Flying Buddha and the Quixotic Autumn

Hi guys and gals!

Hoping that the spring most of you are enjoying feels refreshing and smells delicious!   It's been rainy here too,  but without the promise of hot summer days ahead.  My body doesn't get it.  

The days are getting shorter, yet the flowers continue to bloom. No comprende. 

I'm looking ahead to only three more weeks of classes,  then finals,  then pretty much straight away headed back to the states! 

May is NZ music month.  Check out any of these guys! 

It's probably a little to early to start waxing poetic about how this experience has been,  so I'll save or for a later blog.  In the mean time I'll take note of a few things of varying interestingness.
In my " Maori health perspectives" class I'm learning about the deep importance of family as am aspect of health.  We watched a fantastic documentary about a Maori family with a genetic disorder.  Through very pressing times,  whanau (Pronounced:pheynow) are the well of strength. 

I'm coming to enjoy statistics more every day.  It doesn't come easy to me,  but the examples we use in classes come from real life scenarios,  which is very cool.  I imagine all the ways I could use stats in my own life. 

As always,  food is a favorite subject for discussion.  Purple cabbage is my choice pick veggie right now.  Oh yeah,  I forgot to mention that carrots are very tasty here: always sweet,  never with that bitter taste.  

Is this paleo?! *flexes arm muscle*

I've been taking action to get stronger.  The Rec center offers a variety of free classes every day,  so despite my urge to hermit away,  I just can't pass up the opportunity for free motivation.  Aside from fitness classes,  I went to a Buddhist meditation and also am acrobatic yoga workshop last week. They were both refreshing and interesting!

Proud to announce I was climbing across the wall race champion! 

The only thing better than doing yoga, is having someone else do yoga for you! Heheheh

Flying buddha! 

Wishing you health and wellness in the most robust sense of the term. 
Love,
Darwin

land unlocked

Hi

Lilies by the beach

Oh boy, oh boy.  I am finally coming to understand why all my coastally raised friends balk when I tell them of my land-locked upbringing. 

Luckily in NZ you are never far from mountain or ocean!

I had been back from the great roadtrip for about three days before the yearning to go to the ocean became overwhelming. I made sure to get a solid breakfast in my belly before throwing on my winter coat and hopping onto my bike. What is this yearning!  Be Still my heart! 

What even is this?! On campus. No wonder I yearn to escape.

I tried to bargain for a nice riverside spot that wouldn't require the daunting hour long ride,  but Nay said my steadfast heart.  It made a good compromise where it became still, along with my treadmill mind, only upon reaching the  beach.  

The constancy of the slate gray waves crashing again and again across the shores,  eroding,  cleaning,  making noise just for the sake of making noise.  I like to look out and imagine that I can telescope all the way across the pacific, to the shores of San Francisco, right into my sister's life. It's funny how a big thing like the ocean can seem so little.  especially after I've been making mountains out of mole hills  .

Mole hill? Mountain?

This is one of those mountainsi was really sad to not be seeing every day. Milford sound. 

You can say I'm tapering off of vacation.  I've spent a solid 20 hours perusing the intranets (perusing might not be the right word.  What I'm doing is slightly more obsessive) researching just about everything motorcycle.  I've loved motorized vehicles from knee high to a grasshopper.  I remember begging my mom to bring me to the go kart tracks when I was 9; then looking in the newspaper for a 50 cc dirt bike when I was 12. And more recently,  I had saved up $500 for a sweet little '79 Honda CB360 right after I graduated college, yet ended up with a hand crafted oak horse carriage from the farm auction instead. . I digress.  I have even gone so far as to stalk the bikes at the local Yamaha dealership. And I also feel best when I pretend that my (sturdy,  awesome,  loveable,  but not motorized) bicycle is actually an undercover motorcycle. 

As you can tell,  my rationalization powers are chugging away at full force.  Let's just say it's between this and being a cat lady. 

