CULTURAL EXPERIENCES

When we first woke up in the morning we went on the duck tour. While driving us around in it the the tour guide and driver told us about the history of  volcano's, lakes, and about the famous Maori love story. I especially liked the story about the green lake and how it is haunted so nobody is allowed to go on the lake. With the superstition still strong and enforced today, with the exception of stupid Americans, nobody dares to go on the lake. After that we went to visit the Whaka and learned about how they used the geysers within the village for things like cooking food. It was hard to live around geysers because they move so much  if they built a house they could wake up the next morning with a geyser in there kitchen. So what they did to prevent this from happening was they built there houses on big stones so the geysers didn't end up invading there homes. personally I didn't learn much more after that because i got sick and had to sit down but what i did learn was that the Maori religion is very close to Christianity which is probably why them and the Europeans got along so well. That and the fact that the Maori warriors are so scary! I also learned about how they have meeting houses that they build to represent the body of an ancestor.The building were used for celebrations like birthdays, funerals, marriages, or just plain meetings. After the tour we went to the agradome to watch sheep sheering, which to be honest was kind of gruesome. While the guy was shaving the sheep, it looked like it was in pain the whole time and it was trying to get away because it was so scared. I couldn't look because I felt so bad for it but I wasn't the only one who thought that, I'm pretty sure the whole audience felt the same way. I also got to milk a cow which I think was pretty cool because there are cows everywhere in New Zealand but to actually touch one was awesome. At the end of the day  we had a big traditional Maori dinner and at the end of the dinner were traditional Maori dances. This day showed me allot about the culture of New Zealand as well as the history background from which it was built upon.