Chilling in Christchurch

Health update: I feel fine! Lung doesn’t feel collapsed and blood doesn’t feel clotty. But I’m thinking I should play it safe and continue to not exercise, like the doctor ordered.

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Back to New Zealand (my gosh that was a long time ago). So I left Kaikoura on the Coastal Pacific and had a nice, peaceful trip to Christchurch, with excellent views of the ocean and mountains. Once in Christchurch I caught a SuperShuttle to The Dorset House hostel, which was excellent. I was in a 5-person dorm but it was HUGE. None of the beds were lofted, so everyone had their own nightstand, lamp, outlets, and general floor space. It was very nice, and in general the hostel was very spacious and new.

The Cathedral with scaffolding and piles of rubble.

The next morning (9/27) I did my own walking tour of Christchurch. I passed by a Farmer’s market and grabbed some kind of egg and bacon buttie (sandwich), and then headed to the Cathedral. In 2011 much of Christchurch was destroyed by a huge earthquake, and the Cathedral was one of the buildings that was hit hard. However, controversy over whether to demolish and rebuild it or attempt to restore it means that nothing has actually happened and the building is surrounded by fences and still in shambles. It’s a grim reminder of the tragedy. However, the earthquake also inspired some interesting innovations, including the Cardboard Cathedral and the container mall. The Cardboard Cathedral is exactly what it sounds like – a temporary Cathedral made primarily of cardboard. Okay it’s a bit sturdier than it sounds – I was imagining an old cardboard box that could fit three children if they were lucky. The building’s support beams are all massive cardboard tubing, and other features are also made of cardboard/paper products. It’s pretty cool to see in person.

The inside of the Cardboard Cathedral!

The container mall is also exactly what it sounds like – an outdoor mall where the shops are all contained within shipping containers. After the earthquake, people didn’t want to wait for demolition and construction of entirely new buildings, so they chose the much faster option of turning shipping containers into storefronts. Clothing stores, cafes, restaurants, bookstores… each of them the size of only one or two shipping containers with windows and doors added on. It started as only a few shops, but I think now it’s up to something like 50 shops. Very creative way to get back on your feet while waiting for the major construction to happen (four years later and half of the city is still a giant construction project).

After a ton of walking I was fortunate enough to find another scrumptious iced mocha, with chocolate drizzled on the inside of a bottle. So good! (I crave a good iced mocha at least once a week. New Zealand may have ruined me.) That restaurant was right across from the Canterbury Museum, so I went inside and got to check out some cool exhibits, including a huge natural history section with lots of bird mounts, an Antarctic section with the history of Antarctic expeditions, and a temporary one on light and eyesight tricks. It was pretty cool AND free!

I went back to my hostel early to plan for the next day and make some reservations, and while I was in the lounge Harry and Etienne walked in! They had both stayed elsewhere the night before because my hostel was full, but that night Etienne was staying there. We had a fun evening sharing beers, catching up, and playing pool. It was a relaxing evening in, but we had a blast.

The next day (9/28) I made a trip out to the International Antarctic Centre. Apparently many of the flights to Antarctica leave from Christchurch, so they have a whole place dedicated to the history of expeditions, technology, and wildlife. If you’re ever in Christchurch I highly recommend stopping here. It’s even right next to the airport, so you can do it on a couple hour layover! Anyways, there were so many cool things. There was a cold room where you could experience an Antarctic blizzard where the temperature dropped to -18C and the wind made your face burn (they provide you with parkas). They also had a penguin exhibit for injured penguins. I showed up at feeding time so I got to see the little cuties waddling around for fish. There was a 4D movie (they sprayed water and blew bubbles at you), another 2D movie, and a super awesome Hagglund ride! Hagglunds are the vehicles that they use in Antarctica. They have the same type of track/conveyer belt movement system as tanks (what is that called??). This allows them to go across crevasses that are up to like 1-2m wide (I think? I don’t really remember details at this point). They are also waterproof and can tackle some pretty deep water (they float eventually but also have small motors on them to help with this). I thought the ride was going to be some silly kid thing, like a little train ride at the zoo. Boy was I wrong! This was more like a tame roller coaster. They were showing off the speed and maneuverability of the thing by flying around corners and shooting over hills (with crevasses at the top) and down into water-filled ditches. Even with our seatbelts and hand holds we were sliding all over. It was fantastic!

I had perfectly timed out my day to line up with the city bus schedule, so I left the museum and walked a few blocks to the bus station. There was some minor construction in the area, so some of the curb was blocked off, but while I was standing there a different bus line approached and the driver slowed down while signaling to me to ask if I needed his bus. I shook my head no and he continued on, so I was satisfied and figured it wouldn’t be a problem for my bus to stop. However, when I saw him approaching I flagged him down and he just pointed down the road and kept going. He didn’t stop at my stop, and he didn’t even stop 30 meters down the road where the construction ended – he went to the NEXT stop which was over half a mile away, easy. I was standing there in my ankle brace thinking “you have got to be kidding me” and started speed walking to the next stop where I saw the driver was clearly waiting for me. He was probably expecting me to run to meet him, but I wasn’t about to do something stupid and injure my ankle worse, so I stuck with speed walking. That was still pretty tiring, and it was taking a long time considering the distance. After several minutes, right around when I reached the halfway point, I saw the driver take off. Of course.

