Another superb weekend and the start of my career at Rip it Up

This weekend was the Noho Marae, a weekend at the marae on the AUT campus especially for international students.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect, and even after it, I can't really explain it. Basically, I made a ton of new international friends, ate my weight in delicious food from around the world, lost my voice because of singing so much, and had an incredible time. Experiencing the culture is really the only way to learn about it; a weekend at the marae was more valuable than the three weeks of my Maori studies class.

Twelve of us watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony on Friday night (Saturday morning... it was streamed live here, so it started at midnight). Let me just say that watching such an epic world event with representatives of eight different countries was possibly one of the coolest experiences ever.

Photos from the marae are here.

The BU kids didn't stay on the marae Saturday night because our "bus tour of Auckland" was rescheduled for August 10. Like most things about my BU Intern Abroad Program, I really had no idea what the vague field trip entailed because itineraries are essentially nonexistent. I just knew the trip ended in a wine tasting, and that's fine. I also knew Joe was taking us, and he's a fantastic tour guide, so I knew I wanted to experience it.

Joe driving most of us in the famous nui tea waka and Kevin bringing two girls in his car, we traveled ten minutes to Mission Bay, a popular little beach that I had yet to visit. It was 9:30 in the morning and some twentysomethings were bumpin' some tunes from their sedan and drinking beers on the sand... Perfect.

From the beach, we drove toward Mount Eden via the most expensive street in Auckland. Mount Eden, the highest point in the Auckland area at 196 metres above sea level, is actually a volcano. Burning tires really makes it look like it's erupting, just in case you're looking for a good prank to pull.

From there, we drove through West Auckland, where my new favorite guilty pleasure Outrageous Fortune is set. The show centers on a family of Westies, people from this relatively lower-class suburb, and propones some fantastic stereotypes: teenage mothers, deadbeat dads, stoners with mullets who like to fix up old cars while listening to Metallica...

We stopped at my favorite place in NZ so far, Lake Wainamu, a fantastic freshwater lake surrounded completely by black sand. In the peripheries, green mountains frame this weird natural beauty. The BU kids, with as much energy as scarily small dogs, spent the afternoon throwing themselves as far as they could off a 70-degreeish slope, landing softly in sand. I partook, though I'm less extreme. Still fun, though. Rush of adrenalin for sure. Sand in my underwear is uncomfortable, though.

We walked through an ankle-deep river to Bethells Beach, a saltwater body with a huge riptide and some cool caves to explore.

Completely soaked, cold and sandy-- appropriate for a wine tasting-- we caravaned to Coopers Creek Winery in Kumeu and sampled 12 New Zealand wines. Though the tasting was the only thing I knew about the trip going in, it wasn't the highlight. The entire day was enjoyable; the wine was merely icing on the cake.

Link to photos...

We were back at UniLodge by 5:30, and Bonnie, a Jersey girl from the BU group, contacted our mutual friend Allison, a Jersey girl I know because she goes to UVM. Allison was part of a traveling study abroad program in Australia this summer and had a stopover in Auckland before heading back to New Jersey, so the three of us had dinner at a superb fast(ish) food restaurant, and caught up with one another. It was definitely an interesting outing; Bonnie and Allison are friends from a summer high school program and hadn't seen one another in three years, I know Allison as a friend of a friend, and Bonnie and I only met three weeks ago. We all have traveling in the Southern hemisphere and living in the northeastern United States in common, though, so it was a nice evening full of nice conversation.

Today I started at Rip it Up; in fact, I'm at my desk right now. I got here at 9:30, set up my computer on Satellite Media's network, and then "got to work." My main job for now is the maintain the news for the mag's website, and the morning news was already posted by the time I got here. I snooped around on some major music websites looking for something newsworthy for this afternoon when my boss emailed me a press release about an upcoming Kiwi Christian rock festival, so I blurbed that up and emailed it to the web maintainer. Now I'm just waiting for it to be posted, sometime around 3 pm.

I made delicious curry chicken salad last night, sort of by experimentation, with plain yogurt, raisins, apples, dried apricots and cashews. Brought that to eat here, so I took a long lunch in the delightfully mod kitchen in the office, and now... I'm updating my blog.

I would feel guilty if I were being paid.