So for the second weekend since I left the good ol United States, I have stayed in one place and had adventures at home and not gone somewhere exotic. Since last week was a short week and since this weekend snuck up on us and since the weather was supposed to be rainy and windy, we stuck around Dunedin and it was quite fun.
I finally finished all my homework (two papers and a test in three days? it felt like Oxy again!) and had all of Friday to play and start my weekend. I made banana chocolate chip pancakes (don't worry, Jack Johnson got slipped in there while baking) and felt very domestic. We went to the Speight's brewery tour, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Dunedin. Speight's is the "Pride of the South," and is an extremely recognizable beer down here. They give you a tour of the brewery, give you a history of beer and of Speights, and at the end they give you 20 minutes to taste all their different types of beer. I liked the summer harvest, or the apricot one, the best. I've yet to acquire a taste for dark beer, and the apricot one was really fruity and delicious tasting. It was fun to finally go do the tour and to check that off the list of things we need to do in Dunedin.
Saturday was spent lounging around and watching Lord of the Rings and pointing out all the scenes where we thought we recognized parts. Sadly, all we had was the extended version of all the movies, and the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring is like 4 hours, so I insisted we take a coffee break, a lunch break, and a Tim Tams break (Tim Tams = my favorite cookie EVER). We watched one of the special features that tells you where they filmed certain scenes, and a lot of my guesses were right (unfortunately, lots were wrong too). It was still really cool to watch it knowing that it was filmed where I'm living, and it's a quality movie anyways. We started #2 last night, but I fell asleep an hour into it so we'll finish the marathon tonight.
Today Dan and I hiked up to Mt. Cargill, the highest point in Dunedin. It would have been a lot cooler if we hadn't been hiking into a cloud cover that blocked the view, but we've gotten really lucky with our weather so I can't complain too much. It was so sunny at the bottom too! It was decently cool to hike into the clouds and look down onto cloud from the top, but I hear the view is gorgeous, so I guess we'll have to go back. I've been hiking far too long without any incident, so it was bound to happen, and I slipped hardcore on the way down. The bleeding got so bad that I had to rip up my shirt and tie it around my knee and limp down the mountain. I spent about an hour cleaning out the wound and digging pieces of gravel out from underneath the skin on my knee, and now it's wrapped in a layer of gauze and I'm comfortably drugged up on the maximum amount of Panadol I can take without exceeding their maximum limit. It hurt more than any other scrape I've had, and the disinfectant was absolutely murder. Either way, it was bound to happen, and at least it wasn't when I was in the middle of Oz without anybody else.
Tomorrow both my classes got cancelled, one class got cancelled on Tuesday, and another class got cancelled on Wednesday (school here is so cool!), so I can focus all my energy into getting excited to see THE PARENTAL UNIT who's coming out sometime this week. I'm ridiculously excited to see them and to show them around NZ and show them what's captured my heart and somehow try to see if they can get a taste of what makes me so happy.
Since I'm discussing how hardcore I am in terms of surviving major injuries, I should mention that I have over 22 sandfly bites dotting my legs and feet and that each one itches more than a combination of forty mosquito bites together. Also, I think I just found a new one when I was removing large pieces of rock from my knee. Sandflies are probably the worst thing about NZ.
Hope all is well, lovelovelove!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Recap of the north (written on Thurs)
A quick recap of Easter break:
We left Thursday evening to get up to Christchurch for some free floor space on our way up north, only to find that our master plan of driving through dinner and just grabbing food at a supermarket once we got there had been foiled by the fact that in NZ, Easter lasts about a week. Apparently, stores close at 8 instead of 11 on Thursday since the next day is Good Friday, and don't re-open till Tuesday (the Monday after Easter is a public holiday too...what?!). We thought we'd go to a 24 (they call places open 24-hours two-fours here), but turns out that's just a Dunedin thing: only college students require food at all times of day in New Zealand. Thankfully, I'm a huge fan of car-snacking and had filled up on trail mix and apples, so I went to bed comfortable while the rest of the group starved.
We woke up early the next day to drive up to Nelson Lakes Nat'l Park, which was gorgeous. Unfortunately, Caitlin has to go to the bathroom about once every twenty minutes (not exaggerating...she sucks down water like none else, and doesn't slow down even if she knows she'll be in a car for a long time!), so we got there later than we thought we would and we didn't get to do the long hike I wanted to do. Still, we hiked around the lake a bit and saw some eels in there. I played with some very cute 4-year-old kiwis and gave their dad a break from chasing them around. I hiked up some other large hill which was essentially vertical, only to find that there was no view. What? No view after climbing a large mountain? It was blocked by the trees, I was sad. A sign warning us might have been helpful. Oh well, climbing down was fun. We drove back out to Nelson to stay in our adorable hostel and ate delicious Thai food which I had been craving for quite a while.
The next day, we explored the Queen's Gardens, shopped at the Nelson Farmer's Market, checked out the Nelson art deco cathedral, climbed up the hill to the center of New Zealand (though we're still confused how they know it's the center...do they draw a box around the perimeter and then find the center? Or is it just the vertical center of the two islands?), hiked around the edge of a mountain through tons of sheep poop to the Japanese Gardens, only to find out that they're about the size of my living room. Seriously, there was a tiny pond (without koi! Every Japanese garden has koi!) and a square of rocks that looked like they were trying to be a zen garden, and that's it. There was also a kid that had somehow constructed a sword out of some bamboo that was running wild, terrorizing a lost bird. On our way back, we stopped off at the Founder's Brewery, the first organic brewery in NZ which is located in this creepy mini-town of Nelson. It's apparently a giant tourist attraction, and it's kind of like Ft. Vancouver except instead of being a re-enactment, it's just a miniature version of the entire city circa-sometime a long time ago, I'm not sure when. Actually, it's not really like Ft. Vancouver at all, it just has to do with the history of the city. We ate dinner at a sports bar (the only place in the entire city that was open, since it was Easter) and called it an early night.
Day 3: driving out to Motueka and navigating the windiest roads EVER. After driving 11k on a 1-car-width gravel road, we made it to this forest where part of LOTR was filmed and hiked through it to Harwood's Hole, the deepest cave in NZ. It was a gorgeous trek out there, and the cave was pretty cool, but kind of hard to see how big it was. It more just looked like a giant hole with no bottom and lots of trees. Then the other girls tanned while Jake and Dan and I hiked out to this river at the bottom of a mountain. Since it's the end of summer, it was more of a stream than a river, but it was still quite pretty and had the classic bubbling sound that you hear on those sound machines that help people sleep, it was incredibly peaceful. We drove back to Motueka where we stayed in another adorable hostel and I ate the best falafel I've had since I left Israel. It was seriously delicious, the man making it asked if I liked garlic, and I said yes, and he squirted on the most delicious garlic hummus and garlic tzatziki EVER. Delish.
Day 4, we caught the sunrise over Kaiteriteri Bay and took these really awesome water taxis out to Tonga Bay. On the way, we passed a seal colony on the rocks and since it's fall, the mothers had their babies about 3 months ago and they were swimming and playing around and being just adorable. We hiked all the way from Tonga to Anchor Bay and caught some absolutely gorgeous views. We ate lunch on the whitesand beach of Bark Bay and we went swimming in the crystal blue-green water. I just can't get over how cool all the tramps are in NZ: they're so varied in scenery, on this one hike we got rock climbing, picturesque beaches, waterfalls, estuaries, bays, incredibly dense foliage, rainforest foliage, rugged rock...it's so cool! I also saw a guy from Oregon on the trail, turns out he's from Eugene. We had a split-second Northwest moment of appreciation and then split our ways.
Day 5 was spent driving back THE ENTIRE DAY. I drove from 7:30 AM till 4:30 across really windy roads, through tons of construction and traffic, and along really narrow roads, and as soon as I handed off driving responsibilities to Dan, the road miraculously turned straight and wide. It would. Still, I had Dan quiz me on my ed. test while I was driving which made the drive go a bit faster and helped in the test-studying department too.
Now it's Thursday and I have both my papers that aren't due till tomorrow finished (I am incredible) and my education test is behind me--it's a giant relief to have a quick break from all this academic thinking. Now it's on to plan this weekend's adventures: maybe the Catlins to go blokarting (half go-karting/half sailing..sweetas!) and camping perhaps? The adventures never end! And then in about a week, the parental unit arrives in Dunedin for their joyous trip to see what all the fuss is about over here. I love how over here, there's never any shortage of things to look forward to.
We left Thursday evening to get up to Christchurch for some free floor space on our way up north, only to find that our master plan of driving through dinner and just grabbing food at a supermarket once we got there had been foiled by the fact that in NZ, Easter lasts about a week. Apparently, stores close at 8 instead of 11 on Thursday since the next day is Good Friday, and don't re-open till Tuesday (the Monday after Easter is a public holiday too...what?!). We thought we'd go to a 24 (they call places open 24-hours two-fours here), but turns out that's just a Dunedin thing: only college students require food at all times of day in New Zealand. Thankfully, I'm a huge fan of car-snacking and had filled up on trail mix and apples, so I went to bed comfortable while the rest of the group starved.
We woke up early the next day to drive up to Nelson Lakes Nat'l Park, which was gorgeous. Unfortunately, Caitlin has to go to the bathroom about once every twenty minutes (not exaggerating...she sucks down water like none else, and doesn't slow down even if she knows she'll be in a car for a long time!), so we got there later than we thought we would and we didn't get to do the long hike I wanted to do. Still, we hiked around the lake a bit and saw some eels in there. I played with some very cute 4-year-old kiwis and gave their dad a break from chasing them around. I hiked up some other large hill which was essentially vertical, only to find that there was no view. What? No view after climbing a large mountain? It was blocked by the trees, I was sad. A sign warning us might have been helpful. Oh well, climbing down was fun. We drove back out to Nelson to stay in our adorable hostel and ate delicious Thai food which I had been craving for quite a while.
The next day, we explored the Queen's Gardens, shopped at the Nelson Farmer's Market, checked out the Nelson art deco cathedral, climbed up the hill to the center of New Zealand (though we're still confused how they know it's the center...do they draw a box around the perimeter and then find the center? Or is it just the vertical center of the two islands?), hiked around the edge of a mountain through tons of sheep poop to the Japanese Gardens, only to find out that they're about the size of my living room. Seriously, there was a tiny pond (without koi! Every Japanese garden has koi!) and a square of rocks that looked like they were trying to be a zen garden, and that's it. There was also a kid that had somehow constructed a sword out of some bamboo that was running wild, terrorizing a lost bird. On our way back, we stopped off at the Founder's Brewery, the first organic brewery in NZ which is located in this creepy mini-town of Nelson. It's apparently a giant tourist attraction, and it's kind of like Ft. Vancouver except instead of being a re-enactment, it's just a miniature version of the entire city circa-sometime a long time ago, I'm not sure when. Actually, it's not really like Ft. Vancouver at all, it just has to do with the history of the city. We ate dinner at a sports bar (the only place in the entire city that was open, since it was Easter) and called it an early night.
Day 3: driving out to Motueka and navigating the windiest roads EVER. After driving 11k on a 1-car-width gravel road, we made it to this forest where part of LOTR was filmed and hiked through it to Harwood's Hole, the deepest cave in NZ. It was a gorgeous trek out there, and the cave was pretty cool, but kind of hard to see how big it was. It more just looked like a giant hole with no bottom and lots of trees. Then the other girls tanned while Jake and Dan and I hiked out to this river at the bottom of a mountain. Since it's the end of summer, it was more of a stream than a river, but it was still quite pretty and had the classic bubbling sound that you hear on those sound machines that help people sleep, it was incredibly peaceful. We drove back to Motueka where we stayed in another adorable hostel and I ate the best falafel I've had since I left Israel. It was seriously delicious, the man making it asked if I liked garlic, and I said yes, and he squirted on the most delicious garlic hummus and garlic tzatziki EVER. Delish.
