Ich bin dann mal weg - off we go - doei doei

Hey Everyone, I just hijacked this Blog. And I'll use it to blog about my holiday-before-work holidays. Although Sabine plays an important part in these holidays, it'll be more of my perspective from here on. Apologies to all of Sabine's friends, but she'll be back soon! Today we are back in Christchurch and the following weeks look promising as well. I like that holiday before starting to work idea ;-) Cheers, Alexis

Time to practice our new snow-skills came sooner than expected, as we delayed our westcoast-trip to the next weekend and decided to head to Mount Cook Village instead. We got all the usual gear from the gear locker of the tramping club although we couldn't be sure whether we could use any of it. There was about 50 cm of fresh snow and the avalanche danger was set to high and reduced to moderate on Saturday morning only. But we had wonderful weather and having started early morning we were able to head for Mueller Hut, following a group of five that left earlier that morning with snow shoes, which made the track visible and accessible for us. Still a hard and steep track in deep snow with us arriving at the ridge shortly after sunset. Quite exiting and even more rewarding. So finally, I made it up to Mueller Hut, only about three years after my first try.

The day after I had sour legs, although we relaxed quite a bit on monday. The evening brought some Squash matches that made my legs hurt even more. What a holiday. We made some plans for the oncoming weeks, ranging from a West Coast Tour to some further hiking. Besides I was mainly enjoying my holidays and tried to catch up with some friends on mine which was not too successful so far.

On Sunday night we returned from the weekend snowcramping course. Snowcramping means hiking in really cold and icy conditions, equipped with crampons (hence the name), ice-axe and helmet. We went up Craigieburn Skifield and learned how to walk in deep snow with and without crampons, then extended that to walking on ice and learned about self-arresting techniques. Pretty cool. And the next day, we exercised by climbing Castle Hill Peak. Quite challenging, as we seperated into one keen and one not-so-keen group and I decided to join the keen group. A challenge that ended very close to the peak for me...

The first week, I adjusted to life in a students residence again. I met a lot of Sabines friends which I liked with no exception. On Wednesday we went to the UC-Tramping club meeting. I became a member and we signed in and paid for the oncoming Avalanche and Cnow Cramping Weekend. I can't remember any more but the ones who read all the above might be not too sad about that.

After safely returning to New Zealand, we stayed for another two days in Auckland and had a marvelous trip to Rangitoto, a vulcanic island close by. Finally, we made our way to Christchurch and I moved in with Sabine. She's staying at Ilam Village, which is a students residence. It's nice and we share a comfortable 10 sqm room and a 1,6 sqm bed. Her flatmates are really cool, Meleana of course, Ericoh, the new German Arndt and the exchanged Chinese Shelly. Long story but it's a good place to stay.

Back in Nukualofa we had another week to spend and did so by beeing part of real Tongan families which was quite a cultural experience. Here a short account on the family structure: Meleana was the first child of her parents, and was adopted by the unmarried brother of the husband and the mother of both, who she now refers to as (grand-)ma and father. Her parents had another four children (Lavenia, Polohiva, Lavelua, Make) and lateron adopted the neighbours son Mikivai who had spend most of his first two years with them anyway. That is quite a common Tongan family structure, with the extended family beeing the social unit. Nicole stayed at Meleanas place in Longoteme, while Sabine and me were staying in the Bungalow at Fanga. In Tonga, hospitality is the number one feature, so we were looked after quite thouroghly for the remaining time of our stay. I think we both gained some weight, having meals three times a day, attending a 90th birthday with a traditional Tongan feast and having...