Red Wood & Rangitoto Experience.

The first few days in New Zealand were pretty nice wearther and I feel like I would have enjoyed the Red Woods much more if we went at a warmer time of day or when it wasn't raining. I am content with the experience I had at the forest, I stayed behind with Mr. Schagrin and a couple students who weren't thrilled about the hike either, we walked into the forest a little and then left , that was good enough for me because the trees don't vary much so the forest is almost all the same. But it is incredible that humans can create something that huge and beautiful. New Zealand cares more about their environmentand that's why they have more natural AND manmade parks, we only rely on nature to create things most of the time. After warming up and changing we met the Rangitoto students and it wasn't at all what I expected. My penpal, Nicole, didn't really talk to me in person so I talked to other people. We found many similarites in out school systems but there were more differences. They have to walk, take public transportation, or drive to school, and driving isn't easy when there's 3000 students. They always wear uniforms, even though it's a public school, which is a good idea. I think it's cool how their school can gave so many sports and clubs because 3,000 students have 3,000 different interests, like the people that performed the Haka for us.

Traveler.

I feel like I am a good traveler. If I were to take this trip by myself I wouldn't get as much done as we are with E.F. in such a short time, but I would do more things than most people would. I would do more things that interest me specifically, but I think that traveling with the tour guide makes you try new things and it can help you find new things you're interested in. Like if I was doing this trip I probably wouldn't have spent too much time on the Natives, but I'm glad we did because I got to learn a lot about an important group of people.  My family has tought me how fun it can be to get lost sometimes. So, if I was traveling on my ownI wouldn't be afraid of getting lost, I'd have fun with it, like we did in the pouring rain walking back to the hotel a few days ago. I knew the train would be the easy, dry, and fast choice but I had fun walking homeand it wasn't even that cold. Another reason I'd be a good traveler is I don't like reservations, I'd rather blow off a reservation  to do something I'd enjoy more. I did that on this trip yesterday, I sold my Bridge Climb ticket to have fun at the aquarium. Even though there was a part of the aquarium I could have gone without I know I had more fun with that group than I would have climbing a bridge, it was worth the money lost and I got to stretch my comfort zone.

Reflection on traveling.

I've never traveled with more than 3 other people and I think this trip is going pretty good. It's good that we have so many teachers to spread out in groups when we are walking to make sure people don't go the wrong way and to make sure we keep walking at a good speed. Another thing that helps is the color coordinated clothes, I don't think they have to be so bright, but when I know what color to look for it helps me a lot. I like the system we do with checking in with our groups after we arrive places because it's fast, efficient, and easy. I don't like the rule that we have to have three people to a group because sometimes I can only find one other person that wants to do the things I want to do, but I understand that a group of two can get into more trouble than a group of three can. Eating is hard when we're in large groups because if we're not hungry at a certain time we have to wait until the next meal to find something to eat. I like it more when we split up into small groups, like we did for dinner last night, we got to chose whether we wanted to stay at the hotel and order pizza, go with Mr. Ewen and Ms. Tomasello, or go with Mr. Schagrin (I went to Istanbul with Mr. Ewen & Ms. Tomasello). Another thing I liked was choosing whether we wanted to take the train or get lost in the rain, because I had a lot of fun walking home with the group.

Big Cities.

When we first started touring Sydney I wasn't really impressed by it, it isn't even as big as Chicago and I thought Chicago was more impressive than Sydney. Then I started looking at the buildings and the detail put into them and I realized that Sydney is more beautiful. The war memorial was really cool but I was upset we didn't get to look at the inside. Both cities have beautiful parks and wildlife but the sidewalks seem much smaller here, probably because of our huge group size, and that we're used to walking on the right side. The harbour is just like Navy Pier, from what we've seen. I don't know if we have anything like The Rocks in Chicago but that was very unique and they had a lot of things that are special to Australia.

I haven't been to many big cities but Sydney is very similar to Miami because of the ocean and amount of tourism. Both Sydney and Miami, have shorter buildings which is nice because it lets the sun in. Miami has a lot of indoor/outdoor malls, just like Miami.  Like most big cities, the amount of rain didn't affect the amount of people walking around, because people still need to go to work. Chicago and Sydney each have a couple of "icons" that they are identified by, Sydney has the Opera House and the bridge, and Chicago has the Sears Tower and the Bean. I feel like Chicago has more, and bigger, educational things than Sydney. We have bigger museums and more specific museums.

Cultural Experience

In America, Indians have their own reservations but, for the most part the rest of the American population ignores them. I like how the New Zealand people, or Kiwis, value their heritage and the Native People affect everyone's daily lives, when people from other countries come to visit the U.S. they don't usually focus on the natives, I like that about New Zealand. When the Europeans came to the United States of America they only cared about themselves and ruined the Native Americans lives and homes. I feel like their attitudes have been passed down to today's generations, because most people still don't know or care about what the explorers did to the Native Americans. The Kiwi's have it right because they know about the Natives and they are proud to share the land with them. Not only do they know about it, they share the native culture with tourists, the living thermal village was one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and it IS the coolest thing we've seen on this trip so far. I like their way of life, they mostly  only live off of the land (except when the government intervenes for safety reasons), and they are still civil people. More people should live like them, they are all one big family and, if for no other reason, they have minimal living costs. Our natives can't be as resourceful as them because they don't have as many hot springs, or their own land, but they do as much as they can.
 



Last 48 hours.

The last 48 hours were what I hope the rest of the trip is like, people were mostly on time and were where they were supposed to be at the right times. The teachers are being a lot more laid back than I thought they would be, letting us go to the souveneir store while they were at the Jade factory and giving us free reign at the luge hill. The culture difference that affected me most was the way they drive on the left side of the street on the right side of the car, we are used to looking one way when we cross the street but here that doesn't work because there are never cars coming from the left anyways. Another difference is using plastic to pay, they have three different options, checkings, savings, or credit, and they with credit you can use your pin or sign for it. The third difference I noticed is that they are a lot more laid back here, mostly about the smell, all of us were complaining about the smell of sulfur but the people who live here don't even notice. The rest of the trip I hope to make stronger connections with the people here, try many new things, and I hope I don't miss my family too much. I can't wait to see what the New Zealand High Schoolers are like, since this trip is the last official highschool experience I will ever have I hope it will be the best and most memorable, I will do that byy having as much fun and trying as many new things as I can while still following the rules.

Food & Cuisine.

The United States is called the melting pot because of the people, and our food is just as diverse as the people. New Zealand could also be called the melting pot for the same reasons. Both, Native Americans and the Maori had to use natural ways of cooking their food, and could only use local resources. Buffalo and fresh water fish is what was available to the Native Americans, and Maori ate dogs, bugs, rats, birds, and sea food. As far as I know Native American's cooked their food above ground, and the Maori cook theirs in the ground. As more people immigrated to both of the countries the cooking changed. When people immigrated from a country, they still tried to eat the food they were used to but since transportation was so limited they had to substitute things, evolving their own culture's recipes, and their new country's. As transportation got easier more ingredients were available which gave people the chance to try new things and create new cooking styles.

I am most afraid that the new food I would actually like, will have something that I'm allergic to in it and that will keep me from trying new things. If food doesn't have a label on it, I'm much less likely to eat it because I can never tell what dyes might be in it. So I will probably try to stick with things I am used to, since I'd prefer not to spend my trip in the hospital :)