Auckland - June 30, 2013

I woke up much happier today and had a dreamless night.  So I got up and going.   I went to the Sky Tower.  I have seen it in all my views of Auckland.  I can see it from my hotel window and from the ferry rides I have had.  I figured it was like the Empire State Building or the Eiffel Tower.  You just gotta go to the top, probably just once, but you gotta do it.  I must say it is quite a spectacular view!  

And it is cleaner and nicer than either the Empire State Building or the Eiffel Tower.  It is also considerably newer (1997).  There are spots on the floor of the first deck that have glass in them and you can see down to the street.   They are strong enough for you to stand on – as strong as the concrete surrounding them, but there is something really trippy about stepping onto those glass panels.  Once, I wasn’t looking and stepped onto one and saw just enough out of my peripheral vision that I thought I was going to fall.  My heart skipped a bit and I nearly screamed.   No need for bungee jumping off the Auckland Sky Tower for me – stepping on the glass floor was enough of an adrenal rush for me.

 While up in the Sky Tower I saw a lovely looking park and I decided to go there.  

I walked around for a while.  There are these kinds of trees all over Auckland.  I think they are a kind of fig tree and they are amazing.  They are Giants!  And there were several of them in this park. 

The next time I come to New Zealand I am bringing someone who likes to climb trees because these would be really fun to climb.  Where are my nephews when I need them?!  Seriously, I am not really a tree climbing kind of girl, not even when I was a kid.  But these trees just scream at me, “Come climb me!”  These are different than that tree I climbed on the beach.  It was a New Zealand Christmas tree – there is another name but I can’t remember it right now, something like Katuapawa…those are also really great trees and have branches that grow horizontally as well.

I returned to my hotel room and had not been there long when there was one of those tropical showers where it is pouring rain but sunny.  I was glad I could watch it from my room and was not out in it.  At 1PM I walked next door to the church to attend worship services.  There was a senior missionary couple in the congregation who invited me to come to their apartment for dinner after church.  They live in Devonport in this amazing apartment with an amazing view!  I couldn’t believe how beautiful their apartment is.  I told them I had to take a picture and that I should put it on-line to advertise for senior couples to go on missions.   The next 3 pictures were taken from their living room.

This couple is on a medical mission.  Elder Anderson is a retired doctor and he is assigned to work with mission presidents and doctors treating missionaries in all of the South Pacific countries.  Their headquarters is in Auckland but one week every month they are traveling to other countries and islands.  We had a lovely evening.  I sang for them standing in front of their amazing view.  It was good practice for the presentation in Brisbane.  They told me to let them know when I am performing, after their mission they will fly to where I am performing to come and see me.  It was great to feel so immediately loved and welcomed.  And it really is such a small world.  Sister Anderson served as a missionary in Nauvoo in 2009-2011.  She said that I looked familiar to her and when I found out she was in Nauvoo, I told her she must recognize me from the Nauvoo Pageant.  I played Eliza R. Snow in 2009 and 2010.  Now she is remarried and serving in New Zealand and just happens to be here while I am here.  Crazy!  It really is such a small world.

Elder and Sister Anderson brought me back to my hotel room and this is my last night in Auckland.  Tomorrow, very early in the morning, I am off to the Waitomo Caves and then to the next city on my itinerary, Rotorua.

Auckland - June 29, 2013

I had a rough start to my day this morning.  I had dreams about going to my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Fornelious’ class with unfinished homework and then other dreams about Nazi occupation...It took me a few minutes to get started, but I did.

I did know that next door to my hotel is the LDS Family Services Building, but what I didn’t realize is that next door to that is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I was on online looking for the church this morning and looking up wards and their start times.  On-line it looked like there was a church just a few blocks down and to the left a little.   But when I started walking this afternoon, I realized that it was just next door and that you can see it from the window of my hotel room.  It sits a little ways back off the sidewalk so I just didn’t notice what kind of building it was.  It was open so I went inside, there was an activity going on.  I double checked with someone that the English congregation meets at 1PM and then went on my way.

I spent the afternoon in Devonport.  It is a suburb of Auckland that is directly across the bay from Downtown Auckland.  I think you could certainly drive to it but you would have to go around the bay and it is much closer and more direct to take the ferry, which I did.  It is known for it’s Victorian houses,

art shops and galleries and handmade chocolate shop.

