nswolco – Page 2 – GW Blogs from Abroad

Driving Into the Sea

AdminMarch 12, 2018December 14, 2018

This weekend I embarked on my first independent trip, on which I would attempt to surmount the entire Northern tip of New Zealand. I began this endeavor, accompanied by three of my closest international friends, at a small run-down rental car agency in Auckland Central. The man at the desk handed us the keys to an old rickety hatchback, in which we would drive the 6 hours up to Cape Reigna, and in which I would get my first taste of the winding roads of the New Zealand bush.

We began our weekend with a trip to the Glowworm Caves of Waipu, which took us up a narrow, precipitous stretch of dirt road that our hatchback was just able to navigate in the dark. When we reached the caves we were the only people visible for miles, and the moments approaching the cave's entrance felt vaguely like the part of the horror movie when the audience is begging the protagonist not to go in. Inside the narrow entrance the cave blossomed into a jumble of stalactites and stalagmites, and as we turned the lights from our phones off a smattering of fluorescent spots revealed themselves. The flecks of blue-green were, of course, Arachnocampa luminosa, thousands of glow worms nestled into the rock. As we made our way deeper into the cave, wading in the watery floor, I was startled to find long gray eels slithering around my feet. This was my introduction to the fauna-filled weekend to come.

Day 2 of our adventure started in the Bay of Islands, home to 144 different islands, almost all of which we would see that day on a 4 hours ferry trip encompassing the length of the Bay. This was by far the most memorable (if pricey) leg of our trip, as a couple hours into the tour we happened upon a pod of bottlenose dolphins. Undulating Bottlenoses jumped through the wake of our ferry, and the crowd of onlookers audibly gasped when a baby dolphin shot several meters into the air behind us. Our captain informed us that his name was Flash, and he was part of the 25-member pod that we had discovered. In the midst of all this excitement, a small fairy penguin surfaced unceremoniously just a few feet ahead of me, and looked back with indifference before diving back into the surf. We rounded out the day with a trip to Rainbow Falls, which proved to be quite a beautiful secluded spot, and that night we fell asleep to the sound of water hitting rock after a 27 meter free fall.

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The Final Stretch

AdminFebruary 26, 2018December 14, 2018

By Nora_Wolcott

I began planning my time abroad, really planning in a realistic way, at the end of my Spring 2017 semester. By the end of September I had narrowed down my search to a specific program. These past six months I've spent my time planning every detail of my abroad experience, and after all that time I am finally one night away from my departure date. And somehow, I am suddenly just realizing how many gaps are left in my plans.

For starters, I completely forgot to take the date line into account when planning flights, putting my arrival date only a few days before the start of classes. I registered for an international health insurance plan without checking to see if it was approved by my University, leaving me to switch to a new plan just days before the start of the semester. I hadn't looked into the kind of electronic converters I needed, or what kind of entertainment material would be necessary for the grueling plane ride; for these problems I can thank Amazon Prime for saving me a very frantic airport shopping trip. I put all my belongings and suitcases in a storage unit without fully calculating how much my two small remaining suitcases would hold (thank god for expandable zippers). Also, amid all my extravagant travel plans, my research into bungee jumping and camping trips to the mountains, I neglected to focus on one thing: my schoolwork. In the midst of all this planning, somewhere along the way my actual course load at the University of Auckland was pushed aside, leaving me to scramble to print syllabi and organize schedules at the last minute.

This whole ordeal has, at the very least, been quite a learning experience. My practical learnings range from how to open a bank account in another country, to how to calculate voltage conversion, to how to contact a foreign embassy. However, it is the rather impractical that I enjoy the most: the fact that New Zealanders call flip flops "jandals" (which I first thought was some kind of denim sandal), and the correct way to say goodbye in Maori, "Nga mihi", pronounced (Nah-mihee).

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New Zealand Bucket List

AdminFebruary 23, 2018December 14, 2018

By Nora_Wolcott

As a GW Exchange student at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, I’ve spent the past couple months watching my friends embark on their study abroad experiences. Reading the facebook posts, blog entries, and firsthand accounts of their travels has only solidified what I’ve known ever since I was a high schooler applying to college: studying abroad is sure to be one of the landmark moments of my college career. However, so far my 2018 has looked a little different than all of my peers abroad, in that I haven’t been abroad at all. Because New Zealand operates on a yearly schedule opposite to the USA’s, I am actually attending their fall semester, which doesn’t begin until nearly March. Consequently, I’ve spent the past few months staying in DC and working full time, saving up to ensure that this experience is the best it can be.

During my time in DC, spending my hours working in a genetics lab and dog walking, I’ve had a lot of time to think about how I want to spend my semester abroad. So, blog readers, I present to you my official New Zealand Bucket List:

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