Southern Girl on the South Island: March 2012

I’ve been in New Zealand for a month now and have settled in to my classes and more importantly my workout schedule. After pounding the pavement around town the first few weeks my knee decided it was time for a break so I’ve been taking a lot of classes at the school gym. My favorite is supercircuit which is like a less intense version Insanity workout but still worthwhile. I also like the NRG (pun) class which is a more intense version of Zumba.

This past weekend I made my first trip outside of Christchurch to the town of Hokitika on the West Coast for the town’s annual Wild Foods Festival. The drive took about 3 ½ hours, and I finally got to see the New Zealand landscape. I wasn’t disappointed. About 15 minutes outside of Christchurch, we started seeing hills and mountains that were incredibly green. Whoever came up with the shade of green in a box of Crayola crayons must have just visited New Zealand. Seeing as I am the queen of shotgun, I had the perfect view to take tons of pictures.

Finally found some sheep!

My flatmate Mary, who lives in Hokitika with her husband Nigel when she’s not at school, gave as a small tour of town when we got there Thursday night and then we headed to her house just down the street from the town center. We met Nigel and the three most entertaining pets I’ve ever been around: Chester the dog, and Larry and Jack the cats. The only way I can think to describe Chester is to compare him to Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates. He loved us on Thursday night, and on Friday morning he barked and growled like he’d never met us before. Larry looks like a leopard and Jack weighs about as much as a kindergartener.

Since my always prepared self left all of my toiletries on my bed in Christchurch, I got an extensive tour around town Friday morning while looking for temporary replacements. They don’t have my Aquafresh Bubblemint toothpaste here so I was forced to buy mint toothpaste for the first time in my life. Worst. Day. Ever. Also, you can’t buy contact solution at the grocery store so I had to go to the chemist (pharmacy) to get it. After solving this dilemma we spent the rest of Friday morning/afternoon exploring the small downtown area and playing out on the beach. We had lunch at Fat Pipi’s pizza, which according to Mary has been deemed the best pizza in New Zealand. After lunch we walked back to Mary’s and pitched our tent in her backyard. And by “we” I mean Abby and Kate did the actual constructing and Danica and I monitored.

By this point Mary and Nigel’s other friends started to trickle in and pitch their tents in the backyard. After a rough afternoon of tent pitching, of course we were hungry again. This time for fish n’ chips. Instead of walking into town this time, Mary offered us her car, and I got to have my first driving experience in New Zealand. After a rough start just getting the car to turn on, the rest of the trip was uneventful, but fish n’ chips is now my new favorite food. We spent Friday night getting to know Mary and Nigel’s friends and then went to some of the bars downtown. Danica, Abby, and I decided to make friends with some people on the beach so we could warm up by their bonfire then headed back to Mary’s to rest up for the big day on Saturday. I’ll admit it, I wimped out on sleeping outside and ended up curled up on the couch in Mary’s living room. In my defense though I didn’t have a blanket or a sleeping bag to keep me warm in the tent.

Saturday morning started bright and early with some eggs to line our stomachs for the day’s events. Mary put a number for each stall at the festival in a bowl and everyone had to draw a number and eat whatever was at that stall. Now, when they say “wild foods” they’re not kidding. There were the typical venison stalls, but you also had places serving mountain oysters (bull testicles), huhu grubs, kangaroo burgers, and horse semen shots. Yes, horse semen shots. I drew Dutch donuts. WEAK. So I drew again and got moonshine. Yeehaw! Once everyone got their numbers and had their costumes situated (we were Tom Cruise from Risky Business—very original) we walked to the festival. Here’s a list of everything I tasted/ate:

· Live huhu grub

· Crocodile bite

· Kangaroo burger

· Wild boar corndog

· Dutch donut

· Mountain oysters

· Moonshine

· Rabbit patê

· And the piece-de-resistance…A SHOT OF HORSE SEMEN

Danica, me, Abby, and Kate

Mountain Oysters

Mountain Oysters sauteed with onions. NOM.

Live Huhu Grubs.

Shot of moonshine

Shot of horse semen!

Kangaroo burgers with plum sauce.

Oddly enough, other than the kangaroo burger, the mountain oysters were my favorite followed closely by the horse semen shot.