I booked a tour again, which was helpful.  The tour took us to a place called North Head which has a lot of old guns and things that were set up to protect Auckland but were never used.  But it also has a fantastic view of the Hauraki Gulf and the City of Auckland.  The tour only stops there for 10 minutes but the guide gave us the option of staying for an hour and then joining the next tour.  I decided that 10 minutes wasn’t enough time to see what I wanted to see at North Head so opted to stay the hour and join up again with the next tour.  So I rambled around the top of this hill, which is actually a volcano, as are all the hills in Auckland. 

And at the end of the hour when I met up with Ray, the tour guide, again there was no one on the tour.  It was just Ray and me.  He told me some very interesting things, including all the changes and construction that has been going on recently on all of these Victorian homes.  Apparently it is illegal to tear down these homes and rebuild due to their historic nature.  If you own one of these homes you have to preserve them.  For example, Ray showed me a home that had recently finished burning off all the layers of paint so that they could get back to the original wood.  The homes are all made of Kauri wood, which is very soft and ideal for furniture, according to Ray.

Incidentally, Ray also told me about his family and his pre-retirement job as a bus driver.  He was also terribly concerned about how much it is going to cost to buy souvenirs for all my brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews and my parents and my grandpa.  I told him that I picked up a lot of really cool shells on the beach yesterday.  But since we are now BFF’s I decided I should have a picture with him.  He asked how I was going to manage that.  I told him it was really tricky, but that when you travel alone you get really good at the self-portrait.  (It must also be noted that my sister, Angela, taught me the art of self-portrait last summer in France).

After the tour was over, I walked around and looked in a few shops and then ate some dinner at a restaurant.  Then I took the ferry back to Auckland stopped at a couple of souvenir shops and a grocery store and came home.

Auckland - June 28, 2013

I spent the day on Waiheke Island (why hee kee).  I took a ferry from Auckland over to the island, which is quite close.  It only took about a half an hour to get there.  At one point the island is only 5km off the coast of the North Island.  Here are some pictures from the ferry ride:

Philippa, the travel agent in the lobby of the hotel, booked a deal for me that included the ferry and a bus tour of the Island.   I am really glad that I had the bus tour, because if I had just walked off the ferry onto the island I would have had no idea what to do or where to go.  But the Bus tour showed us the main parts of the island.  The driver/tour guide was really great.  He is originally from Germany.  The geeky voice/theater speech teacher in me was fascinated by his accent.  It was definitely German but it did sound very New Zealand at times.

I spent quite a lot of time at Onetangi Beach (oh neh tayn gee).   I walked the length of it (about a mile),

climbed this tree and played on the swing,

 collected some pretty amazing seashells,

sat and ate lunch, prayed and meditated on these rocks.

The weather was so much better and warmer today than yesterday.  I even took off my coat for an hour or so after climbing these stairs.

At the top, looking down to the beach.

It was so lovely and peaceful.  Even the seagulls!  At other beaches as soon as you pull out your lunch the seagulls gather to scavenge or steal your lunch.  But the seagulls here just went about their own business and left me to mine.

The view of the sunset just before leaving the island.  It was a beautiful day.  

There was another girl traveling alone on our bus tour.  She was also from Germany.  I had the thought to invite her to join me at Onetangi Beach at the end of the tour, but didn't.  I'm not sure why, but wish that I had.  She was a lovely girl with a really beautiful countenance.  You could tell she had a beautiful heart and soul.  My loss.  I could have made a new friend, but instead, I spent the day alone.  It was still a lovely day, but I often thought of Katia and hoped that I would run into her again and have a second chance.  So the lesson I learned today is: listen to that voice inside telling you to open your heart and connect with people.  You can do it.  Being shy is really just self directed and prideful.   It parades as the innocent protection from others but is really just protecting yourself from you - from making a fool of yourself.  The truth is that if you approach people with an open and loving heart, especially people who also have open and giving hearts, there is nothing to fear.  There is nothing to lose and so much to gain.  I couldn't help but feel a little like the man in this video today: Your Potential, Your Privileges 

I think if I had been ever so slightly more bold, this day (while still amazing), could have been so much more.  Climbing that tree and playing on the swing would have been so much more fun with another person.  I have come a long way from that little Christy who would hide behind my mother and cling to her knees.  I have faith that the goodness in my heart will continue to grow and one day overpower that fear that steals my opportunities for even greater joy.  Maybe that day will be tomorrow...

