So today started off as every day of a vacation should start – with a late wakeup. Instead of having to get up early and run off somewhere, Josh and I took a more leisurely pace. We cleaned up around Carol's house for a bit and refuelled her car but we didn't go anywhere for a while because of Auckland's very moody weather. Almost the entire morning was dedicated to rain and wind – you could not see the mountains in the distance, they were covered by a sheet of rain and fog. So that made us more inclined to stay in-house for a bit which we once again used to chill and formulate a plan for the day.
Amazingly enough, we both had plans to hang out with Samoans we know from our time in Samoa – I was meeting with people I know through church and Josh was meeting with people he knew through SAF (Samoan Aids Foundation). Since Josh was going to be doing a little clubbing, I wasn't very interested and his contact (the Samoan fa'fafine designer Lindeah Lepou) offered him a place to stay – so we came to the conclusion that we should split up for the night and hang out with our respective Samoan friends. So after 4 days of being together, it was time for a bit of a break from each other. So we closed up shop at Carol's house (although I would return later on at night) and took a bus back into town.
After securing Josh's luggage in a locker, we went and did yet another touristy thing – we went up the Sky Tower which is the tallest man made point in the Southern Hemisphere. If you've seen the Space Needle in Seattle, you've seen the Sky Tower. At 220m high it's not as tall as the Sears Tower in Chicago, but it offered an amazing view of the Auckland area. You could se for thousands of miles in any direction! You might ask yourself "But Marques, you said it was rainy and windy today?" It was – but only in the morning, in the afternoon the sun was shining and it was a nice clear day again. So God smiled on us while we were up there and just were able to get amazing shots and videos of the Auckland area (town, suburbs and surrounding islands).
After we came down from the Sky Tower, it was time for Josh and I to go our separate ways for a bit – to meet again later (just to put all you parents at ease). I met my friends – Lorna and Zonder – at the Maritime museum downtown. This was the first time I had seen anyone else that actually came from Samoa in NZ. It was quite a sight to see folks who are always wearing "summer clothing" wearing "winter clothing" – just didn't seem right.
One of the things Lorna promised me when I got to NZ was some good barbeque ribs which I haven't had since I was in Kansas City with dad and grandpa a year ago. The good thing about having a friend in a place you don't know that well is that they will show you where you can find the best food off the beaten/tourist path. So it was a great opportunity to see a different part of Auckland and to try NZ ribs. Lorna swore me to secrecy to hide the name of her place, but once we got the ribs we drove up the mountain in Winstone Park and ate our ribs while looking at an amazing panorama view of Auckland (in fact I was looking at the Sky Tower and thinking that only 40 minutes prior to being on that mountain I was actually looking this way at the top of the Sky Tower – like I said, you can see for miles from the top of the Sky Tower!)
Before I got any further, I must tell you that the ribs were great! Not as good as Memphis, Chicago or Kansas City but they were pretty good for this neck of the woods. Lorna definitely didn't steer me wrong! They were just juicy enough where you could actually taste the meat and flavour and none of the ribs were over done, it was quite impressive. After the ribs picnic, we headed to another friends house – Fila, whom I also know through church (who says you can't meet good people through church!). We actually went to her house, which is located in a heavily Polynesian area of Auckland – so it kind of felt like I was back on the island of Samoa. After hearing so many negative reports about NZ Samoans neighbourhoods while I was in Samoa, it was good to see the place for myself and realize it's no different than any middle class neighbourhood in the states – not as bad as the news made it out to be. We got to Fila's house and once again I was amongst my people – my fellow Samoans! It was awesome seeing an actual Samoan family unit in the NZ culture, wasn't as much of a culture shock as I expected. Even some Samoan was spoken (which I still couldn't understand – crossing the border didn't greatly increase my language skills) and it was oddly comforting to me. As soon as we arrived, the family had dinner made and because Zonder, Lorna and I ate before we headed out to Fila's we tried to say no. But some Samoan customs don't die i.e. any guest eats regardless of if they have eaten previously. So we had to eat and I was stuffed to the brim. This leg of our NZ adventure (Auckland) will probably be the most we're fed on. After we got done eating, Fila's brother busted out the karaoke machine and we had a blast just singing songs and enjoying each others company. Yes, even I participated in the fun…but I only sang three songs, so I didn't get to crazy. We started at about 9pm and didn't get done until 1am, so you know we had a good time (and no alcohol was involved).
Overall, it was a good day of hanging with friends here and seeing their lives in New Zealand. It's good to see where they come from and see the families that moulded them. Now hopefully Josh met up with Lendah…that should provide some interesting stories. But for now, this blog entry is closed….
Weird NZ things:
- They play a version of rugby where instead of touching or tackling the person, you pull plastic ribbons from a belt that the runner is wearing. If this sounds EXACTLY like flag football, you would be correct – it is! But do they call it Flag Rugby? Nooooo – they call it tag!
- The sunset here is at about 9pm at night because of the Winter Solstice (in the northern hemisphere, the sunlight became shorter. In the southern hemisphere, the sunlight lasts a lot longer). So when it's 8pm and we've finished eating dinner there still a lot of sunlight left – it throws off my body clock a bit because I feel I should still be doing stuff until it gets to dark to do stuff.
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