Papers, surfing, extractive industries, wild food, and a possible sign off (for now)

I guess it’s time for another update! 

After we got home from the South Island trip we had an intense work week. Studying, midterms, paper, and more! But at the end of the week we had a day off so a bunch of us decided to go to Raglan!

Raglan is a small town on the west coast of the North Island and is well known for its great surf spots. We got to Raglan at night, checked into our hostel, and went to get some dinner. We ended up getting take away organic burgers and took them down to the harbor to eat them.  After a delicious meal we took a walk on the beach where we were happy to find BIOLUMINESCENCE!!! I walked down to the water and noticed it was sparkling every time I moved my feet and so we discovered there were bioluminescent organisms in the water. It was so cool seeing sparkling water every time you splashed around and when you stepped on the wet sand it was like fireworks going off and it looked like we were in Avatar walking on Pandora. 

The next day we got up early and explored the town which was really adorable, lots of cute little shops and cafes.  Then we rented surf boards and wetsuits to go try our hand at surfing the waves. We all did pretty well, it was the first time I had stood on a surf board since I was 16 but I got up a couple of times which was exciting. The waves were absolutely perfect and it was a beautiful day out. We had a really great time. 

Sufer Girls!

Unfortunately, we had to go back to EcoQuest after our day of sun and surf to learn about extractive industries! We visited Waihi gold mine, it was the first mine I had ever seen and I was really surprised at how massive they are. Literally just a gigantic hole in the ground, but walking through the town you would never know it was there - unless you walked up the hill to go see it or they were blasting rocks away and you felt the vibrations. We went to tour the mine to get a different perspective on mining than just the idea of how environmentally damaging they are. 

Waihi Gold Mine see that truck on the right?

That's how big it is!!!

What we learned was that although mining actually is incredibly environmentally damaging it’s a resource we cannot do without.  On the tour we learned how much the money from the mine goes into the local and New Zealand Economy and also about how mining companies can try to mitigate the damage done to the environment. In order to extract one ounce of gold from the mine 10 tons of rock needs to come out of the ground.  To make a profit they have to extract 30 to 50 thousand tons of rock per day because 31.1 grams of gold is worth $2,000 NZ dollars. All of the rock that is taken from the ground and not used is deposited offsite in a giant pond. Oh and this rock is tainted with cyanide because that is the substance which separates the gold from the rock – no big deal.  The company plans to mitigate this effect by turning the ponds into giant man-made wetlands. 

We had a long discussion about whether or not the mine was “sustainable” or not. We discussed it wasn’t although what we produce is a very sustainable resource. Gold is long lasting, and is useful in many things other than jewelry although jewelry is the primary use. I’ve come to find that it’s difficult to label whether or not something is sustainable or not. 

After a long week learning about semi-depressing things we had a two day break. The first I spent lounging around EcoQuest; biking, walking, reading, and kayaking- a really wonderful day. The next day a couple of us went to the Awhitu Wild Food Festival where we got to sample lots of exotic wild foods. I chose to eat a tahr burger as my main course. Tahr is kind of like a giant goat and it tasted pretty good. The ostrich burgers were the best though.  The festival was really fun there was live music and lots of different foods to sample and to top it off it was a beautiful day! 

Mmmm Tahr

 

Tomorrow morning I am leaving EcoQuest. It is truly a bittersweet ending. I don’t want to go but I’m excited for my 12 day adventure around the North Island with my friend Kristen. It will be filled with reggae concerts, beaches, Great Barrier Island, volunteering with the DOC, back to Raglan for more surfing, horseback riding, cave exploring and so much more! I still have so much to tell you all about the rest of my EcoQuest adventures. Which hopefully I will get to before I leave NZ! If not, I’ll finish writing when I get back in the states December 22^nd!

-Emily

South Island Super Blog!

Ok so I lied a little bit when I said I would update everyone. But in my defense there was never any internet on the South Island unless I wanted to pay for it and the prices weren't cheap. And I really am sorry I haven’t written in over a month! I guess I’m a really bad blogger. I have been super super busy since leaving for the South Island, it seems like we are out doing activities and finishing assignments nonstop! This experience is really indescribable.  But I will try and give you some details anyway…

First view of the mountains and the sea together!

We left for the South Island on September 25th and spent a couple of days traveling. It took about eight hours of driving and stopping at pretty rest areas just to get to Wellington which is where we took the ferry from to get to the South Island. If you’ve ever been on the ferry from Long Island to Connecticut you know how big a car ferry is. Well this ferry was like the Long Island Ferry on steroids. The inside looked like a hotel. There was a café, a bar, a kids room, a full movie theater, and reclining chairs. The view traveling from the North Island to the South Island was absolutely fantastic I still cannot believe how blue the water is here. On the ferry ride I got my first glimpse of an albatross which has the largest wingspan in the world and that was a pretty good introduction to our four days in Kaikoura. 

Kaikoura sunset

 Let me just start this off by saying that our South Island unit was based around Ecotourism. So throughout this whole experience we had to be both students and tourists in order to gain information for the paper we had to write about whether or not Ecotourism is really sustainable.  The town of Kaikoura is a beautiful town with its economy based around tourism. This is because Kaikoura’s waters are a merging of cold salty nutrient rich water from the South and warm water from the North; this merging creates a process called upwelling where the nutrient rich water is able to come to the surface. This upwelling effect creates an abundance of marine life because lots of nutrients means lots of plankton, lots of fish, lots of birds, and lots of marine mammals.   As you can guess the tourism in Kaikoura is mainly focused on the marine mammals in the area there are businesses based around whales, seals, and dolphins.  So this was our first lesson in “Ecotourism.”

While in Kaikoura we got to stay in a Marae, one of the coolest things I have ever done.  This Marae was a lot different than the one we visited at EcoQuest, it was more modern and all the panels on the inside were carved and painted and women from the Marae wove harakeke mats that were placed on the walls. There were no pictures allowed but trust me the building was absolutely stunning and we all got to sleep in it.  The grounds at the Marae were also beautiful. You could look out from the deck and see the ocean and snow topped mountains at the same time.  

View from the Marae

Our first lesson in Kaikoura was about waste. We visited Innovative Waste Kaikoura (IWK) which is the town dump essentially but really so much more. At this dump they have a 72% diversion rate of waste. This means 72% of the town’s waste is either recycled or used for other purposes! IWK also separates materials that are not currently recyclable into categories and creates separate landfills for each material so in the future if that material is able to be recycled it can be extracted and used.  They have a composting facility and a store where you can buy working objects that people were going to throw away at a dirt cheap price: compost, clothes, furniture, appliances, videos, toys, etc. There is no trash pickup in the town and they charge for landfill use so anything not compostable or recyclable you have to pay to throw out.  This place was really one of the coolest places I’ve ever seen. It was such an easy concept that can be used anywhere and it’s a process that makes people think about what they are buying. If you have to pay to throw away your packaging materials you are going to weigh your purchases in recyclables v. garbage. Genius! And the amazing thing about it was that it was a dump but it didn’t look like or smell like a dump at all. This is because they dispose of compostable items and food scraps in the correct way rather than throwing everything in a whole and then digging a new whole when the first is full. Truly a cool field trip that makes me really think why isn’t it like that everywhere?

Our second field trip in Kaikoura was a surprise, but a really really awesome-best day of my life kind of surprise. They sprung it on us the night before and there was an uproar in the Marae when we learned we were going to swim with wild dolphins the next day!!!  I mean how else were we supposed to learn about the ecotourism in Kaikoura without participating? In the morning we walked down to Encounter Kaikoura and got fitted for thick wetsuits and then hopped on a boat and we were speeding across the ocean on the lookout for that fin skimming the surface. Before we saw any dolphins we saw about five types of birds including the endangered Hutton’s shearwater, which only lives in NZ, and many types of albatross including the wandering albatross which is the albatross with the largest wingspan that can reach to 12 feet! We finally spotted the pod of dolphins and afterwards the captain said we had one of the best days he had ever seen.  We had a pod of about 200 dolphins and they were interested the entire time we were in the water, we swam for about an hour and 45 min and the pod kept circling around us. It was a beautiful day and even though the water was 50 degrees it didn’t matter because we were all so excited.   The dolphins we swam with are dusky dolphins and they are really interactive. If you catch their eye you can swim in circles with them. The feeling of looking a wild animal in the eye and making a connection is indescribable and a feeling I will never forget.

Other things Kaikoura related were a hilarious, interesting, and informative talent show at the Marae. Where we each took our turn showing off talents we didn’t know about each other. The group of us became really close starting in Kaikoura and now it’s like we’ve known each other forever, learning about permitting that companies like Encounter Kaikoura have to go through in order to take people swimming with dolphins, and a peninsula walk to see Kaikoura’s coastline.  A really unbelievable start to our South Island Adventure and that was only four days!

Kaikoura Peninsula

The next couple of days we had a day off in Hanmer springs, a really cute town with hot springs, and drove to the West coast to see Greymouth and Reefton, old mining towns. Then we arrived at Nelson Lakes National Park. During our stay in Nelson Lakes we learned about Department of Conservation land, pest control techniques and NZ beech forest cycles. Pest control here is a huge deal. In case you didn’t know New Zealand’s biodiversity is severely threatened by introduced species that are wreaking havoc on the native species. We discussed the differences between kill trapping and poisoning which has a lot to do with the type of animal being targeted and manpower. We learned that deer are an invasive pest here and now they are captured and farmed for their meat which is apparently a big seller in Germany.  It’s really strange to be driving down the road and pass a deer farm. Previously, we had already had some lessons on possums and stoats and other furry things that eat trees and bird eggs but in Nelson Lakes we learned about a small pest that disrupts the cycle of NZ beech trees – the wasp.  In NZ beech trees, which are not closely related to beech trees in the states, a bug called the scale insect that produces a substance called honeydew lives in the bark. The bug eats the tree and excretes the sugars it doesn’t use as honeydew. This honeydew is an important food source for birds and also feeds a fungus, called sooty fungus, which grows on the beech trees which in turn gives the tree moist ground and more nutrients to live on. The problem is that introduced wasps are stealing the honeydew and messing up the whole cycle so there is a whole process of pest control measures just to kill wasps which are pretty hard to kill if you think about a forest full of wasp nests and you don’t know where they are located, etc. So pest control is really interesting if you think about all the different things you have to think about and plan in order for it to work but really frustrating because if those stupid Europeans didn’t bring over the possums in the first place there would be no issue.

Nelson Lakes

Sooty Fungus growing on a beech tree

We then had an amazing five day mid-semester break where I went to Abel Tasman National Park and did a three day hiking/camping trip. We walked the coastal track which is one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks” and it really was a great walk.  You get the best of both worlds; hiking through NZ native forest and then you walk out of the forest onto a beautiful sandy beach with clear blue water.  After our hike we continued up the coast to Takaka which was a really cool little town and we stopped for a much needed lunch. Then kept driving North and arrived at Whareriki which is West of Farewell spit where we camped at a small campground that was a 15 min walk to the beach.  We got there just at low tide so we got to walk the entire length of the beach to the far west end where the really cool rock formations are. After exploring we sat down on a dune and had a beautiful sunset dinner.

Abel Tasman!

Whareriki Beach

The last day of our break we drove to Nelson where the staff was going to pick us up the next morning and I got to drive! Driving on the left side of the road and the right side of a car is only weird at some points. You have to keep telling yourself to stay as close to the center line as possible and its really disorienting when you want to make a right hand turn in an intersection. But I did really well and it was much easier than I thought it would be.  The last night of my break we met up with all the rest of the EcoQuesters and had dinner and shared stories. 

The next day we were off on another road trip to Te Araroa. Te Araroa is a town on East Cape which is on the North Island. There we stayed at another Marae and only went to be part of a special restoration project. This Marae was just as beautiful as the last and kind of the same style but we were welcomed by a lot of the Iwi (tribe). It was a really cool welcome ceremony; school kids came and sang some beautiful songs and then they made us dinner it was really special. The reason we were there was to start a restoration project on some native forest on the Iwi’s property. They thought of this project on their own and have hired a predator proof fence company to come and put a fence in and contacted EcoQuest to get some baseline data and be a partner in the project. We were the first ones to do this project so it was really exciting to get out in the forest and collect some real data that matters. We did big tree counts, set up four vegetation plots where we labeled, measured, and identified all the significant trees, took invertebrate samples to see what kinds of bugs are living there, and took a photographic inventory for an educational field guide we will develop. Wi, the man who started the project, wants this forest to be a protected area for New Zealand species and an educational tool for the local people. It was a really great service learning project and it will continue with EcoQuest students in the years to come.  Staying at Te Araroa was a great end to our long road trip the people there were so hospitable they cooked us a traditional Hangi which is meat and vegetables cooked in an earth oven which was delicious and then at the end of the week they threw us a barbeque where we all got to sit and chat and we set up samples of leaves and bugs to show the people what kind of work we had accomplished.  All in all the South Island trip was an epic adventure and we all came back closer and not quite so ready to take the midterm that was waiting for us back at EcoQuest.

Lunch break in the vegetation plots!

Sorry it took me so long to write about that and expect more to come because we got back to EcoQuest on October 18^th so there is more to tell!

-Emily

Off to the South!