Day 4, we caught the sunrise over Kaiteriteri Bay and took these really awesome water taxis out to Tonga Bay. On the way, we passed a seal colony on the rocks and since it's fall, the mothers had their babies about 3 months ago and they were swimming and playing around and being just adorable. We hiked all the way from Tonga to Anchor Bay and caught some absolutely gorgeous views. We ate lunch on the whitesand beach of Bark Bay and we went swimming in the crystal blue-green water. I just can't get over how cool all the tramps are in NZ: they're so varied in scenery, on this one hike we got rock climbing, picturesque beaches, waterfalls, estuaries, bays, incredibly dense foliage, rainforest foliage, rugged rock...it's so cool! I also saw a guy from Oregon on the trail, turns out he's from Eugene. We had a split-second Northwest moment of appreciation and then split our ways.
Day 5 was spent driving back THE ENTIRE DAY. I drove from 7:30 AM till 4:30 across really windy roads, through tons of construction and traffic, and along really narrow roads, and as soon as I handed off driving responsibilities to Dan, the road miraculously turned straight and wide. It would. Still, I had Dan quiz me on my ed. test while I was driving which made the drive go a bit faster and helped in the test-studying department too.
Now it's Thursday and I have both my papers that aren't due till tomorrow finished (I am incredible) and my education test is behind me--it's a giant relief to have a quick break from all this academic thinking. Now it's on to plan this weekend's adventures: maybe the Catlins to go blokarting (half go-karting/half sailing..sweetas!) and camping perhaps? The adventures never end! And then in about a week, the parental unit arrives in Dunedin for their joyous trip to see what all the fuss is about over here. I love how over here, there's never any shortage of things to look forward to.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Easter Break: I survived!
I am back from my Easter vacations and I am even more in love with this country than before (who knew that was even possible?). We hit up Nelson, Motueka, Abel Tasman, Kaiteriteri, Christchurch, Kaikoura, and the Moeraki Boulders again, and it was all wonderful. Still, I don't remember the last time I drove for 8 hours straight and then sat in a car for another 4 1/2 hours, nor do I remember driving more windy roads in my entire life. I will post more details when I don't have a test in two hours and two papers due in two days, none of which I have begun to think about--ugh.
Just know that I'm safely back in Dunedin and be proud of all the academics I will be partaking in during the next 2.5 days!
Pictures:
1. The trees on the way out to Harwood's Hole, this giant cave we hiked out to. This path was used in part of the Lord of the Rings movie, where Frodo is on his way to do something, I forget what. All of the north was practically used in LOTR, it's mildly ridiculous, but it makes for some great scenery.
2. The group (minus Jake, he decided not to go swimming at the bay and hiked out to the beach before us) at Abel Tasman Nat'l Park with Torrent Bay in the background. From top back, clockwise: me, Caitlin, Alice, Dan.
Just know that I'm safely back in Dunedin and be proud of all the academics I will be partaking in during the next 2.5 days!
Pictures:
1. The trees on the way out to Harwood's Hole, this giant cave we hiked out to. This path was used in part of the Lord of the Rings movie, where Frodo is on his way to do something, I forget what. All of the north was practically used in LOTR, it's mildly ridiculous, but it makes for some great scenery.
2. The group (minus Jake, he decided not to go swimming at the bay and hiked out to the beach before us) at Abel Tasman Nat'l Park with Torrent Bay in the background. From top back, clockwise: me, Caitlin, Alice, Dan.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
P-p-p-pictures!
Hope these are in the right order...
1. Lake along the Routeburn track...the photos really don't do justice to the amount of beauty on that trail.
2. Three of my wonderful flatmates with our St. Patty's day meal! I was in charge of food, and since Mom always celebrates every single holiday with the appropriate food, I followed in her footsteps and made an Irish guinness stew, homemade bread with green butter, green mashed potatoes, green salad, and green beer from the brewery down the road. We decked ourselves out green-style.
3. Me with my friend Patrick, so that everyone can get the full wonderfulness of the greenness in 515 Great King Street. I'm wearing Jane's 4-year-old brother's suspenders, since nobody else could fit in them! Still, they hiked my shorts up uncomfortably high.
4. Me in my luge on the mountain...imagine racing that down a really super-sweet track with lots of curves and some chances to flip up in the air! So cool!
5. Hiking along the flats on the Routeburn track, we took a shortcut that looked straight out of Lord of the Rings (though let's face it, all of NZ looks straight out of LOTR).
6. Gorgeous mountain view after hiking straight up for 40 minutes...ugh...
7. More pretty views.
8. Me at the lake.
9. Paraglider over the Remarkable Mountains...people are always falling out of the sky in Queenstown.
10. Mountains in the morning before we got to the track.
11. View from the top of the mountain over the Queenstown harbor.
12. Part of the group at the top of the mountain, the Saddle. Check out those gorgeous Remarkables in the background!
1. Lake along the Routeburn track...the photos really don't do justice to the amount of beauty on that trail.
2. Three of my wonderful flatmates with our St. Patty's day meal! I was in charge of food, and since Mom always celebrates every single holiday with the appropriate food, I followed in her footsteps and made an Irish guinness stew, homemade bread with green butter, green mashed potatoes, green salad, and green beer from the brewery down the road. We decked ourselves out green-style.
3. Me with my friend Patrick, so that everyone can get the full wonderfulness of the greenness in 515 Great King Street. I'm wearing Jane's 4-year-old brother's suspenders, since nobody else could fit in them! Still, they hiked my shorts up uncomfortably high.
