I will pause here to bring yet another installment of Kiwi culture shock:
1. They love to shorten words and say things like "avo" or "uni", to denote "avocado" or "university"
2. They are super friendly and social. I keep thinking that when people stop me on the street they want to sell me something, but they are just that friendly
3. There are two types of home ownership here: freehold and lease hold. Freehold is much like the US ownership, but lease hold means that you own the house, but not the land. This is due to Maori owning some of the NZ land. Lease hold ownership means that you pay rent and have a contract that is only valid for x years. There was a recent lawsuit because 2.1 million dollar home build on lease hold land had their lease go up from 8300 a year to over 70,000.
4. Pavlova - A Kiwi dessert. Mike and I were very surprised that a Kiwi dessert has a Russian name. This is what Wikipedia had to say: Pavlova is a meringue-based dessert named after the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova.[2] It is a meringue dessert with a crisp crust and soft, light inside.[1] The name is pronounced /pævˈloʊvə/ or /pɑːvˈloʊvə/, unlike the name of the dancer, which was /ˈpɑːvləvə/.[3][4][5]
The dessert is believed to have been created in honour of the dancer either during or after one of her tours to Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. The nationality of its creator has been a source of argument between the two nations for many years, but formal research indicates New Zealand as the source.[1]
The dessert is a popular dish and an important part of the national cuisine of both countries, and with its simple recipe, is frequently served during celebratory and holiday meals. It is a dessert most identified with the summer time, but is eaten all year round in many Australian and New Zealand homes.
Now back to our regularily scheduled program:
I was a little anxious to try SCUBA, but assumed that it would be OK. Steve got Olichka the discover dive as an X-Mas present and Mike and I scheduled ours at the same time. Everything started out OK. I wanted to get into the water first so that I could adjust to everything without feeling stressed, but ended up getting in dead last.
All was going well until I tried breathing through the SCUBA mouthpiece. I started hyperventilating and freaking out a little bit. The instructor came over and tried to help me. Shockingly, what helped is for him to basically flip me on to my stomach and have me look at the bottom of the ocean. It took a little while, but I finally calmed down and relaxed a little bit. I thought that now that I managed to regain control over myself I wouldn't have anymore issues - WRONG!
The instructor started lowering us down to the bottom. I was told that I would have to clear my ears every meter that I went down. The first one was difficult, but I managed to clear. We went down some more, and I felt a familiar (from flying) pain. I tried clearing, really really tried, but I could not. I started signaling the instructor that I wanted to come up. We went up a little where it didn't hurt, and tried going down again. I again tried to clear but couldn't. I started freaking out and hyperventilating again. I signaled to the instructor that I wanted to go up, but he kept signaling that I was OK. I argued with him for what must have been seconds, but felt waaaaay longer, and finally got him to bring me all the way up
Once I broke through the water I ripped the air flow tube out of my mouth and tasted the fresh salty air. The instructor was right there wanting me to try again. I asked him to give me a second to calm down ,but he didn't give me as much time as I wanted, and we started trying again. Once again I was able to clear on the first meter. I saw Mike who looked concerned as I hit the second clearing. I tried super hard to clear my ears again, and again I could not, and again an underwater argument of sign language ensued with the instructor. I came up for air and this time Mike surfaced with me. I felt better immediately when I saw him. The instructor suggested that we try again, but I was having none of it, I was done.
I was close to tears at this point. Mike swam up to me to check on me and I told him that I was OK, and he should continue with the SCUBA. I would feel worse if I took the experience away from him as well. There was some snorkeling gear in the boat so I did that, feeling slightly like a failure and trying no to dwell on that fact. Later on Mike asked one of the SCUBA folks if there are some people that are just unable to clear their ears and can never SCUBA and the guy said yes, which made me feel better. I don't know if I'm upset because I gave up so fast, or because I feel physically limited in this other way. In either case, it was kind of a fail.
The next morning we were woken up by a torrential downpour, which wasn't so bad considering the fact that we were leaving anyway, but it did make packing up quite an adventure :). We drove back to Aukland and dried out all o our amping gear. We will stay until New Years.
Our current worry is the pace of our spending. It is really really fast. Food an gas are really pricy. Also, our campsite at Coramandel was $60 a night for the two of us, double what we are paying for the Auckland digs. It's looking more and more likely that we will either WWOOF or try to find some short term telecommuting work from the US. I don't know which one we will do quite yet.
To end this on a positive and personally successful note , I went for a short run this morning. I don't remember the last time I could say that. I'm also really looking forward to exploring the south island in a couple of weeks. I will keep you guys appraised of our movements and will write again soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment