I’m a real idiot for not doing this for 3 weeks. Or maybe its four weeks. Gah. I’m on vacation with mom!!!! It was so wild to see her again. I’ve been living in this little impenetrable IHP bubble for 5 months now and to have your mom show up is like whoa….Although the first person to burst the bubble was Doug! I was at a homestay in Wellington living with a Jewish ex-pat from Jersey and his Kiwi wife who play in a Klesmer band, and I was on the internet late at night. I looked at Doug’s away message and it said, “the sevens were awesome! I was on NZ tv and in an NZ tournament” or something to that effect. The sevens is the international rugby tournament that is held in Wellington so I knew he was in Wellington. So i messaged him with all my info and next thing I know we are meeting outside the New World Grocery store. Due to various communication issues I was unable to spend the time with him I would’ve liked but I still got to see him in NZ and that was amazing.
So the homestay was cool. They had their own private cable car that went up to their house. Not quite a throwback to the plumbing-free, electricity-free homestays of the past. Last day in Wellington we went to the One Love festival for Bob Marley’s b-day but the best part of that was the fact that I had to leave early to go see my dorky host parent’s klesmer band performance. I thought that would suck cuz I had to go alone but as a I walked away from One Love, Zeno jumped on my shoulders and decided to come along. ONe of the the best nights of the trip hands down. He had me dancing to the music at this festival before a crowd of about 300 pacific islanders and maoris staring at us, all seated and silent as he spun me erratically around the whole venue. We saw polynesian fire dancers and weird naked painted people jumping out of paper machet volcanoes. We ended up at some weird chinese restuarant eating fries and milkshakes.
Being on vacation is great but I reeeeeally miss IHPers. This is the longest I’ve been away from anyone on IHP for more than 12 hours in 5 months. I feel oddly lonely even though I’m still never alone. So far on vacation I’ve visited tons of wineries, gone whale watching, visited a lavender farm, stayed at incredible hotels, had LOTS of bloody marys and even more amazing meals. We’re near Abel Tasman national park now and are gonna do some cool stuff around here now.
Oh. Best part of the New Zealand program was living on the Marae. A marae is a Maori community house. Its like one big giant room with lots of mats on the floor for us to sleep on. We got to hang out with this Maori family who were so incredibly sweet and wonderful and the group really had a chance to recenter after India. We had class everyday in the Marae and for some reason IHP keeps thinking its a good idea to have class in the same place as our beds….I love this program. I was sitting next to my professor the whole day and I fell asleep in every lecture….just layed down and went to sleep. Even our professors kinda fall asleep for about 15 minutes every now and then. Louise is a bit of a snorer. I wonder what these lecturers think when they come in to a room of shirtless barefoot kids laying around in sleeping bags.
We were in Palmerston North for three days. All I need to say about that is that I saw Walk the Line. AWESOME. “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die…” Hell yeah.
Then there was Forest and Bird Lodge in Tongariro National Park. Site of Mt. Doom and lots of sweet volcanoes. We lived in a house…all 26 of us plus professors for 6 straight days virtually isolated from every one and every thing. You could hike away for a couple hours but that was about as secluded as it got. Lots of good bonding time. We went to a geothermal powerplant and then some geothermal hot springs. That was excellent.
So then there was Zeno’s birthday at the very posh Zibibo’s in Wellington before vacation. Prior to the party a few of us were absolutely INSISTENT that we could NOT pay 23 dollars to stay at a backpakers but we found no place to stay and went to the party totally homeless. The party offered more free champagne than I have ever had access to in my life. The dinner was awesome (naked baby photos of Zeno and all) and then we went to Boogie Wonderland for some very Saturday Night Fever sort of dancing. Naturally Zeno’s uncle let us stay at his house that night and then served us homemade museli in the morning and let us hang out by his pool for a few hours before I had to run to the airport to get mommy.
The longest post ever must now come to a close. 4 weeks in 30 minutes. Barely scrapped the surface I’d say. See I keep saying this and once I get home I will be so overwhelmed with stuff to talk about that I won’t even want to do it. Rule #1 when I get home…Do NOT…I repeat…do NOT ask me questions like…”so what did you think of India??” My head will explode. I’m sending lots of hugs home with mom for all of you and those of you not likely to hug my mom anytime soon: I love you and miss you and of course love receiving mail. About a week from now you should start sending things to Mexico!! I will share my anxiety and anticipation about Mexico in the next post which will certainly be a lot sooner than 4 weeks from now!
Besito Besito,
Andie Gersh