Well I figured I could stand around and wait 40 minutes for the next bus, or I could walk into the city and check out one of the many public gardens along the way. That was also exhausting as it was several miles that I ended up walking. But the gardens were nice and they had some adorable ducklings hanging out. From there I caught a different bus to the Botanic Gardens by the Canterbury Museum. I ate a nice dinner outside before heading back to the hostel. I was fruitlessly trying to dial Harry’s number on the hostel phone (I am incapable of figuring out how to dial foreign numbers) when I got chatting with a new girl – Caroline. She had just arrived from the UK and was trying to get the internet to work, so we sat there trying to help each other. Eventually we were both successful and I contacted Harry and Etienne about hanging out again, so I introduced them to Caroline and we all had another fun evening in.

Etienne, Harry, Caroline, and me right after seeing Akaroa

The next morning (9/29) I had booked a trip to Akaroa, which is the little nub of land sticking off the east side of the south island. It’s absolutely gorgeous with the hills and the harbors. Coincidentally Caroline had booked her own activities in Akaroa for the same day, so I canceled my bus trip and got a ride with her instead (she rented a car). Harry and Etienne had nothing planned, so they also tagged along! It took a couple hours to get there on a beautiful road, and Caroline’s crazy driving made it that much more interesting. She was zooming around corners and driving much more confidently on the left side than any of the rest of us would have, so the three of us alternated between clenching the door handles and giggling. When we went over the last big hill before descending into the main town we got our first view of the harbor and it was stunning! There were exclamations from four different countries. “Hot dog!” “Oh la vache!” “F*ck me” “Bloody hell!” Can you match the phrase with the right countryman? Immediately after seeing the view Caroline pulled over so we could take pictures. It was stunning!

From there we continued into town and saw Caroline off on her cruise to swim with dolphins. The rest of us walked along the shore and had a picnic at a nice overlook by a lighthouse. It was here that I tried my very first golden kiwi – delicious!! Thanks for the tip, Harry! The boys were great – I did some casual birding while we were wandering around and I pointed out the birds that I saw. They borrowed my binoculars and Harry got really into it. He was checking out oystercatchers and trying to spot the different species. Quite fun! We stopped in a fudge shop along the waterfront (Etienne had never had fudge) and continued our way around. There wasn’t much to do in such a small place if you weren’t paying for some kind of expensive boat tour, but we were just having a relaxing and cheap outing. Once Caroline got back she drove us up into the hills so we could get some views looking down to the harbor. It was incredible. After that we waited around in town for our bus back to Christchurch. Caroline was spending the night in Akaroa so we couldn’t get a ride back with her, but the bus was fine. The driver was spouting off facts for a solid hour, so that was a little annoying, but otherwise it was a nice break after a day of wandering around. We had a couple short stops – one at a wine and cheese shop that the driver obviously had some kind of partnership with, and one for a quick photo op at … some kind of scenery that we were all kind of dozing during the explanation of.

When we got back to our hostel the boys said they were going to go pick up some dinner things and we would have a little group dinner on our last night! They didn’t want to make me walk anymore, so they went to get the food while I packed up most of my things in preparation for leaving the next morning. I poked my head into the kitchen after my shower and saw Etienne preparing food, but he refused my offer to help and sent me downstairs to hang out with Harry. We met a brother and sister who just showed up and were really chatty (the brother more so than the sister), so we hung out in the lounge with them for a while. Turns out the guy knew some people in Canberra, so he gave me his contact info so I could potentially meet some new people upon arriving in Australia! Etienne came and got us for dinner so we had an adorable group dinner. He made a big salady thing with rice, corn, tomatoes, and tuna fish, and we had a sorry-excuse-for-French-bread since nothing that’s not in France is ever going to meet French standards, haha! (I’m not a big fan of tuna, but when someone makes it for me for a group dinner you can bet I’ll eat it. I put generic “salad cream” on it and it was good.) We spent our last evening together chatting with the brother and sister in the lounge, and then said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Of course Harry and Etienne were both super sweet and sent me goodbye messages before I left for my bus to Queenstown the next morning. Fortunately we still keep in touch, but I definitely miss hanging out with them. We had some fun times in Kaikoura and Christchurch!

Me and the boys :)

A Day in Kaikoura

Health update before the good stuff.

