From Such Great Heights

I’ve been doing some fairly dangerous activities lately.  Most of these involve throwing my body off of some safe area into a dangerous free-fall, with my life being rescued by some piece of fabric or rope.  This is also known as ‘fun’ in New Zealand.

“It’s not about the destination – it’s about the journey!” said several of your elementary school teachers.  It should be noted that these venues of potential-horrific-fatality are not within walking distance.  That means that we’ve had to employ the use of rental cars to get to them.  Just a reminder – THEY DRIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD HERE.  When both the destination AND the journey are life-threatening, it may be time to reevaluate your life choices.

We survived every drive we’ve taken over here,  without inflicting any damage on our bodies or the car, which I think deserves a gold star and a Congressional Medal of Honor in itself.  However, we weren’t about to get complacent with ourselves.

The Nevis Swing – Think of that swing you used to get pushed around on as a kid.  Recall how the warm spring air powdered your face as you declined from the swing’s peak.  The scent of fresh cut grass and stray rays of sun creeping out from behind an overcast sky create an atmosphere of security and freedom.  This is the stuff of happy memories…..

Now, invert all of that, and you have this:

That’s a 120 meter (or 130 yard) drop, which casts you out 300 meters toward the other side of that rocky canyon.

Sky Diving- Whilst up in Auckland over Easter Break, we decided it was an opportune time to jump out of a plane.  After an hour long drive, we arrived at ‘Blueskies Skydiving.’  I guess the pleasant name is meant to make you forget that you’re about to plummet 13,000 feet towards earth from an airplane.  Before we knew it, we were all suited up and flying up to optimal altitude.

What a cool looking dude!

Once we hit 13,000 feet, they announced that Sam and her highly-trained-professional would jump out first.  They evaporated out of the plane, leaving myself and Tony to start securing all of the straps and bracing for the leap.

Tony!

A fun little detail about this particular skydiving agency (and from what I gather others): they dangle you out of the plane before the jump.  That’s right, it’s not a simple “1,2,3 – GO!” sort of thing.  You see, your back is attached to the front of your own jump-instructor, and there’s not a whole lot of room between the two of you (you get to know each other VERY quickly).  This being said, you can’t just head out of the plane whenever you like.  The exit requires coordination, and this is established by the person in the front sitting on the edge of the plane’s open door, and then slowly scooting out of the plane, with your partner taking the place of where you were sitting.  So for a few seconds (or was it a few hours?), you just sort of hang outside of the plane, until your partner decides to jump.  This was really the only scary part of the whole ordeal – the rest of the way down is a truly amazing and beautiful experience.  You can watch my descent here:

http://youtu.be/GO4Z02h6w8E

We met a 60-year old woman who had just did her first jump when we landed.  She plans on returning and getting her certification so that she can jump without someone on her back.  Amazing.

The Nevis Bungy Jump - Yes, this took place at the same place, on the same day in Queenstown as the Nevis Swing.  The Nevis is the name of the river over which you are doing these foolish tasks.  We actually did the Skydiving about a month before our day at the Nevis, but for the sake of variety, I’ve arranged them out of sequential order.  Sue me, Jack.

New Zealand’s A.J. Hackett commercialized bungy jumping in the 1980s.  Though he was by no means the inventor, he did popularize the activity worldwide, which this area of Queenstown is named after him, with all of it’s big-dropping glory.  Naturally, the largest bungy jump in all of ‘Australasia’ is run by A.J. Hackett, and I did it.

After a long bus ride up a rather large mountain on one of the narrowest-winding roads I ever did see, we were put into harnesses, and taken over to the bungy.  The Nevis isn’t simply a ledge that you jump off of – you have to take a cable car over to a much larger suspended cable car which hangs above the river.

Yeah, that thing all the way out there.

Once you’re aboard the mother ship, you have to wait your turn to jump.  They have the heaviest people jump off first, which made me wait and steep in anticipation as I was second to last, clocking in at 73 kilograms of pure, unadulterated muscle.  One person out of the ten on board chickened out.

It was finally my turn.  I tried to brace myself as…..wait, I’ve got a video of this too (isn’t technology great?)!  You can watch the whole thing for yourself here:

I’m not sure if participating in such activities is the exhibition of immense bravery or the display of sheer stupidity.  Regardless, it was all good fun, and considering I never really do anything particularly dangerous, it was a nice change.  Though I am exaggerating certain aspects of all of these experiences, I really did feel safe in each one, and would recommend you to try them sometime!