I am leaving in an hour to drive to the South Island! We will be there for 4 weeks so just a heads up that there won't be many blog posts; but I'm gonna try as hard as I can!!!!  We will drive for 8 hours today down to Wellington. We are taking the ferry from Wellington the next morning to drive down to Kaikoura where we will be spending the first leg of our trip. I will try and update this to let you know where I am as soon as possible. Maybe even tonight! Bye! -Emily

Motutapu - Restoration in action

We left EcoQuest at 7:15am on Sunday to drive to Auckland where we caught the ferry to Motutapu Island. The winds from the crazy storm here were whipping at our boat as we journeyed across the Hauraki Gulf to the Island. What a beautiful sight when we finally got to the island though, rolling hills of green and water as clear and blue as the Caribbean.

Motutapu Island

Motutapu is an 160 million year old island.  When Motutapu's island neighbor Rangitoto was born 600 years ago out of a volcanic eruption Motutapu was covered in rich volcanic ash which Maori took advantage of for cultivation. After a long occupation by Maori, Europeans added to the clearing of the island for dairy farming and other agriculture. During World War II the island was also used as a military base with a gun battery to prepare for attacks by the Japanese. Today, the island is a large restoration site. The plan is to restore 1/3 of the island to native forest to match up with some of the "remnant" forest that still exists from before Maori occupation! The plan is only for a third of the island because of the extensive archeological sites on that exist on the island which are both Maori and military based. Much of the land is also still used for pasture to farm for dairy and wool.

The reason for EcoQuest's visit was to help with the restoration project on the island. The restoration project is a volunteer based project that has been running for almost 15 years. Volunteers can come and plant new native trees, work in the nursery, or do some weeding. Our job on Sunday was to plant some new trees and other native plants to reestablish a native forest on the island.

The restoration site - you can see down at the bottom left some remnant forest, this is what our plants will grow up to be!

One of my baby plants

We and about 10 other volunteers planted 400 plants on Sunday! It was a great way to spend a Sunday knowing that our plants will someday grow into a beautiful native plant forest.  A future home for many native animals since last year all pests were eradicated from the island, meaning they dropped poison onto the island to kill all the stotes, hedgehogs, and rats. It doesn't sound good but it's necessary in order for the native animals to thrive on the island - which is the whole point of restoring it. We spent the rest of the day sitting on the beach waiting for the ferry, eating gelato, and traveling home. A long day but a fulfilling one.

Our fourth week at EQ has started off great. Monday we had a half day so I had a very relaxing morning. This week we are focusing on restoration ecology, not surprising since our trip to Motutapu, doing another oral presentation, preparing for our first test, and writing a paper on what we did learned last week in Opoutere. School has begun at EQ!

Opoutere aka class outside

This week at EcoQuest we spent four days at Opoutere which is a town on the east side of the Coromandel peninsula.  We stayed in a hostel right next to Wharekawa harbor which is a large estuary to learn about estuarine systems and to do some shellfish monitoring.

Wharekawa harbor

The shellfish monitoring was to collect baseline data for the regional council. The estuary supports a population of dotterels which are birds like plovers, but there are only 1500 left in the world!  This is why shellfish monitoring is necessary to ensure the estuary is staying healthy for the birds. However, the problem in the estuary is that there is plantation forestry happening all around it. Plantation forestry is one of New Zealands primary exports, mainly pine trees which they cut down in one fell swoop - clear cutting. This is only a problem when it rains because when the trees are cut down sediment is free to run down mountains with the rain. This sediment then runs into the estuary filling it with sediments which is bad for the system on a whole, the shellfish, and in turn - the birds.

Dotterel (not my picture)

Clear cutting flowing right into the estuary

To monitor the shellfish we sieved through sand to count how many shellfish we could find in a meter square on a spaced out grid from the high tide line to the low tide line. We monitored for three days, rain or shine. And when I say rain, I mean RAIN. Sideways, cold, wind-swept rain. Thank goodness the majority of the time we spent in Opoutere we had great weather. 

Shellfish monitoring in action modeled by Bella and Sam

When we weren't sifting through sand and counting cockles and wedge shells we went KAYAKING!!!! Loved it. The first day we had to get our safety lesson which included rolling our kayak over while we were in them meaning we had to willingly get into freezing cold water with all our clothes on. As cold as it was I guess it was a good lesson to learn as I now know how to safely get out of a kayak and then back in as well as help someone else get back in. 

Kayak group 1 out for our safety lesson!

