A view from the other side of the world

In the fall of 2017, I took a trip to New Zealand with my dad to see his family. This was the first trip that either of us had taken to New Zealand since 2005. My dad was looking forward to showing me where he grew up and places remembers. This is the view from the front of the high school that he and his brothers attended--Otago Boy's High School, in Dunedin. Dunedin is on the east coast of the south island of New Zealand. In the background of the photo is the Pacific Ocean. In the foreground of the photo is my dad reminiscing on his time there. Having only lived in the flat and landlocked city of Champaign all of my life, and traveling to very few places with any changes in elevation, or places with a beach, I was taken aback by the view with both of those things.

On the day the picture was taken, me and my dad took the bus with my uncle Stuart to the school. Despite what he had thought we graduated high school, Stuart never thought he would return to the school, but he now goes occasionally to teach the students to play darts.  There were students around the school, as it was the spring semester, since we were in the southern hemisphere. We walked through the school, looking at the classrooms and went through the courtyard area, where students were eating lunch and playing soccer. We got to see a popular piece of local history: a violin that an Otago Boy's High School student took with him to Europe in World War I, which I thought was cool.

When he was a student, my dad would walk to and from the school every day. I found that very impressive considering the whole area of Dunedin is either up or downhill. He continues to walk or take the bus exclusively to work everyday, a habit likely developed from his days walking to school everyday. As we left, we walked around the path that he used to take to get to school passing the rugby and soccer fields. I found it interesting to see the similarities and differences between two schools on opposite hemispheres.

The ocean in the background is something that locals may take for granted, but coming from an area without a major body of water within sight, I found this the most enjoyable. My dad and I walked to the beach from my grandmother's house every morning and walked along it as the water washed over our feet. This was the first time I had been to any beach since the last time I was here, and I don't have much recollection of it. It was a surreal experience to go to a beach every morning and feel the cool front of air coming from the ocean, and watch the waves roll in. Almost everywhere we went during our trip, there was a view of the ocean. While there were a fair amount of people at the beach when we went, I still found it surprising how natural it seemed to everyone, that something that to me was surreal and astounding could seem so common place to them. This trip was full of surreal sights, but this is one of my favorites as it sums up the scenery in Dunedin so well. The landscape of houses, the hills in the background, and most of all, the ocean.