Take care,
~Jake

Mission Easter Break: Part 2

Seeing as this is a sequel to a blog, you can scroll down to part 1 below.  If you choose not to do so…that’s fine too.  It’s not like that would hurt my feelings or anything.  I’m not crying.  I promise.  Just read the rest of this blog, I’ll be fine.

On Easter (EARLY) morning, we took a shuttle bus to the airport in Christchurch, to catch our flight to Wellington, the nation’s capital.  Funny thing about Wellington, they have this in their airport:

Also, this is what you see when you land there.

Behold the most serious airport on earth.

Clearly, Wellington (also known as Welly-wood) loves Lord of the Rings.  I have a confession to make, but you mustn’t tell anyone or I may face deportation:  I’ve never seen a single Lord of the Rings film.  You see, they came out around the same time as the Harry Potter movies.  Seeing as I was already reading the Harry Potter books at this time, I found myself only able to devote myself to one magicaly-inspired-franchise at a time, and well… Harry won.  All the same, I appreciate Wellington’s pride and enthusiasm in the LOTR series, and was inspired to visit the Weta Cave.  This place is home to Weta Digital, a company started by Peter Jackson, which as done the digital effects for films such as ‘I, Robot,’ The Chronicles of Narnia,’ ‘Avatar,’ ‘X-Men: The Last Stand,’ ‘The Avengers,’ and of course, every ‘Lord of the Rings’ film.  While this list and the work of Weta are rather impressive, the Weta Cave was….basically a glorified gift shop.

Well, as it would turn out, that was the ONLY disappointing part of Wellington, which would end up tying for first place for my favorite place in New Zealand (we’ll talk about the contender in my next blog).

Over the course of our stay in Wellington, we were lucky enough to do some pretty awesome things.  Examples of such include:

• Petting Red Pandas at the Wellington Zoo -  The zoo in itself was really great.  It is about the same size as zoos I’ve been to in the United States with far fewer animals.  While this sounds disappointing at first, it also means that each group of animals are allotted a greater amount of space, and leaves more room for attractions and information relating to the exhibited animals.  And of course, we booked a ‘close encounter’ with these little guys.

D’awww!

• Taking a Tour of the Beehive -No, not that kind of beehive.  It’s just a nickname for one of the parliamentary buildings.  We were able to see (and sit) where all of New Zealand’s legislation is dealt with!  Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed inside the building, so here’s one from the outside:

• Watching a film in Peter Jackson’s movie theater - Yes, the LOTR director owns a movie theater, and it’s called the Embassy.  Every LOTR film premiered there.  Unbeknownst to Sam and myself, it’s also a severe understatement to say that this place is ‘fancy.’  With its solid marble interior, gourmet concession bar, actual wine and champagne bar, and leather upholstered seats, the place screams ‘class’ in a very sophisticated manner.  As we never got the memo informing us of the hoighty-toighty nature of the place, we went in seriously under-dressed.  That’s right – everyone else there was dressed to the nines, suits, dresses, the works.  Regardless, I don’t think people judged us too seriously, and we had a great time!

Snazzy!

• Climbing Mt. Victoria - Once you reach the summit of this small mountain, you are rewarded with a beautiful view of all of Wellington.  Getting to the top is a rather different story.

All in all, Wellington was really fantastic.  I think my favorite part about it is that it is a city without the whole ‘big city’ kind of feel to it.  There is a strong sense of community and shared identity among people in Wellington, which does not come at the price of sacrificing all of the entertainment attractions in most other cities.  My only critique – the wind is ridiculous.

We said our goodbyes to this lovely city and boarded an overnight bus to Auckland on the other side of the North Island, which was to be our last stop before returning home to Dunedin.  ’A bus’ has taken the lead on my list of ‘Worst Places to Sleep, Ever.’

Anyway, we arrived in Auckland(home to about a third of New Zealand’s population) in the early morning.  We stayed with our Kiwi-host (Lydia)’s family, as she is from Auckland originally.  Throughout our stay we were introduced to new and exciting things like the feijoa fruit, ‘black sand’ on the beaches of Karekare, and the world of mountain biking.  We were also fortunate enough to see American rock group Wilco play a show in a quaint little venue in the city.

They’re native to Brazil, I’ve eaten them in New Zealand, and have never seen them in the United States.

Well, this concluded our Easter Break.  The only thing left to do was to take a few  buses to the airport and fly home.  We left nearly three hours early for the trip that was to take a half of an hour (we’re very punctual people).  However, we learned the hard way that Auckland’s transportation system is less than reliable, as a variety of buses arrived significantly later than scheduled, or simply didn’t show up at all, causing us to arrive at our flight gate 9 minutes after the last-call for check in.  This forced us to wait an entire 24 hours for the next flight.  Normally, this would have been rather upsetting to me, but this trip had affected me and my happiness that I didn’t even care.  It was all part of the adventure.  The adventure continues.