4. Me in my luge on the mountain...imagine racing that down a really super-sweet track with lots of curves and some chances to flip up in the air! So cool!
5. Hiking along the flats on the Routeburn track, we took a shortcut that looked straight out of Lord of the Rings (though let's face it, all of NZ looks straight out of LOTR).
6. Gorgeous mountain view after hiking straight up for 40 minutes...ugh...
7. More pretty views.
8. Me at the lake.
9. Paraglider over the Remarkable Mountains...people are always falling out of the sky in Queenstown.
10. Mountains in the morning before we got to the track.
11. View from the top of the mountain over the Queenstown harbor.
12. Part of the group at the top of the mountain, the Saddle. Check out those gorgeous Remarkables in the background!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
I never ever want to leave this place, end of story.
Well, not end of story, I of course, have tons of stories. This weekend was QUEENSTOWN BABY! with the Arcadia group, and it was heaps and heaps of fun. I'm glad I'd already been there, though, because last time I got a much better taste of what Queenstown is like, this time was a total touristy trip which was fine because it was all-expenses paid and I can't afford touristy trips to Queenstown.
We started off the trip by taking the gondola up the mountain, and then doing the luge down--there's apparently only 3 places where you can luge in the entire world, and Queenstown is one of them. We got to do 3 rides, but Jane (our amazing group leader...I want to be her when/if I grow up) only used one of her rides, so Dave and I took the other two and got four rides instead...we're smartas. Luging is kind of like go-karting, except you have this gorgeous view of the entire city and the water and the mountains, and if you steer right, you can even catch some air as you go down some of the hills. Even the gondola trip us is exciting, since you're shooting through trees and then all of a sudden you have this jaw-dropping view. Afterwards, we all went out for Fergburgers and I ate this amazing tofu burger with garlic aioli and peanut sauce and it was a fabulous eating experience.
The next day we got up super-early to do the Routeburn track, which is one of the Great Walks of NZ. All in all, we hiked over 18 miles (half of it uphill too!). It was a great hike because it was so varied: the first part was really wooded and we hiked next to this bright blue-green river, the second part looked straight out of Jurassic Park or something, we hiked through this hay field next to these giant looming mountains, and then the trail went back into the mountains. The third part was straight uphill for over an hour and was tons of rock climbing, walking through streams, and crossing really treacherous looking swing bridges. We rested at the waterfall, and trekked upward up more rocks and out of the woods to a lake, and then even further up this steep path to the most gorgeous view of the Remarkables (the big mountain range in Qtown) with snow on top...why would anybody ever want to live anywhere else with scenery like this in their backyard? It was an incredibly tiring hike, and I don't remember if I've ever hiked 18 miles in a day, but it was SO COOL and it makes me want to be really hardcore and learn to be a climber so I can climb up to the top of the world and see what it looks like from there. The scenery was incredible, the air was so crisp and so clear and so cleansing, and it just takes your breath away to stop and think about where you are in the world. I don't know how I got so lucky as to get these experiences, but I feel like hikes like these were why I came to NZ. We finished off the day at a much needed pizza pub and hit the hay earlier than I've hit the hay in all of my trip.
Day 3, people had the option to bungy jump, but my wallet was screaming for me to take it easy, so I restrained myself. I really hope it's not one of those things where I leave NZ regretting that I didn't jump. It was tough, since everybody else that didn't jump was just too scared and didn't want to, while I desperately wanted to but felt like it was a smarter decision to save the $200. Still, it's always fun to watch everybody else jump, and the bridge you jump off of is between a really pretty canyon. We also went on a jetboat ride through this amazingly gorgeous canyon. The jetboat has this special water propulsion system that allows it to go freakishly fast through really shallow water, and it can do really tight turns like drifting in a car. I sat on the side of the back of the boat, where you get the best thrill, and got absolutely soaking wet, but it was so fun! It was like the coolest water roller coaster I've ever been on. Our guide took these really tight turns through really narrow canyons and at some points, it looks like you're about to hit the rocks but you don't! It's totally a thrill and a half, and it's something I would have never forked over the money for on my own, but on an expenses-paid trip, it was great!
Now I'm back to Dunedin, and it happily feels like home. I got back and Jane had a falafel all cooked up for me, and we had a great time planning our Irish meal for St. Patty's day tomorrow (green potatoes, stew, peas, broccoli, spinach, bread with green butter, and green beer which is apparently free at a local brewery down the street). It feels good to come back somewhere that feels like home. Sadly, I have to re-enter academia and turn in a project proposal tomorrow, but Easter break is this weekend, meaning I only have a four-day week since there's no school on Friday. That would be a lot cooler if I had classes on Friday, but I don't, so it really means nothing to me except that we can leave for our trip earlier since we don't have to wait for anybody else to finish going to class.
Prepare yourselves for gorgeous pictures to come later.
We started off the trip by taking the gondola up the mountain, and then doing the luge down--there's apparently only 3 places where you can luge in the entire world, and Queenstown is one of them. We got to do 3 rides, but Jane (our amazing group leader...I want to be her when/if I grow up) only used one of her rides, so Dave and I took the other two and got four rides instead...we're smartas. Luging is kind of like go-karting, except you have this gorgeous view of the entire city and the water and the mountains, and if you steer right, you can even catch some air as you go down some of the hills. Even the gondola trip us is exciting, since you're shooting through trees and then all of a sudden you have this jaw-dropping view. Afterwards, we all went out for Fergburgers and I ate this amazing tofu burger with garlic aioli and peanut sauce and it was a fabulous eating experience.
