NQ takes NZ

So I'm back in LA, but that's not important right now. What matters is that I haven't fulfilled my storytelling duties.

Sprang Brake

In the New Zealand university system, your spring break is two weeks long and is sandwiched between two six-week periods of earnest learning. I didn't even realize spring break was approaching, probably because hello it was August, but suddenly all the other international students were talking about going to Bali or Australia and I was like oh hey maybe I should think about this.

I briefly considered going to Thailand to meet roommate/stellar human Stella K Joh, but those plans completely unraveled within days. Don't worry about Stella Joh, though. She had a great time in Thailand. So did the mosquitos in her bedroom. Heh.

Eventually, Caitie and I managed to weasel our way into Chloe's family vacation. And thank God for that because the Hoods are some exquisite humans. For the first week, I stayed at my flat in Lincoln. During the day, the Hoods took us to tourist hotspots near Christchurch, and at night, Caitie, Chloe and I enjoyed a virtually empty Farm Road. It was fantastic. I could pee with the door open. Just in case you were wondering.

Stalking baby seals in Kaikoura

Over the course of the next week, we covered about 2300 km (1430 mi, greater than the distance between San Diego and Seattle) in an epic kiwi road trip lollapalooza.

The trek involved some very familiar faces, along with a fourth adventurer from Colorado, Lauren.

taking the nz roads by storm

We started in Queenstown and neighboring Glenorchy


And ventured to Milford Sound, a trip that took about 5 hours by bus each way with a 90 minute boat ride in the middle. It's only about 60 km away from Queenstown but the road was built in such a convenient way that the trip was lengthened to 287 km. Simply wonderful. 10/10 road.

worth it though

Look at this. Lovin life right here, what can I say. These were some great times, truly glad I can share.

The next day we busted a move north.

Chloe's ready to go

Four and a half hours later through mountains, forests, and coastline we reached Franz Josef Glacier.

this is what

driving in NZ

is like.

hi hi Mr. Franz, fancy meeting you in the middle of a forest

The next day we reached Nelson, gateway town to famed Abel Tasman National Park. Abel Tasman is an absolute must for all NZ goers. Unfortunately for us, spring in NZ = cold, rainy, windy, haily, etc.

It was sunny until we decided to go kayaking

We finally made our way back to Chch, exhausted but overall stoked about the fact that this is real life:

So should we go to Australia tomorrow or?

At Chch airport bright and early

I thought working on a farm would be the perfect way to finish up my time in New Zealand (before my parents arrived for our holiday extravaganza, of course). I mentioned this to the infamous Xiao and he was skeptical. "What do you think working on a farm is like?" he asked. "I don't know, getting up early and doing hard labour?" I responded, though I really meant, "I don't know, playing with lambs and calves and other baby animals???"

is this not farming???

There's an organization called WWOOF, which partners owners of organic farms with people who will work in exchange for food and lodging. Its acronym has stood for different things over the years, so no one's really sure what to call it in NZ. Willing Workers On Organic Farms and World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms are both fine. WWOOFing, as its called, can be done in many countries across the globe. My best friend, roommate, and fellow bed burrito Stella Joh even did it in Thailand this past summer (according to northern hemisphere seasons).

I joined the NZ chapter early on, but for one reason or another I didn't find a host in a timely manner. By the time I was in Coromandel (post-Lincoln), I still didn't have a place to stay for three weeks. Was I getting desperate? No...  Did I email every WWOOF member that lived near Auckland besides single old men that lived alone in the woods? ...No...

Luck was on my side as I managed to find two hosts in Auckland with about three days to spare. Ages really. Don't know why I was worried. The one caveat was that neither lived on farms. It looked like I had ended up with gardens instead. As a proponent of spending time outside, I didn't really mind.

some flower mvps that I encountered

When I dropped Chloe off for her flight home, my first host picked me up from the airport. I admit I was nervous to go live with a stranger. In hindsight maybe it wasn't the safest move. What if she was mean? Or worse.. boring?????

In reality Jacqui has a riot of a personality. She loves monarch butterflies and everyone knows it. She rode her horse from Invercargill to Cape Reinga. She drinks tea up to five times a day. She dictates her texts to Siri. She named her two shelties Bonnie and Clyde.

I wondered what kind of jobs I had in store, and it turned out there was a great variety of things for me to do. Jobs ranged from weeding to weeding.

When I wasn't weeding the front garden, I weeded the back garden. Sometimes for fun I'd weed the side garden. To mix it up I would weed potted plants.

The butterfly garden -- some weeding took place here

Okay, I'm over-exaggerating a tad. I also got to weed walk Bonnie and Clyde.

Clyde is a lot younger and more spritely, so I took him on a longer walk around the coast one day. I was relishing the beauty of the start of the trail until I reached the bottom and realized it was just a very long, unfortunately steep driveway. Clyde was not pleased.

private property - my b

no complaints here

Every time I thought I found the trail again, I either dragged Clyde up five flights of stairs before deciding it was the wrong way and turning around, or I found something I thought was a staircase and realized it was actually a ladder to nowhere.