I’m still alive! I guess things were a lot more dire than I initially thought. (Mom and Dad, just skip to the next paragraph.) I mean I knew a blood clot in my chest was not a good thing, but when you hear “pulmonary embolism” and start googling, it gets kind of terrifying. For instance, the CDC estimates that “sudden death is the first symptom in about 25% of people who have a pulmonary embolism”. Ho. Ly. Shit. And if you don’t drop dead immediately, it’s pretty much all downhill from there. I could even tell that from my day of getting scanned and tested. At first my chest only hurt when I was lying down so I felt totally normal sitting down for breakfast, but as the morning went on my chest started hurting just sitting in the waiting rooms. It got to the point where lying down for the CT was excruciating and I was almost unable to take the necessary deep breaths. Fortunately I was in a medical facility at that point, so I figured if something bad DID happen, help would be like two feet away. Except that it was just a doctor’s office and not actually a hospital, so I guess I still would’ve been f’ed.

Anyways, I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor last Thursday, and after getting me from the waiting room she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m really happy to see you back here. You had us pretty worried last week. I prayed for you.” As my friend Katie said, when the doctor turns to God you know you’re not doing well! The doctor told me that I still probably have a partially collapsed lung and a blood clot, but it’s too soon to do another CT scan since they aren’t the greatest thing in the world for you. I’ll have to get one in January before I come home, though, to make sure that I’m fit to fly. The anticoagulants that I’m taking (and will be taking for the next 6 months) are slowly breaking down the clot, which is good, but as far as I know it’s still there! None of the doctors had a clear cut answer about how long it would take for the clot to go away and the lung to return to normal, so I guess it varies drastically between patients. (I can tell the lung isn’t back to normal when I try walking up even the slightest incline – immediate minor pain in half of my chest.) The doctor also said that I’m not supposed to run or do contact sports or anything because the clot might break free and start roaming around my chest, and that doesn’t seem like a good thing. So basically, for the first time ever, my doctor has told me to NOT exercise.

Oh yeah, and after 11 days I finally started pooping normally again. You try not having a good poop for a week and a half and tell me how YOU feel.

Upside from all of this? Buying travel insurance has finally paid off, AND I got some cool scans of my insides! Here, check out my heart.

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Back to my adventures in New Zealand!

Looking into Queen Charlotte Sound from Picton

After my day trip to Abel Tasman I took a bus back to Picton on 9/25. I had a couple hours to grab a coffee and sightsee on the waterfront before catching a train – the Coastal Pacific – to Kaikoura. I carefully planned my time in New Zealand so that I could take this trip, because the 25^th was the first day of the season that it was running! I had a window seat on the ocean side – beautiful! I was sitting right behind a very friendly guy named Bruce. He was too friendly. He talked to me and the older couple behind me the entire 2.5 hours. I know I sound rude right now, but he LITERALLY (and yes, I actually mean it in this context) did not stop talking for longer than 30 seconds the entire time, except for when he went to the café car for a beverage. He was clearly smart and educated and chatty, but my god I wish there was an off button. I went to the open air car for a while to take pictures and escape, but after 30 minutes I was frozen so I went back to my seat. Bruce was standing in my row of seats and talking over the chairs to the couple seated behind me. Come on, man, just sit down and enjoy the scenery! There is no good way to tell someone to just stop talking, especially when they are just being nice. I tried to ignore him by birdwatching out the window, but he was persistent. Oh well, at least the scenery was nice.

We passed a massive seal colony just before Kaikoura – there were HUNDREDS of them hidden on the rocks! I also got a quick glimpse of what I think were spotted shags – they have crests, which is why I think that’s what they were. The views were amazing, and it was hard NOT to take pictures, which is why I now have hundreds of pictures to sort through. Fantastic.

When we got to Kaikoura I got picked up by Helen, the owner of The Dolphin Lodge hostel I was staying at. I think I liked that one as much as The Funky Green Voyager in Rotorua. This hostel was perfect for solo travelers because it was really easy to hang out and meet people. The larger hostels I’ve been in have had a lot more groups of people, so it’s more difficult to mingle, but Helen even said she tries to avoid booking groups because they detract from that dynamic, so that’s cool. I was in a 5-bed dorm which had a decent amount of space, there was a nice cozy area by a fireplace and a larger sitting area with windows on 3 sides with great views of the ocean and mountains. There was also a hot tub on the deck, which Helen was very diligent about opening up. I had such a nice time in the spas back in Rotorua that I was really looking forward to this hot tub.

There were already three guys in the hot tub when I went out, but they were all super nice and none of them actually knew each other beforehand! Harry was Irish and had worked in Australia for a couple years before ending up in New Zealand to travel for 9 months. Etienne was a French carpenter and had arrived in New Zealand only a week before, but he was staying for something like 9 months to a year and was going to look for construction work. Andre was German and was finishing up his 5-week visit before heading to Sydney for a week. I chatted with them for a while, and they invited me out for drinks later. The difference between biologists and non-biologists: I heard “drinks later” and thought that meant 6 or 7pm. They weren’t actually planning on leaving the hostel until 8 or 9pm. I’d been going to bed around 10pm most nights, and they didn’t want to LEAVE until 9pm?? Oh boy. But I put my big girl pants on and had a fun night out. A few other people from the hostel joined us, so we had a decent-sized group down at the only open pub in Kaikoura. It was a really fun night!