The next day we got up super-early to do the Routeburn track, which is one of the Great Walks of NZ. All in all, we hiked over 18 miles (half of it uphill too!). It was a great hike because it was so varied: the first part was really wooded and we hiked next to this bright blue-green river, the second part looked straight out of Jurassic Park or something, we hiked through this hay field next to these giant looming mountains, and then the trail went back into the mountains. The third part was straight uphill for over an hour and was tons of rock climbing, walking through streams, and crossing really treacherous looking swing bridges. We rested at the waterfall, and trekked upward up more rocks and out of the woods to a lake, and then even further up this steep path to the most gorgeous view of the Remarkables (the big mountain range in Qtown) with snow on top...why would anybody ever want to live anywhere else with scenery like this in their backyard? It was an incredibly tiring hike, and I don't remember if I've ever hiked 18 miles in a day, but it was SO COOL and it makes me want to be really hardcore and learn to be a climber so I can climb up to the top of the world and see what it looks like from there. The scenery was incredible, the air was so crisp and so clear and so cleansing, and it just takes your breath away to stop and think about where you are in the world. I don't know how I got so lucky as to get these experiences, but I feel like hikes like these were why I came to NZ. We finished off the day at a much needed pizza pub and hit the hay earlier than I've hit the hay in all of my trip.
Day 3, people had the option to bungy jump, but my wallet was screaming for me to take it easy, so I restrained myself. I really hope it's not one of those things where I leave NZ regretting that I didn't jump. It was tough, since everybody else that didn't jump was just too scared and didn't want to, while I desperately wanted to but felt like it was a smarter decision to save the $200. Still, it's always fun to watch everybody else jump, and the bridge you jump off of is between a really pretty canyon. We also went on a jetboat ride through this amazingly gorgeous canyon. The jetboat has this special water propulsion system that allows it to go freakishly fast through really shallow water, and it can do really tight turns like drifting in a car. I sat on the side of the back of the boat, where you get the best thrill, and got absolutely soaking wet, but it was so fun! It was like the coolest water roller coaster I've ever been on. Our guide took these really tight turns through really narrow canyons and at some points, it looks like you're about to hit the rocks but you don't! It's totally a thrill and a half, and it's something I would have never forked over the money for on my own, but on an expenses-paid trip, it was great!
Now I'm back to Dunedin, and it happily feels like home. I got back and Jane had a falafel all cooked up for me, and we had a great time planning our Irish meal for St. Patty's day tomorrow (green potatoes, stew, peas, broccoli, spinach, bread with green butter, and green beer which is apparently free at a local brewery down the street). It feels good to come back somewhere that feels like home. Sadly, I have to re-enter academia and turn in a project proposal tomorrow, but Easter break is this weekend, meaning I only have a four-day week since there's no school on Friday. That would be a lot cooler if I had classes on Friday, but I don't, so it really means nothing to me except that we can leave for our trip earlier since we don't have to wait for anybody else to finish going to class.
Prepare yourselves for gorgeous pictures to come later.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
A couple of differences in NZ life from American life
1. In classes, I've had a number of problems with the language that lecturers use, and maybe it's because at Oxy, there's a huge emphasis on the power of language and the power that goes along with who gets to do the naming, but still--here, lecturers don't use person-first language (in which you would say "Shaun, who has autism" instead of saying "Shaun's the autistic kid"), and I find myself getting extremely frustrated hearing it. Nor do they have an understanding of the difference between gender and sex, which gets confusing because at Oxy, gender is a social construct and sex is biology, end of story. Here, they use them interchangeably, and in a class where we're discussing gender as a lens through which to examine power structures it gets confusing. I suppose it's just a difference in the use of language, but it throws me off every time.
2. Gender stereotypes are much bigger here: there's a huge ad campaign for a brand of milk called Meadow Fresh, and their ad campaign is built upon the phrase "Milk for Blokes." The ads claim to show all the way men have it better than women, but instead they perpetrate extremely outdated stereotypes about gender roles that would never be displayed in the States because people would be too worried about them being offensive. There's also another set of ads that are everywhere here for a brand of beer called Tui. The ads are all in the same format: on the left, there's text, and on the right, it says "yeah right" every time. They range from typical college style ("I'm not drinking till after exams...yeah right") to political ("War will bring peace...yeah right") to extremely gender based ("I have to wash my hair tonight...yeah right"). Both of these ad campaigns are successful because they are extremely recognizable, but I was talking about them with a bunch of Americans the other day, and we were talking about how the States would never let them stay up and how they really date New Zealand in terms of social progression.
3. In the States, there's primarily girls in my education classes, and the same goes here. Also, the only time I've ever seen somebody color code their notes by topic has been in ed classes at Oxy, and here about five girls in my ed class bring pencil bags to class with different colored pens and sticky notes! Apparently some things are the same across continents.
4. My kiwi hosts, when referring to the States, always say "America" while I always say "the States" or "the US." It's really weird for me to hear "in America, is Robbie Williams popular?" because 'America' sounds idealistic to me, probably because I think of it in terms of the American dream, or the American way of life, or vague ideas like that instead of a physical country where people live. It just always catches me off guard.
5. Kiwis are much more laid back in general, and seem to value family more. Most cafes and stores close at 5 so that workers can get home to their families. At first, I thought it was annoying to have to get everything done before 5, but now I kind of like the values that it stands for, and I've gotten used to it. They also seem to have much more pride in their country. They love talking about NZ politics, they love talking about how "clean and green" NZ is, every time Sir Edmond Hillary comes up, their eyes practically swell with tears instantaneously...while it's certainly a stretch for me to say that all NZers are proud of their country, it feels like much more of them are proud to say where they are from and almost get defensive when something comes up negatively about NZ.
In other news, I finally feel like I'm officially in school...I had to write my first paper, and it was actually a difficult one! Not because of the subject matter, but because the prof wanted us to cram tons of information into an extremely tiny amount of space. Instead of feeling like I was writing concisely, I felt like I was just being incomplete which is a terrible feeling, since I know I could have proven my point much better with more space. Oh well, it actually felt good to finally write a paper and be academic again. I also had to do a crash course in NZ spelling and change all of my "behavior"s to "behaviour" and my "organization"s to "organisation."
