and I said our goodbyes to the people and the place. We spent the ferry back talking to on of the younger performers who was staying in Auckland for a while after graduating from school in Ireland. It was good to know that there are young people here that enjoy this stuff too.

I've spent a few weeks here in New Zealand already and ill say that I didn't really know if this place was for me. True, it's beautiful, and true, it's summer, but I needed a little more out of this country to make it feel more like it was mine. Discovering The Bunker was what I needed. It planted me right were I wanted to be and for the first time since I've gotten here I finally began to think of this place less as a place and more as home.

Thursday marked the first day of classes at the UofA. In our New Zealand society class, we started talking about the idea of New Zealand’s identity, what shapes it as a country and what it is about his place that makes it so unique. New Zealanders relish in the islands remoteness, their lax attitudes and their ability to not take things too seriously. We learned a bit about the geography or the island, it’s history and basically that there is serious gigantism, the land is split by a huge geothermic chasm and that there were eagles with 15 meter wing spans. Basically, this is the weirdest place in the world.
Today we had our first program “field trip”. It was a bus tour of Auckland and all of its surrounding glory. To be honest, I was mostly excited about the promise of a stop at the beach during the trip. In true Julia fashion, I was awake and ready to go, but waited at the wrong entrance to the Uniloge for the bus to pick us up. My prepaid phone has a tendency to turn off every once and a while for long periods of time, and its saw it fit to turn off during this hour. After waiting about 30 min for my group to show up, I realized that something was off, I quickly ran upstairs to my room to check and see if my times and location were right and of course, I was 30 min late, and on the wrong side of the building. After 20 minutes of FREAKING OUT my phone finally turned on and beraided me with text after text from friends on the program saying “GET OUTSIDE WE’RE LEAVING”. I call one of my friends and the program leader advised me to get a taxi to Mount Eden, which is about 4 miles away from where I was.
Seeing as how I had NO New Zealand currency and taxis never pass by our complex I started a mad dash down Anzac Street. I ran wildly in my flip-flops, alone and sweating, clutching my camera damning my inability to check emails and genuinely be on time for ANYTHING. I was a mess. After a solid 10 minutes of running, I found a currency exchange threw my 40 us dollars at her, received 45 NZ dollars (TOTALLY RIPPED OFF) and jaywalked the streets until I found a taxi. I climb in the front seat, something that I’ve NEVER done with a taxi, or that’s not encouraged in America at least, and we were off. Marlon, My driver asked me a barrage of questions about where I was from and how long I was here, and why I was so sweaty but he kept me entertained, rooted for me the whole way there and made some of the best cabbie small talk I’d ever had. At one point he advised me to pretend as if I was driving to get some experience for driving on the left side of the road. He dropped me off at the summit of Mount Eden, made sure I met up with my group and wished me well. Thank you for that Marlon. My group was happy to see me, and I was too. Mount Eden was absolutely beautiful. It is an old inactive volcano turned park with gorgeous views of the city and surrounding land. After talking a bit with Joe from GOOT, we all got on our bus to go to our second destination.
The roads to the Cascade Kauri Park were so narrow and overgrown, I felt as though we could have died at any point, but our driver knew his shit. We parked and walked around the reservation. This park was AMAZING. The trees, the plants, everything was HUGE. I wasn’t in Jurassic park, I WAS JARASSIC PARK. We hiked for a while and I wondered allowed about why it was advised that we wear flip-flops to this whole excursion. I kept falling behind the group, taking pictures and just marveling in how beautiful this place really is.

