Submitted by Andrew Lenherr on the 2017 winter session program in New Zealand and Fiji sponsored by the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics…
This second week has been just as fantastic and interesting as the first was! We got to see a lot more of the North Island of New Zealand this week as we traveled by bus throughout the majority of the island to various locations. We saw many amazing sights along the way, including Cathedral Cove, Hobbiton and Raglan. Hobbiton especially was incredible for me because I’m a huge fan of the LoTR movies so getting to go on a tour of the actual site was pretty surreal!
Everywhere we’ve gotten to see so far on the program has been beautiful and I think it’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen, until we head somewhere new and I go through the same process again! We also got to experience a lot more of the New Zealand culture through some of the events we participated in this week. We visited a real Maori village, got to surf in Raglan and go through an awesome eco-tour of an eel farm! In the village, we got to see a showing of some traditional Maori dances and songs and even got to try the Hakka ourselves.
Raglan was very different from a lot of what we’ve seen so far as because of it’s distinct “surfer” culture. Our bus driver, Don, has been extremely valuable to the program as he has been telling so many stories about New Zealand history and culture that we would not be able to hear otherwise and he gives us a lot of background for many of the activities we’ve been participating in. Through our cultural experiences and Don’s cool stories, I feel as though I’m gaining more of an understanding of what the culture and history here is really like outside of what you can pick up in books and websites. It amazes me how even simple activities or things sometimes have extremely deep backgrounds and histories based in this culture, some of which may even differ with stories and histories back in America. Comparing many of the similarities and differences in these histories and stories has been quite interesting so far and has been giving the program a whole new meaning thus far!