Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

"Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '99: Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now."

The above set of Baz Luhrmann advice and lyrics from his song ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’ I couldn’t hold to be any truer. For our first weekend in Auckland we decided to take a trip to visit the nearby beach of Mission Bay. When it comes to partially overcast and windy days I never learn my lesson that the sun is still very powerful. Maybe now for next time I’ll have learnt my lesson. Let me say this, the sun in New Zealand is certainly a lot more powerful than it is back home and sun burn is NOT FUN. I will spare everyone the pictures of what it looked like, but let me tell you it wasn’t pretty.

At the welcome for international students at the University
some cultural dances were performed for us.  I was later amazed
to find out all these older looking kids were
actually all around the age of just 14 and 15.

I’ve noticed while here everyone always seems to look older than they actually are. Back home in the US they are always getting people in their 20s and such to play kids in high school in the movies. I’ve begun to wonder if maybe it’s just natural in the rest of the world for the kids to actually look that old, maybe us in the US just look like babies comparatively. My guess is that this stronger sun actually speeds up this aging. With that in mind, as well as the risk as cancer and sunburn, I shall now be applying my sunscreen in the masses. I will take the burning eyes as a result of getting sunscreen accidently in them over all those things any day. Well at least I can say the beach still looked pretty that day, but what else is new? Welcome to New Zealand.