Saturday, March 14th, was the Pasifika festival, an annual event put on by the
Auckland City Council celebrating Pasifika culture. There's a large Pasifika presence in New Zealand, obviously. Each country had it's own section, complete with vendors selling food and cultural things (jewelry, clothes, artwork, etc.)and music/dance performances. It was packed even though it was raining (not downpouring, but enough to get your clothes a bit damp).
Definitely was impressed with the music. I remember being really happy - all the music we heard was AWESOME. And it was all types too. The first band we saw was a metal band, we also heard a R&B singer who sang a really sweet song about his grandma (reading that over it sounds cheesy, but I'll tell you it was great), an
d also a female singer/songwriter who played the guitar.(Link!)
http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/whatson/events/pasifika/default.asp
We tried to make it around to all the countries, and I had to make sure that I saw Samoa, because that's the ethnicity of my homestay family. Also, something I realized, I had always heard it pronounced suh-MOE-uh, but the correct pronunciation is SAH-moe-uh. Good to know. I always feel ignorant/cultuarlly insensitive when I think one thing for so long and it turns out to be wrong.
The next day, the 15th, I went with Krista to Waiheke! I'd been in the country for nearly a month, but hadn't made it out to the beach until that day! It was definitely a bit chillier than I imagined it'd be that day (I had to keep my sweatshirt on all day) but still a lot of fun!
Krista and I on the beach! :D
Annabelle frog on Palm Beach!Fast forward to the 21st - after deciding to not go onto the ArtLink bus (we'll make it out to the galleries before we leave) Jessica and I rode a bus over to Takapuna beach. Even though I had been to Waiheke the week
before, it wasn't a proper beach day, since it was too cold to go into the water. Finally got to put my bathing suit into use in Takapuna! The water was kinda cold...so I didn't walk in past my hips and laid out tanning for a while. OH. No ozone layer in NZ so always gotta make sure to wear sunblock.
On the way back to the bus stop we ran into a very pretty mini-park Potter's park. And of course we had to stop to take pictures! Pretty!
Went back to Jessica's homestay house and got some movies, we watched 23 (good movie!) and The Tatooist, a New Zealand film...which was uh..interesting...
To end the night we had a Seafood pizza from Pizza Hut. Why can't we have boxes as cool as these in the States?
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