Other than being slave to my inner mermaid and being myopically obsessed with two wheels and a motor,  I have made a very delicious roasted beet and warmed chickpea salad with feta and herbs (yum),    given more henna tattoos,  learned to drive on the kiwi side of the road (no metaphor), composed my own ukelele song,  and learned that season 2 of orange is the new black gives me nightmares,  so I have to stop it now.

Irish rorschach love henna

I also practiced my photoshop skillz. In the future I don't have to ever go anywhere or do anything;  i will just manipulate a photo to give the impression!

I have been so blessed to receive emails from a few friends back home.  All the little stories and photos are great medicine for the homesickness.  I'm so grateful!    Please send me little notes if anything strikes your fancy ; they're so special to me! 

Xoxo

kaikoura

                     Unsurprisingly my blogging gusto is falling under the universal law of entropy.    It is not that I have had fewer thoughts and experiences I want to share,  just a simple matter of school squeezing quite tightly my time budget.

Even tasty,  homemade meals are becoming more rare as the semester gains momentum.

Molecular genetics continues to threaten to explode my brain.  On top of the difficult subject matter is the learning what expectations are for learning methods and outcomes.  Only one of my four classes provided a syllabus,  so each week it is important for me to set aside some time to comb through the class Web pages to see what to expect.  This is one of the more notable adjustments I have had to make in this experience of studying abroad.  The other is that classes do not provide study guides to outline what is expected knowledge on tests. This makes studying the appropriate
Material somewhat of a shot in the dark.

Fusing a nature find with a drawing and some Samsung galaxy photo editing to relieve the brain squish of threatening squareness. All work and no play =  no thank you.

You can imagine how wide open my arms were to a bit of escape when the weekend hit!   The plan was to rent a car with 3 of my 4 roommates and cruise north for about 3 hours until we reached the coastal town of kaikora.

My roommates pose in front of our budget clown car

The road wound through sheep filled foothills.  I would feel like I was in Colorado for aboot 2 seconds,  with the dry,  grassy hills dotted with pines,  and then I would notice a massive and mystical eucalyptus tree, and that whole feeling would go out the window.

Somewhat familiar scenery

Stopping for a pee break it was a lucky coincidence that we found ourselves in the parking lot of the local community's weekly farmers market.  The market is on year round and has lots of crafts,  baked goods,  meats and cheeses in addition to the expected veggies.  I treated myself to a caramel latte and a bacon+cream cheese bagel for breakfast.  Yolo!

Patron saint of the hot cross bun

Yumyumyum yumyumyum

Someone was selling second hand children's toys.  This resourcefulness was most reminiscent of Taos. 

Kaikora was a further 2 hours of beautiful mountainous driving.  Although we were traveling northbound along the coast,  much of the time the sea was hidden behind rolling hills.  The trees are just beginning to fade out of green and show a tinge of yellow.    

It's beginning to look a little like autumn

We made it or of the winding foothills and emerged onto the rocky western coast of new zealand south island

                 
          Kaikora is a great touristy destination with lots of options for activities.  Go swim with dolphins,  or kayak amongst the seals!  We decided instead to just walk or onto the extensive stone slab of a peninsula and sun ourselves next to the crashing waves,  as if we were the seals.

Luckily we woke up from our sun baked oblivion just in time to get off of the some slab as the tide was roosting and threatening to separate us from the land mass.  I am not exaggerating when I say it was a very close call!    By the time we got near the parking lot we had to cross a rising rover ride up to our knees,  and quickly rising.  It was very Into The Wild of us.

Enengulfed! Yay!

Drive home was equally beautiful and even more comfortable due to finally getting used to sitting in what is usually the driver's seat with no pedals or steering wheel.

Honing in on the rare Armenian mermaid

I hope the sound clip attaches to this image to give a better feel for the road trip!

Good jams and serene scenery.  I see some similarities of NZ <---> NM vibes the more rural I travel.

Cheers!