It's difficult to live last week. I remember when the plane landed Auckland Airport when I arrived New Zealand first. I couldn't believe that it was real. After dreaming years and years I was selected for AIESEC New Zealand Member Committee but I had to wait for my visa more than 6 months.
Yeah, I got visa even it's 3 months late and I was in New Zealand.
There was a lot of things to do....
Now, it's my last week. I'll be heading home to Turkey in less than a week. I'm so excited and don't know if I will be able to see this beautiful country one more time. Yes, I know.. I will come back.
Thanks for everyone who makes my experience awesome in New Zealand.
One of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments Wimbledon has just started. Even though I'm not a great tennis follower I really like Wimbledon Championship and at least try to watch some games as well as following results every year.
This amazing tournament is very special and has different meanings for a lot of tennis fans. Wimbledon is the oldest and generally considered the most prestigious tennis tournament. It took its name from Wimbledon suburb of London. Organizing committee is very strict about the Wimbledon culture. Every player has to wear white during Wimbledon tennis championship. Wimbledon culture was against to building a roof to "Centre Court" for a long time but they had to accept how ridiculous is continuing games 3 or 4 days because of London's weather.
It's the only grass court Grand Slam tournament. Grass courts style is mostly serving, volleying as its the fastest and the lowest bouncing court. So, this reasons didn't allow some of the tennis stars to win the title. If we look up last years Federer won the title 6 times in 7 years with his Wimbledon type style.
This year Wimbledon started with a surprise. The longest professional tennis match in all times played in the 1st tour of Wimbledon between American John Isner and French Nicolas Mahut. The game last 3 days and totally 11 hours 5 minutes.
This famous games tie-breaker set 70-68. In the 2nd day of the game when score was 59-59 referee suspended game cause of darkness. This tennis match made Isner and Mahut famous. I'm wondering if we will see any of them in the Wimbledon final again...
Harry Potter is one of the best book series that has ever been published. Beside the books Harry Potter films are the highest grossing film series of all time.
A wizard story Harry Potter made its writer J.K. Rowling the 12th richest woman in the world. If we consider that she started to write Harry Potter in a cafe to not spend electricity, it's one of the biggest success stories in the world.
The Harry Potter series brought a lot of new products inside of its culture. One of them is Platform 9 - 3/4..
As we remember in the first book Harry passed through platform 9 - 3/4 in order to go to Hogwarts with Mrs. Weasley's help. I was always wondering if there is really Platform 9 - 3/4 in any train station.
Wellington Railway Station is hosting Platform 9 - 3/4 as a Dry Cleaner. We can't really go through this platform to get Hogwarts but they can magically clean our clothes.
LA Lakers is the Champion of the NBA Finals. I was able to watch the Final game of NBA Finals in the daytime through the geographical advantage of New Zealand.
I haven't had any favourite teams in NBA after Utah Jazz's legend team with Karl Malone and John Stockton in the late 1990s. Then, I supported Sacramento, Orlando when Hedo was playing there and supported Detroit when Memo got the ring in 2004 but till the 2010 Finals I didn't have any idea which team I was going to support in the finals this year.
It was the 2nd game of the 2010 finals when I watched an NBA game again after a long time. In the beginning of the game I decided to support Celtics without any reason and was amazed with Rajon Rondo's Triple Double performance.
Today, 4 Kings Pub was hosting the 7th game of 2010 Finals and Celtics was giving 3.50 return to my bet. After I bet 10$ to Celtics, this final game became more exciting for me.
I was having a hard attack while watching the game, especially in the 4th quarter..
Celtics was leading the game in the first half. Especially Ray Allen didn't give any change to Kobe Bryant and the Celtics was shooting with 40.8%. Even if the Lakers played with 32.5% shooting their 23 offensive rebounds against to Boston's 8 rebounds made the difference.
