Back in Detroit

Arrived back in Detroit at 11:52PM on June 30th with Lisa. I was so sad to leave Auckland and all my friends. I got so close to them and wish that I could have spent much more time together. Monday night I had a spaghetti dinner at my place because I had bought a kilo of spaghetti and two cans of sauce and needed to use them up. It was so nice! Lilian brought her ukelele, I had my mandolin, and James had his guitar. We played music and everyone remembered all of our fun times together. Later, James and Max sang John Denver's "I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane," but changed it to "She's....". I took a picture with each person and then a group of us went down to Father Ted's Irish Pub to see another group of international students (mostly German and Norwegian mates of mine). There was some great music and we played a little pool. I almost cried when I had to say goodbye to people. (I cried myself to sleep later that night).


I managed to be on the same flight from Auckland (to Fiji) to Los Angeles with my friend Collin, from Santa Barbara. We (Lisa, Collin, and I) had a 6-hour layover in Nadi, Fiji and kept our sanity by watching episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy. On the flight from Fiji to Los Angeles I sat next to a guy who did study abroad in Australia. He's from Minnesota and actually goes to the university that beat Grand Valley State in the semi-finals of football last season - SMALL WORLD! Finally, after 30 hours of sitting on a plane and in airports, Lisa and I stepped off the plane.



Photo 1: From little trip to Mt. Victoria with Marius and Morten. Auckland City skyline - The City of Sails
Photo 2: Same little trip with Marius and Morten, but a different stop to One Tree Hill. A hill that had one tree but the Maori's cut it down and there was a monument put in it's place. Wish I knew a little bit more about it's significance, but that's the basic story.
Photo 3: One more walk to the Harbor.Photo 4: Becca and me at a Goodbye Party for our group of international friends. She's doing her Masters in Marine Science at UOA and has an interest in squid. She was a part of the team that caught that Giant Squid that is now on display in the museum in Wellington.
Photo 5: I'm pretending to be like Morten (right) at Father Ted's. I'm going to miss the Norwegians :(



...WILL ADD MORE PHOTOS SOON...
To all of my friends who I have met in New Zealand: I love you! You have created memories that will last a lifetime and I will miss you all so much. Thank you for being such great friends. I never thought I would get so close to so many people in such a short amount of time! If you're ever in Michigan, hit me up. If you come back to Auckland, I will see you on Queen St.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Smalahove

Image
Many Norwegian traditions are distinctly regional. Even recipes are variable by region to go along with dialects that can be different by town separated by just 50 kilometers. This tradition, that both Marius and I were new to trying, was from a town just about an hour and a half east of Bergen called Voss....smalahove, or half of a sheep's head that is cooked in a broth for several hours. Smalahove comes from two Norwegian words: smale = sheep, and hove = head. It is served before Christmas with potatoes, mashed rutabaga, and red cabbage. Many of my friends were telling me that the cheek is supposed to be the best part, and others were saying that they wouldn't dare eat it. So I can now say that I have done something that many other Norwegians haven't dared try. I actually really enjoyed it! It had a texture like corned beef and had a very nice flavor. Marius went as far as to try the tongue, and thought that eating the eye was a normal thing, so tried that as well...bu...
Read more

In case you missed it, I moved back to Bergen

Image
But only temporarily, as of yet. In the beginning of the month I took the train from Oslo to Bergen. It was a beautiful trip cross-country ascending to over 1000m above sea level and back down again. My friend Knut said that I could stay at his place until an apartment was available to rent. I picked up the key from his mom, dropped off my things, and went back downtown to go to my Norwegian course. He was out of town for the week for work, and my first day of work was not until the following Monday. So I used the next five days reacquainting myself with Bergen....mainly by running around my old neighborhood. On Monday (Nov 10) I started my new (tempoary) part time job at UniResarch Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology...UniSars for short. Technically I am called a "research technician", but I'm more like a glorified dishwasher at the moment. I made sure to tell the researchers that I am more than capable to help them if they need an extra pa...
Read more

FIFA 2010 South Africa

Image
FIFA 2010 kicked off on June 11 and today, New Zealand will today make a return to the world’s greatest football stage exactly 28 years to the day since their FIFA World Cup debut. The All Whites will take on Slovakia at 11PM (New Zealand time). It is hard to say whether it will be a good game or not; however, the fact that NZ is in the world cup for the first time in so long is enough of a reason to stay up so late. Saturday morning was the big USA vs. England match. The Americans are so happy with a tie that the New York Post had this as its front page: The time difference makes it a bit hard to keep up with seeing the games, but it's always fun to rub in the fact that the British tied the US in their first World Cup game this year to some British friends. Next exam is Saturday for Invertebrate Diversity. And only 20 days to go til Thailand!!
Read more