Voyage diary: My first time in Rangiora, Christchurch

Kia Ora!! :)
This is Maori for "Hello"!

It's been six weeks now since I am here, in New Zealand. Unbelievable!! I feel like I've only stayed one week in this country - time passes soo quickly!
That's why I'd like to give you an update of my first month in Rangiora, the village I live in.

Welcome to Rangiora!

Right at the first week-end when I arrived at my hostfamily's house I was able to get an insight into one typical Kiwi activity: having a BBQ with friends! Therefor we drove to a house in the neighbourhood where we were welcomed by a couple of adults and childs by shaking hands or with a hug. Most of the family's friends were real open-minded, asking me questions about my hometown, about my first impressions of New Zealand and so on. Because of their friendly attitude I immediatly felt more comfortable.
For the BBQ they had different kinds of meat - because I'm a vegetarian I had salad (which was very yummy), bread and some lollies like chips and nuts.
The family whose house we were staying at has a pool in their garden. Their little children went swimming though it was 9pm!! :D Well, the water wasn't that cold, so why not? It's really enjoyable that the temperature in summer stays good until about half past 9 / 10 pm here - you are able to sit outside for hours and you still feel warm enough! Love it!

The next day my hostsister Karis took me to the beach with some of her friends. Karis is 16 years old and goes to the same school as me, she's just one year above. We were sitting in a friends car and the girl who drove wasn't older than 17 years! That made me wonder... till I was told that in New Zealand you can start driving lessons at the age of 16. Half a year later you can get a so-called 'restricted licence' which means you are quasi allowed to drive alone, but only from 5am - 10pm. A 'full licence' enables you to drive completely alone whenever you want to. Wow, that's different to Germany! In my home country there's no 'restricted licence' - you're only allowed to drive alone at the age of 18! And the other thing which was a bit hard for me to get used to was the fact that you're driving on the other

side of the road in New Zealand - on the left. It happened to me that I almost took a seat on the right side in front of the car. :b In addition to that most New Zealand cars aren’t able to drive faster than 160 km/h!! On the motorway I’ve never seen a traffic sign showing you’re allowed to drive more than 120 km/h. o: When I told my hostparents that in Germany the cars can sometimes drive up to 260 km/h and that there are motorways with 6 lanes where people drive 200km/h, they couldn’t believe it and where staring at me with big eyes! I really didn't know that this is not the same in this country.

Anyway, sitting in the car then, window open, summer songs on, we were driving to Waikuku Beach which is just about 15 minutes away from our house. It's beautiful!!

We only stayed there for a short while, relaxing in the sun, because later we had been meeting some other friends. About half an hour later we moved on to Lake Pegasus. This lake is gorgeous! The landscape and some islands built up in the water make you feel like you're on holiday:

At a store near the lake Karis' friend bought some tortilla chips and I was asking myself why the shop was open on a Sunday!! :o Another difference to Europe: All the supermarkets and other shops selling food or little souvenirs for the tourists are opened 7 days of the week! The big shopping malls in town are also opened every day - that's why many Kiwis like to go shopping on Sundays. This is also because many people in New Zealand have to work 6 days a week. That must be hard. :/

on the right: 'OPEN 8am-10pm, 7days'

New World - a typical supermarket
which is just on the next road from
my house.
It's popular like 'ALDI' and 'LIDL'
in Germany or 'Safeway' in America.

The next day school started for me - but I'll tell you everything about it in my next report which will just be about school, the subjects, sports and so on! ;)

The next Kiwi habit that was very different for me at the beginning was having dinner! Not as in Germany, the New Zealanders just eat a snack for lunch, e.g.toast with vegetables, some lolly or fruit. In the evening then they eat something warm - this is the biggest meal of the day. So for example they eat fish and chips, rice, meat or pasta, with a side dish like salad.
What was also funny for me is the fact that they call out 'Tea is ready!' instead of 'Dinner is ready!'. The first time my hostmum said that I was a bit confused because I only know the expression 'tea time' from England and this means having a tea and maybe some biscuits in the afternoon. Funny experience! :b

In general I have the impression that there are some difference concerning food in New Zealand and Germany. Well, this was predictable - in every country their are some specialities you try for the first time. That's actually pretty cool because you get the possibility to get to know food and drinks you've never heard of before! I'll give you some examples (of course not every food also has its origin in New Zealand), kind of like:

'The Best of: Food and Drinks in New Zealand'

...I've discovered so far:

1) Toast with spaghetti and tomato sauce, added with herbs like basil and pepper & salt

(little insider: Kiwis like warming up a ready-made meal for the pasta, e.g. from the brand Wattie's)
Also weird for me: They hardly eat no other bread than toast!

2) Garlic bread

In pizzerias garlic bread is a very popular starter on the menu. It's reaaaally yummie!

3) Pavlova

(I have to admit that this isn't my picture, unfortunately I didn't take one when I ate it)
This is a typical Kiwi caje, you can eat it with berries on top, e.g. currants or raspberries - has a sweet taste, but it's very delicious!

4) Dry fruit

The enterprise 'Annies' is famous all over
the world for their dry fruit in plenty of
variations! I also saw some class mates
taking fruit bars with them to school.

5) bowle of fruit (and crackers)

I love New Zealand fruit!! It tastes sooo
fresh! The apples are missing on that
picture - they taste very good, too.

6) L&P (or: Lemon and Paeroa)

lemonade which tastes similar to Fanta; very refreshing and sweet; has its origin in NZL and
many Kiwis love it.
(I only have this stupid picture with L&P... :b)

'The Best of: New Zealand Lolly'

...I've discovered so far:

1) Coooooookies!! Yummy :)

The 'Cookie Time' biscuits are absolutely the best! They've got them
in plenty of different sorts.

2) Macarons

Well, as I told you, not each of those lollies comes from NZL (those are from France) - so I was very surprised to find them here! They're a kind of little sweet cake with a creamy filling, existing in varied flavours (on the photo: raspberry).

3) ice creeeaaaaam!

In Rangiora, there's a great ice cream shop selling one single bowle in that huge size. :D
Flavours on the photo:
- orange & chocolate
- cookies & cream

4)
At our school you can
sometimes buy ice cream,
they've got very exotic
creations with special
toppings! :b Very yummy!

5)
Also from France - and it made me feel glad to eat it here, it's my favourite dessert:
crêpe!
Delicious!!

6) And here comes my favourite NZL lolly:

Dairy Milk: Marvellous Creations!!
looooooove it (:
The chocolate brand 'Cadbury' definitely produces
the best chocolate - and in so many variations!

What's also crazy about candy in this country is the fact that they already started in the beginning of February (this is no joke!) to sell Easter chocolate! And not just one or two different sorts of easter bunnies or so - noooooo, the customer has a biiiiig choice:

Alright, enough now with all that food!! I don't want to make you guys too jealous. :D Even if I really miss Milka and Haribo here!

I'd now like to tell you something about the Kiwi way of life, about their houses, everyday life and stuff like that. (:

On my way from the airport in Christchurch to the village of Rangiora and when I arrived at my hostfamily's house I felt like I've been carried back to my last summer vacation with my family in Spain right at the coast. This was because of the style the houses are all built in. They've got this coastal charme creating the thought in your mind that you're close to the sea. That's really beautiful!
Most of the houses - I bet at least 90 % - have only got one floor, but a quite big surface (e.g. in comparison to Germany). Many houses are white and for example my hostfamily's house is covered with wood on the outside and you can find many little details, such as shells or cute cups hanging from a little rope on the roof.
I have the impression that New Zealanders attach great importance to their gardens: Mostly they're really big and very very beautiful! You find a variety of flowers, fruit trees, palmet trees and it is usual to have a veggie garden - I like that. :D My hostmum for example, she has a veggie garden with a lot of space on a field for zucchini, cucumber, herbs as welll as a greenhouse for tomatoes. Even a friend of mine in my form class has already got her own veggie garden where she puts a lot of effort in to grow different vegetables. Think that's pretty cool!

This is a part of my hostfamily's garden:
the lawn would be in the foreground, just on the left side there's a little
summer house for sleepovers and in the background on the left is the
'main' house (which you can't see on this picture)

I like the Kiwi attitude - they seem quite relaxed, not as stressed as most of the Europeans, and friendly to everyone, even to strangers: When you're on the road or doesn't matter where - on the hills, at the coast - you can always just stop people and ask them if they could take a picture of you, explain you the way if you're lost or anything!! And they'd never react in a angry or nerved way, they're always kind to help you. Sometimes they're very interested and ask you politely where you come from and why you've decided to stay in New Zealand. It's always fun to have conversations with Kiwis, I can advise that to everyone - just speak! (;
And the fact that they care so much about their gardens and plants make them even more sympathetic in my eyes!

