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Day 2/132: Paul Myers Park

A 12-hour 50-minute flight sounded like a lot of fun on paper.  Interrupted sleep ending in a rude, dehydrated awakening complete with bleeding lips seemed to almost want to stress that whole “on paper” bit. That being said, the flight did not seem too long based on the bits I actually stayed awake for, and the landing was uneventful. The view on landing, which unfortunately was obscured once in the airport, was stunning though. A sunrise accenting mountains and long-since erupted volcanoes, as a gentle mist barely obscured the furthest aspects, while a warm breeze reminded me that most of my friends and family are stuck in eternal winter. A reassuring greeting, to say the very lest.  Customs was smooth, and declaring hiking gear was altogether a simple job (albeit with the prerequisite airline security curmudgeon). After fully clearing, meeting our new best friends from Arcadia University was easy as. Jane and Caitlin made sure the first faces we saw were bright and happy, seemingly uninterested in the new arrival’s dehydration and sweat marks. The final staff member, Meghan, helped make sure we weren’t completely losing our minds waiting for our bus (and sat through me changing my wool socks to more appropriate footwear in the middle of the arrivals hall - thanks for not making it weird). Meeting the other students was relatively uneventful other than meeting a few folks from Denison and realizing I can never escape Ohio.  Skipping the 30 minute busride into Auckland, we all introduced ourselves in the Kiwi International hotel and then were told we couldn’t shower until 4 pm. Given it was 10 am, hot, humid, and everyone was exhausted, this was met with cheers of glee. After letting us change out of the stickier of our clothes, we went on a guided tour of Auckland, which was frankly beautiful. Park after park of huge, beautiful trees, which we quickly realized spilled out into the streets. I am a sucker for integrated nature and urban areas, and Auckland hasn’t disappointed. We ended at the Queens Wharf, where we wandered, exchanged cash, and got walking lunches to enjoy on the water. While I’d love to wax poetic on how the views were stunning and I forgot I loved being on the water, there are more important issues at hand. Specifically, Peggy. Peggy is a Red-Billed Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae scopulinus) or tarapunga in Maori, one of the most common endemic birds of New Zealand. They can be found throughout New Zealand and on the outlying islands, and estimates put the total number of individuals at about half an million birds. Curiously enough, while they are aggressive scavangers and will steal food from other birds if the opportunity presents itself, Peggy sat on that pillar for the entirety of my lunch and chat with the other Arcadia students, not moving a muscle. A willing model, and one I would gladly work with again.  We left Auckland for North Head, where we crossed the beach at low tide and climbed up through Maungauika, the Historic Reserve encompassing an observation post and battery originally constructed due to a perceived threat from Russian Invasion (not due to World War 2, as I had confidently proclaimed). Due to low tide making for poor swimming, Takapuna Beach was next our destination. The pumice-strewn sand made for a beautiful view of Rangitoto Island, a volcanic island that rose from the sea some 600 years ago. I’d recommend reading the creation myth and information on Rangitoto here, though a good gist is that demon children of the Fire Gods made their mom angry, so she had the god of Eruptions do some light smiting. Neat stuff. The swim involved me kicking at the sandy bottom far too much, and finding shells to skip (flat scallop shells proved to be the best by far), living sand dollars that someone decided to skip not realizing they were alive, and a rock covered in barnacles. After drying off and advising a fellow student that had met a barnacle rock the hard way of the age old Boy Scout first aid quick fix - apply a tourniquet and treat for shock - we headed back to the Kiwi International hotel to shower for the first time in about 48 hours. Ours had a crawlspace.

Cleanup was followed by pizza, pasta, and salads, and we were let loose to roam the city. I wandered in and out of what shops remained open, though sadly the used bookstores and surplus store were closed early into the night and the sketchy secondhand stores ended up being my best bet. I did make my way down some lovely alleyways, however, and that was strangely refreshing. Towards the end of the night, I went through St. Kevins Arcade, a tiny shopping mall with a completely open entrance leading you to the street and a stairwell that led through the center and spit you out into a park. I had an overpriced, but still quite tasty Japanese beer and let myself rest after not being able to hear what the annoyed attendants were telling me the price of the beer was. Tinnitus and accents, great mix, highly recommend.