I had planned to get up early and walk to the seal colony on the peninsula, but I got a bit of a later start than anticipated. Of course it was supposed to drizzle/rain for most of that day, so when I did finally get up I had to get all decked out in my rain gear. The guys were awake when I left, but they wanted to stay in and take it easy. The walk to the peninsula was a lot longer than I expected. It was supposed to take almost an hour without stops, but I was poking along and taking pictures, so it took well over an hour. It was worth it, though – I saw some cool birds along the way (Australasian gannet, white-faced heron, spur-winged plovers, and several variable oystercatchers), some cute little seals by the road, and I stopped for what turned out to be the best ham and cheese croissant sandwich I’ve ever had in my life. Maybe it was the hangover talking, but it was the perfect combination of gooey cheesy goodness and fresh flakey croissant. That thing gave me the strength to walk for 8 miles that day. In the rain.

The seal colony was awesome – there weren’t as many seals as in the one we passed on the train, but there were plenty and they were right next to the trail and parking lot, or in the case of one tiny pup, walking through it. There was a volunteer there to keep people a safe distance away from the seals, which was a good thing, too, because people can be STUPID around wildlife, despite the half a dozen signs warning people to stay at least three meters away. It always seems that parents are the ones to ignore these by making their kids go and stand by the dangerous wildlife. How about you first!

Anyways, from the seal colony I walked up the trail along the cliffs and got some BEAUTIFUL views of the coast and the ocean. There were a dozen different shades of blue (or was it 50 shades?), with the sun lighting up the beaches below. There were a bunch more seals that covered the beach and the rocks, with lots of seagulls flying around. I walked down to the breeding grounds on the beach and saw a bunch of white-fronted terns, more gulls, and some absolutely stunning views, even with the clouds and drizzle. It was hard to convince myself to start heading back to town because it was such a beautiful place with some amazing wildlife. I definitely wish I had stayed in Kaikoura longer.

White-fronted terns

White-faced heron with several Variable oystercatchers

The walk back to the hostel was way more difficult than walk there; up to that point I was feeling alright, but as soon as I started walking back I noticed my legs were KILLING me. It took at least an hour to walk back, if not more. When I got there the guys were all still on the couch right where I left them hours earlier, haha! I had a little bit of time before my train to Christchurch, so I changed, packed up my stuff, said my goodbyes, and made plans to meet up with Harry and Etienne in Christchurch (they were both heading there that afternoon as well, but Etienne was taking the bus and Harry was hitching a ride with a couple in the hostel). Helen gave me a ride back to the train station, and then I enjoyed a short but beautiful (and much more peaceful) journey to Christchurch.

Investigating the Australian Health Care System

I may never poop again.

That’s probably more than most of you needed to know, but right now that’s what’s on my mind. As you can probably guess this isn’t going to be a post about New Zealand. I know, I’m getting further behind, but you will soon understand why.

I knew Australia was notorious for having lots of creatures that could easily kill you (snakes, spiders, jellyfish, crocodiles, etc), but I didn’t expect to be hospitalized THIS quickly. In fact I may have set a record, except for people who have heart attacks on the flight over, or who look the wrong way when trying to cross the street out of the airport and get hit by a car coming from the “wrong” direction. But yes, I arrived late on 10/10, had a day to unpack, do laundry, and get the project details from my boss, went into the field on 10/12, and was in the hospital on 10/13. Why? Well, remember that little ankle fracture from 7 weeks ago in Hawaii? Turns out it created a blood clot that migrated to my chest! I had stabbing chest pains from about 1:30am until morning on 10/13. There was NO comfortable position I could lie in and taking deep breaths made it worse, so I was tossing and turning all night just counting down the hours until my alarm. It stopped hurting immediately any time I sat or stood up, and when I finally got up for breakfast it didn’t hurt much at all (because I wasn’t lying down). I almost second guessed myself about wanting to get it checked out, but I knew I couldn’t handle another night like that one, so my host (Rachael) offered to take me to the walk-in clinic so my boss (Virginia) and coworker (Remi) could go off and do work.

