Saturday 31 August 2013

Driving American Style


Today I let Dad take the wheel of the pick up. Here are few things we have noticed about driving in Fairbanks.


So this is a map of the town. The yellow are highways. Everything is so spread out.
You'll notice down the middle of the road is a lane with yellow on both sides. This is like a flush median like on rangatiki and tremaine in Palmy, but they are in every street.
We counted 15 other pick ups before we saw an actual car.
Petrol/ gas is $3.90 per gallon, don't know what it converts to in NZD or how much a gallon is but that's what it is.
A cool road rule is that you can turn right on a red traffic light. That goes for all of the US.
Apart from going round the roundabout anti clockwise Dad is getting the hang of it.

To any ice road trucker fans (this is for you cousin James) the Carlile trucking yard. To those of you that have watched the show, a big shout out to Bret from Big Rays who taught me about snow gear today. He'll have heaps of show boots coming in October so check it out!





The best photo was:


Lucky Dad has his heavy trucking license.

Points for anyone that can guess what Michaels sells. 
















Friday 30 August 2013

Good Morning America


Went down to campus today and finally got to meet the coaches face to face. Had a great chat and took Dad and I for a walk around to see the important places (the pool and gym). It is a beautiful campus- minus the construction going on.

 

We rented a car.


And I got to drive it.... On the 'right' side of the road.





Toured around town and did a few jobs, bank account etc. The people are so friendly you can't even make them go through the door before you, they just won't let you!

Fun fact of the day for you Andrew: It gets SO cold in the winter that it doesn't even snow! Something to look forward to?





Thursday 29 August 2013

The kiwi has landed




With a strong tailwind the whole way up we landed a lot earlier than expected.


Not much of a view from outside the window but a great arrival in the new airport. Although the taxi driver thinks since it was built 2 years ago its not that new!


An Air Alaska guarantees your bags in 20 minutes or less (better than pizza) They all made it safe and sound. There may be an extra one since we left home, due to the fact it never quite fits back into the space you packed it the first time.



Airport #2 PDX

First time airline pretzels and free fanta


Air New Zealand- take note


Portland has to be the biggest city I have ever seen, it goes for miles.


Ordered grilled cheese, got a toasted sandwich and fries. Ill try not to do too many photos of food.


Only another 4 hours of flying, basically from AKL to SYD. 










Airport #1



Had a great time in SF staying with family. Flying out today to Fairbanks via Portland. Even at the end of summer with temperatures in the mid 20s, the heat is too much for me. Off to somewhere cooler. Through security, shoes off, pat down but at least almost everywhere has free wifi! 



Wednesday 28 August 2013

No one calls it 'Frisco'

Just call it SF or 'The City'


I forgot to take togs


The best view of golden gate- famous SF fog. The sails in the middle are Oracle practicing in the harbour.


bread shaped like things


A pic of me and dad to prove we really are here! Chowder in a bread bowl for lunch.

Only in America







Tuesday 27 August 2013

Tourist

I went to target


Salmon for the first time, Alaskan smoked salmon no less.



Also drove around on the other side of the road but that's ok here.








Monday 26 August 2013

I think I swum in yards


I asked the lifeguard but she didn't actually know how long the pool was and I couldn't tell straight away. A few crashes into the wall and I can confirm that this pool is 25 yards or approx 22 metres long.
Making 200s on the 2.35 look easy.

Back to the future

Leaving at 7pm from Auckland, arriving in San Francisco lunchtime the same day. Time travel at its finest. 
Cue crying baby and turbulence just as you are about to get to sleep. You don't need all the intricate details of plane food I'm sure, although the nectarine ice cream was a little bit different. I would love to see some wifi introduced, I am now entered the 13 hour of no Internet......
Next stop: customs, with my 92 kilos of luggage.
Beautiful day here in SF, lets go and re-do Sunday!

 



Saturday 24 August 2013

How to fit your life into 158cm

Four bags 158cm and 23kgs each plus hand luggage. Top of the list vegemite and Cadbury chocolate. I said to Dad, "You can take a change of undies and spare shirt, the rest of the space is mine" he negotiated to include a few changes of clothes and a toothbrush as well.


In the end we got it all to fit and just within the weight limits thanks to a great discovery of vacuum pack bags!


All packed and ready to go, there are lots of people I am going to miss but I think there is someone that is going to miss me a lot.









So when do you leave?

In March it seemed such a long way away but August rolled around quicker than you can blink. It seems like last month I moved to PN and now I was moving back home to pack up my bags.