…and the back-pains continue!

Take care,
~Jake

Mission Easter Break: Part 1

Hola!

So my Easter Break ended about two weeks ago, but now that we’re pretty much all caught up, I can tell you all about it.  However, as I started writing this, I realized it would be entirely too long to fit into one blog.  In order to do this trip justice, I will have to split it up into two blogs.

Below you can see the exact route Sam and I took across New Zealand.  Though I still have about two months left in New Zealand, I truly believe that through the course of this week, I had a genuine Kiwi experience that surpassed all of the enormous expectations I had for this trip.  Everything from here on out is simply a bonus.

If I had a nickel for every map I posted on here…I would actually only have about 20 cents.

Dunedin - At about 6:00am on the morning of Good Friday, April 29 we boarded our bus to Christchurch.  The 4 hour and 30 minute drive was to take the bus about 6 hours due to the fact that the bus has to stop and change bus operators rather frequently under New Zealand law.

Oamaru - We stopped and changed bus operators, as that is New Zealand law.  You can read about this place more thoroughly in my previous blog, anyway.

Christchurch - Finally, something to actually talk about!  Well, not really.  Seeing as it was Good Friday, the town was completely void of human activity.  Furthermore, Christchurch suffered a horrendous series of earthquakes two years ago, and a great deal of the town is still in ruin.  These two factors combined gave the town an eerie-post-apocalyptic sort of feel.  Stephen King would have loved it.

Cue ‘Twilight Zone’ theme song.

Oh, and another thing – we hadn’t booked anywhere to stay.  In our previous expeditions outside of Dunedin, we had always found hostels with great ease, and didn’t think anything of endeavoring into the unknown of Christchurch without knowing exactly where we would stay.

Fun Fact: Not only is Christchurch a MASSIVE city, it’s also incredibly spread out.

Sam and I walked around for a few hours with all of our luggage before we found an open hostel.  Unfortunately, it was also completely booked up.  However, the manager, in a typical New Zealander fashion, let us use his phone to call other hostels to stay at.  This would be the first act of kindness we would see in this city over the course of our short stay here.

Now, a great deal of Christchurch has been repaired.  In spite of this, there are still several blocks in the center of town that are still in shambles.  The destruction is so bad that this entire area is fenced off.  It’s a rather grim sight to behold.  Well, it would have been, anyway, had people not plastered the fence with little cards and pictures of hearts and photos of people smiling.  ’Smile For Christchurch,’ seems to be the prevailing motto of the the city’s reconstruction.

As I’ve said before – a large portion of Christchurch was destroyed in the earthquakes, and remains that way today.  This was once one of the busiest areas of the city:

However, this does not mean the there is no longer a main hub in central Christchurch.  They’ve simply moved it:

Behold the Container Mall.  Following the initial quakes, rubble and debris was moved into these shipping containers and removed from the site.  In a brilliant connection with the devastation, and a commitment to healing and moving on, the Container Mall was born.  It’s exactly what it sounds like, and it has become Christchurch’s hot-spot.

This little guy was hanging out in the mall playing Beethoven and other insanely impressive music, that I will never come close to replicating.  *Sigh*

Container ATM.

Other forms of optimism can be found across the city.  Free salsa lessons are given on top of the wreckage of what was once a building:

People decorate the fences surrounding the destruction with some nostalgic characters who have put smiles on millions of faces:

The Anglican Cathedral of Christchurch, an icon of the city, was not spared from the quakes.  Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban was invited to assist in plans for rebuilding the Cathedral.  While he was at it, he came up with the idea of building a Cathedral out of cardboard, to serve as a monument to the events which occurred, and the city’s response and the hope it has become enshrouded in:

Real life.

Real art imitating real life

Christchurch was an incredible way to start our Easter break.  The spirit of the people who live there, as well as the country’s response and aid in the wake of the tragedy were truly inspiring, and revived my faith in humanity.  This positive attitude stayed with us for the remainder of our trip, and I expect it will for quite some time from now.

This was just the first leg of Easter break, but we’ll end up in Auckland and return back home to Dunedin by the end of my next blog.  Until then, take care,

~Jake

Weekend in Brussels

We had been planning to go to Brussels for a while, but it kept falling through. My friend Ryan from our program studied there last spring, and he was excited to show us around the city. He claims to like it better than Paris, and even though I would never even compare the two (Paris is just the best), I could see how a smaller, weirder city like Brussels might feel a little bit more like home.