Long story short – the clinic was 99% sure it was a strained muscle, but they weren’t happy about my recent ankle fracture so they sent me to a general physician (GP), who was also 99% sure it was a strain, but ordered an EKG, X-ray of the ankle, and CT scan just to be sure. I don’t really know what the EKG showed – I started crying soon after they made me lie down because it hurt so bad, so I wasn’t really paying attention to what she said. X-ray showed that my ankle was healing properly, so that was good. CT scan also hurt like hell because of having to lie down and take deep breaths, but the woman made an effort to go quickly so I could sit up. (Side note: Did you know that when they inject the dye for the CT scan it spreads warmth throughout your body and makes it feel like you’ve peed your pants? She warned me it would feel like that, but it was very strange.) I was paying for all the procedures when the CT woman came out and told me I had a blood clot in my chest and a partially collapsed lung, so I’d have to wait for their report, take it back up to my GP, and then probably go to the hospital. Oh boy!

I was extremely lucky for two reasons: the clinic and the GP were both unsatisfied with 1% uncertainty that they pushed for further treatment/tests until they found out what was actually wrong with me, and Rachael was there to take me from clinic to doctor to hospital, keep Virginia up to date, and basically enter mom-mode for someone she’s only known for three days.

Anyways, we sat around waiting for the CT report for over 30 minutes. I’m sorry, but when you tell me there’s a blood clot in my chest, I’m kind of hoping you’ll type a little bit faster, especially considering the report was only three sentences. By then it was after 1pm, and Rachael and I hadn’t eaten since our bowls of cereal at 7:30am. We were talking about just grabbing some fast food on the way to the ER since it didn’t seem like this was life-and-death urgent. When we finally got the report and took it to the GP, even she didn’t seem to be in a rush. She was casually two-finger typing a letter of referral to the ER, stopping to talk to us about various things that weren’t necessarily urgent or related, and generally just taking her time. So Rachael asked how urgent this whole thing was and if we could grab some lunch on the way to the ER, and the GP just stared at us for a second and said “… NO!” Oh… my bad. Well if it’s as urgent as you say it is then HURRY UP AND GET ME TO THE ER ALREADY.

The ER people were fantastic. I finally had the special treatment of under 2 minutes in the half full waiting room because of chest pains! Hooray! They stuck like a dozen probes on me from my wrists to my ankles for another EKG I think, 5 different ones on to hook me up to a heart monitor, they took an ultrasound of my heart (could only do half of it because I couldn’t recline enough comfortably), and they gave me a morphine tablet when they saw what lying down and breathing did to me! I got bloods (plural in Australia) drawn, an anticoagulant injection in my stomach, and various pain killers. The nurses and doctor also helped me make (multiple) calls to my travel insurance company and were generally extremely nice and helpful. They were really advocating for me to spend the night for further monitoring, so when another nurse (? She wasn’t in scrubs and I think she was more on the administrative side of things) came over to suggest that I could go home, the other nurses ran over to make sure that I stayed. Aww!

Obligatory ER selfie, on the phone
with the insurance company

The rest of the evening was far less exciting; Rachael bought some food from the café for me to scarf in the ER, she went home, Virginia and Remi visited me in the ER and brought me stuff from home to have for the night (no better way to get to know someone than to go through all of their things after three days), I napped where I sat because I was so exhausted from not sleeping, I finally got moved up to a room on the 5^th floor, watched some TV shows on my laptop, and got lots of painkillers throughout the night. The painkillers were the most minorly annoying thing – the nurse has to get the painkiller guy to come in with his patient binder and get you to verify your name, birthdate, and allergies since they are controlled substances. The ER people were great, but the nighttime guy on the ward was awful. You know that I’m going to be telling you those three things, so when you come to my bedside just have your binder open to my file already! Instead the nurse stood next to me, poised with my cup of meds, waiting for the guy to open the binder, find my file, look at the information, and get me to verify again because he forgot what I had already said. Granted this was maybe a 15 second delay, but when I’m in pain and the pain meds are literally in front of my face but I can’t take them because you are still turning pages, I’m going to get mad at you.

I slept better than the night before, but there were naturally lots of hospital distractions (beeping, nurses, midnight pills, getting vitals checked, roommate, etc). The next morning I just on and off dozed and watched shows on my laptop, got an awful hospital breakfast, and an okay lunch. I wasn’t sure how free I was to wander around – when I got to the 5^th floor and asked the nurse if I was allowed to leave my room she laughed and said yes, like “yeah… obviously you’re allowed to leave!” Well shit I don’t know I’ve never stayed in a hospital! I’ve seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the crazy patients of Grey’s Anatomy, so that’s what I’ve got to go on! They seemed much happier to let me wander the hospital than some other patients – I didn’t need to be hooked up to machines anymore, my vitals were good, and I needed to use the wifi in the café on the first floor to contact my parents and insurance. Kind of weird to wander into a café where everyone else is dressed normally and I’m wearing leggings, hiking boots, and a backless gown.

Rachael came to pick me up after lunch, but we had to wait for like 6 different doctors and nurses to discharge me, take needs out of me, or give me my prescriptions. The doctor was extremely nice and hear about the mayhem that my insurance company was giving me about not covering my prescriptions, so he included the first 3 weeks of my anticoagulants and 2 weeks of 2 different pain meds as part of my inpatient stuff. Hooray!