We also went on a hike up to a Pa site, a place where Maori used to reside. From this site Maori watched for attacks coming from all around, they could also see the weather and sea conditions. The hike was great as in it was a gorgeous view but getting to the top was a struggle. Our field leader Lynnette basically runs up mountains it's actually kind of amazing. All in all it was a really great week the hostel we stayed in was fantastic complete with full kitchen, beautiful views and fireplaces. One of our field leaders, Wendy, actually got married there.

View of the estuary from the Pa site

After leaving Opoutere on a beautiful morning we got back to campus and found rain and gail force winds waiting for us. Supposedly we have had the rainiest semester of EcoQuest thus far - wonderful. Supposedly from this storm the west coast had 20 foot waves which would have been really great to see. The storm actually blew our power out so we obviously had a pretty interesting Friday night with a nice head lamp party. Today was a pretty relaxing and normal Saturday, a couple of us went to Thames to do some shopping for a bit. Picked up some avocados, more long underwear, and a $2.50 rugby shirt at the Salvation Army then came home watched a movie and made lots of delicious pizza for everybody. Tomorrow we leave bright and early for Motutapu - an island that is under restoration. We will be hiking and doing some restoration work. Sounds like it will be another great day in class!

Class with Wendy!

Aotearoa - The land of the long white cloud

Aotearoa - is another name for New Zealand or the Maori name for NZ. It's what the first explorers wife said when they first saw NZ, "A long white cloud!"

A quick edit to my last post the native people here are the Maori not the Mauri and the house of food is the wharekai not the whatakai.

We just learned that our program will be changed due to the earthquake in Christchurch. Instead of spending a couple of nights in Craigeburn, which is in the damaged area, we will be going to the Nelson lakes region.  We asked if we could do anything to help in the affected area but they don't want any more people coming in where there is no room to house them, no toilets for them to use, etc. When the earthquake happened we found out around 9 in the morning 5 hours after the quake hit Christchurch. We did not feel the earthquake but unfortunately Christchurch still is. They are having something like 20 aftershocks a day ranging from 3 to 5 magnitude and "experts" are saying that there is another big quake still to come. It is an absolute miracle no one has lost their life however, the people there are living in utter devastation.  It's pretty hard to start rebuilding when every couple of hours more things get knocked down.

In happier news, yesterday we went to the local Marae (Ma-rye) which is a Maori meeting house or a sacred place.  We needed to be welcomed onto the Marae by the local iwi (tribes) the Ngati Paoa and the Ngati Whanarnga because we are pakeha (non-maori) or foreign.  Basically we reenacted what would have happened if another tribe had come to visit the Marae to discuss an issue or declare peace.  When we first entered we had to wait to be called onto the Marae in a gate. When the woman of the highest status at the Marae calls the visitors on the women walk onto the Marae first because we are “the most precious people” to show we are not threatening. Then we sit on opposite sides and the speeches begin. When we first sit the space is occupied by tumatauenga which means tension and is also the name of the god of war. First the Maori rangatira (chief) speaks and then he is supported with a waiata (song). Then our eldest man spoke (Jono one of our professors) and then we supported him with a waiata called E tu Kahikatea.  The song is about the tallest tree in New Zealand which has shallow roots but stands next to other Kahikatea trees for support. So basically we talked about how we should stand strong together and support each other.

After the speeches and all that the tension is broken with hongi. Hongi is a Maori greeting where you shake hands while pressing your forehead and nose together. After that we were invited into the wharekai for tea and then we went back out to the wharenui, which is the main building on the Marae, to learn about the history of the local tribe.  It was a really interesting experience and now we are welcome there anytime and when we visit a different Marae later in the program we go representing this iwi. We didn’t take any pictures but hopefully I will get some soon.

So far this week we have had classes on Maori, ecology, biodiversity, and habitat restoration.  A lot of it is review from previous classes but some of it is specific to New Zealand which I am finding really interesting. Some fun facts about the history of NZ:

New Zealand was the last large landmass to be populated, about 1000 years ago.

It was created by uplift caused by the Australian tectonic plate and pacific tectonic plate twisting over and under each other aka why there was an earthquake.

Some characteristics of species here: flightless, gigantism, nocturnal, lack of bright colors, and naïve.

First week in New Zealand!

First sights of NZ

I am loving this place. I feel like I have been here forever and it’s only the 5^th day. So far we have been really busy getting to know our new home and introducing ourselves to each other. It seems like we have a really great group and we are all getting along really well.  
 

