Pacifica Festival

Thursday night Christine, Anna, Heidi, and I (I think I’m going to start calling us the four some cause I really do everything with them) all went to the opening night of the Pacifica Festival.  We took the public bus at about five and headed to Western Springs park.  We got their about an hour early so we could see parts of this beautiful and get good seats!  The park was beautiful! 

It had a huge pond, large trees, walking paths, and the best part HUGE pukekos/geese/swans/really big birds.  We are all obsessed with the Pukeko birds that are native to NZ.  They have red heads, blue throats, long legs, and spread out toes.  

They walk so funny but we were so excited to see them in real life.  We had only really seen them in pictures or in the museums up to this point.  After the pukeko birds we ran it to some big honkin geese/swans.  These things were SO SO big.  I know we probably have these in America but I guess I have never really seen them before.  

I was super intrigued.  It was a little bit scared when this big guy with red eyes and an abnormally long neck started walking confidentially straight towards us.

After bird watching at the park we headed to get a spot to watch the Pacifica Concert.  It is one of the biggest cultural festivals in the South Pacific.  This night was the kick off festival for a weekend filled different islands sharing their culture, dance, and food with everyone in NZ.  Throughout the night we got to see dancers from Fiji, Tahiti, Tonga, Hawaii, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, and Aotearoa (New Zealand).  They even had some groups from the high schools from the area perform.  It was a great cultural experience listening to their music and watching their dance. 

After the festival we hopped on the public bus to head home.  It was surprisingly full with lots of interesting/sketchy people.  I had the thought while we were riding home, if my mother could watch a video of me right now she would probably be a bit worried. 

We had to make one interchange stop on our trip home.  We had about 45 minutes till the next bus came, when we made an amazing discovery!  We had to find a bathroom and their happened to be one close to our stop by some of the shops.  We weren’t exactly how to get into the bathrooms but then we saw this high tech button you press.  I was so intrigued with this bathroom!  Let me give you a tour of the bathroom with this video we made J Becca may be the only person who thinks this is really funny but thats ok!

 When that toilet seat popped out of the wall, at first I was freaked out, but then I started hysterically laughing.  I just thought it was the coolest thing EVER!  Even once I had gotten home I was laughing about it.  When I woke up the next morning I realized it really wasn't quite as cool as I had thought.  I think I was just really tired that night or something.

Anyways after we explored the bathroom for awhile and then finally they self locked because we were playing around in them too much we decided we were freezing and didn’t want to wait for a bus.  We found a nice taxi man and had him give us a ride back.  He only charged us 15 bucks and it was way better than riding the bus.  I think we might try to use taxis more often.

Friday night we were kindly invited over to a sweet family in our ward's house for dinner.  It is just a single mom and her 11 year old daughter.  The daughter Cheyenne reminded me of my sister Kimberly!  It made me miss Kib so much.  But they fed us well and it is so interesting to learn about their lives.  This lady is originally from a small part of the Cook Islands.  Her father was a member and sent her to Church College in New Zealand for her last year of high school.  (In New Zealand they call High School, College).  At age 18 she joined the church. She then traveled all over the pacific to different Islands because she had a job with a pearl company.  It was so fun to be part of their home for a night.  I mentioned to the four some (Heidi, Anna, and Christine) that I felt like a missionary being invited to members homes in the ward for a well cooked meal every once in awhile.  It was a great evening!

Update Pictures:

Here is a quick peek at my new class room with the year 7/8 kids!

I got my pen pal letters sent out the my students back in Provo!  The kids have loved looking at pictures sent from Mrs. Marvels class.

Here's a couple more pictures for school and from the kids following us home now.  Because they know where we live, it has really opened up a can of worms.  We're going to have to hide out at school and leave later because yesterday we literally had a caravan of kids following us.  We stopped at a near by park for awhile with them and then did our best to send them home.  Getting them to leave is a really difficult task.  Usually Phyllis has to come out and scare them away haha.

The little boy on the right is Moki.  First adorable name huh!  Second he has the sweetest smile I have ever seen!  He is not usually very well behaved in class but I can't ever be mad at him because of how cute and innocent he looks!