Now I’m at home (been here two days now). I was told to sit up straight and take normal breaths to help with the partially collapsed lung, so this may be the first thing to ever actually convince me to have good posture. I have 6 months of anticoagulant pills to look forward to, and I’ve been taking some heavy duty pain pills. This brings us back to the pooping. The doctors filled me with a lot of heavy duty drugs, and I’ve continued taking them here at home. As soon as I got home I immediately started taking the max dose of stool softeners… but I had a two day head start with the pain pills, and it seems as if I may never poop again. So that’s where things are! I’ve taken the last couple of days easy just sitting around the house. I may wander outside later today considering I haven’t even explored my neighborhood yet. And soon I expect to be back at work after that one and only day of training. Not the start that I expected in Australia, but it seems to have turned out okay.

Top 10 Random New Zealandisms

I still have a solid two weeks to write about, but believe me, I’m working on it (just writing up my own notes about each day and sorting all the pictures takes a ton of time, and that’s before I even start the blog writing). The current entry has been a work in progress for about a week now, but I keep getting distracted by meeting new people or movie marathons during bad weather. Since I doubt I’ll be able to finish that one tonight, and since it is my last night in New Zealand (WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN??), I’ll leave you with a Top 10 Random Things list from my month in this country.

10. Nutritional information panels don’t say “calories”, they say “energy”. That makes me feel a lot more badass when looking at the back of my chocolate bar and seeing that I’m getting tons of energy with my snack!

9. It’s totally normal for people to sit in the front seat of taxis and leave the back seat empty. It’s also incredibly weird because I’m sitting in what I think should be the driver’s seat. For some reason the lack of steering wheel and pedals is not the strangest part, but rather looking up at the rear view mirror and it not showing me what’s behind me because it’s angled the other way.

8. I had a conversation with some people while on Stewart Island (still to come in the main blog), and they told me that that area was famous for two things: kiwis and great white pointers. I just stared at them because I couldn’t figure out what a pointer was. Was it a bird I didn’t know? You probably guessed it – great white SHARK. Apparently they call it a pointer because you point and get all excited when you see one… (granted I was told this by some Tasmanians, so maybe this isn't a New Zealand thing)

7. The one movie theater I went to only opened the doors to the theater five minutes before the movie was scheduled to start. Ten minutes before the people from the previous movie were piling out. I guess this allows them to play movies back to back if everyone just queues in the hallway until the last minute, but then you are awkwardly standing there eating popcorn in the hall (or in my case, debating about whether to step out of my queue to get some water and if I’d get my spot back… traveling alone is kind of nice, until you need someone to watch your spot!) In other news, The Martian was awesome.

6. Traffic signs are all a bit different. Most are more vague than the ones that I’m used to (speed limit signs are just numbers in a circle; that could refer to the route or the speed or something else if you don’t say “speed limit”!) They also say “give way” instead of “yield”. One sign that is marginally more specific than ours is the merge sign. Instead of just saying “merge”, it says “merge like a zip”. We all get mad at those people who can zipper merge in traffic, so the New Zealanders make sure to be explicit. It’s also just kind of funny to see that on a sign.

5. I only noticed this in the last grocery store I went to, but when checking out the cashier put all my food back in the cart and asked how many bags I wanted (one). She put one bag on top of my groceries and then… that was that. Right before the exit there was a long counter with the sign “packing benches” over it. That’s where people were supposed to then go to pack their own groceries! I guess it prevents as much of a backup in the checkout aisles.

4. I’ve been wondering about the gas pumps for the last month, and today I was dumbfounded to discover that here people pay for gas AFTER they’ve filled up their tank. How do gas stations not get ripped off left and right?!? Oh yeah, because New Zealanders are awesome people.

3. We all think of kiwis as the little fuzzy brown fruit with delicious green stuff in the middle, right? Well New Zealanders have been holding out on everyone! They have golden kiwis, which are NOT fuzzy on the outside, they are golden on the inside, and they are absolutely delicious. I’ve eaten like 50 of them. Though, I’m told they’ve finally made it over to the US, so maybe I’ll have a new delicious treat to look forward to when I’m home.

2. There is one road sign that makes me laugh every time I see it – the “when frosty” signs, which are supposed to suggest that the roads are slippery when frosty. I just see some weird physics going on, or a magically adjustable axel, or a car doing a dance, or something strange because those skid marks are not lining up right!

1. Getting ready to go to the beach so you throw some drinks and some ice in your cooler, right? WRONG! You put drinks in your CHILLY BIN. Yes, that’s right – coolers are called “chilly bins”. That’s probably my favorite New Zealandism. It’s ridiculous and cute.

So there are some very random things from New Zealand! Tomorrow I fly to Australia, and Monday I start my new job. Oh boy… jumping right into work after this month? Gonna be brutal, but also cool because Australia has so many DIFFERENT creatures and things to discover! I’ll still work on catching up on this month, and then segway into my work in Australia, so hopefully I’ll be caught up in the next several weeks.

