Orientation with the Arcadia kids

2/17/08
Warning: this is an absurdly long entry...feel free to skim and/or skip the boring parts...

What a whirlwind past few days. New Zealand and I are getting to know each other at a fast pace, and I'm absolutely adoring it. I had a brief stint in Auckland with Sophie's dad (major kudos to him for picking me up from the airport and letting me crash at his place, even if it was only for a couple of hours!) and got taken to the Auckland airport in a private business car, since the shuttle service had overbooked their vans. Despite my in-style arrival to the airport, I still had to wait around for an hour or so, but whatever--those leather seats were worth it. I met up with the rest of my group, and we explored Auckland for the rest of the day. While everyone else was fighting jet lag, lost baggage, and lack of showers for days, I was flying high, totally accustomed to the time and boasting all of my bags. It was great. I'm so glad I did my traveling beforehand. I feel like I'm so much more prepared to get the most out of my time in NZ with that experience behind me, and it really made the transition to NZ so much easier. This orientation has been excellent, because aside from the awkward first day questions (what's your major? where do you go to school? what's your name again?), we haven't had to do any stupid orientation activities like giving your name and a corresponding adjective that starts with the same letter or something. Still, we all had to go the same places, see the same things, do the same activities, and it felt frustrating to be so tied down after being on my own for so long. I also had a hard time walking around with such a huge group of people (26 total), but once we split up into smaller groups, it got better. We did do some things that I wouldn't have done on my own though, including seeing some penguins at this underworld place, climbing this fabulous hill to get a gorgeous lookout on the city and the bay, and checking out the harbor. I also found a Mexican place in Auckland and since I had been craving burritos since about the time I left the States, I was thrilled. They put cabbage in the burritos and their sour cream came out from a squirty bottle, but it hit the spot anyways.

The next day we went out to Rotorura, which is still on the North Island, but a little bit more rural and less urban. We saw a sheep show (not kidding--the sheep here are EVERYWHERE) where this dog jumped all over the sheep and the guy sheared a sheep on stage, hiked around this nature conservancy and saw a kiwi bird and some other native animals (I chatted with our guide who had recently spent $62 on hair products and had every springy curl of his mop-top under control--he was hilarious), soaked in the Polynesian hot spas where all the skin on my back virtually fell off, walked around with plugged noses because the entire city smells like Camas times ten (the sulfur gives it a miserable smell), and the whole time, we got mini-lessons about New Zealand politics, history, culture, etc. We also saw this geyser erupt, but even though it's supposed to blow up every 24 hours, the ranger guy still added soap to it. It was cool, but not nearly as cool as it would have been without the soap. We also went to a Maori cultural show where we got to see the haka (their war dance), eat Maori-cooked food from underground, and learn about their culture and traditions. They're much more interesting than, say, Lewis and Clark, and I really enjoyed it.

The people in my group are amazing people: nobody's here just to see where Lord of the Rings was formed, instead everybody's here to hike around and explore and have an awesome time. There's no cliques, which is always a plus, and I feel comfortable chatting and hanging out with everybody. Jane, our group leader, has been incredible: she's just like a group mom and is doing everything she can to make sure we're all happy and safe and comfortable. Everybody has their quirks, but it's a great group. There's even another American Studies/education student! It's difficult to explain just how odd that is, especially since we just discovered it today. She's awesome, and we're going to take Contemporary American Fiction together.

Today I moved into my flat which is ridiculously cute! I have a giant room to myself with a huge double bed, drawers, a bureau, a fake fireplace which I can't figure out its importance but still looks nice, and some weird shelf system going on in the corner. I've got two huge windows with shades already on, and the overheadlight lights up my room well, which is good because I can't stand dim lights. Unfortunately, my flat is about 30 degrees colder than the temperature outside, which is about twenty degrees colder than I thought it would be, making me a veritable ice cube at all times. I'm wearing two pairs of socks right now, and I'm trying to figure out how lame it would be to wear gloves to bed. My flatmates are quite cool: one is named Joe and he's from DC and is studying music and business, and the other one is Evan from Eugene who's technically studying Physics but is just kind of taking all kinds of classes here. The two kiwi-hosts, Jess and Jane, haven't arrived yet, but I'm sure they're awesome. Joe and Evan and I had fun tonight getting to know each other and exploring our flat, and I'm sure we'll all get along quite nicely. Sadly, they're not veg so there goes my great idea of buying communal food, but that's okay. Evan already shared his ginger cookies and has really good balsamic vinegar (unrelated to the ginger cookies), so he's got bonus points.

Even though I ordered linen ahead of time, it didn't make it to my flat yet, so I'm sleeping on my sleeping bag without a pillow tonight. My bed's huge though, so that's kind of a plus? Also, I found free detergent which means I can wash my clothes for the first time in quite some time, which is good since my socks all stink like wet socks and the rest of my clothes are probably growing mold somewhere on them.

Dunedin itself is the cutest city ever: there's tons of cows and sheep at the perimeter, and at first it looks like a farm town, but when you get to the city center, there's tons of cafes, restaurants, bars, bookstores, and general cool places to be. It's the biggest college town in New Zealand, so students basically run the area and are everywhere. It's weird since LA is about the furthest you can get from a college town, but I think I'm going to like it a lot. This week is orientation week, and apparently Dunedin is famous for people bringing their couches outside and just sitting outside (and occasionally burning their couches--what?!) and hanging out with everybody. I can deal with that.

The past few nights have been late ones (who am I kidding? By "the past few nights," I pretty much mean "the past few weeks"), and since we don't have time to sleep in during the first three days, I have been running on an average of four hours of sleep a night. I feel like I'm back to freshman year of college, where I felt like if I ever went to bed, I was missing out on some amazing adventure or experience. Hopefully this craziness will pass and I'll make it back to regular hours. It's only 12:15 AM now, and I don't have to be anywhere until 10:45 AM tomorrow morning. I'm so jazzed for all this sleep!

I'm so happy and thrilled to be here it's not even funny, and I cannot wait to be completely settled in and ready to go. I'm hardcore loving this new part of my adventure. Lots of love to everyone at home—