We left Friday and stayed at his friend’s house, where we experienced some genuine European hospitality. The house was huge and beautiful and we ate dinner with a group of his friends, people from all different countries who spoke multiple languages. It made us Americans feel bad.

We went out that night to a few of Ryan’s favorite bars. Our first stop was Café des Halles, a massive, cathedral-like building in the downtown area that used to serve as a market place. It was spacious and trendy, with a DJ and dance floor in the front, green carpet and lawn chairs in the back, and a giant pyramid shaped pillar in the center that would have been less out of place in a museum.

Later that night we found ourselves at Grand Place, the central square of Brussels and the location of its city hall. It’s a walking square enclosed by several old, ornate buildings, each of which with slightly different architectural designs. Seeing the buildings lit up late at night with the daytime foot traffic gone was very exciting.

The next day we stood in a long line for classic Belgian frites (fries) that I ate with a pile of mayonnaise. We sat and ate them in Grand Place, and admired the buildings in the daylight. We chased the frites with waffles and I felt sick and happy.

We spent that night in a cozy bed and breakfast-style hostel that had a grand piano and a dog. It was quaint and homey and I could have stayed there all weekend. Instead, we left the next morning to go to the Horta Museum, the preserved former house of Victor Horta, a Belgian architect of the Art Nouveau movement. It opens at 2pm for two hours and only lets in 45 guests per day (to preserve the integrity). It felt very exclusive.

We got more fries later that day and felt even sicker and happier. We also saw the Atomiuim, a strange, atom-shaped structure whose purpose is unknown (to me). I heard it referred to as the Eiffel Tower of Brussels.

Easily the best thing we saw in the city were the Royal Greenhouses of the Belgian king. They are open to the public two weeks out of the year, and we happened to be there at the right time (even more exclusivity). Walking through them felt like being in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, where just looking at everything was as satisfying as eating candy. It was a maze of exotic and beautiful greenery, and if I were the Belgian king I would never leave. But we had to.

Up to Speed

Ahoy!

As you may have noticed, my blog typically focuses on topics rather than my daily experiences.  While I enjoy writing in this way, lots of experiences fall through the cracks as they don’t conveniently fit into the specific topics I write about.  This blog will cover some of the events that I have yet to discuss but really enjoyed, and felt compelled to tell you about.  These will date from the beginning of my trip up until Easter Break, which ended two weeks ago.  I will then post a blog about Easter Break later this week, and we’ll be all caught up to present day.  Deal?  Great!

• Trips to the Beach - There’s a lovely beach called St. Clair just a 15 minute bus ride away from my university.  Sam and I went there a few times when we first moved in to our flat.  Unlike most beaches I have seen in the United States, many people take their dogs for walks on the beach of St. Clair.  The natural beauty of the place makes even my amateur shots look somewhat decent!
  
• Open Mic Night - Sam and I befriended an absurd amount of people from Denmark.  Naturally, one of them is a percussionist/trombone player.  We all got together and played some songs at an Open Mic Night at the bar on campus.  Yes, there is a bar right in the center of our campus.  We serenaded the crowd with the soulful sounds of Bill Wither’s ‘Use Me,’ and some contemporary pop-songs.
  
  Keep an eye out for us at the Grammy’s.

• Oamaru - A few hours north of Dunedin lies a small town called Oamaru.  We took a weekend trip out here because Oamaru is home to a Blue Penguin colony – the smallest penguin species on earth!  Well, we saw them, and boy howdy were they cute, but we found something else of interest in the town.
  
  D’awww!

  Oamaru used to be a rather industrialized town, and quickly became viewed as a service-center for New Zealand’s agricultural goods.  In light of its growing status through the Victorian era, it developed an excellent port and railway system.  However, the economic growth trickled down, causing the port to close, and Oamaru found itself in hard times.  Sounds like your standard rise and fall story of a little town, eh?  Here’s where it gets interesting.  Some people in the town took the decaying industrial scenery around them, and turned it into something positive.  Thus, a genre of literature, music, fashion and style was born: Steampunk.  The best way to understand this bizarre phenomenon is by viewing it as ‘a Victorian person’s idea of what the future would be like.’   Basically, think of robotic people wearing top-hats, like in this picture of Steam Powered Giraffe – a prominent American Steampunk musical group:The community seems to embrace this offbeat lifestyle – penny-farthing bikes are all around the town, and even the playground boasts the style of Steampunk.  The world is a bizarre and wonderful place.

I am perpetually seven years old.

