Doubtful Sound Trip

It has been awhile since my last post, so far everything is going good at my high school down here.  I have began teaching more and learning the art of drinking tea and eating biscuits, those are cookies down here, classic Americans not knowing that.  This weekend we made a trip over to Doubtful Sound, we originally were planning on going to Milford Sound, but we are saving that for another weekend so we can do a kayaking trip through it, cause you know I will take any excuse to get my David Hasselhoff on.

So we left Alex around 5:30pm and reached Lake Manapouri around 8:30pm.  By this time we have already traveled through snow and wind to get there, even though it is about to get into their summer season down here.  We found a place that I will call quaint, when in actuality I mean someone has most likely been murdered or had a Stephen King book based off of it.  We all shared a small cabin, which allowed me a chance to remember the days of sleeping on a bunk bed.

After we got settled in, we went next door to the bar where they were having a Guy Fawkes celebration, which consisted of a huge bonfire, fireworks, and a random hawaiian dancer.  It was a pretty fun night, we called it a night early so we could get up the next morning for the Doubtful Sound  tour.  The next morning we woke up, jumped on the bus the company picked us up in.  We quickly realized that we were the youngest people on the tour.  The tour was really cool, unfortunately the weather was not the greatest.  There was a lot of fog and snow throughout the day.  Actually while going thru the mountains to get to the boat, we got stuck.  The driver got out to put chains on the tire, luckily I had have seen episodes of Ice Road Truckers, so I knew exactly what he was doing.

Once we moved thru the mountains we got onto a boat that took us through a 3 hour tour of Doubtful Sound.  Even with the weather not the greatest it was really cool.  I will put some pictures at the end of this post.  After the tour, we went back to a scene out of the Shining, or as we referred to it, where we were staying for the night, and relaxed for a bit.  We then went back to the bar next door for dinner and played a little pool.  All in all it was a pretty good night.  The next morning we woke up and made our way back home.  Along the way we were able to see unbelievable views of mountains and lakes that we missed on our way up, due to the snow and fog.

We are now back at home unpacking and getting ready for the next week of teaching.  Not sure what the plan is for next week, but if we travel somewhere I will try to write a post about it.

This is Alex Higginbotham once again saying, "If I am gonna cutloose, or footloose, I would rather take off my Tuesday shoes."

First Few Days of Teaching

So I have finally started my student teaching at my new school, which just so happens to be in New Zealand too, so luckily I was visiting.  So far I really like the school.  It is completely different from the schools in the states.  It is much more relaxed and the students are given a little more independence when it comes to the type of work they do.  The staff here is great and always friendly.  I haven't started teaching much, still kind of getting used to the new environment.  I will start teaching a little bit next week, doing a few lessons on U.S. history.

Some of the biggest differences here are the length of the school days.  I do get an extra hour of sleep, which is nice, because as all of you who know me well, I need an extra hour to rest from the amount of physical activity I do in a day.  Plus the fridge is about ten feet farther away then what I have grown accustomed to, which usually requires a break midway thru the trek.  I also get to partake in interval, or "tea time" while I am here.  This is about 30 minutes long, where I go to the staff room, drink tea, and talk with the faculty.  I immediately felt out of place during my first tea time.  I had to awkwardly look around to figure out how to make tea.  After burning my fingers a few times, trying to remove the bag from the boiling hot water I had just poured, I began catching on.  I believe I have become a socially acceptable tea drinker now, but I am in no way ready to move my way up to the elite tea drinkers, you know the ones who know whether they like one cube of sugar or two.

Well I think I am gonna make my way back home, it is about a 20 minute walk for me, which probably converts to 10 minutes for most individuals.  I have however purchased an umbrella down here, which comes with a nice 5 inch pole on the top that I can use as a walking stick, in case my body begins to give out.

Well once again, this is Alex Higginbotham saying, "Who did let those dogs out?"

An Awesome Labor Day Weekend

I have just gotten back to my house here in Alexandra after an amazing 5 day trip around the south island of New Zealand.  All the schools were on break for the rugby world cup, as well as for Labor Day.  I was unable to blog while on the road so hopefully I can remember everything we did.

Day 1
After a much needed rest, myself and my three awesome roommates got up and began deciding what the plan was for the next few days.  We ultimately decided that we didn't want to have any plans, so we just packed our bags for five days and jumped in the car.  We knew that Christchurch would be one of our stops along the way, so we ended up staying in a city about an hour from it the first day.  The ride during this day was amazing, the land changes after every turn.  We started out on flat land, then the next thing you know we were high in the mountains.  Although we spent almost the entire day in the car, it was an awesome experience.  Seeing lakes that almost have a teal color to them, due to the glacier runoff, was one of the highlights of the day.