Yesterday we went on our first hike!  We drove to the Hunua falls in the Hunua ranges which was about 45 min away from campus.  It was a 4 hour hike and we took it slow stopping and learning about the very different plants and animals in New Zealand. The biodiversity here is simply incredible and completely different from home. New Zealand forests have a lot of ferns and levels; I started making a species list and by the end of the hike I could identify about 10 plants. 

Silver Ferns

Campus is also really great.  There are about 12 rooms with 2 – 4 people in them. There is also Granny’s which is like our lounge/study area/hangout room, the Whatakai which means “house of food” in Mauri so it’s our kitchen/dining room but it also acts as classroom, the office, and the bathrooms.  We also have a huge garden where we grow most of our vegetables and citrus fruit the rest of the food here is grown locally which is awesome. We have the Hunua mountain range as a front yard and the Firth of Thames (a bay beach) for a backyard.  Simply breathtaking.

View from my room

We started to learn some Mauri language and I forgot how much I love learning a different language. I haven’t taken a Spanish class in over a year but learning some Mauri made me really miss it. I feel like learning Mauri is going to become a great hobby of mine in the coming weeks. We started to learn greetings and simple words as we are going to a Marae (Mauri meeting house) on Tuesday to meet the local Mauri which we are all really excited about.

Today we went to Tapapakanga beach and did some self reflection and sustainability activities. Tomorrow we are starting real classes. Should be another amazing week in New Zealand.

Tapapakanga Beach

 -Emily

Kia Ora!

Kia Ora is how you greet people in New Zealand. I am finally here! It is the end of my second day and I love it more than I thought I would! This is just a quick note saying hi as I have not really had a lot of time to take any pictures of "campus" yet. Not that my pictures will do this scenery justice at all. My front yard is mountains and my backyard is the beach. Amazing.

So far we have just been going over how campus works, rules, chores, greetings, orientation, etc.  Tomorrow we have an intro into how our classes will work and then I think we are going for a hike in the national park down the road.  We also have a plan to get up for sunrise and then go for a run! Hopefully I make it back to campus.

A quick note on the rest of my stay in LA. Brunch in California is incredible. There are two complete buffets - one breakfast, one lunch - which have every food imaginable and endless mimosas. My mom and I had 5 plates each.

Back to New Zealand, they have this candy here called Hokey Pokey. It goes in candy bars and ice cream.  It is delicious.  I can't even put my finger on what it takes like, kind of toffee honey tasting but really good. Especially when we had homemade chocolate sauce on the ice cream tonight.

A more detailed post to come with pictures! 

-Emily

"Not all those who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien

I start my journey to New Zealand in Los Angeles, and with the quote above. I thought it was appropriate not only because I am going to the country where the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was filmed (and where The Hobbit may currently be under production!) and I'm a big fan of J.R.R., but because although in the upcoming months I will be wandering, I will be far from wandering aimlessly. 

I think this also applies to my life in general and not just my trip to the epic country of New Zealand but that is a different story entirely.

I landed today in LA at about 10am after a 6 hour flight of that I want to be asleep but I can't possibly get comfortable sitting up in this airplane feeling. So I feel like now I'm really prepared to take on that 13 hour flight to NZ.  My mom came with me to keep me company for two days before my flight on Monday night so we rented a car so I could see California for the first time.

We first drove up to Santa Monica and walked down the beach to the pier. Then we went down to Venice Beach and walked around there for a bit.  It was a beautiful day for sight seeing; we were worried when we landed that the sun wouldn't come out but then it did and now I may be in love with California. 

This is why they call it Venice Beach

The beach "scene" here is very diverse.  First you walk through these little one way streets with adorable houses that my mom and I really wanted to buy and then you step onto the boardwalk and everything is completely different. There are tons of people up and down this sidewalk, walking, biking, skateboarding, roller blading, it is intense.  There are lots of souvenir shops where you can buy t-shirts and sweatshirts with Venice Beach on them.  There are the usual street vendors that sell art and jewelry and then the smell hits you.

Not that I didn't expect to be bombarded with marijuana paraphernalia when I got to California but really it was a little ridiculous.   It only really smelled in this one area but then every 100 feet or so there would be another kid holding a sign that said "The Dr. is in come get your medical supply here" or something of that nature and then there would be a shop that you would actually go in and get a prescription! It was unreal. Our favorite of the day though had to be the guy walking around holding a sign above his head that said "I will sell you weed right now, no prescription needed."  

Actually, the best was the man begging for money that had a sign reading "Pigeons ate my parents. Need money for BB gun."

Hope this wasn't too rambling!
Until next time,
-Emily