This weekend, I'm going back to Queenstown, this time with everybody from my initial program. We're going on the shotover jetboats, tramping through Mt. Aspiring on the Routeburn track, and taking the gondola up the mountain to ride the luge. People are also bungee jumping, but I think I'm going to keep my bank account from crying and take a rain check on that. It'll be fun to be with the whole group again, and I really liked Queenstown so I'm jazzed to go back.
Hope everybody's enjoying plenty of spring-ish weather for me, because it's feeling like winter already for me...the weather is cold, it's raining a lot, and it's only 2:15 and I'm on my third cup of tea for the day.
Loves!
2. Gender stereotypes are much bigger here: there's a huge ad campaign for a brand of milk called Meadow Fresh, and their ad campaign is built upon the phrase "Milk for Blokes." The ads claim to show all the way men have it better than women, but instead they perpetrate extremely outdated stereotypes about gender roles that would never be displayed in the States because people would be too worried about them being offensive. There's also another set of ads that are everywhere here for a brand of beer called Tui. The ads are all in the same format: on the left, there's text, and on the right, it says "yeah right" every time. They range from typical college style ("I'm not drinking till after exams...yeah right") to political ("War will bring peace...yeah right") to extremely gender based ("I have to wash my hair tonight...yeah right"). Both of these ad campaigns are successful because they are extremely recognizable, but I was talking about them with a bunch of Americans the other day, and we were talking about how the States would never let them stay up and how they really date New Zealand in terms of social progression.
3. In the States, there's primarily girls in my education classes, and the same goes here. Also, the only time I've ever seen somebody color code their notes by topic has been in ed classes at Oxy, and here about five girls in my ed class bring pencil bags to class with different colored pens and sticky notes! Apparently some things are the same across continents.
4. My kiwi hosts, when referring to the States, always say "America" while I always say "the States" or "the US." It's really weird for me to hear "in America, is Robbie Williams popular?" because 'America' sounds idealistic to me, probably because I think of it in terms of the American dream, or the American way of life, or vague ideas like that instead of a physical country where people live. It just always catches me off guard.
5. Kiwis are much more laid back in general, and seem to value family more. Most cafes and stores close at 5 so that workers can get home to their families. At first, I thought it was annoying to have to get everything done before 5, but now I kind of like the values that it stands for, and I've gotten used to it. They also seem to have much more pride in their country. They love talking about NZ politics, they love talking about how "clean and green" NZ is, every time Sir Edmond Hillary comes up, their eyes practically swell with tears instantaneously...while it's certainly a stretch for me to say that all NZers are proud of their country, it feels like much more of them are proud to say where they are from and almost get defensive when something comes up negatively about NZ.
In other news, I finally feel like I'm officially in school...I had to write my first paper, and it was actually a difficult one! Not because of the subject matter, but because the prof wanted us to cram tons of information into an extremely tiny amount of space. Instead of feeling like I was writing concisely, I felt like I was just being incomplete which is a terrible feeling, since I know I could have proven my point much better with more space. Oh well, it actually felt good to finally write a paper and be academic again. I also had to do a crash course in NZ spelling and change all of my "behavior"s to "behaviour" and my "organization"s to "organisation."
This weekend, I'm going back to Queenstown, this time with everybody from my initial program. We're going on the shotover jetboats, tramping through Mt. Aspiring on the Routeburn track, and taking the gondola up the mountain to ride the luge. People are also bungee jumping, but I think I'm going to keep my bank account from crying and take a rain check on that. It'll be fun to be with the whole group again, and I really liked Queenstown so I'm jazzed to go back.
Hope everybody's enjoying plenty of spring-ish weather for me, because it's feeling like winter already for me...the weather is cold, it's raining a lot, and it's only 2:15 and I'm on my third cup of tea for the day.
Loves!
Sunday, March 9, 2008
I'm going to the mattresses
Very exciting news: I BOUGHT MY FIRST CAR! Who would have ever guessed that my first car would have the driver's seat on the right side? My car is older than I am, and it's really not so much of a car as a land yacht. It's chunky, loud, it croaks and grumbles when I start it, the glove box is duct taped shut, the backseat right window doesn't roll down all the way, and the headlights sometimes get stuck on, but it's mine to drive all over the South Island, and it's wonderful. It's a 1984 BMW (I bought a BMW! So cool!), and I'm sharing it with three other people. We even have insurance! If we hit anything/anybody/anywhere, we have to pay the first $800 and then they pay the rest, up to $1 million. All for $40 apiece! It doesn't cover damage to our own car, but that's not a huge loss, considering it would probably cost more to repair it than we actually paid for it.
We christened it by driving out to Long Beach, about a 40 minute drive from Dunedin. Once you get there, you hike about a mile out to these caves along the beach, and we camped out there. It's the most gorgeous view ever...the beach is underneath these giant, towering cliffs with trees lined up along the horizon, and there are tons of craggy, edgy rocks that the water crashes against. The caves were big enough to sleep in, which was nice because it was raining the next morning. It was all the perks of camping, without having to set up a tent! We just laid our sleeping bags on the sand. We decided to mix it up and have both NZ-style food (sausages wrapped in bread, for some reason hot dog buns haven't hit down under yet) and American-style food (we tried to make smores, but we couldn't find graham crackers or marshmallows so we had to improvise with cookies and these bubblegum flavored Peeps-ish things). We bought veg sausages for me, which were the most amazing veg sausages I've found yet: red onion and parmesan. Mmm. We built a lovely fire and went swimming despite the freezing water, and tried climbing the cliffs a bit. I woke up at 3 AM and couldn't sleep, so I wandered out of the cave and looked up, and the stars were the clearest I've ever seen them in my entire life, even better than out on the Galapagos. You could see the Milky Way, it was that clear. I saw seven shooting stars in less than ten minutes! It was one of the coolest places I've been in New Zealand, which says a lot because it doesn't get much better than parachuting over Lake Tekapo in Queenstown. We finished off our car's christening process by having to wander around this tiny beach town asking people if they had jumper cables because the dash lights got left on and our battery flat-out died. This was actually the least-friendly town I've been in in all of NZ, and it took about twenty minutes to find somebody willing to jump us. After that minor mishap, the car made it back to Dunedin just fine and dandy.