From there we went to Lake Wainamu . There were quite a few colorful people, and cars peppered around the entrance so I was expecting a busy place. Joe took us down a trail of hot black volcanic sand for a few minutes, made us all hop a fence, and lead us up to what looked like it was the beach of the lake. After emerging from the trail I realized how wrong I was. There before us like a huge lake bed, filled with not water, but MOLTON HOT BLACK VOLCANIC SAND. I look down at my feet and wonder WHY I had worn flip-flops this day and WHY Joe wasn’t in as much pain as us poor sorry soles (PUN ALERT). In any event he pushed us forward, ONWARD INTO THE SAND PIT. With each step my feet sunk into the excruciatingly hot sand, which was almost manageable until it would make is way underneath my feet, leaving the burning hot sand between my whiny baby uncalloused feet and my cheap four dollar Old Navy Flip-flops. What I would have done for a pair of socks, or ice cubes. We made our way up a large dune and I prayed to see water over the ridge. Once again I was let down, there was at least another mile of hot sand between myself and anything that resembled lush green salvation. So we walked on, wind blowing, sand and hair flying, feet burning and mouths dry for what seemed like an eternity. I stared at my feet as the carefully walked over the sand but quickly became mesmerized by the sparkly bits and entered some sort of state of delirium singing the Disney version of “Arabian nights” to keep morale with my fellow ladies in pain.
After about a mile and a half of walking in the sand we finally reached the lake. It was situated down a 12 foot drop of sand but that didn’t seem to stop any of the locals from swimming. Next to where we put our things, a group of 7 or so kiwi boys had set up a sort of plastic bag slide going down the embankment. They lathered it with soap and spent their whole day, running jumping, drinking and catcalling. What a life. Basically, after walking all that was in the sand, I wasn’t going to let a silly little 12 foot embankment keep my poor dogs from reaching sweet sweet relief, so I kicked of my shoes and clothes and ran down into the lake. We all swam for a while, the kids in the program made me do synchronized swimming tricks and we gathered our things and left. We continued to walk on the Satan sand, up along the embankment and looked down at the small stream that lay below it. Joe, deciding that he no longer wanted to be in the sand began RUNNING DOWN THE EMBANKMENT. The dune’s height had grown significantly since the lake and now was about 200 ft long at about a 70 to 75 degree angle. One by one we all follow him. I clutch my bag and run for dear life with my feet sinking ankle deep into the sand. From the bottom, we carried on through the stream and back to the bus.
From there we headed to Bethells Beach, we had little time to enjoy it but the scenery was breath taking. At each end of the shore, there were huge volcanic rock formations that gated in the black sand beach. The surf was rough and the rip current strong and made Misquamicut in Rhode Island during a thunderstorm look like nothing. We took pictures, swam and investigated caves before heading to our last destination of the day, Coopers Creek Winery.
We had a wine tasting at the corner creek vineyard. Our group walked in, were all given small little whine glasses and were essentially SCHOOLED by a small Italian woman about all the different types of wine that New Zealand had to offer. Prior to the wine tasting, a handful of girls and I took our shorts off over our swimsuits to have our first wine tasting, but pantsless. Now I know that I will go to more wine tastings in my life, but how many times will I have the opportunity to have it socially acceptable to be pants-less while doing it? Not many. Point: When in Rome, do as the village idiot, it makes for better stories. After getting thoroughly tipsy we jumped on the bus to get back home.
Up until this day I was having a hard time trying to get motivated enough to begin to plan traveling out of the city to see the county. From Auckland, the rugged terrain of the surrounding mountains looks softened by the city’s clouds. They begin to look so far away, a hassle, something that can wait. But after today, I realize it can’t wait. If I am to see this beautiful country I need to be exploring on ever ounce of free time that I have. This trip really lit a fire under my butt about getting out there and pushing myself to do the things I never thought I would have the energy, will or stamina to do. I am officially enthralled to see this place, its people, and its culture and to gain a little bit of a window into what it is about this place that is so intoxicating.

I made it!

After 2 days of pirating Internet from various stores in Auckland, I have Finally purchased a "T-stick" which is a type of wireless broadband Internet. Supposedly, it covers 97% of New Zealand but ill be sure to put that to the test.