• OUSA Sports Week - In the beginning of the year, Otago Univeristy Students’ Association (OUSA) held Sports Week.  They split the student body up by their area of residence, be it a set of flats or dormitories (they are referred to as ‘colleges’ here). My group was called UniFlats, which is the company that owns our flats. These groups then played various sports (netball, rugby, football ‘soccer’) against each other.  Myself and some friends from my flat complex chose to play on UniFlat’s volleyball team.  Seeing as none of us have really played volleyball before, we expected to be pretty terrible.  Luckily, this was not the case, and we won all four of our games.
  
  Just look at that form!

  So, those are some of my favorite random snippets of previously unmentioned life in New Zealand.  I feel like I could write a blog about every single day here – even on the most routine of days I find myself intrigued by the most random of things over here.  Hopefully have and will continue to give you an idea of what life is like in New Zealand.Take care,
  ~Jake

Knapp Siblings Take Paris

I came to France for the first time in January knowing very little French and no one in the entire country. In the past few months I’ve made friends, learned a bunch of French, and became more comfortable being abroad and in a new city. As these adjustments are happening though, it’s hard to notice them. When my sister visited last week, I became more aware of my progress, and I could see Paris with fresh eyes.

My host family was generous enough to let her stay with us for the week. She got to see the ins and outs of my morning commute, and I had a breakfast buddy for the week. We had dinner altogether the night she got in, and it reminded me of how overwhelmed I was when I first had dinner with the family. They told us they would speak English for her benefit, but it was obviously helpful to me also. They’re always very interested in hearing about life in America, and very amused by certain things. It was nice to have another American at the table, because we’re equally amused with some of their French customs.

I was able to do lots of touristy things that I usually fool myself into thinking I’m too cool for. The first day she was here, we went to Shakespeare and Company, Notre Dame, walked along the Seine and to the Eiffel Tower, and got to Musée d’Orsay twenty minutes before it closed. We also ate really delicious crêpes, and I showed my sister the truth behind the myths that surround French cheese: it’s really good.

It rained on and off throughout the week, and my sister saw in one week about as much rain as I have seen in my entire two months here. While I was in class, she got to go to Montmartre with my host person, an invite he has been extending to me since my first week here. Our schedules have never worked out. She really liked his jolly French spirit and self-perceived talent of being able to distinguish different American accents. They really hit it off!

On Saturday, we stood in line for almost an hour and a half to see the Paris Catacombs and it was entirely worth the wait. I saw more human bones than I ever thought I would see, and we were both pretty sure that we felt a ghost. So scary!

To make up for the rainiest week my sister could have chosen to visit, her last day was also the first really nice day of the year. To appreciate it fully, we decided to go to Versailles. When we got there, we realized that everyone else also had the same idea. It was PACKED! We stood in line for long enough to not even want to go into the chateau when we found out it was actually the wrong line. It was too hot and crowded and I got overwhelmed. It worked out for the best though, because the town of Versailles is quaint and beautiful and has a nice park with a body of water that’s perfect for enjoying spring weather and skipping stones. So we hung out there, got some more great crêpes, and then went back to Paris. I think it was a good last day.

French Meals and Fontainebleu

After a succession of weekends for which traveling plans were made and then broken, and weeks in which I received a surprising amount of actual schoolwork, I feel as though I am developing something of a routine. I have been very busy and I haven’t left Paris in over a month, neither of which happens very often for study abroad students. It makes me feel like I am actually living in Paris, and I’ve learned a lot about it’s culture.

French culture consists of a lot of unspoken etiquette, which makes it easy for an American in Paris to constantly feel as though they are doing the wrong thing. It also seems as though English as a language is spoken louder than French, making every anglophone seem slightly obnoxious to the quiet Parisian. When I have dinner with my host family, I pick up some of the subtleties of French culture, but I’m always terrified that I’m doing the wrong thing. Meals in France tend to be more structured than American meals, and snacking is sometimes looked-down upon. The French respect their three meals a day, and make each one substantial enough to last until their next one.

A typical French dinner consists of three or four courses, and Parisians generally eat at 8pm at the very earliest. The first course is an appetizer or an “entrée,” which doesn’t, in fact, mean the main course as it does in America. It can be some kind of vegetable or a soup, and is generally small and very well presented. After that comes the “plat,” or the main course. This can be almost anything, and based on my experience, it’s always really good. Bread is on the table throughout the meal, and it’s usually acceptable to break the bread with your hands. The preferred beverage to accompany a meal is wine, and only sometimes water. I imagine most French people are usually dehydrated. After the main course, cheese is usually served, followed by a dessert and coffee or tea. It’s no stereotype that French people take food very seriously, and the meals that my host family makes, even for just themselves, seem like a big ordeal. It sometimes makes me wish America would adopt certain French customs, but then I remember that we have peanut butter, Groundhog Day, and stores open past 8pm; it’s a trade-off, really.

