Darwin (started in Christchurch)

Alright, It’s been a few days since I’ve been at the computer and it’s time to catch up. My second day in Christchurch was quite an exciting one and I’m ready to tell you about it. I woke up the next morning and I went to the information site to see if I could book the Maori experience, the dinner and performance show from the local community who told the story of the original inhabitants of NZ that had been recommended to me earlier in my trip, but it was not running for the night. Instead, I decided to book a trip to a less thorough experience but included some of the wildlife of the country in the tour, like the kiwi and the kea I had been reading about in the museums.

When I was in the information center booking my tour, I ran into the same kid, Nicholas, who I had given a ride a week beforehand on the other side of the country. I thought after dropping him off that we should exchange plans just in case we were in the same place at the same time, but it seemed to work out that we didn’t need to. We arranged to meet up later in the day to discuss our travel plans to the airport the next day, as my flight had been changed to be the same as his the following day. I toured the botanical gardens for the rest of the afternoon and did some critical packing for the upcoming journey to Sydney.

By chance, I was selected to be the ‘chief’ of our 50 person group for the night of our Maori experience, having to accept the warrior’s peace offering which allowed our group to enter their settlement for the time being. I had to stand tall with courage to fend off the warrior’s attempt at scaring our group away, and then I had to make friends with the chief by shaking hands while touching foreheads and noses. It was pretty funny when the chief of the Maori tribe assumed that the girl sitting next to me was my ‘mate’ until the leader of the guided tour had to inform him that we had just met on the bus on our way there. We learned a bit of the haka, which is the war dance intended to scare off neighboring tribes, and had plenty of stage time to make fools of ourselves (especially me, being the chief). After returning back to the city, I had the luxury of my first meal at a restaurant in a long time. With dinner only being $22, it raised my cost per day of food by a whole dollar.

I don’t want you to get the impression that I’m this ridiculously cheap person who doesn’t do anything because it all costs money. I certainly enjoy splurging on the things I feel are truly meaningful, and wish I had enough money to buy everyone what they want. I just wanted to preface my analytical breakdown of the finances on this trip. I only went to the grocery store two main times on my road trip, planning it just about perfectly to have nothing left but a little rice when it was time to turn the campervan back in. I broke it down and it turns out I spent just over $12/day on food. I spent $950 in gas in three weeks driving just over 4000 kilometers. Man…that’s a LOT of money to spend on something that you don’t get to keep. I do have some incredible memories and wonderful pictures from the places it allowed me to go, though. Fortunately, this trip was amazingly timed so that I’ve been able to save up all semester during my last co-op in Virginia to be adequately prepared for such costs, so I’m doing alright. I have to keep in mind two things while abroad: if I don’t do it now, I might not be back to give it a second thought, and secondly, I’m not going to have a steady income until I graduate from college so my money needs to last for the next year. Although these are conflicting thoughts, they help me to realize what’s important and what’s not.

I wanted to add a few of the peculiar happenings to the story here that aren’t in order chronologically, but for me were just crazy. My first night in Christchurch, I was cooking dinner before I wrote my blog and I saw a shadow outside and then stop at the door. I saw a guy knock on my window and I was like Uh oh. So I opened the sliding door to see what the guy wanted. He was on his bike and said as I was opening the door that he had seen me parked there for a couple hours and wanted to know if I’d like to come take a warm shower and get some tea in the morning at his place down the street. My first thought was of caution because I didn’t understand why he would make such a generous offer without some specific intent. I said I would be interested, and he showed me on the map where he lived. We chatted briefly (my attempt to understand his motives) and I was reading all the signs I could to see if this was a genuine offer or not. His hands were dirty when he was pointing at the map, he said he’d been on the road before and knew how good a warm shower could feel sometimes. So I told him I’d meet him at 10 the next day and he went on his way. For the rest of the night, I was kicking myself as I thought of some better questions that I could have asked that would have let me see a little more of where he was coming from. I was analyzing our whole conversation to try to convince myself one second, why I shouldn’t go, and the next second, why I should go. Why would a dirty guy offer a shower if he wasn’t clean himself? Why didn’t he give me an address instead of saying the fenced yard with a black Prelude outside? Since he offered without knowing who was in the car, would he have offered to anyone? All these thoughts were making me quite unsure about what I should do, how safe it would be, worse case scenario, etc. Especially since I just found a public bathroom with a shower for $3. So when I ran into Nicholas the next morning and told him about it, he encouraged me that if I felt uncomfortable, I could always leave. His experience hitchhiking across the country made him feel pretty safe among the Kiwis. So I went to the guy’s house and took many precautions to make sure I had a safe exit, my car was out of sight, no peep holes in the shower, etc. I was being ridiculously skeptical but figured it couldn’t hurt. After I got out, he offered food but I said I’d rather just talk for a few minutes without the grub. It sounded like he had changed locations a lot recently and was used to living outside, just renting a room in the house we were in and thought it’d be nice to offer a shower since it wasn’t really his house. Nice guy…we chatted for a few minutes and I went on my way.

When I was waiting in the city square for the shuttle to come for the Maori experience, the couple who camped next to me both nights in Queenstown happened to be walking by the place I was standing. We talked for a while what we had been doing the last couple days, and grabbed a drink to say farewell. They inspired me – they’ve been traveling for 18 months and have been living off their money until it runs out, upon which they get good paying jobs, save up, and travel some more.

I turned the campervan in the next morning without any hitches; I was glad to have my $5000 deposit put back into my account. A quick walk to the airport and I was off to Sydney. It was a bit of a hassle figuring out what I needed to do for the 12 hours I was going to be in town, so I just decided to find a place to sleep in the airport, and was very excited to find a shower for the morning. A quick four hour flight brought us to Darwin, where we settled in and went to the Mindil Beach markets – a fair like atmosphere on the beach with tons of food and shops.

Our program is through the University of New South Wales and consists of four programs who generally have the same itinerary for the course of the six weeks. Some parts of the trip have been substituted for others, but from what I can tell, we have the largest variety. With nine professors over the course of the program, we’ll be getting input from some leaders in the energy. I’ve been really excited about our first two days of class, my mind’s been brimming with ideas and questions, things that are very intriguing and important in today’s energy market. I think for the most part we’ll just be viewing issues from a broad perspective, but enough to get me thinking about some neat ways to invent something. I’ll get into more detail after we have a few more classes so it’s not such a vague description.

130 new friends, all eager to meet one another. I’ve met almost everybody already, lots of kids from Pennsylvania, U of M, Auburn, Georgia Tech, and a few more. It’s interesting to hear the different opinions of class, some people find the four hours of energy discussion a living hell, whereas I’m really enjoying our topics. I don’t have any sympathy for them because they would have had a tough time in my Spanish LBAT, 8 hours of intensive Spanish class with lots of homework. Anyways, I’m excited about the possibilities.

We’re leaving Friday morning for a national park nearby, Kakadu. We’ll be camping there for three days, getting to see a uranium mine and see some neat natural features. I’m excited to hike but am going to have to remember to take it easy so I don’t power hike past everybody like I’ve been doing for the last three weeks. Catch up with you next week!