Auckland - June 27, 2013

um…..I’M IN NEW ZEALAND!!! 

Whew!  That is so crazy to me.  But here I am!  I made it safe and sound.  I even slept quite a bit on that crazy long flight.   I must have slept 7 or 8 of the 13 hour flight.  I think I was awake for about 2 hours at the beginning of the flight and about 2 hours at the end.  Air New Zealand hands out a nice sized blanket.  I had my noise reduction headphones on, my neck brace pillow and was ready to sleep but the light from all the little TV screens on the backs of the seats was really bright.  I didn’t have any of those eye covers so I grabbed my coat and put the hood of it over my head and then let it drape down over my body.  It was a fantastic little cocoon!  Dark and warm.  And then with that amazing neck pillow, I was sleeping deeply enough to dream about crashing in a snowy and seriously wind blown New Zealand.  I have some vague memories turbulents.  They must have affected my dreams. 

So I landed, went through customs and found the bus that brought me to my hotel in Auckland at about 8:30 AM.  I showered and napped a little in the morning.  I did however, get out into Auckland this afternoon.  I first talked with Philippa, downstairs in the lobby.  She is like a travel agent that is housed in the hotel.  She was very helpful and got me all planned for my time in Auckland and in Rotorua. She has it all worked out so that I don’t have to rent a car.  And she figured out how to get me to the temple from Roturua.  She said that I am not the first person that she has helped figure out how to get to the Mormon Temple in Hamilton.  I told her that we Mormons love our temples.

I was quite nervous as I was preparing to leave on Tuesday morning.   I asked my Father to give me a blessing where I was promised peace and safety in my traveling and I felt better.  Then as we got in the truck to go to the airport I said to my parents, “You know, one of the things that I love about being Mormon is knowing that I can go almost anywhere in the world and if I need anything there are other Mormons  just a phone call away who will come running to my aid.  Complete strangers and yet they will be so willing to help me.”  And my Dad replied, “But they aren’t really strangers.  Once we have made our baptismal covenants we “are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).  And my dad is right.  It is true that I haven’t met any of the Latter-day Saints in New Zealand but I already know what kind of people they are and I know that they are willing to help me, should I need it.  And that is what gives me the courage to get on an airplane and travel to the other side of the world all by myself.  And in light of that conversation it is so appropriate that when I walked out of my hotel and stepped out onto the streets of Auckland this is the first thing that I saw. 

I am staying next door to the LDS Family Services in Auckland, New Zealand.

I got out and walked down Queen Street, the main street in Auckland from my hotel to the ocean.  On the way I stopped and had some lamb kebabs and rice, bought a scarf because I managed to pack hat and gloves but not scarf and this is scarf weather.  I also found a grocery store and bought a few snack items. That is pretty much it.  I did take a few pictures. 

I fell in love with this tree.  It is MASSIVE!

Modern day Saloon.

I was just amazed that "suckies" is a real word! And it took me a minute to figure out what I would be getting if I bought "Bouncing Berry Suckies" I think they are like those yogurt tubes you put in the freezer and eat like popsicles.

Why build a new building?  Or tear down an old colonial building?  Just build a new building around the front of the old one.  Don't worry about matching or anything.

 It is now dark and only about 6PM but I am going to bed.  It feels like midnight – actually in Utah it is midnight and in Pennsylvania it is 2 AM. 

Oceania or Bust!

Ok.  I know I am not a great blogger, but I was very consistent last summer while I was in Europe so I am going to give it another go this summer while I am in New Zealand and Australia.

One of the great things about my program at Penn State is that someone donated money to the School of Theater to allocate to graduate students for international travel.  So, thank you Penn State for helping to support me on this adventure!!!!

I leave a week from today and my adventures will begin in Auckland.  Stay tuned....