Despite my excess of schoolwork and apparent assimilation to the French culture, I still do the things that tourists do. I took a great day trip to Chateau Fontainebleau and remembered what woods are like. It’s a beautiful old palace surrounded located about fifty kilometers outside Paris. It was a really nice, forty-five minute train ride there, that’s free on weekends. We had a little picnic by the forest outside of the chateau, that apparently has been preserved to protect several endangered species of Europe that live there.

I also discovered Flunch, probably the least French thing I’ve done here that is unique to France. It’s a buffet-style, fast-food chain in France, and one of my new favorite things, even though it contrasts almost everything I’ve discovered about typical French meals. My meal was ice cream and unlimited french fries — I flunched pretty hard.

International Schism

When one travels to the other side of Earth, one expects to find a place rather different from their point of origin.  What has been most striking to me about New Zealand is how much it has in common with the U.S. of A.

Let me paint a mental picture for you.  It’s my first day in my new flat.  The bus pulls up to the place I will live for the next five months.  I fill my lungs with a long inhale as I gaze upon the building.  My new home.  An experience unlike anything I’ve ever known.  As I fling open the front door, I toss my bags into my bedroom, hardly giving the place a second glance.  I wanted to see everything in the house!  I wanted to meet my new flatmates with whom I would live in a way I had never thought possible before.  Voices were audible from the second floor, and I sprinted to greet them.  With a few bounds I ascended the stairs, and ran into the room I heard the voices coming from, and lo and behold there’s……

my Kiwi flatmate, eating Pizza Hut and watching HBO’s ‘The Wire.’

In short, things didn’t start out the way I planned.  I was not immediately floored by the stark contrast between my host and home institutions.  However, over time, I did come to realize and identify the differences between the two countries in light of their undeniable similarities.  I’ll break these differences down into a few categories:

The Extremely Obvious Differences:

• Language - Yes, they speak English here.  However, the various accents are quite different from most other English-speaking countries, as they are rather separate from most of the world.  Here’s a video made by a few Kiwis that demonstrates my point:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISP5-Itz_dUYou’ll notice that the main difference lies in the pronunciation of vowels- they all kind of sound the same.  ’Yes’ is pronounced as ‘yis’, ‘chips’ – ‘chups’, and ‘apples’ ‘ipples’.  You’ll notice that almost all vowels take on an ‘i’ sound, and anything with the letter ‘i’ sounds like a ‘u’.  Confused yet?Other words are pronounced with emphasis on different syllables than ours.  For instance, Kiwis refer to the herb ‘oregano’  as ‘ore-ah-gah-no.’Spelling also accounts for a great deal of difference in language.  They left the letter ‘i’ in ‘alumin’i'um’ so it is pronounced ‘al-oo-min-ee-uhm.’
  

  You won’t believe how good it tastes with that ‘h’.

 Other things have just totally different names, or different terminology.

It makes sense, really.

On top of all of this, there’s the slang.  Here’s a brief list of some of the most commonly-used slang terms/phrases I’ve heard here:

‘Cheers’ - Typically used in place of ‘thanks.’  I have yet to hear a Kiwi say ‘thanks.’  Always cheers.

‘Sweet as’ - If you watched the video above, you heard the term ‘beached as.’  That was making fun of this.  Really you can say ‘(whatever) as’.  The whole idea is that it’s an unfinished metaphor.  So if I were to say your shirt was ‘sweet as’ that would be a complete sentence, and a compliment.  Knowing this will keep you from getting offended if someone behind you says the term.  They’re not talking about you, or your bottom.

‘Heaps’ - An abundance.  Lots of something.  ’There’s heaps of sheep out there!’

‘Keen’ - Similar to saying you agree to something.  If you were to ask someone if they were ‘keen to head down to the Bee Gee’s concert,’ you’d really be asking them if they would like to accompany you to a complete waste of an afternoon.

• Transportation -  Again, you think you know the subject, but it’s all different here.  I’ll start with the big one: They drive on the other side of the road.
  While you may have known that, this also means that they walk on the other side!
  

  While you may have known that, this also means that they walk on the other side!

  

  Believe it or not, I’ve only walked into the wrong gate once!

 

 

Also, cars here tend to be much more compact/fuel efficient than back in the States, although I think that is true for most countries.

Sam’s there for scale.

The Less Obvious:

• Prices - Think about the knowledge you have attained throughout your life in regards to how much things cost.  You have spent years upon years formulating what the true value of a dollar is.  Now, FORGET ALL OF THAT.  That’s what it’s like in New Zealand.  You can buy five beautiful porterhouse steaks here for about $15.00, something completely unheard of in the U.S.  They’re practically giving them away!  Now, how much would you venture a few limes would cost?  I mean, the steak was basically free, so limes must cost like, 50 -75 cents, right?
  
