Today we were up bright and early to catch a city bus to the Agrodome. Honestly, when Melanie and Tania went in 2013 and came back with bags of souvenirs and big ol'smiles on their faces, I thought they were just messing with me. It was totally worth going! I'm glad we added it to the itinerary.
The Agrodome had two activites in which we participated. The Sheep Show and the Farm Tour. First up, sheep show. Our host introduced us to 19 different breeds of sheep, and lemme tell you they are adorable! We watched as a sheep was shorn on stage and then a few kids fed some baby sheep. It was precious. Kaitlyn (one of our girls) went up on stage to milk a cow, she is an obvious pro! The girls all got to pass around some freshly shorn wool, it smelled awful.
It may seem a silly activity for a study abroad program but agriculture is the single most important industry here in New Zealand. There are more cows than people (around 4.6million cows, only 4 million people) and they export milk all around the world. There are ten times as many sheep as there are people....TEN TIMES!
One of the girls with me this year is doing an agricultural ethnographic study, "A tale of three farmers" where she is interviewing farmers from NZ, AUS, and her dad back in the states. She has a list of questions she wants to ask and then get a little background on the farmer's story and what not. Well, the Agrodome proved a gold mine for information. I hung around during her interview (buddy system, y'all) and it was incredibly fascinating to learn so much about farming. Chris, the gentleman Kaitlyn interviewed, used to work on commercial dairy farms and has now "retired" at the Agrodome giving tours and educating tourists about the livestock and agricultural system in NZ. Way cool.
After the sheep show we did a farm tour with Chris, the man Kaitlyn interviewed. We got to drive through the farm, which is a fully functioning farm AND tourist destination. A few times we stopped to feed some little treat bites to the animals. We fed sheep, deer (yes they raise deer here), alpacas and llamas. I made best friend with a llama. I enjoy animals, but this was such a silly and fun experience, and I completely bonded with a llama. We're pretty tight now, we're gonna go see a movie tomorrow :D
When all was said and done I asked everyone if they think this should stay in the itinerary the next program and got a unanimous YES! so I think we did good on adding this one in.
Tonight was our first group meal that we cooked. It was a resounding success. I mean, let's be honest, you really have to try in order to screw up spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. We had Timtams for dessert. If you don't know what these are, they're a little cookie like thing that are dipped in chocolate. They sell a lot of flavor options, worth a look! After dinner, we had some more adventure.
We walked to the Polynesian Spa after dinner. Third time I've been, and I would go again in a heart beat. The hot water and just soaking my bones, it felt great. You get used to that sulfur smell pretty quickly. The girls all enjoyed it as well. We ran into a group of performers from Mitai! I would say at least an hour of our time at the spa was spent talking to them about cultural and general differences between the US and Maori or New Zealand in general. I love picking peoples' brains :)
It's now 11:35pm, I'm completely relaxed from the hot pool and my little bed is calling my name. This bed is tiny, but mighty. I definitely need a nap after all my walking today! I bid you farewell, and tomorrow we're off to TePuia :)
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