Now, the walk to and from St. Kevins Arcade took me through that stairwell-fed park, called Myers Park. Myers Park holds many things. A surprisingly well-maintained children’s playground. Massive, beautiful trees. A replica of Michelangelo's Moses sculpture. Paul. I met Paul on my way back to the hotel, and he called me over to his chairs and props under a Moreton Bay fig tree he called Valarie (technically an Australian tree, but who’s counting. Don’t tell the Kiwis I said that). He introduced himself as a comedian, poet, inventor, and alcoholic, and explained that this was his park. Paul then treated me to about 40 minutes of impov and prop comedy heavily featuring two chairs, a tattooing arm-rest, a yellow traffic block, a lighter, and his own Steinlager; musical numbers ranging from Classic Rock to Top 40′s pop, with a tasteful dash of Amy Winehouse; impressions; an admittedly impressive display of multilingual aptitude (his Maori knowledge was, by his own admission, cheating given he was a Kiwi, but it didn’t make it less fun); a complete and utter inability to guess my nationality; and just enough crude humor to tie it all together. At the end I had to go as I had locked my roommate out of our room by accidentally keeping our key, but I tipped him 5 NZD for his trouble and left feeling like I knew this country a little better. Or worse. Hard to tell. Godspeed Paul, alcoholic improv comedian and protector of Myers Park. I wish you the best.

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Day 1/132: The Cucumber Prince

I’m not that great a writer. Closed-head injuries don’t do too much to help (the doctor gave me an all clear, but I'm required to wear hocket gear when working retail from now on). While I know that I am being a great advocate for my own work, my uncle mentioned “Wow, nothing but open water for 13 hours” for my flight from LAX to Auckland more times than I really care to remember. I’d rather self-depreciating humor be the last word than a Doomsaying Chicagoan’s prophecy. Before I get into what a 4:30am start to 30 hours of travel has been like, I should say what this blog will be. I’ve seen a lot of study abroad/travel blogs of thoughts and philosophical musings, and that’s not this. I tried reading Notes from the Underground once and I emphasize once. I’ll crack bad jokes and describe the mundane, but avoid anything probing or smart . Instead, this’ll serve more as a catalog of places, nature, and occasionally people, and a way to collect thoughts in more than a notebook I’ll leave in the sun for seven years and bleach to oblivion. Sorry Alaska Great Lakes Project Journal. I hardly knew ya.  That all aside, once the antifreeze set in on the 737 and my brain fully processed I was done with the midwest for a solid 19 weeks, the flight into LAX was quite relaxing. This was supposed to be a picture the San Gabriel Mountains as we landed, but instead my phone emphasized the mixture of atmospheric water and antifreeze from Chicago. A great start to this psuedo-photojournal.   After a very nice grandmother advised that I should, “Put on a jacket, it’s cold out,” we braved the 61-degree-and-sunny polar vortex outside to stretch our legs and get a good look at our home for 11 hours. Who said layovers can’t be fun? Realizing that we had, conservatively, 3 hours to kill until we could even check our bags, we buckled down. Earl of Sandwich was got. Earl of Sandwich was regretted. After approximately 7 iterations of blog names and futile attempts to drown out the elderly man streaming a guy playing casino slots, a joking text snowballed into a visit from an old friend. After bags were finally checked, we somehow found our way into an oddly-placed, and frankly tiny, aquarium. Starfish, absurdly large lobsters, rays, sharks, and a swarm of jellyfish (what a great group name) in a squat two-story building that read only “Aquarium.” I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that “Aquarium” marked an actual aquarium, but here I am. 

I’m stuck in LAX until the flight, and that’s still 2 hours left. All two square meters of California have been great, but the next step is one year in the making and I’d like to get on with it. Huge thanks to Victor for stopping by and keeping two sleep-deprived kids as sane as possible via hipster gelato. I owe you one.

Also I kissed a sea cucumber.