  

  So, that’s pretty much like a horror movie, right? It couldn’t get worse than that!

  

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  
  So, basically, prices are unpredictable here – it’s a living and learning process.  Really, we just keep spreadsheets of where we think we can get things for the best deals, and hope for the best.

• Food - Really, there are few things that can be identified as ‘New Zealand’ when it comes to food.  The food available here is a mixture of Pan-Asian, Indian, and English cuisines.  However, you can find food from just about anywhere here.  Sam and I have tried Danish, Malaysian, and Japanese food here in the past couple of weeks.  It’s amusing to see the ‘American food’ in the international aisle:
  
  Also, they don’t refrigerate their eggs here!  While this seemed very odd to me, my friends from the Netherlands and Denmark assured me that it was safe and common in their native countries:

  

• Socialism
  - I could spend a lifetime writing about this (and indeed thousands of people have), and hardly graze the surface here.  That being said, this slight mention will fail to encompass the complexity of the subject in every way.  I very well may have been better off omitting it altogether, but it’s really too important to leave out.Really, socialism is at work in the United States, and has been for well over a century (see Social Security, collective taxation, government subsidy programs, etc.).  The main difference between the U.S. and New Zealand’s socialism is health care.  In New Zealand, every human is covered by Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC).  This no-fault insurance plan enables anyone to receive medical treatment and attention at any time.  This system seems to be the pride and joy of New Zealand – as far as I can see, no serious suggestion by even the most conservative politicians has been made to do away with the ACC or its role in the nation.This idea of people being cared for seems to exist in most aspects of life in New Zealand.  Sam and I have seen frequent ‘random acts of kindness’ to the point where it doesn’t seem so random at all.  People here are constantly watching out for one another, and ready to lend a helping hand when they can.
  

  And people really care about others not getting eaten by sharks here.

  
  

  There seems to be a greater respect among all people here, which is evident in the fact that minimum wage is so high that tipping is actually frowned upon, college education is heavily subsidized by the government, and nearly all crosswalks and intersections have accessibility technology to aid individuals with disabilities so that they may independently travel with greater ease.  People would prefer to  help rather than harm each other here.  Perhaps this is why the majority of police officers choose not to carry firearms in this country, and it’s entirely common to see people leave their front doors unlocked or completely open at all hours.
  
  All of my life in the United States I have heard all sorts of prejudice against socialism, most of it mindless dribble that Joseph McCarthy could have very easily been charged of saying.  I’m not sure I will ever understand this mentality as anything other than people fear what they cannot understand.  Well, they know socialism in New Zealand, and having had the privilege of seeing it in action, I think it is a beautiful thing.  You don’t have to take my word for it though – the World Bank rated New Zealand the most business-friendly place on earth in 2005, the United Nations index declared New Zealand to be the third best country to live in circa 2010, andthe Fraser Institute named it the most free country in the world this year.  Clearly, they’re doing something right.

  Any country on earth will have its positive and negative aspects.  Nowhere is perfect, despite the fact that any nation has patriots within it who will claim their country is – and that’s fine!  However, I need something more.  I live under the philosophy of Socrates, in that the only thing I know for certain is the magnificent depth of my own ignorance.  With this in mind, I can not proclaim any nation to be superlative in any category, but I can enjoy the various benefits one may offer, adapt to its hindrances, and compare and contrast them from my previous experiences.  I hope that you can do the same, if you don’t already.

  Take care,

  ~Jake

Ballet and Being Late

In Paris, I have a habit of being lost and late for something all at once. It’s a bad habit and a bad combination, and the latter part comes from my inability to commit to memory the amount of traveling time to get anywhere from my apartment. I still have this idea of the metro as being a sort of teleportation device. I’m finding it easier to navigate Paris, but it always takes longer than I expect it to, and I never seem to give myself enough time to do it.

The director of our program got us discounted group tickets for the ballet at the Palais Garnier, a historic opera house and the setting for The Phantom of the Opera. The building is beautiful, and the interior is elaborately covered in gold and Chagall murals.

The ballet was a performance of Roland Petit, and it was made up of three separate acts: Le Rendez-Vous, Le Coup, and Carmen. It was a great experience to see a genuine French ballet, and I was really excited when I recognized the music in Carmen from an episode of Hey Arnold!. It was all very impressive, and it was easy to be mesmerized by the orchestra and the dancing and the fancy opera house.