Some Kiwis seem like loving the water so much that the ocean is not enough - they've got a pool at their house, too! (: That's really enjoyable because as I told you, you can jump in there till it's getting dark and because of the long summer period in Down Under a pool is quite profitable and a lot of fun!

Here's a picture of the pool at the house of friends of my familie's friends in Kaikoura:
(I'll tell you about my trip to Kaikoura in the next post, but the picture fits perfectly here ;) )

in the pool: Harison, the friends' son

Obviously this is not an example for an average NZL pool - this one has a very unique view! You can have a look at the mountains, the valley and the ocean while having a swim - amazing!!

Some Kiwis prefer living on a farm. This is the case at some hostfamilies' places where international students of our group are staying. For example Sophia, my German friend, stays with a hostfamily who lives in North Loburn on a farm with a lot of sheep. Other Kiwis also have cattle or prefer having chicken or dogs.

Back to Rangiora:
The village has appromimately 12.000 habitants and is situated about 25 minutes away from Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island. The area in and around Christchurch, including Rangiora, suffered from the earthquakes in 2011-2012 and so they're still in process of rebuilding the city centres. You are able to see some of the damage while walking through Rangiora's streets - some buildings are partly destroyed and closed because they won't be rebuilded, something else will replace them in the next few years.
However it isn't that hard as you may imagine now: Please don't create a picture in your head of a ruined city after a war!! :D At the moment Rangiora is a quite lovely village again with several supermarkets, bakeries, clothing and shoe shops, ice cafés, a post office, a public pool and parcs, etc. :))

Concerning Kiwi Slang, I get along much better now! At the beginning I had some problems to understand what my hostparents or my teachers are telling me, especially when they were talking fast. Now I got used to it and I get almost everything they say - that makes it a lot easier in the everyday life, at lunch or in town, believe me!

There are some new phrases I’d like to present to you which I found very funny when I heard them for the first time:

- “bloody…” à used when somebody is angry or desperate, e.g. “Where are my bloody keys?” or also in a fight with somebody: “You’re such a bloody idiot!” :P

-> “Good as gold.” à means “That’s good/fine. / Alright.” My hostmum often uses it, and when she says that to me it sounds like I’ve done something reeeally right and I always have to smile haha :D

Another point I’d like to tell you about (and I can just warn everyone who also wants to travel to New Zealand): They’ve got no internet flats!! :s I know guys, this can be shocking and we’re talking about a seriously dramatic issue here :D – at least European people will understand me very well, won’t you? Most people from Germany and the surrounding countries have internet flats.

It is a standard for me at home - I normally use the internet almost all day long: for doing my homework and doing research for presentations, for blogging (obviously :b), for chatting with friends on facebook and skype, for writing and checking my mails – for everything, I neeeeeeed it! Guess you can understand me, can’t you? So that’s why it was real hard for me, especially during the first month, to reduce the time I spend on the internet. I took a little distance from the social networks and had to live with other consequences like writing all my blog entries first on a Word document before putting them on blogspot, and I had to accept that the internet is turned off around 10pm every night.

Actually I don’t find it too bad anymore because in my opinion you’re not here to spend the whole day long on the internet (that’s why I didn’t get an internet flat on my mobile phone either) – you’re here to enjoy, to experience New Zealand with its people, its culture and its nature! (:

Nature – well, at this point I’ve got to add something: I felt quite relieved when I read that in New Zealand there exist no snakes. However there are spiders, that quickly changed my good mood. :/ Fortunately I haven’t seen a big one yet, but right at my first night here at my hostfamily’s house there was a black spider in my room – Yuck!! It didn’t have many seconds to live anymore after I had seen it… .

Anyway, let’s better talk about something else! :D You may be interested in the events we had during the last 5 weeks. (:

For example there was Waitangi Day:

Every year on the 6th of February the so-called 'New Zealand Day' is celebrated in order to think back to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (NZL) in 1840. You get a day off at school and you can go to festivals which are arranged all over the country.

My hostmum also took me to a little festival in Kaiapoi. It was on a big field - Kiwi families were sitting down on the grass having a picnic, chatting and there were some sale stalls where you could buy New Zealand jewellery, mostly in Maori style, clothes and food.