The past few days have been an absolute whirlwind. Traveling here from Boston seemed to take an eternity, not only because it was over 28 hours of flights and layovers, but because TIME WAS ACTUALLY REWINDING AS I WAS FLYING, which was just plain FRUSTRATING. The flights from Boston to Dallas and Dallas to Los Angeles were complete hell. During which I actually contemplated buying a ticket home and cutting my losses before the 13 hour flight over the Pacific ocean. But after meeting with a handful of kids from my program, and commiserating with them about how much we had already been through I had decided that New Zealand would be worth the temporary discomfort. The flight on Quantas Airways from LAX to Auckland was a DREAM. We were served 2 meals, had unlimited movies to watch and a blanket. Needless to say after 15 hours of dealing with American Airlines the smiling Aussie faces and free in-flight drinks were a sight for sore eyes. The views (though minimal at 5000 feet) were spectacular from the plane. While it was only ocean and sky, the stars were so clear and bright. I had a nice long conversation with the man next to me about sustainability and beer, and slept until we landed.

We touched down at about 10:30 am New Zealand time and gathered our bags, went through a short and fairly layed back customs process and met up with our program leaders Jeff and Kevin. Walking outside the first thing i notice is how GOOD this place smells. Its a mixture of flowers, fresh cut grass, sea water and barbecue sauce and it just screams summer here.

We returned to the place where I will call home for the next 6 months, The Unilodge. Its a sort of dorm/community center/apartment complex. I was given my FIRST single in all of my college history. We all had a tapas lunch as a group (curdiosy of the program leaders) and walked around some as a group to go shopping for our apartments. Which is when i found out that things here are EXPENSIVE. Luckily, the dollar is fairly strong here, about .75 to the New Zealand dollar.

I spent the night drinking beer and bonding, swapping sex stories, laughing and occasionally having moments where I realized that I actually did make it here, and that it will be my reality for the next 6 months. Today is the first day of classes, though i don't have my first one until tonight and i am excited. I had forgotten that this trip would actually require some schooling and work but with 2 classes a semester, it should all be fairly manageable. I'm also debating buying a bike here, thought the roads are EXTREMELY hilly. I guess i ll just have to come home with ripped calves.

Saturday a company called GOOT (Get Out of Town) is sponsoring a bus tour for our program. I'm piss and shit excited to actually see a bit more of this place and also to go to the beach and work away this marshmallow complexion.

I am satisfied, I am happy, I'm still a bit freaked out but I'm ready for this whole experience. I can't wait to meet locals, hike the land, eat the food and live like a kiwi if only for a little while.

ps: I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. The internet here is INCREDIBLY SLOW and it is not that i haven't got pictures to post, its just that i don't have 3 hours to wait for them to upload. Soon though, i promise.

HEYO so holy shit. I made it.

I'm currently at an internet cafe' and wont be able to write very much, but i am drafting a long arival blog post for yall that will be up in a few days.

THIS PLACE RULES SO FAR. Double summer was a great idea. ITS HOT, ITS SUNNY, ITS HUMID AND I AM ALIVEEEEEEE.

TALK TO YOU ALL SOON. SKYPEING CAN COMMENCE ONCE I GET INTERNET ON MY LAPTOP

The Departure

Today is the day I LEAVE.

My best friends from back home saw me up to Boston last night to a. shriek b. get me too drunk to care about what i'm doing today. Both were sucessful, however now I will sit in gate 33 at logan airport and play an online version of the "Mexican Train Game" for the next 2 hours. Traveling unsettles me enough to arrive to my departures HOURS ahead of time for fear of... well, everything.
Also there is now a x-ray naked picture of me floating around the world somewhere but in all honesty I could care less. An off color blueprint of my coo-kaa may be worth something to someone, and if they want it, hell, its all yours, ya freak.

I wonder, should I accept the 25 farmville requests i have pending on my facebook? I mean its not the best way to spend your time, but they didn't cure pollio in an airport terminal. The only thing that goes on here is knitting. Everyone is fucking knitting. Status of the airport... the aggressive flipping of fashion magazines, music from the weather channel and knitting.

heyo im leaving now CYA IN TEXAS.