The first half of the performance, however, I had to sit on top of a very high balcony, where the stage was barely visible, because of my aforementioned habit of being perpetually lost and late. I sat with the rest of the late arrivals, a disappointing majority of them were American, and one of them was a girl from my program. I guess we aren’t doing very much to change the French perception of Americans.

My grammar class is made up of about 8 people, almost all of them from different countries. Most of them speak a little bit of English, but our language in common is French. It’s a funny experience and really good practice to speak to other people in French that are at the same level of proficiency as I am. My American friend in my class and I have been spending time with a classmate from Korea, who doesn’t speak any English. When we accidentally speak to each other in English, we have to attempt to translate it for him in French as to not be rude.

We all went to an old movie theater that has been playing a marathon of Alfred Hitchcock movies, subtitled in French. I was impressed by how well our Korean friend could follow them just reading the French subtitles. I always love watching old movies in old movie theaters, and the fact that they were American movies in a theater in Paris made it all the more exciting.

Classes have been time consuming and extremely exhausting, but I still manage to do things outside of class, and not forget and that I’m living in Paris. When it isn’t too cold, I like to take the metro to no stop in particular, and walk around.  It’s a great way to collect thoughts, or clear my thoughts, or just appreciate Paris.

My afternoon promenade along Champs-Élysées:

Classy

Hey ya,

Classes have begun, and I’m going to tell you a bit about mine!

I just really love school.

I’m taking four papers (aka classes).  This is the most that international students are permitted to take, as the school thinks that any additional pressure will make us crack like the fragile-culture-shocked-pathetic-eggs that we are (citation needed).  On a serious note, one class here is worth 4.5 credits at Temple, and most American universities, opposed to the standard 3, meaning the classes here are more demanding, and therefore, people tend to take less of them.

My Classes/Papers/Whateveryouwouldliketocallthem:

• The History of Māori Politics (1830-1996) - This class is by far the most important to me.  It provides me with insight into the Māori that I otherwise would have not gained, and enables me to learn about the series of complex occurrences and issues which have shaped the Māori’s history and situation today.  The class is taught by a sarcastic, humorous,  part-Māori man, which makes it something to look forward to.  I would very much like to take a class similar to this one on Native Americans when I return home.

• Issues in United States History - This class is not at all what I expected when I signed up for it, but I still enjoy it!  Please don’t judge me – I’m not an American that can’t bear to be away from America.  Seeing as I’ve never left the country before, I was curious to see how people on the other side of the world discuss the United States and its history.  Well…my teacher is an American, which basically nullifies my reasoning for taking the course.  However, he is not your average professor, nor is it an ordinary class, which is sub-headed as ‘Freaks and Normals.’  The course is about disability and how it is viewed in the context of religion, various eras of history, film, music, location, and our every day lives.   The question of ‘what is normal?’ runs throughout the course.  My retort to this inquiry is ‘non-existent.’

• Interpreting Artworks -  In all honesty, I took this paper to fulfill a general-education requirement back home.  Luckily, I am interested in its contents, as it is an art-history class.  As a person who has no physical artistic ability, I appreciate that I am at least able to talk about art fairly well!  A fun fact I’ve learned in this class: the metric system didn’t exist until the 18th century.  Prior to this, measurements varied by person, place, and time, and basically made life RIDICULOUSLY COMPLICATED.  Conservative estimation places the dawn of human beings about 100,000 years ago.  This means we went about 99,700 years before it was decided that there should be a standard system of measurement that didn’t involve body parts.  *Burries face in hands.*

Believe it or not, this piece ‘Three Standard Stoppages’ by Marcel Duchamp expresses similar sentiments toward humanity:  WHAT WERE YOU ALL THINKING FOR SO LONG?  MEASUREMENTS ARE VERY IMPORTANT.

• Totalitarian Regimes (1922-1945) - AWESOME class.  People often ask me what my favorite period of history is.  While I don’t like to view history as a list of names and places confined to a set time period, this epoch of devastation, psychological terror and influence, and shift away from traditional ideals is one of the most interesting to me.  My professor is an Englishman who has lived in Romania, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand for extended periods of time, leaving him with one of the most interesting accents I’ve ever heard.  Right now we’re learning about Mussolini and his rise to power in Italy – something I have previously not learned much about.

There you have it!  I set up my class schedule so that I have all of my lectures on Tuesday and Thursday.  I have tutorials (smaller classes) on some Mondays and Wednesdays.  This means that I typically have four day weekends.  Hooray!   School is a bit different from home, but in my next blog, I will compare and contrast various aspects of New Zealand living with American life.  Here’s a picture of a pretty building on my campus:

Take care,
~Jake