???

Clyde's irritation was evident. I also made him pose with this fish skeleton.

lol

Thankfully I had the chance to plant a few things, which was a nice break from killing plants left, right and center.

can't plant without tunes

Planting stinging nettle was significantly less fun and cute.

why

I stayed with Jacqui for a week and a half. She was super fun, always cracking jokes (not as funny as me tho), and she even took me out on the town to see Mockingjay - Part One. It wasn't until we arrived at the theater that I realized she had actually won 30 tickets to a private screening of her choice, with free popcorn, soda, and ice cream for everyone. We sat in recliners. It was incredible. The movie itself was eclipsed by the joy I felt discovering the footrest function.

I could get used to the VIP life

On my last day with Jacqui, I got to release a monarch butterfly that had just emerged from its chrysalis (yes, she farms butterflies).

monarch caterpillar

no cocoon here; monarchs form a chrysalis (aka that's its skin you're seeing)

trying to release this reluctant monarch - take your freedom!!!

had to plop it on a flower because it wouldn't fly away

After setting this little critter free, my new host picked me up and deposited me in the neighboring Auckland suburb.

My first day with Sheridan started off real sweaty. On the one day it didn't rain and was actually quite hot I got to pull out a row of bushes. But this wasn't just your average group of bushes. No, no. These bushes had the added bonus of prickly branches and thick roots that extended laterally over several feet. Or maybe that is your average bush. I don't really know much about bush culture. Anyway, having grown together over time, it was impossible to get one out without the adjacent one. As you can imagine, this created a chain that meant I somehow had to remove them all at once or not at all?

As I sat there digging around and dusting off each root, I felt kind of like a paleontologist that had just found a velociraptor skeleton. Except when I finished I had twelve ugly bushes and no dinosaur bones.

After the first day, most of my time was spent flexing a new skill: weed pulling. Except unlike weeding at Jacqui's house, which basically meant sitting in the garden and pulling out clovers, weeding here meant digging out giant calla lilies next to sharp agave ("Be careful to not poke your eye out" was a nugget of completely serious, genuine advice from Sheridan) or pulling out tall, mosquito-infested grass mixed in with serrated bromeliads. Did I mention when I dug out the bushes I had to work around a six-foot-tall rosebush? Overall, pokey things poked me a lot.

you thought I was joking

I wasn't

I have to say though, New Zealand garden critters do one-up LA ones.

lizzies

leopard slugs?

wormz

A fun diversion from the 55 mosquito bites on my legs

hai

came in the form of Moran and Elise, a WWOOFing couple from France. They were a bit older than me and our communication was not always perfect, but I was happy to add some youth to the mix after two weeks with grandmas. No offense to grandmas.



But Sheridan was wild in her own way. She loves quiz night at the pub. She's got an awesome talent for hosting a great summer barbecue. She can solve cryptic crossword puzzles. She loves the Rolling Stones and Sam Smith. She doesn't have a cell plan.

Throughout my WWOOFing experience, I managed to come down with the worst cold/cough/whatever since winter (when I basically was sick for two months). But this time around, I had my eyes on the prize: just [insert number here] days until my family comes, I would think. And the assurance that soon I would be home meant I couldn't care less if I choked at dinner or my nose started running like Niagara Falls when I tilted my head slightly forward. And finally my last day at Sheridan's came and I peaced outta there and raced to my airport hostel where I would spend the night truly alone for the first and only time in New Zealand.

I made it to my hostel two hours, three buses, and nine dollars later and realized I had a whole afternoon to kill. So I did the one thing I normally never had energy or patience for: I caught a bus into the city. When I arrived, I ate at Burger Fuel (the In-N-Out of NZ) and decided I would treat myself to a movie. Because I survived six months away from home and I deserved it tbh! It just so happened that the next showing was Interstellar in IMAX. Not knowing anything about the movie, I went for it. A pre-show advertisement noted that I was in the only IMAX theater in New Zealand. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself because that was just so typical New Zealand. A good way to end things, I thought. And then the trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies came on and I was like yep, it's official. This is the place to be. 

When that was all finished I returned to the hostel and went straight to bed, eager to meet my family the next morning at the airport and begin the final chapter of my NZ journey.

Btw, the movie was super kewl. 

So I've left Farm Road for good. I've binned all my schoolwork. And I've left people that I will never see again. Sounds sad but just keepin it real. I'm still in New Zealand, but moving out of Lincoln was the symbolic end to a very interesting trip.

My personal faves:

Some other interesting words:

Weird food stuff:

You could tell this question started to affect all of us. People started getting weird.

exam-induced bed burrito

stopped in the road for feral pigs eating fish guts and other bloody carcasses

"look at the babies!"

trying to coax the sheep

chasing them when the coaxing failed

But one cannot stay in beach paradise forever. Unless you live there in which case your life is great, well done. So I dropped Chloe off at the airport and she flew off to LAX, where her friends would be waiting to bring her to UCLA. I admit I was a little jealous.

My NZ adventure isn't over quite yet. But consider the Lincoln chapter closed.

Thanks for the mems.