Ok it has been ages since I last wrote to you all and told you guys what I have been doing, like by ages I mean I have not written since I have been in New Zealand which is kinda the point of the Blog but now the purpose shall be fulfilled! So here is the quick run down of what has happened since I have been here then I will metion the parts that I enjoyed or thought was the coolest.
I arrived early in the morning (5:30ish) at Auckland airport after two 12-hour flights and a 7-hour wait the phrase tired didn’t quite describe what I was feeling. I stayed in Auckland for half a day but only really slept and played guitar then was picked up by the people I would be staying with, Chris and Judy Bennet. Judy is really my boss but she does not see it that way … it is more like slave, jokingly of course but we do have a pretty hectic week which is one of the reasons I have not had a chance to write to you lovely people (from fine to lovely, you guys are moving up in the world). I had the church youth group to go to that night where I could not have been any more interesting than a rock because I could barely string the two syllables of my name together I was SOOOOO TIRED! Then I had a day of loafing about on Monday, similar on Tuesday but then I went to a farm to get “accustomed” into kiwi life. Farms are fun, I will explain in a minuet. So spent up until Saturday on the farm then went to youth group thing on Saturday (it was a sing star social) so got to know people when I did not feel I was unable to stay vertical for longer than a minuet. Sunday I got to go to church at Chapel hill church and I enjoyed that, then the youth group that evening which is like bible class but not over a service because there is no evening service because everyone are farmers and need to milk cows. I then spent a week at the Bennets living out a pretty ordinary work week and got the car I will be driving that week too (check out the model http://img.drive.com.au/drive_images/CasualAds_images/1611823__m.jpg
Apart from in gold and with no left wing mirror). That Saturday I met up with Warwick who is the other SU worker in the Waikato (area of New Zealand that Hamilton is in) and met the youth group he works in and we all played Laser Strike/quest/tag whatever you call it. Then I stayed with Warwick for a while and then came back to Judy’s, who lives just outside Hamilton, for a couple of days then I moved into the house I will be staying in for the rest of my time here. They are a family called the Perry’s and they are really nice, so now I have my own little room and my own desk and even my own white board. So that was yesterday and todays today, I am sitting in the main sanctuary of the church using the computer to write this because 52kbps just does not handle blogger properly.
So after that long rant of what has happened here are the best bits.
The farm
It was awesome, I arrived to a massive feast of a tea with lots of meat and stuff that makes happy. The next morning I got up late because I was still adjusting I w
ent down to the farm and saw what was going on, but I did not do much that day, just really sat about and watched TV to try and recover from Jet Lag. The next day I got right into it all, I was helping feed the calves which was cool and then we had breakfast because farmers get up early and then have breakfast at like 9. Then went back along to the farm and helped to catch so calves. There was 8 the day but I only caught 2. then we just did stuff about the farm like feeding the cows, opening gates …. Shutting gates, avoiding electric fences (a New Zealand invention I have to add because any time I said anything about electric fences someone would go “that’s a kiwi thing you know!”) then the best part of the whole week was learning to ride a motor bike, and not one of these rubbish 50cc things like a big dirt bike. It was awesome rounding up cattle with a dirt bike. I did also crash it into an electric fence but no one saw and I did not fall over so all’s fine. So that was the farm, and here is a picture of a couple of calves.RUGBY
I am surprised when you enter New Zealand instead of like customs and stuff they don’t have like a big tackle bag and some guys with pads that you have to drive your way past. NZ is rugby mad, and I am serious. Everything is about rugby. The chiefs (waikato’s rugby team and one of the better ones in the league) rugby shirt colours are yellow black and red. I have never seen a city with so many thin yellow black and red. Canopies, fences, buildings, people, there is seriously no end to the support of the teams here. I love it. The tri nations finished just the other day with south Africa beating Australia, but the all blacks won over all because they won all their games minus one.
So yeah that is my NZ life so far, sorry it has been so long but now I have more of a routine I think I will be writing most weeks about this time but we shall see.
God Bless
Andrew
