Almost five months of my life spent in New Zealand are now behind and what do I have show for it? I could catalogue my time in New Zealand with a laundry list of places visited and experiences had, but that would be boring for me. Instead, I am going to try to explain lessons I’ve learned (I hope this won’t sound sappy, but I make no promises).

Travel light
After spending weeks traveling, I’ve learned to travel lightly for luggage is prohibitively cumbersome. I’m sure all travelers realize the benefits of this just as quickly as I did, but to put this idea into practice somewhat challenging.  For me, it was a matter of breaking my habit of packing for every possible situation—I never know when I might need my earmuffs or scuba flippers. It is such a pleasure to walk by the “Checked Luggage” line at airports with only a small bag on your back.

From this point on I do my best to travel lightly, but my things are not only troublesome when I’m on the move. I like to collect things—not just baseball cards and movies, but those free promotional water bottles and old torn up little league jerseys—or, junk! Such items inevitably end up in my already crowded bookshelves and closet because, I justify, they may be fun to look at in 40 years. I’m a sentimental guy. But I think having the nerve to start throwing away my shoeboxes full of knickknacks and learn to curb my buying habits will lift a sense of burden that comes with excess possessions. In the end, it’s the good times and memories that are important, right?

New experiences
One fellow traveler I met in Auckland explained to me his philosophy of how “traveling is the spice of life.” I agree and I will take every opportunity to travel that comes my way. But, eventually I will have to (or rather, I will want to) settle down to take on the commitments and responsibilities that come with the next stages of my life (adult life, ahhh). Traveling will become more difficult, but I don’t think my life has to become bland. Traveling is great, but I would be inclined to alter his philosophy to “experiencing new things is the spice of life.” There is so much life offers not only miles away, but right in front of us—experiences that are often out of our comfort zones: learning to dance Salsa, exploring a new part of your native city, or simply talking to a stranger. These experiences are what I will continue to pursue whether at home, at school, in New Zealand, or on the moon.

I’m sure there is more I have taken away with me from my experience in NZ in terms of life lessons. I am only a few days returned and my experiences have only begun to soak in. Before applying for my semester abroad, I was debating where to go. I was tempted to go to Europe (Scotland, specifically), but in the end, it was New Zealand’s mountains and coastlines that lured me in. Now back in the US, I’m sure my parents will ask me if I am happy with my choice and the answer is that I don’t think where I went would have made a difference. Of course, I would have seen different sites, learned different histories, and participated in different activities, but these lessons I learned are lessons from traveling and living away from home–not lessons from New Zealand. Had I gone to Scotland, I would learned the same lessons and subsequently been changed into virtually the same person sitting at this computer today.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank IES for organizing the whole experience for me. I experienced no problems abroad (with entering/exiting countries, enrolling in classes, my living situation, etc.), which leads me to believe the people at IES have this going abroad thing down to a science.

I would to thank Eunice, my IES advisor, who was always there to help if ever necessary.

And last, I would like to thank everyone who has read my blog and shown an interest in my adventures. Something else I learned abroad is to never take for granted my family and friends. It was nice to know you were there with me.

Thanks!

Last Saturday, I said my good-byes to New Zealand, Chrischurch, and new friends, and began my lengthy journey home. More then halfway to my final destination (Connecticut), I took a pit stop in LA (where I am writing from right now) to spend a few days with my sister.

The purpose of this post is not to reflect on my overall abroad experience—which I will do soon—but, it is to address a realization that I have come to thanks to a friendly customs agent in LAX.

I stood waiting patiently as this customs agent carefully examined my passport. Satisfied with the information my passport contains, he looked up, smiled and said “welcome home,” as he handed me my passport. Home, huh? Little did he know, I had to come back to LAX in a few days  and once again endure long lines, survive security gates, and fight though endless checkpoints to catch my final flight home to New York.

However, something about the warmth of his smile and tone of his voice made those two words resonate with me. After only a short time, I began to think that maybe I am home. I have always proudly called myself an American, naturally never understanding what that meant–most of my country is as foreign to me as New Zealand first was.

While abroad, I distinguished myself as an American. Only when I bumped into a fellow American, or perhaps a Canadian, did I have to specify my state of residence. Otherwise, I was from “the States”.

If there is nothing else to say about an experience traveling abroad, it seems to have stimulated in me an appreciation of the US as home, not just my country—although it took the help of a cordial customs agent. The result is that the alien city of LA, a town I don’t particularly care for, does feel a little more like home.