For example you could get 'Hangi' - this is a traditional Maori food: They take vegetables - like potatoes - and meat, put those into baskets, dig a hole in the ground and heat stones in the hole with a large fire. On top of the hot stones they place the baskets and cover everything with earth for several hours. After that time they lift the Hangi up to surface - and there it is! My hostmum says it is very delicious (, I just didn't try it because of the meat d:).

At the festival there was also live music and you could see people walking around in traditional British costumes which was funny to look at:

You could now ask yourself why Kiwis dress up on such days, but don't know carnival?! Weird... I really missed carnival the way I know it from Germany! In our country we celebrate it quite intensively: In the shops you can get costumes of almost every kind of celebraty, animal, cartoon character or employee (e.g. a policeman) you want to look like. There are carnival parades in almost every German village and city - and over here: nothing!! :( They should really introduce that in New Zealand, I'm sure people would like it! :))

On the other hand there's a special event which is celebrated more intensively over here then in my homecountry: Valentine's Day!

When I came to school on the 14th of February, there were some girls walking around with little baskets distributing home-made cookies or small cards with a poem or a cute valentines-day-message on it to the students. :) I also saw some people walking around at school with roses or carrying presents from their boy- or girlfriend. Those are such loooovely gestures! I wish it was like this in every country around the world, I find that so cute! (:

In the afternoon on Valentine's Day my hostfamily drove with me to one of the Malls in Christchurch! Yaaaay!! :D The mall is called 'Northlands' and it's huge! Sadly we didn't have sooo much time because they had something else planned for the night, so we had a quick look into all the shops - it was much fun though! Shopping's always great :)

Afterwards we went to a restaurant in Christchurch for dinner, its name was 'Chilli Kiwi' which I liked much :b We had some Chinese food, fried noodles or rice, and enjoyed the evening together.

As an international student I've booked an 'Outdoor Education' program before I came here. That means that I'll participate in excursions all around the South Island every second week together with other international students from Rangiora High School! That's actually pretty cool because you already know that you'll definitely see something from New Zealand and you needn't plan what to do every weekend. We're a group of about 20 students at about my age coming from Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway and Germany.

Our first excursion we had all together was a sailing and kayaking trip at Pegasus Lake! First activity: Kayaking! Shoes out, lifejackets on and - let's go!!

Sophia and me

It was a quite sunny Friday, but unfortunately there was a lot of wind, so it wasn't that warm.
Especially not... when I fell into the water!! :b In fact, everything went real good at the beginning: We learned how to kayak alone forwards and backwards, we kayaked in pairs and stuff and Sophia, Lucia, Francesca and I even managed to swap kayaks while being in the water in the middle of the lake! That was fun (:
However we had a little stroke of bad luck then haha: We had this little challenge: We were separated into 2 groups of 10 members, but we only had 2 double kayaks (which means there usually fit 2 persons in 1 kayak) per group. The game's aim was to get the whole team to the other side of the lake first. Well, you can probably guess what most people's plan was to win the game: Getting 5 students into each kayak, so that we only need to cross the lake once. Damn it! I got onto our team's kayak first, just in front of it and when the others got onto it behind me, the kayak was shaking so much that I fell into the lake with all my clothes on! :/ The water was actually quite warm, but when I got outside the wind was freaking cold. Finally I was happy sitting on the grass again and being covered with 2 blankets and lots of warm jackets. :D

During sailing we fortunately stayed dry. :) That was quite cool, too and at this time the weather had already become a bit better:

Lucia, Sophia and me

Another weekend Sophia and I went shopping at Westfield Riccarton Mall in Christchurch together! That was really great - this mall is very big, too, has got two floors with many shops, restaurants and cafés, supermarkets, etc. We felt kind of proud because we could already recognize some shops we had seen in other shopping malls in New Zealand so far. (: And of course we have also got some favourite shops now where we'll go on each of our next shopping tours in any case!

The next week we had some days of really hot weather!!
This picture was taken in Rangiora :) :

hope you can read it - the sign says 33°C (:

Well, the strong sun also brings some disadvantages with it: I've got a bad sunburn on my nose... :( Hope it'll disappear soon because at the moment I'm kind of looking like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer!

Okay guys, this was the update of the time I've spent here so far - well, no, actually not completely! The Kaikoura trip is still missing as I told you, but there are so many pictures and impressions I'd love to share with you that this will be in an extra post. ;) So the next post will come soon - with some amazig pictures of NZL nature, believe me!! (:

At the end I'd like to show you just some random, maybe weird or funny, pictures I've collected at my trips or at home: :b