Lakers showed us how to be a champion even if your star is not performing well. When Kobe was locked by Ray Allen we saw that Ron Artest, Pau Gasol, and D.Fisher took responsibility and brought the ring to Los Angeles.
Quaresma transferinin aciklanmasina kadar piyasaya surulmeyen Besiktas kombine kartlaritransfer duyurulduktan hemen sonra satisa cikarildi.
Gectigimiz sezon 600TL olan Yeni Acik kombine kartlarina bu sezon icin 700TL fiyat belirlendi. Enflasyonun 10%'larda seyrettigini dusunursek bunun yaninda gectigimiz sezon en kotu ihtimalle 3 Sampiyonlar Ligi maci oynanacagi bilinen sezonun kombine kart fiyatlarina yapilan 17%'lik zami Quaresma'nin transferine baglamamiz gerekiyor herhalde.
Ancak giris cikislari, isitma sistemi vs. her yonuyle (atmosferi haric) Inonu Stadi'ndan daha iyi durumda olan Fenerbahce Sukru Saracoglu Stadi'nda bile Maraton Alt yada Maraton ust kose kombine fiyatlariyla ayni fiyata satilan bizim Yeni Acik Tribun kombine fiyatlari degerinin uzerinde gibi gorunuyor. Yine de Istanbul'da olacagimi bilsem hic dusunmeden alacagim kombine karta bu yil da yerimizin yurdumuzun neresi oldugunu bilmedigimizden sadece yorum yapmakla kaliyorum. Istanbul'da olacagim zamanlarda Biletix'den normal alacagim mac biletleriyle Inonu Stadi'na ozlem gidermek en guzel secenek...
Besiktas made the most spectacular transfer of the year in the Turkish Super League.
Quaresma will be playing for Besiktas in 2010-11 season. One the 19th of June, he will be signing his contract in Inonu Stadium in front of thousands of Besiktas supporters.
Quaresma has never been successful out of Portugal but anyway it's the most spectacular transfer of the year.
If we evaluate operating systems, 2 operating systems created the biggest change in information technologies, and the 3rd one is on the way.
Windows 95 was the biggest evolution for the operating systems history when it was created in 1995 after Windows 3.1. Windows 95 was an operating environment that sits over DOS operating system. The basic elements of the interface introduced in Windows 95 including the taskbar, start button and menu and the Windows Explorer file manager, fundamentally hasn't changed for more than 15 years.
Windows XP was the first successful new NT generation OS which means an OS wasn't a DOS base. It also brought a lot of new features such as auto driver recognition, new editions of Windows Media Player and IE and of course better user-friendly interface.
After Windows XP, Microsoft launched other OS's such as Vista and Windows 7 but none of them created a major change in OS's.
While Microsoft was developing its products, slowly a new technology giant started to take over Microsoft in many areas. Yes, Google... Google started as a Search Engine but after that its products became indispensable in our lives. I don't know any internet user who doesn't use at least 3 of these following products GMail, Gtalk, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Books, Blogger, Google Buzz, Picasa, Google Calendar, Google Wave, Chrome Web Browser and Youtube. We even have a new word as "Googling"
Now, Google is introducing new Operating System Chome OS in the 2nd half of 2010.
The Chrome Web Browser was a signal that the new OS is coming up and Google introduce Google Chrome on July 2009. Chrome will be an open source operating system which means that it's free. We can foresee that Microsoft's products market share will go down and Microsoft has to challange themselves to develop better and cheaper operating systems.
It's difficult to play with animals other than some pets as dogs or cats if you live in a big city. For example I haven't seen a donkey since I went to my grandfather's village last time, about 5 years ago.. I haven't even seen a deer in my life. Maybe that's why Staglands is an amazing place to visit for me.
Staglands wild reserve is about 1 hour drive away from Wellington city. It's a huge wildlife park that allows us to interact animals while they are freely roaming around. This park is a good alternative to the zoo as the animals are not behind cage.
It's possible to spend whole day in this beautiful place with peacocks, sheep,donkeys, deer etc.
