I spent the last five days at Walkers in Wellington (with a night visiting new friends in Palmerston North as well), celebrating his 21st birthday. It was a joyous occasion and we had a lot of fun. As always, though, it is nice to return to my own bed.
As I sit here today, I am one month away from heading home. Yesterday was the three month mark. It is crazy to think that it has been that long since I last saw my parents, family and friends (except Walker of course), but time has really flown by. At some points it feels like it cannot be moving any slower but at other points it feels like just yesterday that I was staying at Kiwi Packa in Rotorua not knowing what the future might hold.
I have eight more days of classes, one exam, eleven weekend days and a ten day "study week" (to be spent across the ditch in Australia before leaving New Zealand. It's going to start getting hectic here in Hamilton pretty soon, so I figured I should first finish my spring break story.
After we left Queenstown, we were feeling a bit sick of the Magic Bus experience. It had been nice to get off of the bus for a few days but now we were back on with few of our friends still with us (except Gui). At this point, we were just working our way back towards Wellington.
Our first stop was a place called Lake Tekapo. Tekapo is a beautiful lake, as blue as any lake that you will ever see. On the other hand, there really is not much to do there, especially in the winter. But it was a great stop. We hiked to Tekapo's only landmark, a church overlooking the lake. It was a magnificent church made completely of stone and had a stunning view of the lake behind it. Unfortunately it was closed so we could not go in, but the outside views were plenty sufficient.
We spent that evening relaxing in the hot pools. After all of our hiking and walking, it felt great just to decompress at the bathhouse. That was my last night with Walker, as he would be heading to Mt. Cook and I would be heading to Christchurch for the night before flying back to Wellington to watch some rugby.
I was in Christchurch by about mid-afternoon the next day. It was a gorgeous day to be in a city known for its gardens. Unfortunately, that was not what I wanted to see.
As many of you probably know, Christchurch was hit by a massive earthquake nearly two years ago. It hit the central business district of the city, closing many stores and businesses. Beyond that, it made many houses unfit for living driving people out of the city. Much like New Orleans, it has been a long, slow process to get the city back in order. I went to check out what I could of the business district, and was appalled at what I saw. The heart of the city was completely unfit for use. Pretty much every major business had to move their offices, and most stores just did not come back. It was hard to navigate around the "red zone" to find anything I needed (a bank, at this point), but I eventually found "The Restart Mall," a mall made completely from shipping containers. It was good to see that the city had made enough progress to have that, but also very telling about how far the city still has to go.
Much like people would probably say that you cannot fathom the magnitude of the damage in New Orleans unless you see it in person, the same could be said for Christchurch. I had heard about how awful the earthquakes had been, but had no idea that it took out the whole heart of the city. Its amazing how much natural disasters can destroy a city, and my heart goes out to the city of Christchurch.
But with it, there is also hope. Because of the earthquake, New Zealand has completely redone their national building codes to help soften the blow of all future earthquakes. Hopefully steps like this can prevent such a tragic event from happening again.
I flew out of Christchurch the next morning and was back in Wellington by midday for the All Blacks game that night. Flying across the strait from the South to the North Island is like being inside of a pinball machine. You get tossed and turned, dip and dive, and you never know if you are going to make it. People are throwing up all around you and screaming. Walker said his plane was even perpendicular to the runway as they were landing before straightening out. Quite the experience.
As I headed to WestPac Stadium around seven, it was hard to believe that I was actually going to see the mighty All Blacks play in person. The stadium was packed despite the suspect Wellington weather, and it was an awesome environment for the game. To say it was unlike anything I had ever attended before would be true, but the atmosphere was definitely not as crazy as a Patriots game, much less when I went to the Super Bowl in 2008. It was a lot of fun though. I was sitting next to a five year old boy who was at his first All Blacks game. He knew all of the players and was just excited to be there. I could see just how much this team means to this country through that boy. It was a tight game at half-time. The All Blacks led by one point and the Argentinians were putting on quite the tackling display. There was a power mishap at half time, but that was quickly sorted out and the All Blacks went on to win 21-5. In fact, I did not even realize that the stadium lights were not supposed to go out at half time.
The next day I headed back to Hamilton. It had been one hell of a trip, but I was exhausted and ready to catch up on some much needed sleep in my own bed.
I will be pretty busy the next few weeks. I head to Australia October 20-Halloween. I head back to the US on November 2nd. See you on the other side!
Wilson
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