Yesterday I spent all day either watching movies or cooking food, it was kind of a sad existence. Still, I saw some really good movies: I finally saw The Godfather and understand all the references in You've Got Mail, and I finally saw Saving Private Ryan. It was incredibly well done, and I'm glad I got around to seeing it at last. Plus, who doesn't love Tom Hanks? Still, it was a cinematically heavy day, so I had to end the day with some Seinfeld, most notably the hilarious one where Jerry finds out he has fleas.
Now I'm doing some reading (see, sometimes I have academic things to do), and researching for a paper I'm writing. I'm so productive. I have pumpkin ravioli soup in a can, and while it sounds slightly dodgy, the picture makes it look amazingly good. I'm kind of anxious to see how it turns out, if it's totally disgusting or delicioso. We'll see. Lots of love to everybody!
Pictures:
1. My friend Dave has the most incredible camera ever and takes the most gorgeous photos I've ever seen, he just got a $600 grant from National Geographic to take photos down here. Anyways, I stole a picture that he took of the stars from Long Beach so that everybody could see how incredible it is. It's not touched up at all! WHOA!
2. I went to the rugby on Friday night, and the pre-game show was these 2 ridiculous 16-year-old guys doing tricks on these motorcycles, flipping around and jumping off giant ramps. The crowd went nuts, and these kids were totally insane, but it was awesomely fun to watch. The rugby was kind of boring though, they just piled around on each other and yelled a lot and dropped the ball. Still, the Highlanders are a pretty big deal in Dunedin, and it was cool to get in on the experience. If anybody's interested, go to http://www.hahn-online.info/de/Neuseeland/Rugby/RugbyFiles/rugbyfiles.html and check out the files of the rugby team yelling the haka song (the Maori war dance) and singing the Highlanders song, but be prepared for that song to be stuck in your head for days. Imagine the entire stadium and rugby team singing this at the top of their lungs. Username and password is RugbyNZ, use the correct capitalization.
3. Our cave! So cool.
4. Us in front of the car, I think I'm simultaneously calling shotgun and trying to block the dent from view. I'm finally at the point where I'm completely comfortable driving on the left side of the road, but I still forget which side to get in the car a lot, it's borderline embarrassing.
More pictures of Long Beach to come, Caitlin and Patrick took the most pictures so I still have to grab them from them.
We christened it by driving out to Long Beach, about a 40 minute drive from Dunedin. Once you get there, you hike about a mile out to these caves along the beach, and we camped out there. It's the most gorgeous view ever...the beach is underneath these giant, towering cliffs with trees lined up along the horizon, and there are tons of craggy, edgy rocks that the water crashes against. The caves were big enough to sleep in, which was nice because it was raining the next morning. It was all the perks of camping, without having to set up a tent! We just laid our sleeping bags on the sand. We decided to mix it up and have both NZ-style food (sausages wrapped in bread, for some reason hot dog buns haven't hit down under yet) and American-style food (we tried to make smores, but we couldn't find graham crackers or marshmallows so we had to improvise with cookies and these bubblegum flavored Peeps-ish things). We bought veg sausages for me, which were the most amazing veg sausages I've found yet: red onion and parmesan. Mmm. We built a lovely fire and went swimming despite the freezing water, and tried climbing the cliffs a bit. I woke up at 3 AM and couldn't sleep, so I wandered out of the cave and looked up, and the stars were the clearest I've ever seen them in my entire life, even better than out on the Galapagos. You could see the Milky Way, it was that clear. I saw seven shooting stars in less than ten minutes! It was one of the coolest places I've been in New Zealand, which says a lot because it doesn't get much better than parachuting over Lake Tekapo in Queenstown. We finished off our car's christening process by having to wander around this tiny beach town asking people if they had jumper cables because the dash lights got left on and our battery flat-out died. This was actually the least-friendly town I've been in in all of NZ, and it took about twenty minutes to find somebody willing to jump us. After that minor mishap, the car made it back to Dunedin just fine and dandy.
Yesterday I spent all day either watching movies or cooking food, it was kind of a sad existence. Still, I saw some really good movies: I finally saw The Godfather and understand all the references in You've Got Mail, and I finally saw Saving Private Ryan. It was incredibly well done, and I'm glad I got around to seeing it at last. Plus, who doesn't love Tom Hanks? Still, it was a cinematically heavy day, so I had to end the day with some Seinfeld, most notably the hilarious one where Jerry finds out he has fleas.
Now I'm doing some reading (see, sometimes I have academic things to do), and researching for a paper I'm writing. I'm so productive. I have pumpkin ravioli soup in a can, and while it sounds slightly dodgy, the picture makes it look amazingly good. I'm kind of anxious to see how it turns out, if it's totally disgusting or delicioso. We'll see. Lots of love to everybody!
Pictures:
1. My friend Dave has the most incredible camera ever and takes the most gorgeous photos I've ever seen, he just got a $600 grant from National Geographic to take photos down here. Anyways, I stole a picture that he took of the stars from Long Beach so that everybody could see how incredible it is. It's not touched up at all! WHOA!
