The Beach and Bree

Kia ora!

I know it's been a very long time, school has been beginning to take it's toll on my adventures and free time. However! I do have something new to share with you. I went to visit the Bree, which if you are not an LoTR fan you would be interested to know is the village that Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin ran through on their way to the Prancing Pony in the Fellowship of the Ring. But anywho :). I have many many pictures on my Picasa page.

In addition to visiting Bree, we spent the morning and afternoon on Foxton Beach. One of my friend's Philosophy professors has a beach house right on the coast, the cutest little cottage. One thing that is completely true of most Kiwis is that they are the most hospitable people you will ever meet. Jillian's professor Adrian happily drove us to her beach house, showed us around, fed us a fantastic lunch, and drove us back. It was unbelievably nice.

The dog you can see in the picture is one of the two beautiful Bernice mountain dogs that came along with us on the trip. So much fun! As we walked along the beach you could vaguely see the islands out in the distance, and there were all kinds of whole shells washed up on the shore. In addition to the array of decaying fish and sharks, which was just kind of interesting.

After we said goodbye to the beach and Adrian and the dogs, we went to a traditional Maori Hangi. It's a ceremonial welcoming tradition that the Maori people have upheld to this day. There was a specific way we needed to enter the ground, announce our presence, and then we were ceremonially welcomed after singing songs from our home country and hearing a speech in Maori. We then did the "Hangi" which is the same name as the ceremony, but it is the act of touching noses as a sign of friendship in the Maori culture. Which was extremely awkward, because not everyone touches noses, especially if you are a girl. To girls, they sometime kiss cheeks. Which is something that you never knew because they don't always kiss cheeks, sometimes the bump noses. So you might go in for the nose, but they are going for the kiss, so it's awkward because then it's almost like you were about to kiss your professor on the nose... But after that confusion was over, we were treated to some traditional Maori song and dance. Of course including the Haka, which is the most intense chant you'll ever see. It's most widely known as the tradition that the All-Blacks (New Zealand's National Rugby Team) upholds before every game, they go on the field and perform this to intimidate the other team. You'll see why...

After that they felt the need to do a chant with audience participation... and I was pulled up to do a dance with poi, with is just to balls connected with rope, that you need to twirl around in certain ways and is surprisingly difficult to do... luckily (for me) I do not have any pictures of that at this time :). We then were pointed in the direction of dinner, which was being cooked in the ground, the traditional method of cooking food at a function such as this. 

Unfortunately, I didn't find the meal to be as satisfying as it was intended to be. The method of cooking I'm pretty sure the made everything a bit squishy and taste like fire. None the less, it was a very awesome experience that I'm glad I had the opportunity to partake in. Well, that's all I have for now. 

Or wait, one last thing. I have been making plans for this mid-semester holiday, and they are going to be quite amazing.... stay tuned :)!