Day 2
After a good nights sleep we packed our bags and headed to Christchurch for the day.  Upon our arrival we were blown away by the damage that was still present in the city, from the earthquakes earlier this year.  A huge chunk of their downtown area was completely closed off to the public, we were able to walk around the outside of the fences and snap a few pictures, so people back home could see what this city still looks like.  Finding a place to stay proved to be a little bit of a challenge because of the earthquake.  One of the people working at a hostel said the city lost about 1500 beds for people to use.  Once we found a hotel to stay at we dropped our stuff off and made an impromptu trip out to a adrenaline ropes course.  It was an awesome way to spend 3 hours out of the day.  Near the end of it everyone, myself especially included, began to have second thoughts on completing the hardest course they had.  However, after we all completed the course, it was cool knowing we completed the same course that we saw people getting helped down from just a half hour earlier.  It was quite the workout too, even though people tend to see me as a bearded Jean-Claude Vandam, I definately felt it the next morning.  After the ropes course we stopped by the ocean on our way back to the hotel.

Day 3
We all woke up a little slower this morning.  Our next destination was going to be Dunedin, which we would be spending a few nights there.  We packed our bags, looked around the city a little bit and then headed out on the road.  We once again managed to stop along the way to snap a few pictures.  We got into Dunedin a little later, around 9.  We found a backpackers, which is similar to a hostel, dropped our stuff off and met the guy we would be sharing the room with, Pedro.  We then headed out to the "Octagon" which is their downtown area.  After switching pubs, we randomly ran into Pedro, who joined us for the rest of the night.

Day 4
After we woke up this morning, we headed out to find lunch.  Here we met up with another guy from Iowa State, who one of my roommates knew from Ames.  He was kind enough to offer up a spare room in his flat for the night.  On our way to his flat, we decided to drive up the world's steepest road, which I mean literally.  After a few tense moments we made it to the top in our top notch minivan.  We then headed to the flat where we met a bunch of people he lived with in his flat.  These people were from the US, Europe, and New Zealand.  We spent the afternoon hanging out in their yard tailgating for the rugby match that night.  We then headed to a place called " The Baaaaar", which is sheep humor at its finest.  We watched the game with the locals, and it was intense all the way to the end.  New Zealand pulled out the win and the celebration followed.  It was incredible to be in that environment, random strangers were hugging each other, which means I was going around hugging people I knew for a solid 3 seconds.  We then joined the march of people to the downtown area.  People were stopping cars, giving out high fives, FO FREE, yes and I know not everyone understands that reference.

After this night we woke up in the morning and packed the car for the trip home.  A few surprising things about New Zealand that I learned during this trip.  First, the kiwis love them some KFC.  Second, apparently tennis shoes and jeans is a fashion don't, but I remembered that I play for keeps, not to mention by my own rules, so I wore them anyway.  I am sure it is not the first or last fashion mistake I make.  Also, Kmart is big down here.  They have stores along the streets and even in malls.

I know this post has rambled on for far too long, but I wanted to describe the past few days.  It was an incredible way to be introduced to the country.  I am now getting everything ready for my first day of student teaching tomorrow.  I am excited to meet the students and faculty, and also to experience my first "tea time".  I will hopefully have more trips like this to write about in the future.

This is Alex Higginbotham saying "Im gonna steal your girl, like I stole your bike." - Courtesy of the great band LFO.

First Day in New Zealand

After the long 28 hour travel day, I was happy to get off the plane for good.  To my surprise I did not need to medicate myself, to the degree I thought I would, which looks similar to the cinema classic "Weekend at Bernie's."  Coming into the final airport, in Queenstown, we went through different canyons of mountains, if I wasn't sweating and scared we were gonna crash, I may have enjoyed that part a little more.  Once we got off the plane, the first view you see is amazing, I will try to post a picture of it soon.  You looked directly into a huge mountain, with snow still on top.
Once we got into the airport we met up with Mick, a kiwi, see how I used that term there?, who works for the primary school.  He took us around a few of the cities, bought us lunch, and managed to show us one person bungee jumping.  We finally arrived at our new house around 4pm here.  The school was nice enough to give us a gift basket and drinks.  We spent the rest of the day unpacking and going to bed early.
Today the plan is start traveling the next few days.  We are not sure which city we are going to start in, but for Saturday and Sunday we will be staying in the city of Dunedin.  This weekend should be pretty exciting, the Rugby World Cup Final is Sunday night, which New Zealand is playing in.  Everywhere around the country you see flags and shirts for the All Blacks, the national team.  Well I am going to go get ready and figure out where we are going to be traveling this weekend.

This is Alex Higginbotham, saying keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. -courtesy of the great Casey Kasem.

This is a picture of the view stepping off the plane.