March 19, 2010
It was an Auckland Day, so we met up with our group at Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. Kelly Tarlton's is an underground water tank, where the people look out at the ecosystem, rather than in at the fish bowl. It was sweet as!
We rode on this bus to get there. Have you ever ridden inside a shark?
Meks and her turtle!
Meet Eggbert.
Don't worry, she is just playing with a sting ray. We learned that they are actually very timid, gentle creatures who will only sting if they feel that they cannot get away from you. Otherwise they will swim away quickly to avoid us. They are only playing with her because they have grown accustomed and know she brings food!
We got back to Jule's, where we prepped for the umu by peeling and chopping potatoes, kumara, and pumpkin. We made stuffing and stuffed ten chickens! I am learning so many mother skills! I was just carrying around entire dead chicken bodies like it was no big deal! One day, I will be an amazing cook. One day.
After the prep, our friend Derrick picked the four of us up for the Blues rugby game where we met up with some more guys from our stake! The Blues are Auckland's home team, so obviously we were cheering for them! I didn't catch on to ALL the rules, but I am completely converted to rugby! We had such a fun time!
True fans come an hour early to the games.
We got free flags and captain's faces. Oh Keven.
This man was my hero.
WE BEAT THE AUSSIE'S! GO BLUES!
Afterwards we went to Denny's for a "feed," and just cracked up the whole time! We finally got home and I watched "My Sister's Keeper" with Monique and finally went to sleep around 2am.
March 20, 2010
This morning I slept in and just got some laundry done and such. Finally we went to our Umu! An Umu is a traditional Pacific way of cooking food in the ground, so the celebration and feast afterwards is respectively named. It was so delicious, and so fun to see all the teachers and families who were a part of our Study Abroad experience here in West Auckland. Lee was there so we performed a zumba number or two and of course sang Te Aroha once more.
Some young men from our ward and stake performed the haka for us, and it may have been the best I've seen so far! It was fantastic.
SOMEHOW, that night, Kamaea convinced me to go to Spookers with the same group of YSA. Spookers is just New Zealand's only "haunted" scare place with all those actors and horrible things. I didn't find out until we were INSIDE that the people are allowed to touch us! We did a haunted corn maze and then the haunted house. Scary clown midgets, demon babies. The middle of March? No thanks. But I did it! And of course, we hit up Denny's again.
March 21, 2010
Well, goodbye weekends in Auckland! It was definitely a good one. Today was our last Sunday in Lincoln ward and tonight we had a little YSA musical fireside as a quick goodbye. It was so nice and I was glad to see some people again before leaving.
1 comment:
You have a good life!
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