While visiting a sheep farm when I first arrived to NZ, a burly shepherd (described in an earlier blog as Lenny, from Of Mice and Men) explained to me what NZ was all about. Queenstown, he declared, was not authentic NZ. Considering I just witnessed this lumbering giant pick up his sheep with as much ease as I pick up my toy poodle, I was vulnerable to take what he said as NZ doctrine. Obeying Lenny’s infallible advice, I dropped Queenstown down to the bottom of my list of places to visit.

However, on a whim, three friends and I decided to investigate Queenstown for ourselves—it turns out, while perhaps not “authentic NZ,” Queenstown is not a place you want to miss when in NZ. Sitting adjacent to beautiful Lake Wakatipu and framed by the Southern Alps, Queenstown has the charm of a small European alpine village.

Tourism is a big industry in NZ, and Queenstown is the hub of New Zealand tourism. The town, with a year round population of 20,000, sees a million thrill-seeking visitors come through each year. As a result, this town has been expanding at an extraordinary rate. Apparently, the last six years have been marked by heavy construction, and the town shows no sign of slowing its expansion.

The downside is that there is little to do that won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Furthermore, locals see tourists as big, green, walking dollar signs. You are greeted with a big Velcroed-on smile and treated pleasantly, but the show ends there. The fact is, tourists come and go, and it’s evident these locals know how to schmooze their patrons and show them a good time while keeping them moving so they can pack as many participants in as possible each day.

In the end, it was worth seeing. As the home of extreme sports—particularly the bungy jump—simply carousing the streets of Queenstown rouses your sense of adventure.

Aussies and kiwis like to give each other a hard time–a rivalry you see played out in popular TV show Flight of the Conchords. Being in this part of the world, I’ve heard my fair share of jokes aimed at both victims, most of which are good-spirited.  At the New Zealand vs Australia Rugby match I saw a while back, you could hear friendly wisecracks being passed back and forth between Wallaby and All-Black fans all night. So, I thought I would give you my take on this friendly rivalry.

Granted, what I know about Australia is severely limited since I only spent a week there (and in only one city at that). However, I feel I am justified in saying that New Zealand is much like Australia without the hurried, big city, commercial lifestyle. They both enjoy their outdoors, but Kiwi’s live without any big city life at all. This seems to fosters a more laid back, low stress lifestyle.

Walking the streets of Sydney was particularly nice because it reminded me of the home. And by home, I mean in particular NYC–one of the most fast paced cities in the world. Again, this is only what Sydney felt like; I’m sure there’s a great deal of Australia that feels nothing like the streets of New York. But, the point is that New Zealand doesn’t have any of the hustle and bustle. New Zealand has mountains and rivers, skis and kayaks, Kiwi birds and tea.

This Australia-New Zealand rivalry reminds me of the US-Canada rivalry. The difference is, New Zealand has more to offer then French people and hockey.

I’m officially done with classes and now beginning my final exams. I had a few free weeks—“study” weeks—between the end of classes and my first final, so a couple friends and me decided to hop across the Tasman Sea and see Sydney.

Given only a week, I feel as though we covered a tremendous amount of ground. We certainly hit most of the tourist sites in Sydney and managed to find some time to lounge on the beach.

The Sydney Opera House, (of course) one of our stops, was a bit disappointing. I don’t know what I was expecting but seeing it in person was not much different than seeing it in picture. To get the full experience and make sure we weren’t missing something, we even saw a play there—The God of Carnage. First of all, the inside of the building was no more impressive than the outside. Second, I am not a theater buff, but I didn’t think the Tony Award-winning play lived up to its hype. With all that said, I have to admit, it was cool being at the building that was the television focal point of the 2000 Olympics.

What I loved about Sydney is its public transportation via ferry. We probably took ten ferry rides to get to and from various places: Sydney Harbor, Manly Beach, Darling Harbor and the Olympic Center, to name a few. The ferries were a great way to see the city and catching a sight of Sydney Bridge back dropped by the city skyline at sundown from a ferry was stunning.

Other highlights were: the self-proclaimed largest IMAX in the world, the Taronga Zoo, and Bondi Beach. Seeing all these sights was great, but next time I’m in Sydney (yes, I do plan on returning) I’ll be sure to allot more time to leisure and enjoy the subtler charms of the city.

From midget leagues to profession leagues all across the world, you will find that teams and their fans have some type of chant, song, or anthem. Some of these are meant to rally, some to intimidate, and some to taunt. However, none that I’ve seen yet are driven by as much tradition and emotion as the All Black’s Haka. A traditional battle dance, the Maori warriors performed their Haka before their enemy both to show respect acknowledging that those who stand before them are worthy opponents, and to throw down a challenge. Today, on the rugby pitch, it is still a symbol of respect, but for those uninformed, the Haka, with its violent chest pounding and foot stomping, looks like a war cry meant only to evoke fear. And, well, it does that too… at least to me.

