Doing the haka while surfing underwater in a war museum

Last weekend we went to the most beautiful beach I have ever been to! The name of it slips my mind, but it was a difficult one anyway. We spent the entire day there and it was so fun. It was the first beach we’d been to with actual waves! They brought boogie boards so we all got a chance to try that. It was especially fun because the tide went so far out that it was a long ride back in. A couple of the girls had never been boogie boarding before, can you believe it? I think I stayed in the water almost the entire time.

 After a while of being there I also did something pretty hardcore. My director’s husband brought along a surfboard and I got to give it a try! It’s harder than it looks! They’re a little heavy and I had this fear that the board was going to flip out of the water and hit me in the face. Look at me go.

I'm just kidding! That's not me! It's a man. The waves I practiced on weren't exactly so big...

I practiced on a lot of little waves and I stood up quite a few times! Despite how small they were I still felt like I was defying nature by standing on top of water.

Maybe next time I’ll be able to try waves that are a little bigger.

Later that night we went and saw The Vow as a huge group and it was a lot of fun.

This past weekend we went on yet another trip! We were all asked to find our own way to the Auckland War Memorial Museum by 2pm. The bus ride alone was quite the adventure, trying to find where to get off and if it was the closest possible stop the museum. We ran around downtown Auckland for almost 45 minutes making our way to the museum. It was worth it though! I’ve never been a museum sort of person but this was very interesting. We started off by attending a cultural performance about the Maori people. They did a lot of traditional songs, dances and games for us and ended by doing the haka, one of the most famous Maori traditions. The men slap different parts of their body and stomp their feet. The dance was originally done to prepare for war. It was to prepare the men physically, mentally and spiritually for battle because often when war time came many of them knew that they would not be coming back. They shout and stick out their tongues. Women will also participate in the haka but will never stick out their tongues. They participate by frowning and opening their eyes very wide. The haka is still done today, often before rugby games and acts as a show of indimidation. The most famous haka has these words:

Ka mate! Ka mate!

Ka ora! Ka ora!

Ka mate! Ka mate!

Ka ora! Ka ora!

Tenei te tangata puhuru huru!

Nana nei I tiki mai whakawhiti te ra!

A upa…ne! Ka upa…ne!

A upane kaupane whiti te ra!

I h!

The rest of the muesem was very interesting. We were able to see old Maori weapons of war and a marae, the Maori meeting house. It was an exhibit but we were asked to take off our shoes before we entered.

 On another floor they had exhibits that displayed different aspects of New Zealand land such as volcanoes, the ocean, the coastal region and the animals that lived there. In the volcanic exhibit they had an earthquake replicator. We were given the opportunity to sit in a room set up just like a regular living room and watch out our “window” the volcanic eruption happening in the harbor below. As the billowing cloud of ash closed in on us the room began to shake and jerk, showing what would happen if we were to experience a real earthquake caused by a volcanic eruption. I knew it wasn’t real and it still scared me.

After the museum we had the opportunity to attend an actual rugby game! It wasn’t an All Blacks game, but it was exciting nonetheless! It was between the Auckland Blues and the Christchurch Crusaders. It was much different from a football game. I have to say that I liked it a lot better…mostly because the clock didn’t stop every 7 seconds. They do this funny thing in rugby where they lift their teammates on their shoulders so that they can catch the ball before the other team. It made me laugh a little because it looked a lot like a cheerleading lift. The fact that they don’t wear very much padding really scares me! There was one point on the field where some guy was at the bottom of a pile and I swear it looked like he almost snapped his neck. Your head is not supposed to be at the angle his was. But he just popped right up again like nothing had happened! Unfortunately the Crusaders won, but just barely. They were neck in neck down to the very last seconds.

Today Brooke and I had planned to go to the beach but the weather didn’t seem quite right. We still wanted to go out and do something so we decided to see if we could find our way to Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World. We had originally planned on going there as a group but I guess the plans changed. We took a city map that Phyllis provided for us and hopped on the next bus to downtown. And we did it! We made all the connections we were hoping to make and successfully found our way to Kelly Tarlton’s! We were so impressed with ourselves!

The Underwater World was small, but really cool! They had an entire moving sidewalk underwater. We walked beneath sharks and sting rays and all sorts of fish. They even had an exhibit that had preserved the body of a giant female squid. I don’t think that anyone has ever seen a live giant squid. We only know they’re out there because they’ve occasionally washed up on beaches. The squid they had preserved was only 12 months old and was already longer than my arm span! It was crazy.

One of my favorite parts of the exhibit was the penguins. They had two types. One had yellow on it’s head and the other was smaller and plain. It reminded me of that story of the star-bellied sneetches because the penguins stood around in their own little clicks. It looked like the yellow-headed penguins didn’t typically associate themselves with the plain ones. Haha.

I still have yet to see a real live whale. Kelly Tarlton’s wasn’t quite big enough to have one. And now that I think about it, I don’t know how well a whale would do in an aquarium. I think the ocean is really the only place big enough. Well, hopefully one of these days…