Catch a Wave!

I've had Beach Boys songs in my head for days...because I went surfing last weekend! They were offering group beginner classes at a beach near Raglan and I decided it would be an adventure worth having. Our instructors taught us the steps to standing up on a board and staying balanced, and we practiced on land for about a half hour before heading to the ocean. Once I figured out I wasn't going to die, it was a lot of fun! I'm sure it will surprise nobody that I'm not a natural surfer, but I managed to stand up on my board a couple of times, and one time I even rode the wave most of the way back to the beach before falling off. The class went for about three hours, and my muscles gave up before the instructors did. I had no idea how much strength it takes to push yourself up on a board--I was sore for days afterwards! After I got to the point where I couldn't push myself up on the board anymore, the surfboard turned into a boogie board and I just played in the waves.

Those clouds in the picture make it look like the day was overcast...which it wasn't. And I absentmindedly forgot to put on sunscreen. (Actually, I didn't forget. I was trying to do too many things at once, and I was thinking "sunscreen" as I was actually spraying on bug spray. You'll be glad to know that no mosquitoes bit me as I was in the ocean.) I ended up with one of those sunburns that everybody feels like they need to comment on for the next five days.



AND...I forgot to pack my swim suit when I was getting ready for my flight (it was sitting on my bed saying, "Bring me! Bring me!" but I didn't hear it) but I didn't want to give up my chance to go surfing, so I went in shorts and a T-shirt. Note: it's really hard to put a wet suit on over shorts, especially when the wet suit is already wet. I left my car keys in my shorts pocket, not even thinking that this might be a foolish thing to do. They got soaked (note: wet suits do not keep you dry), and so did the little electronic doohickey that turns off the car alarm. When I went back to my car after we were done surfing, the car alarm turner-offer on the keychain wouldn't work, and so I couldn't start the car because the car thought it was being stolen.

With some help from the surfing instructor and exactly no help at all from the rental car company (despite being on the phone for an hour--never rent cars from Thrifty) I got back to Raglan that night and walked back to the car park (about 10 km) the next day to see if the keychain thing would work once it dried out. It did, thank goodness.

It was a very absentminded weekend, but it was still fun.

Camping Raglan-style

I can no longer say that I've never driven in New Zealand. I gathered my courage (which was more like rolling my eyes and telling myself to get on with it) and rented a car to go out to Raglan last weekend. (I had to go to Hamilton for work and Raglan is near there on the coast, so I flew out early to go camping over the weekend.) It went pretty well: I didn't kill anyone, and there was only one time that I forgot which side of the road I was supposed to be on. (And even that was merely annoying rather than life-threatening: I was waiting to pull out of a parking lot onto a semi-busy intersection, and I was getting ready to turn in the right direction but I was on the wrong side of the driveway--which caused a minor traffic jam as the poor woman who was trying to pull into the parking lot from the busy intersection couldn't get in, because I was in her lane.) I turned on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal every single time I tried to turn and there were a few times I had to go around a roundabout more than once, but all in all, it was a success.

Here's my brand-new tent, and you can see my trusty rental car in the background.



And here are some pictures of camping facilities in New Zealand.

(Dear Chad,
I know you probably don't read this blog, but I wanted you to know that I thought of you and your enjoyment of all things camping as I took these pictures.
Love, Heidi)





Maybe campsites in the States are like this too and I just always ended up at the backwoods sites that didn't have kitchens or TVs.

And here are some Raglan photos. My campsite was mere meters away from that black sand beach.

The Nutcracker

My friends and I went to see a very different version of The Nutcracker yesterday. I was wondering why they were performing it so far before Christmas, but this version had very little to do with Christmas. It had the same Tchaikovsky score, but if you've ever seen The Nutcracker, you'll know that it doesn't typically include a hospital scene, a doctor/nurse romance, or guys on crutches.



It was still really fun, though.

I love to see the temple

I had to go to Hamilton for work, and since that's where the temple is, I decided to stay over the weekend and visit the temple. (Hamilton is about an 8-hour drive or a 1-hour flight from Wellington. I love it when work sends me places that I wanted to go anyway.)

Just about every intersection in the entire city of Hamilton has signs indicating the direction to the LDS temple, so it's impossible to get lost, at least on the way there. You'd think it was a massive tourist draw or something. The temple is west of Hamilton in a "suburb" (I'm not sure it can officially be called a suburb, since it's farther away than the other suburbs, but I can't think of a better word) called Temple View. As if that wasn't cheesy enough, Temple View's streets have names like "McKay Drive," "Cowley Drive," and "Deseret Road." It's like having mini-Utah in the middle of New Zealand.


I had heard of Church College of New Zealand but had never seen it before. When they talk about "college" here they mean high school, and higher education is referred to as "university." (I've gotten more than a few quizzical looks when referring to my "college degree.") So Church College was a boarding school for kids aged 13-18. (Boarding schools are very common here.) It opened in 1958 and just closed last year. I don't know the full story about why it closed--old buildings and other public education options in the country had something to do with it, and there are some nefarious rumours which I probably shouldn't repeat--but many people in my ward are still heartbroken that it's gone. I had no idea the place was so big! It was probably half the size that Ricks College was when I went there.


I'm mystified about who this statue is supposed to be (which is kind of cool because at least it's something different!). He's barely clothed, is holding a rod, and has a jutting finger pointing to the sky. Moses was my best guess, although he didn't seem very Moses-like. He looked more like King Triton.


Don't these remind you of church dorms everywhere?


