To start off this blog, I think that traveling to New Zealand for this trip was the easiest it has ever been for me. Because my mother is a Maori woman herself, I have been to New Zealand about five or six times in my life.Both of my flights to Houston and Los Angeles were fine for the most part, a little cramped, but when are planes not packed. I flew alone to Los Angeles where I waited for the group flying in from Houston. After a couple of hours I connected with the group and we hiked down to the international gate. Although the traveling was easy, the Los Angeles Airport has to be one of if not the worst airport I have ever been in. Big international airports like LAX usually have better ways to get around, like trains, buses, or at least the moving sidewalks. I don’t think I have ever been that tired or more excited to get to my flight gate before. A few extra steps, expensive burgers, and a couple hours later, we were finally able to board the plane. I was both dreading and excited for the flight but the length didn’t really matter because I ended up sleeping for about nine hours anyway. After I woke up, I watched the Lord of the Rings until we landed in Auckland. The Auckland airport was a lot quicker to get through than I remember it. The biosecurity was faster and the lines were shorter, I don’t think I remember there being an express lane for biosecurity so that may be what changed. The bus ride over to the hotel was enjoyable for the most part, the sunrise gave me the perfect opportunity to get some great photos. When we were dismissed for free time on the first day, we all just kind of wandered. None of us had thought of what to do or where to go because we were expecting to jump straight into some orientation or something the program already had planned. We ended up walking down the street towards the waterfront, stopping at some coffee shops and a bagel store called Best Ugly Bagels. I ordered the White rabbit which was a bagel topped with cream cheese, tomatoes, basil, and lemon fennel olive oil. We took our bagels and headed down to the pier to eat and look out at the waterfront. We ended up wandering back up one of the other streets and taking a quick peek into a small book store. Afterwards, we walked up towards the university and found ourselves in Albert park. Some of the boys enjoyed a little tree climbing while we walked up the hill near the statue of Victoria and the fountain. In the distance we could see some sort of old building with a clock tower so we started to make our way over there. The building turned out to be a lecture hall for the university and had some pretty impressive architecture. We went inside and walked around for about ten minutes before we decided to take a stroll around the campus. We eventually found what I would call the Auckland University Student Center, it had some restaurants and had a merchandise store. We sat for a while to rest and came up with our next move to explore more of Auckland. We met up with another group who had gone to the Auckland Art Gallery and took a look at all of the interesting art work displayed around the halls. The variety of work that was displayed was incredible. It included paintings, drawings, videos, and sculptures. One of the videos in particular was a representation of climate change and its effect on culture. The woman was dancing in this big glass box that was slowly filling with water. As the water rose, it became increasingly more difficult for her to perform the dance. It was really interesting to read about these displays and learn about some of the spiritual and physical aspects of Maori culture and New Zealand history. The Maori presentation we watched from Kathleen Frewen, a professor who teaches at the Auckland University of technology, was the best part of the day for me. Learning about a culture I am trying to connect with more in my life was just an incredible experience and I can’t wait to keep growing more and more into my culture.