Sailing to the South Island

Continuing with my time in Wellington… on the 21^st I woke up earlyish, made breakfast and a lunch (both involved bread and jam (sidenote: what we call a loaf of bread is called “toast” here… before it’s even toasted!)), and then caught the city bus to the Wellington Zoo. I had another very helpful bus driver who pointed out exactly where to get off, and where and when my return bus would pick me up. The day before my bus driver to Zealandia actually dropped me off between stops so I’d be as close as possible to the right street. How nice! Anyways, there weren’t many people there first thing in the morning, especially considering it was another windy and rainy day. But that was perfect for me – lots of good views of the animals that decided to brave the weather. The feedings definitely helped bring the animals out – first up was the otter feeding. They were so cute running and rolling around! And when I came back a few hours later they were all tuckered out in a cuddle puddle. Adorable. Another cool thing was the nocturnal exhibit for kiwis! They have an entire building with red lighting so that people can vaguely see the kiwis in the dark. Apparently they have half-hour transitions to simulate sun rise and sun set – that way the kiwis are on the same sleep schedule as people, but their nighttime is our daytime. It was really awesome being one of the only people there because you could really hear them walking around and foraging even when you couldn’t see them. It also helped to eventually spot them darting around in the shadows. They are hilarious looking birds – like beach balls with legs and huge bills.

One-legged kiwi hopping around in the nocturnal house

Emu

I saw the usual zoo animals – monkeys, birds, lions, red panda, giraffes, etc. They had an entire “Australian neighbors” section which was really interesting because many of the animals weren’t in cages – the area was surrounded by a big fence, but the wallabies, emu, kangaroos, and some ducks or something were all free to roam around, including across the people path! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that at a zoo. The Tasmanian Devils were in their own section, and though one would occasionally snarl, they were nothing like I remember from whatever TV show they were featured in when I was a kid.

Tasmanian devils cuddling

The most interesting part of the visit was The Nest, which is where they do check-ups and treat injured animals. At 11:30 they were going to start a procedure on a Little Blue penguin that was caught in fishing wire. The wire was wrapped tightly around a flipper and its mouth, and the constriction caused muscle/tissue necrosis. They started by putting the bird under with anesthesia, intubating him, and getting all the probes and sensors in place. He was already not doing well with the pain killers, so they switched to a saline solution without pain killers and gave him more fluids. The vets talked to us via headset and speakers and explained what they were doing every step of the way, including putting the mic up to the penguin so we could hear his heartbeat. By this point most of the other visitors had left to go eat lunch or because they didn’t want to watch. Meanwhile I got comfy and ate my sandwich while watching. I think one of the vets was surprised when she looked up and I was the only one there… and I was eating while watching a surgery (years of watching Grey’s Anatomy finally paying off). They spent a while scraping away the dead/dying tissue around the mouth and flipper, and then sutured it back up. The poor thing took ages to wake up, much longer than normal, so they gave him more fluids and pinched his feet and moved his flippers, which apparently helps. The staff were very up front about the fact that he might not make it, which they actually mentioned a couple of times during the procedure and reiterated when he was taking a long time to wake up. It was really interesting that they performed this procedure in full view of the public knowing that there was a nontrivial chance that the patient might die. Anyways, at one point the bird kind of woke up and started gagging on his breathing tube, but then his heartbeat was not very strong without it and he was still rather unresponsive, so they intubated him again. A short while later he definitely came out of it, so they bundled him up and took him away to recover. The whole thing took about 1.5 hours, but it was really fascinating to watch a procedure on a bird in such a precarious state.

Fascinating… and FREEZING. Yes, I was sitting in a covered area so at least I wasn’t getting soaked from the rain, but the wind through there made it REALLY cold, and I was not moving the entire time. And that was even with a gloves and an extra layer than the day before! Fortunately the penguin woke up with enough time to grab a coffee before running to the giraffe feeding. I literally ran to the nearest café and said “WHAT IS YOUR LARGEST, HOTTEST DRINK?”

Seductive pelican pose

After the zoo I caught a bus back into town where I went to the Te Papa Museum. It’s huge and has entire floors dedicated to natural history, Maori culture, natural disasters in NZ, etc. I easily spent a couple hours walking around and didn’t even hit half of it. I timed it carefully so that I could get to the café with plenty of time to get the chicken and corn chowder – more comfort food. Of course, when I got there at 4:40pm, they said that the kitchen had already closed, despite the fact that the sign said they “serve until 5pm” and the thing that I wanted was literally ladled from a giant vat. What the heck!!! Come on, New Zealand, you are killing me in this one small but significant way. So I went back to Sweet Mother’s Kitchen for gumbo and cornbread. Not quite as perfect as the mac and cheese, but it was good.