The view looked just like this on every side. It was like being in Blackfoot, only prettier.



And here's the temple! This was my first time being in a temple outside the United States. Almost everyone in there with me was Asian, Maori, or Pacific Islander--I was the only light-haired person in the crowded room. The temple is gorgeous inside, with beautiful murals in some of the rooms.

Paraparaumu

A few weekends ago, we had Monday off for Labour Day, so after church on Sunday (that was the weekend I had to do EVERYTHING in church, so I couldn't leave before Sunday) I went to Paraparaumu Beach, about an hour's train ride from Wellington, to spend a few days. The pictures I have of the beach aren't that impressive because the tide was in. It got prettier when the tide went out, but by then it was too dark to take good pictures.



Where oysters go to die...



It was a nice, relaxing weekend, though. My favorite part was the moonlight walk on the deserted beach.

City to the Sea

A few Saturdays ago (I'm playing catch-up here) I joined a few friends on the City to the Sea trek in Wellington, a trek that goes (surprisingly!) from the City to the Sea. In our case, though, we went from the Sea to the City. The trail winds through a bunch of connected parks and reserves and isn't always very well marked, so we got lost a lot. But Wellington was usually visible in the distance, so it's not like we were really "lost" (as in, never finding our way back home). It was supposed to be a 6-hour trek but only took us about 4 hours (including a stop for lunch) so we were proud of ourselves.

I would LOVE to live in one of these little bays!



It's hard to believe we were never more than a ten-minute walk from a bus stop.



It never rained on us, but it was gloomy like this all day. The sun came out briefly, for about two seconds, while we were having lunch. (The weather report had forecast a beautiful weekend. Somebody ought to sue weather people.)




Can I just say that parks in New Zealand beat the parks in the U.S., hands-down? This park had a flying fox, which initially I thought was just for kids until my friends started swinging on it. I had to do it too.



This thing is kind of like a teeter-totter, except that it's suspended and it swings.


There's also a three-story spiderweb, and a mini-dirtbike track for mini dirtbikes! I so wish I had gotten a picture of the 3-year-old riding his tiny little dirtbike around the track.

If this doesn't make you all want to come visit me, nothing will!

Church

Today in church I:
* played the organ in Sacrament Meeting,
* taught a Primary class,
* played the piano for Relief Society,
* accompanied the musical number,
* taught the Relief Society lesson,
* accompanied choir practice.

Now I:
* don't feel like blogging,
* think I'll take a nap.

Thick accents, thicker heads

One of the latest posts on http://notalwaysright.com features the library in my adopted city and a clueless American. I had to share it.


Thick Accents, Thicker Heads

Library | New Zealand

(A teenage girl enters the library.)

Me: “Hi, do you need help?”

Customer: “Oh, yeah, I’m looking for a book.”

Me: “Okay, are you a member of this library or any other Wellington library?”

Customer: “Oh, no, I’m here with my Mother for the US summer cause I live with Dad in Florida.”

Me: “Okay, we can sign you up to the library for free and issue you a card, the card will cost two dollars.”

Customer: “Okay.”

Me: “So, what book were you looking for?”

Customer: “Twilight. Have you heard of it? Most people in America have read it, but I’m not sure if it’s here.”

Me: “Oh, yeah, it was quite big for a while. My sister loved it.”

Customer: “Yeah, it’s my second favorite book ever, after Eclipse.”

Me: “Oh, did you leave your copy in America?”

Customer: “No, I just wanted a copy from here because everyone here has really funny accents and I wanted to know how that would change the story.”

No church today!

I did the usual rushing around to get ready for church this morning and made it to the bus stop just in time. On bus, my friends and I were chatting, and then we noticed some flashing lights ahead near the church building. As we got closer and closer, we realized the flashing lights (three fire trucks) were AT the church building! There wasn't a fire, though. What we found was this:



It's hard to see from the picture, but the steeple had blown over in the wind and was now sitting very precariously on those bricks.

Originally I guess the Bishopric was told that we could have church anyway as long as we only had meetings in an area that wouldn't cave in if the steeple fell down, so they set up the gym (located in the back of the building) for Sacrament Meeting and canceled all the other meetings.


But THEN, about 10 minutes before church started, the fire warden showed up and said we all needed to evacuate.

I've had church canceled because of snow or ice storms plenty of times. Another time it was canceled because of a tornado warning, and once we only had Sacrament Meeting because we needed to spend the rest of the time sandbagging a river. Once when I was a teenager, we had to evacuate our building because a little kid sprayed mace into the air conditioning vents and gassed everyone. But this was the first time I've had church canceled because the steeple might fall over and kill us.

Botanical Gardens

Saturday here was cold, wet, and windy, so I scrapped my plans to go hiking and decided to go to the planetarium instead. (I'm sure it will surprise no one to know that I'm nerdy enough to hold an annual pass.) Instead of walking up the hill to the botanical gardens, where the planetarium is, I decided to take the cable car since that's one of the heavily promoted must-do things in Wellington. And...it was a cable car. Somehow I thought it would be cooler.








Wellington Harbour and business district from the botannical gardens.












Here's a blurry shot of the observatory. It really is pretty cool. And they run telescope sessions on Saturday nights when the sky is clear (not THIS Saturday, obviously).









Afterwards, the wind had let up a little bit so I decided to just walk home rather than bothering with public transit. Here are some shots of the gardens. They're just starting to bloom, but I imagine they'll be beautiful in the summertime.




































And I passed the Parliament Building on the way home. Can you see why they call it the beehive?