verbal_kint | New Zealand Pics (Reply)

New Zealand was also great (Is that a surprise? Are you stunned?). A lot more fast-paced than Fiji was...but this it shares with the rest of the world. The ten of us split up after a few days, as we were assigned to home stay families, or fake families, as I called them. My fake parents names were, and I kid you not, Emily and James Wilson. Fortunately (for them) I spent less time with Mr. Wilson than the rest of the family because he was working. Otherwise, I might've...asked him to cook or something *shudders.* They were the absolute sweetest people imaginable though; had two daughters about my age and a dog name Tui. Someone told me that means "Fetch" in Maori. My fake mom was hilarious to the degree that I may have lost weight from laughing so much. I spent three days with the Wilsons, then we went on to other adventures and such.

Spent the first night at a Maori Marae, where the warriors demonstrated how to scared off other tribes by sticking your tongue out. I thought it was pretty scary...

We slept in the Whare Puni, which is a great honor for stupid visitors like ourselves. Believe it or not, it's actually where they place bodies after death for three days to let their families mourn. Those pictures on the wall are the Whakapapa, or ancestors of this Maori tribe. It's not a place to make jokes in...HOWEVER, "whakapapa" is pronounced like "fuck your papa." Nobody wanred me of this, thus...I stifled some giggles. And while I'm not a huge believer, if you look closely at this picture, you can see orbs, which are supposed to be signs of ghosts, haha.

A Catholic church in Rotorua. This church has a glass carving (is that the right word?) or Jesus that, from inside the church, makes it look as though he's walking on the lake behind the church.

I still feel guilty about this. That's a cemetery behind me. But the rock was...so...cool...

The Rotorua Bath House Museum. Rotorua is a city in the caldera of a dormant volcano, and its natural spring water was used for medicinal purposes in the 1800s. The entire town smells like a fart as a result.

Wiewera hot springs, where the temp 2in. in the ground is 200 degrees F

New title of journal y/y?

Taken from the top Mt. Maunganui by a friend, as I'm obviously not much for climbing.

Just outside of Auckland.

Here's a video of me breaking a board because ~~I'm a badass~~ I attended a self-improvement workshop on confidence in the mountains near Christchurch involving programming one's reticular activating system, or RAS, and climbing using only your hands, which is fine by me. Admittedly, even though everyone can do this, I was very, very nervous about breaking this thing.