Weekend #1 - The Rental Car, Driving, and the Hostel

Class ended at 11:15 AM. We packed and headed to lunch around 1:00 PM. The food at the Weir House is beginning to remind me more and more of Brittain dining Hall at GT, only in some instances worse. STA Travel told us the car rental place did not offer the option of pickup, so we called a taxi to pick us up around 2 PM. The STA Travel agent lady told us we had a staton wagon reserved. When we pulled up to the car rental place it turned out to be a Toyota Previa, which is a mini-van. The guy at the car rental place nearly double charged me because he didn't realize we had paid through STA travel. Once I gave him the voucher all was cleared up. We were told by the STA Travel agent you have to be 21 to rent a car and adding additional drivers costs extra. Since I was the only one out of us five that was 21 or older, I rented the car. (Actually, less than a quarter of the people on the trip are older than 20.) We didn't even bother asking the guy at the car rental place about adding more drivers. We grabbed some maps and loaded up the Previa. Since everything was under my name, I planned on driving this entire trip. As I got into the driver's seat, a chill went through my body as I realized, this is the first time I have ever rented a car and to add to the pressure, I have to drive on the opposite side of the road, all of the gadget locations in the car are on the opposite side, and I am in a mini-van! Yikes! That's a lot to think about in one swoop. Here's everyone loaded up, right before we begin this possibly perilous journey.

It takes me a minute to locate where I put the vehicle in drive. Of course, I instinctively look to my right, but the stick is on the left. Then I have to figure out how to get out of the rental lot. This part is too difficult to describe, but it will suffice to say the van was facing the opposite direction of the exit, and there were lots of other cars parked randomly around. I was hoping for an easy merge to get me warmed up on opposite driving, but the direction we had to go required me to turn right by crossing three lanes of traffic on one of the busiest highways in Wellington. Needless to say, we sat in the exitway for a bit of time, until I was quite positive I wouldn't hit someone. Some of the passenegers were egging me to go sooner. At last, we merged and were underway.

Throughout this weekend I would make many mistakes with respect to this new driving structure. My most common mistake would be to turn on the windshield wipers when I meant to put on a blinker. The blinker is to the right of the steering wheel and the wipers are to the left. However, I did on occasion, upon driving more on instinct than with careful thought take right and left turns onto the right side of the road. Immediately, someone in the van would yell drive on the left! I'd promptly realize my mistake and switch lanes. After making this error a couple of times at the beginning of the trip, whoever was in the front passenger seat would remind me right before every turn to stay in the left lane. I eventually got the hang of it.

The other major difference between the system of driving here and the system in America involves roundabouts and stop signs. There are no stop signs in New Zealand that I recall to date. All intersections have a roundabout. Before you enter the roundabout, you have to yield to oncoming traffic. Their yield signs look like ours in shape and color, but instead of saying yield, they say 'Give Way'. This sort of reminds me of the 'Way Out' sign at the airport rather than an 'Exit' sign.

The destination for this leg of the journey is Rotorua. It is about a six hour drive. Along the drive we see all sorts of amazing scenery. A beautiful coastline. Volcanoes in Tongariro National Park - which we actually hike in two weeks. Sheep, sometimes procreating. Rolling hills. Scenery that reminds me of Lord of the Rings.

We also witnessed a car flip over. The vehicle was two cars in front of us. The guy went around a curve, then all of a sudden went off the side of the road and flipped. Everyone in the van said to pull over. The car right in front of us also pulled over. The next five minutes was a bunch of chaos that is hard to describe in words. Evan runs up to the driver in the car in front of us and hurriedly asks what's the number for 911 in this country. The guy looks at him and says what!? I suppose Evan realized the problem with his question reframed it to ask the guy what is the emergency number in this country. The driver responded, "111, but I've already called." I stayed in the driver's seat of the van during this whole episode while everyone else in the van was inspecting the scene. Someone asked the upside down driver of the flipped car if he was ok. I am not sure what his response was, but in the next instant the driver was crawling out the window of his flipped car. As he got out, he yawned and said he forgot his shoes. He went back to his flipped car and grabbed his shoes and put them on. I was feeling uneasy about staying too long because I didn't want to have to fill out tons of paperwork when the cops arrived. When the guy seemed to be ok, minus his flipped car, we drove off. The whole scene didn't last more than five minutes. I proceeded to drive with a bit more caution around future curves with that scene in the back of my mind. Apparently, several other GT students passed us while we were there because when we all convened later that night, everyone was sharing their part of the story, with our part being the juciest having actually witnessed the flipping. People guessed he flipped because he fell asleep, was wasted, was high, or driving out of control. I think he fell asleep at the wrong moment.

We arrived at our hostel, Base Backpackers - http://www.basebackpackers.com/rotorua.htm, in Rotorua around 9:30 PM. Apparently, we were the first of our group to arrive. We called a number on the reception door since the reception closed at 8 PM. The lady on the phone gave us a code to a combination lock containing all of the keys. The longer I am in New Zealand, the more I realize how trusting Kiwi's are. The box with our keys in it, actully had keys in envelopes for dozens of people. Anyone could have easily taken someone's key. We took our keys and proceeded to look for the bedrooms. Up a ramp there was a bar, and all of the places near the reception were gift shops. With a bit of trouble, we located the entrance to the hostel behind these locked doors one ramp up past the bar, but we didn't know the code to get in through the doors. There was no place for a key. On the keychain of our room keys there were two sets of numbers. Someone correctly guessed that one of those numbers might be the code to get in through the door. Finally, we got to our room, noisily entered with great relief of having reached our destination, and turned on the ceiling light. Only as we entered, we saw an Asian lady sleeping in one of the beds, which prompted the ceiling light to be quickly turned off. It was only 10 PM! As quietly as possible, everyone plopped down their stuff and settled in. Everyone else from our group was starting to arrive and of course people met up at the bar which was conveniently located right outside of the locked doors to the hostel. There were only about ten other people at the bar outside of our group of 25. Everyone recounted their journey to Rotorua, with the flipped car being the most interesting.

We also came to learn that STA Travel didn't send in a reservation for one of the cars in our group. When they arrived, they checked the box for their keys and couldn't find any with their names on it. They called the number to find out the deal, and the lady said there was no record of their reservation. The hostel was completely filled Thursday night with no spare beds. Since our group had several rooms, the students without a reservation took some spare mattresses in a closet and put them on the ground in some of the rooms. Fortunately, they all received normal beds at the hostel the other nights. Nevertheless, they were quite irked by this whole inconvenience of driving six hours only to discover you have no bed.

One last note before I close on the adventures of the day. When we drove up to the hostel, we could only find metered parking and a spot right in front of the hostel that had 15 minute parking. Upon walking around the streets near the hostel, we asked some ladies outside of a cafe about the parking situation. They told us there was free parking a few blocks away, but that you don't want to leave your car there overnight. Since the meters were only operational from 9 AM - 5 PM, the van had to be moved the next morning and then subsequently, moved back at night, until the weekend when the meters weren't operatonal at all. Of course, I had the dubious honors of constantly moving the vehicle. Rotorua is a fairly small town. I don't understand why they don't have free parking in front of the hostel. Anyway, I dealt with it, so did the other 4 cars in our group.

Other than darts, pool, and drinking, that closes out Thursday night of my first weekend in New Zealand.