Every day coach Andrew would give me some advice or ask me how I was going. It was a slow process, day by day, one thing at a time. Visa interview, medical insurance, the works! My other coach Mr Nicholls seemed so proud to have one of his 'little swimmers' who had swimming lessons at the pool from 2 years old, heading so far away thanks to swimming. He would ask me 'how many sleeps?' But I wasn't counting down, I was too nervous. I'd like to thank the Nicholls and Kiwi West Aquatics (www.kiwiwest.org) for being so supportive to help me get to this point.

I'd also like to thank Mum and Dad and my grandparents and uncle in Masterton. They always made sure there was jobs I could do on the farm to earn some extra cash for summer road trips. I cannot tell you how many fences I pulled down or how many hours I spent shifting sheep but digging so many post holes made me realise I had muscles I never knew I did!


How many farewell dinners can one person have? How much New Zealand food can you wolf down in one month? School friends, swimming friends, family so many lunches and dinners, so little time. And they all end with " See you in May!"

To answer a few of the common questions:
Yes we swim inside, in yards not metres, I will buy a coat when I get there, I don't know what there is to eat but I imagine it will be as all hostel food is, i'm hoping not to get the freshman 15,  my classes in the first semester are english, calculus, history, intro to business and a communication/public speaking course to fill in a bunch of general requirements they have, regardless of the degree you are doing. 

Dad and I fly out at 5pm Sunday 25th August from PN to Auckland then onto San Francisco for a few days to see Dad's uncle and hopefully some America's Cup action.

Hurry Up And Wait

I was told, get your times down and your grades up. Finishing my last school exam in November I moved to live in Palmerston North soon after that to train more. First with my Granny and Grandad and then into my own one bedroom flat. This cut my travel down from an hour each way to pretty much five minutes there and back. 8-9 times a week was a step up and having to cook my own meals, do my own washing and all that boring grown up stuff was a big change, but only a taste of what was to come.
I think Mum and Dad thought I would be cooking my own meals every night, little did they know I was to be adopted by a second family.I would go to Granny's on a Monday for meat, potatoes and veg (always with dessert of course) and to my second family, the Reardon's on a Thursday. In exchange for a pick up from school and a ride to swimming Mumma J would cook me tea, let me hang out at their house and play candy crush and watch funny cat videos on youtube. Thanks heaps for accepting me as daughter number 3! (The favourite daughter)
So I kept training and racing and waiting, and training and waiting. On the 24th of February I got an email from Coach Lemley in Alaska. He said he would love to have me on his swim team, but did I realize how cold it was in Fairbanks Alaska? To be honest I had no idea. Check out Wikipedia, convert -40 Fahrenheit to Celsius and this will give you an idea. It is dark from 3pm to 11am on the shortest day. Population: 30,000 + a few moose.
It took a few weeks for me to come around to the idea of living in a place that has more snow in a week than I have ever seen in my life. I checked the school's website again (www.uaf.edu) and liked the business program. Coach referred to the university as 'Harvard of the north' and with a few offers from other schools the best vibe came from Alaska. Talk about an adventure! A team that needed a distance freestyler and a coach that only wants the best for all his swimmers. I accepted the scholarship offer and got some new friends on Facebook from the girls already on the team, wanting to help me out and answer any questions I had, and there was a lot.

What to do after year 13?

Last June this was the closest I thought I would ever come to Alaska.


Alaska The Puppy
My Dad and I have a pair of Border Collies and every litter we have has a theme. Last year on my mind was what to do after I left high school.  With nothing set in concrete at this point I really wanted to swim and go to college in the USA. These bunch of cuties were named: Carolina, Georgia, Idaho, Missippi, Nebraska, Dakota and Alaska (you figure out the theme!).
Even thought she was the cutest (don't tell the others) at the time I was still dreaming of sun and surf somewhere on the west coast. So through my seventh form I battled past many a hurdle. A quick checklist of things I had to do before you get started:


  • Study for and sit SATs. A three and a half hour multi choice exam with sections on reading, writing and math. Many hours, studying the meaning of words like Ambivalence and Cantankerous, 2 trips to Wanganui later and I had a reasonable score to report back to potential coaches.
  • Converting NCEA into GPA using WES. Having to send high school transcripts to everywhere that asks when the is NOTHING in common between our two educational systems.
  • The NCAA and being eligible to play college sport. This a basically the governing body that makes sure the American football players have actually passed high school and that all athletes are still amateurs. I can say I have passed high school now (not that they understood I had graduated in December when they graduate in May) and that I am definitely an amateur ( Mum and Dad's bank account can verify that)
  • Filling out forms, communicating with coaches and schools, filling out forms and filling out more forms. To find the best fit school academically and for my swimming first I would check the swim team. Their times, the coach, who they race, where they race, do they have a spot for me and will this team be a fit for me to improve over the next four years? Next check out the academics. Do they have a course I want to study? Will the degree transfer back to New Zealand? I had a short list of dream schools and starting sending out emails.... and filling in forms.