After the festival we walked back to Mary’s, napped, and rallied...to Mary’s kitchen table where we hung out for pretty much the rest of the night with a side detour to her kitchen floor to play Thumper and then to her backyard to play Abby’s game “Say good day to Bob”. Saturday night Abby and I enjoyed some casual pillow talk as she joined me on an air mattress in Mary’s living room…while everyone else was getting soaked in the rain outside. #Winning.

Sunday morning we learned the finer points of cricket before heading back to Christchurch to recover…and watch Survivor of course.

Peace, love, and mountain oysters,

Bess

New Vocab

· Kumara-sweet potato

· Mountain oysters-bull testicles

· Thickshake-supposedly a thicker version of the milkshake, but the NZ version barely passes as a regular American milkshake

· College-high school

· University-college

Ah O-Week: the official rite of passage for ALL college freshmen. A week of parties without having to worry about waking up for class the next morning. A week of meeting countless new people (whose names you can never remember when you see them in the daylight). A week where every college stereotype you’ve ever seen on TV or in movies is confirmed.

Or if you’re like me and have always had soccer preseason, the week where you have to wake up at the crack of dawn for practice and are back before your friends crawl out of bed. The week where you can hardly stay up past 9 o’clock. The week of serving as a chauffer to all your NARP (Non Athletic Real People) friends.

So you can imagine my excitement when my newly-NARP self got to experience an official O-Week without the threat of a fitness test or a 6:30 AM practice looming over my head. Expectations were high, especially since I had to pay ninety New Zealand dollars for the official O-Week parties. But these were not your typical Old House parties with beer pong and a sea of freshmen anxious for their first college social event.

RECAP:

TOGA PARTY

After a few casual hangouts in the common room and in various flats, I was ready for a school-wide party. Or at least I thought I was. A large group of us walked over to the party together, conveniently located across the street from our flat. After going through security that was stricter than New Zealand airport security, we headed for the dance floor. To my horror, the dance floor turned out to be a mosh pit. No swing dancing. No space to dance with anybody. Only a head-banging, sardine-packed mob. I had found my own personal Inferno. Reeling from having my dreams of dancing the night away dashed, I headed to the bathrooms with a friend. While waiting for her outside, some guys came up to me, and we proceeded to have the typical “what’s your name, where are you from, what’s your major, etc.” conversation. Everything was going great until we got to the “what year are you?” question. Oh dear. Since university is usually a 3-year program in New Zealand my American friends and I have had to decide how our status in 4-year American universities translated. We decided to go with calling ourselves third years. When I responded with this answer, the guys I was talking to paused and then asked how old I was: 21. I had hardly given my response when they started laughing; they were 18. Next thing I know, they’re calling me a “cougar” and asking me how I “stalk my prey”. Game. Over. Time to go home.

PAINT PARTY

With the toga party being such a bust, the pressure was on for the paint party to be a good time. It didn’t disappoint. The fact that I got to wear Nike shorts and a huge t-shirt helped. This time I had my Kiwi flat mate Mary to guide me through the basics of moshing. The most important thing is to keep moving no matter what. You’ve got to keep with the flow of the mob. After losing a few toenails and catching a few elbows Mary and I made it to the front and enjoyed some casual head banging. And then the paint came. Members of ENSOC (Engineering Society/arguably the best party throwers at UC) shot red and blue paint from the top of a van out into the crowd. A few of us also engaged in guerrilla warfare in a tent next to the bus where we found large bottles of paint. I managed to hold onto my jandals, both my IDs, my contact lenses, and, unlike the toga party, my pride. Great Success.

SummerStein

This all-day music fest was the most casual of the three parties, featuring Kiwi bands, beer, and sunshine. There was more room to dance in front of the stage so of course I was a fan. My favorite act was The Babysitters Circus, a group of white rappers/singers in velour tracksuits. The best way for me to describe them is that they were a cross between Eminem, Weird Al Yankovic, and Michael Franti. Six60 was the headlining band for the day, but I was so hungry I wanted to leave before. Every Kiwi looked at me as if I had just committed the worst of all blasphemes. So I stayed…for one song. And then I went back to the flat and roasted some vegetables for supper. No regrets.

To cap off O-Week my American friends and I decided to treat our Kiwi and Canadian friends (but mostly ourselves) to an American Food Night. Abby made her “famous” chili with her secret ingredient: peanut butter. Danica made mac n’ cheese. Kate made REAL biscuits. And of course I made dessert: Paula Deen’s banana pudding. Minds were blown, stomachs were stuffed, and America’s spot as the fattest country in the world was secured.