After we entered Staglands 2 peacocks welcomed us by making us give some them food from the food bags that we bought in the entrance. These peacocks were really friendly and were not worried to eat from our hands. One of them loved us especially. After it followed us for 10 minutes and occasionally kept eating food from our hands it deserved to be named "pety". I'm wondering if it really liked us or if it was just trying to get more food. Anyway, love our paty. When we opened the cage to see native parrots and New Zealand's native birds we had to say bye to pety.
There are huge cages for keeping birds but I didn't feel that cages disturb birds as they can freely fly in it. We like the colourful huge parrots best.
My favourite animals were reindeer and sheep. Especially the most friendly deer who was trying to attack our food bags to eat everything. It was my the first interaction with a deer but we got used to each other really quick with the help of the food bags that we were holding =)
Unfortunately we went to Staglands in a really bad weather. I wish I could go there again when the weather is sunny for a proper picnic. They even provides the BBQ's to cook our food if we want.
I usually prefer to read the magazines while the cabin crew is demonstrating or showing safety instruction on board but Air New Zealand safety instruction video is worth watching as it's really funny and friendly. I wasn't able to recognise the difference but this video is actually special and really different than other airlines safety instructions. Have a look and try to understand what is special about this video other than Kiwi accent.
They have nothing to hide.
Nothing to hide
If you look at the actors more carefully it's possible to recognise that they don't wear anything. They only have body colour on their body. So, that's how Air New Zealand make its guests watch safety instructions and brand themselves as a creative airline company. Maybe this creativity also help them to be awarded as the best Airline in Australia/Pacific region.
New Zealand is the best place in the world for the extreme sports. This 100% pure country provides so many different opportunities for people who are crazy about adrenalin. Caving, fly by wire, orienteering, rafting, rock climbing, scuba diving, surfing, swimming with dolphins, trekking, tramping, zorbing(It's an awesome Kiwi invention) and sky diving are just some of the activities can be done in New Zealand. But there is one activity that its name is scary enough for lots of people. It is bungee jumping.
Bungee Jumping, is an activity that involves jumping from a tall structure like a platform by the cliff or a bridge or a tower while connected to just an elastic cord. The first modern Bungee jump were made from Clifton Suspension Bridge in Briston, England by Oxford Uni Dangerous Sports Club members. After the first bungee jump, A.J Hacket who is a crazy Kiwi entrepreneur developed super-stretchy elastic cords inspired by land diving which is a ritual in a tiny Pacific island Vanuatu. A.J Hacket demonstrated his invention while he was bungee jumping from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
This illegal bungee jump wasn't Hacket's last jump. He created the first commercial bungee in Queenstown, New Zealand and has been in the Guinness Records Book with lots of records including the world's first bungee off a building, off a helicopter, highest bungee jump etc.
After the first commercial bungee in Queenstown lots of Bungee Jumping platform opened in New Zealand. One of them is in Taupo. taupobungy.co.nz
As we can see from their website it's a 43m bungee jumping platform over the Waikato River. It allows us to reach up to 70km speed while falling.
I decided to bungee jump in our road trip to Hamilton. The first day took more time than we thought on the way, so we decided to stay in Taupo. It was a quick decision to bungee jump after we saw the discount voucher in the map that we were using for navigation but we had to be there before 11am. We packed up in 10min and reached Taupo Bungy before 11am. More than 1 hour long waiting has started for safety control and lineed up. It wasn't even scary while I was waiting but after the bungee operator put the bungee cord clips to my feet adrenalin started to pump every cells of my blood.
Just 5 seconds before I jumped, I realized how stupid and crazy this decision was. When I looked at the Waikato River, I wanted to say "I want to go back" but I knew that in this case they will just push me. I just remembered what Stephane said. Scream. So, there was nothing to do. 3,2,1 Bungee... Fuck....
This was the most amazing experience of my life. It was totally worth it. I absolutely suggest it.