Each translation varies a bit, but here is a translation from the All Black’s website:

It is death! It is death!
It is life! It is life!
This is the hairy man
Who caused the sun to shine
Keep abreast! Keep abreast
The rank! Hold fast!
Into the sun that shines!

And here is a video:

A tsunami warning has been issued for the Pacific islands that surround the island of Samoa, which just had an earthquake rating a whopping 7.9 on the Richter scale (topping New Zealand’s a few weeks ago). It is not known yet if any tsunami waves had been generated, but a 7.9 has the potential to create a mountainous tsunami.

It’s funny because my friends and I were planning on going surfing today, the first time since our first struggle. I guess we can for a tsunami free day.

On a different note, I would like to tell you about a traditional New Zealand event.

It’s called the “Undie 500” and officially it’s an annual student-run, engineering society-sponsored “car rally” starting in Christchurch and ending five-hours south in Dunedin. However, it may more accurately be described as New Zealand’s longest and most celebrated pub-crawl.

Groups of four or five students buy and decorate a car (such as the Noah’s Arc car pictured above) for under $500 (hence Undie 500) and parade themselves down along the east coast until they roll right into a night of partying in the college town of Dunedin. With youthful spirit, beautiful weather, busloads of beer, decorated jalopies, prizes and more beer, how could this not be a joyous event?

For those of you who are thinking that a day of drinking culminating in a night of partying might not be the best idea, well… you’d be joining the company of the NZ police, the Mayor of Dunedin, and just about every other sensible adult. With prizes awarded to the car outfitted the most politically incorrect, this is not Snoopy’s parade. (I heard there was a car fashioned into the shape of the male reproductive organ… I wonder who won the non-PC prize.)

Each year, facing growing dissent from the public, students find creative means to keep to event alive. This year the event officially took the form of a charity food drive by the name of the “Undie Charity Drive.”

So what was the outcome? About 600 participating students, more than 1000 cans of food, 67 arrests (ranging from disorderly behavior to willfully setting fire to property (as pictured above, along with NZ’s riot control units)), dozens of steaming letters to editors, and one disappointed American student who is upset he missed it all.

Students my age sometimes tend to worry about the strength of their résumés. Luckily, I no longer have to worry about that for I now have the ultimate résumé booster. No, not an internship with a big law firm, the ability to speak English, Mandarin and Arabic, or a Rhodes Scholarship, but the mastery of coconut husking. Thanks to my week in Rarotonga, I can proudly put coconut husking under the Sahara barren “work experience” section of my résumé. What else are companies looking for these days?

Okay, so maybe employers aren’t looking for young talented coconut huskers, but at least it would be useful if I ever got stranded on an island. Maybe it would be a good icebreaker? And okay, I haven’t mastered the art of shucking a coconut, but I would say—as made evident by the above picture—I know what I’m doing.

However, I must tip my hat to the true master. Below, I have posted a video of our guide who happens to be the world’s best coconut husker (at least as far as I am concerned) and consequently one of the world’s manliest men. Take a look at the video and tell me what you think.

In that time it became obvious to me what the most notable part of my experience was: the education I received about the Rarotonga, the Cook Islands, and the Pacific Islands. This is section of the world we only hear about in the news after a tsunami engulfed half of an island—and that is after we hear about Paris Hilton’s latest exploits. As far as I can remember, at no point during my education did I study the Pacific Islands. And it’s understandable; the Pacific region is 99.5% water. But the Pacific Ocean amounts for about a third of the Earth’s surface and scattered throughout this vast region lay more than 20,000 islands.

Before this trip, I knew little about this area of the world and I had no plans of, or interest in, getting to know it. Now, however, I have a solid, if modest, understanding of the history and origins of Pacific Islanders. More importantly, with this foundation, an interest has developed within me to continue learning about this part of the world.

Now, of course I have many specific experiences in Rarotonga that were incredible, such as deep sea fishing, meeting Nan Hauser (one of the world’s leading whale researchers), seeing humpback whales and learning local farming techniques. There is no shortage of unique experiences to which I will devote the next few posts. But having a few days to reflect on my time in Rarotonga, I realize that my memories of these specific events will eventually fade (many already have), and what will stay with me is this foundation of information I learned about the Pacific Islands.