On my last full day in Wellington (9/22) I decided to hike around Mount Victoria, which is where some iconic scenes in the Lord of the Rings were filmed :D Remember the scene in the Fellowship of the Ring where the four hobbits hid from the Nazgul under a giant tree root? That was filmed in Mount Victoria, along with a few others. There were a couple problems, though: firstly the park is huge, and secondly the map in the LOTR filming location book (this is a thing) is AWFUL and does not even remotely match the actual park map. So I wandered around for a solid 2 hours before coming to the conclusion that I had passed where the spots should have been, but that after 10 years it’s safe to say the landscape has changed. Shucks. It was nice getting some solid exercise, though.

Pretty sure this is the spot where Frodo says "Get off the road, quick!"

To celebrate my exercise I ate an absurdly unnecessary brunch consisting of waffles with bacon, bananas, maple syrup, and an iced mocha. Oh man, if you ever come to New Zealand you have to get iced mochas. They are different at every place, and they are ALL DELICIOUS. I’ve had one with marshmallows and m&m’s one in a huge glass bottle with chocolate syrup drizzled around the inside, some with cocoa powder sprinkled on top, and all of them have homemade whipped cream. In fact the whipped cream is like the iced part of it – it’s really cold and there are no actual ice cubes in it. It’s phenomenal, and I crave them now. But whatever you do, do NOT get an iced mocha at Starbucks. It’s heartbreaking.

After brunch I went back to the Te Papa museum to check out a temporary war section that they had on display. It was actually really interesting, and they had these giant statues that were five times the size of people, and they were incredibly realistic! They also had these awesome 3D maps of the terrain that lit up to show troop movement with accompanying narration. It was a really cool visual. I retained about 1% of it, but it was really interesting!

The next day I headed out early to catch my ferry to Picton and start my adventures on the South Island! We had a decently smooth crossing, despite the high wind and rain. I talked to a guy a couple days later who said he crossed in horrible seas, so half the people on his ferry were sick. That sounds like my nightmare. But I braved the weather to get some fresh air and admire the scenery from the top deck. There wasn’t a whole lot to see as the clouds were covering much of the Queen Charlotte Sound, but it did make me realize that had I not broken my ankle, I would’ve been hiking on the hills we were passing at that very moment, and I would’ve been very sad and wet. So maybe this was a good thing…

First view of the South Island... how inviting

Passing a section of the Queen Charlotte Track...
I could've been hiking in this!

When we got to Picton I immediately caught a bus over to Nelson. Apparently the rain had been terrible on the South Island, because the countryside outside of Picton was flooding! Streams and rivers were actually overflowing onto farmland – it was pretty crazy to see! The ride was beautiful, as every bus ride has been. A bit drizzly, but Nelson was fortunately dry (yet overcast). I got an unexpected ride back to my hostel (The Palace Backpackers). It seemed like an interesting place, but I was too tired to really socialize. I booked my day trip to Abel Tasman at the iSite and got a semi-healthy pasta salad from Robert Harris. I chatted briefly with two girls in my room, but that was about it.

The next morning (9/24) I got up early (I keep saying “early”… maybe that is actually just “normal”) and ate a free breakfast at the hostel – two bowls of corn flakes and a pizza roll thing from a nearby bakery (they apparently bring their leftovers to the hostel every afternoon, so that’s cool). I was THRILLED to see that it was a beautiful sunny morning – my first in over a week! I walked to the bus station and had a beautiful ride up to Kaiteriteri where I boarded a boat to cruise around famous Abel Tasman. The boat ride was great – the captain kept announcing things to look at that were referenced in our interpretation guide, and the scenery was gorgeous (and sunny!). We stopped at a couple places to drop people off depending on the hike they chose to do, passed by a seal colony with a few seals hiding among the rocks, and rode over some fun, bumpy sections! It wasn’t nearly bad enough to make me sea sick (though another passenger wasn’t looking too good), but it was more like a roller coaster.

Split apple rock

I bought the extended cruise and hike, which was perfect because there was a large school group that was on our boat, so they got an hour head start while I had an extra long cruise. Once the school group left I had the entire top deck to myself, so one of the boat hands was really nice and immediately came up to chat. Eventually they dropped me off at my stop where I had a nice two-hour hike through forest and beach. There were very few people (compared to the peak season, I hear); I was walking along near two others, and I only passed two pairs along the way. I saw some really nice views of the ocean from above, a nice waterfall, some streams, and I walked across a suspension bridge. It was all very cool! My hike ended on a beach where I relaxed and enjoyed the sun while waiting for the boat to pick us up. When I got back to Kaiteriteri I had a little while before my bus back to Nelson, so I sat on a bench by the beach and consulted my bird book to look up the birds I saw throughout the day. I had a nice nap on the ride back and grabbed a quick dinner at McD’s right by my hostel. What a fantastic (and sunny) introduction to the South Island!