I did some tramping! Also, Operation Friendship

So Thursday after i had come back from buying some course packs for my classes, I came upon Amanda, a fellow IESer. When I asked her what she was doing, she said that she and some other were going to go take a gondola, and asked if I'd like to come along. I agreed. First we went to one of the cafes on campus and got some food (it was about lunchtime). I had one of the riceballs, which I had seen in the UCSA cafeteria but hadn't gotten yet. It turned out to be pretty good. I also had a blackcurrant soda which was cool but different.

Then, we took the bus to the small town of Lyttelton, which is on the outskirts of Christchurch. Now, when I heard "gondola rides," I was expecting one of those boats going up and down the Avon (and I was somewhat justified in this, given that I had seen just such boats in town). But no, in this case "gondola" meant one of those little cabins that get pulled on a wire up a mountain. It wasn't so bad, but the fact that they had to keep on stopping the gondolas to load more people off and on at the top and bottom was kind of...unnerving. A few times when we stopped the cabin definately shook from side to side as well.

Well, when we got to the top, we discovered a souvenier shop that had all of the kitschiest New Zealand mementos imaginable. There were Maori carvings, stuffed animals of kiwis, moreporks, tuis, and wekas, t0-shirts, book, mugs, and all sorts of stuff. Anyways, there was also the "Time Tunnel" ride, where a little car on a magnetic track took you around to various dioramas where a video of a little NZ girl named Olivia told us about the history of NZ. Finally, there was an observation deck and snack bar, but since it was foggy it was hard to really see anything. Finally we decided to hike down the mountain.

It was a couple hours hard tramp, but it was fun, and we got some cool photos. Sometimes the path was alarmingly narrow, and sometimes it was alarmingly close to the edge of a cliff, but it wasn't that hard to tramp along it. Along the way there was a neat little memorial to the Pioneer Women who had founded the Canterbury colony, which I kinda liked. Once we got to the bottom, there was also a nice Maori arch. After getting out off the trail, we still had to walk into Lyttelton, which took about 15 minutes. Once we got to the busstop in Lyttelton, we divided into two groups: the first decided to go home, while the rest of us went in search of a coffee shop. Since I was quite thirsty, I went with the second group. We found a coffee shop with some nice funky decor, and went in. I bought a bottle of something called Lemon Lime and Bitters, which lived up to its name: it was incredibly bitter, although I got used to it as I drank it. I also had a Peppermint bar, which was deliciously chocolatey and minty. After that we went home.

Since I was so tired, I didn't do much Thursday night. I also found myself being quite lazy on Friday, until about 5:30 when I went to Operation Friendship.

Operation Friendship is this organization of kiwis interested in getting to know International students. So yesterday was their welcoming dinner, where we were taken to various houses around Christchurch to have dinner. The guy organizing it wanted each house to have a good cultural mix, so he separated us out into Europeans, Asians, and Americans. The problem was only about three Europeans had shown up, so it was kinda awkward.

I was sent to the house of a man named Nick (who was actually an Australian) whose wife fed us burgers and potatos and other tasty things, For dessert was ice cream with chocolate sauce, which was delicious. However, I did learn that Operation Friendship is a Christian organization, although they weren't trying to convert us or anything. It did make me feel a bit weird, but not enough to prevent me from going back or anything. After dinner we played a game where we each submitted 6 names of famous people and we had to get our partner to guess who they were. I was partnered with a very exuberant Chinese guy named Sam, who was quite enthusiatic about the whole evening. It was interesting to see what people assumed people from other cultures would know: everyone but me in my group had no idea who Leif Erikson was, and our hosts submitted the names of several prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand that I had never heard of. After the game, they took us back to Ilam and I turned in for the night.

So today I hope to either do my laundry, go to the Canterbury Museum, or possibly both. Anywho, I'll update the blog accordingly.

David