2. I went to the rugby on Friday night, and the pre-game show was these 2 ridiculous 16-year-old guys doing tricks on these motorcycles, flipping around and jumping off giant ramps. The crowd went nuts, and these kids were totally insane, but it was awesomely fun to watch. The rugby was kind of boring though, they just piled around on each other and yelled a lot and dropped the ball. Still, the Highlanders are a pretty big deal in Dunedin, and it was cool to get in on the experience. If anybody's interested, go to http://www.hahn-online.info/de/Neuseeland/Rugby/RugbyFiles/rugbyfiles.html and check out the files of the rugby team yelling the haka song (the Maori war dance) and singing the Highlanders song, but be prepared for that song to be stuck in your head for days. Imagine the entire stadium and rugby team singing this at the top of their lungs. Username and password is RugbyNZ, use the correct capitalization.
3. Our cave! So cool.
4. Us in front of the car, I think I'm simultaneously calling shotgun and trying to block the dent from view. I'm finally at the point where I'm completely comfortable driving on the left side of the road, but I still forget which side to get in the car a lot, it's borderline embarrassing.
More pictures of Long Beach to come, Caitlin and Patrick took the most pictures so I still have to grab them from them.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Pictures are fixed now
I'm apparently computer illiterate and am having a hard time with the picture posts, so I can't add captions to each individual picture. Either way, intelligent people should be able to figure it out. The giant, massive mountain surrounded by a layer of fog is Mt. Cook, the highest peak in Australasia (don't ask what that is, we're still working on it). The one with the greyish water is the Hooker Glacier. The large chunk in the middle of it is part of the glacier that's melted off, and the ice surrounding the water is glacier too. The one with four of us is with the mountains that surround Mt. Cook behind us. From left to right, it's me, Patrick, Claire, and Dan. The one with the lake is from the road, the lake is Lake Tekapo, it's this bright ice blue lake. I've never seen a more vivid, bright color in a natural lake. The boulders are the Moeraki Boulders, off the Oamaru coast.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Academia at Otago
While I like my classes here, and while it's awesome that I only take three classes and that I'm done with them after noon on Thursdays, academics are certainly not Otago's strong spot. In all three of my classes today, students had their cell phones out and were texting in plain view of the lecturer (don't get me started on texting), and nobody seemed to care! In my media studies class, the prof asked how many people had done the reading. About seven people out of over one hundred students raised their hands, and he said, "not bad, not bad." Are you serious?! If seven percent of the class had done the reading at Oxy, the prof would have exploded and started assigning pop quizzes no sweat. It's ridiculous! The readings are at a much easier level (granted, I'm taking a 100-level class and a 200-level class along with my 300-level class) and in the syllabi (called "primers" or "course descriptions" here), there's two parts about the reading: a "required" reading, and a "recommended" reading. The recommended readings are all entire books, not just articles or something, it's basically the reference list for the required reading, so obviously nobody is reading it. Profs ask questions, and the only people that answer the questions are people without kiwi accents: it's only international students! It's kind of funny, if it wasn't so sad that kiwis float through classes.
Since my classes aren't providing me with much to fill my time, I decided to start working out to burn off the cookies I made last night (I couldn't figure out the conversion of grams to cups, so I think I doubled the amount of butter necessary...obviously, they were delicious that way, but I think I ate my weight in cookies) and I made the 20-minute trek to the gym. It's practically a workout to get there, especially if it's raining. Somehow, I feel like I'm burning more calories walking to the gym in the rain than if it's dry, probably because it's unpleasant. I'm also signing up for a wine appreciation class, and a bone carving class. They're both expensive, but they're not classes I can take at Oxy, and I figure I should take advantage of it now while I can. I also went over to talk with the local elementary school, and it looks like I can get into a classroom sometime next week which will be AWESOME because a) I miss having crazy kidlets in my life, and b) kiwi kids have the cutest accents, so I obviously need to get that in my life too.
I know I said I wasn't going to talk about texting, but I can't resist...texting is the most annoying thing ever. Nobody here makes phone calls with their phones, they just sit around and text all day! It's so irritating, because nothing can ever get resolved in anything less than three texts. A sample text conversation goes like this:
Me: Hey, I'm going to the Bowler tonight for quiz night...you should come.
Somebody else: Oh sweetas, that sounds wicked. When are you going?
Me: We're leaving my house at 10, come on over before then.
Somebody else: Where do you live again?
And it goes on like that. A simple phone conversation would be over in 30 seconds, but no...the texting conversation goes on. It's $1.49 per minute to call somebody else, though, and I get 500 free texts for $10/month. I will be thrilled to return to the States and have the decision available whether to call or to text, depending on the situation. Stupid texting.
I just looked at a syllabus for my child development class, and it looks like I have an essay due next week...hmm. I might want to look into what it's supposed to be about. The prof is clearly American, since no kiwi prof assigns any sort of work due till at least April. Oh well, it'll give me something to do. I never ever thought I would describe writing an essay as "something to do" but NZ classes have not proven to be the most challenging academically. Still, just being over here is a constant learning experience, and I knew from negative day 30 that exploring the culture and the land were going to be just as fulfilling for me.
Heaps of love back home...
Since my classes aren't providing me with much to fill my time, I decided to start working out to burn off the cookies I made last night (I couldn't figure out the conversion of grams to cups, so I think I doubled the amount of butter necessary...obviously, they were delicious that way, but I think I ate my weight in cookies) and I made the 20-minute trek to the gym. It's practically a workout to get there, especially if it's raining. Somehow, I feel like I'm burning more calories walking to the gym in the rain than if it's dry, probably because it's unpleasant. I'm also signing up for a wine appreciation class, and a bone carving class. They're both expensive, but they're not classes I can take at Oxy, and I figure I should take advantage of it now while I can. I also went over to talk with the local elementary school, and it looks like I can get into a classroom sometime next week which will be AWESOME because a) I miss having crazy kidlets in my life, and b) kiwi kids have the cutest accents, so I obviously need to get that in my life too.
I know I said I wasn't going to talk about texting, but I can't resist...texting is the most annoying thing ever. Nobody here makes phone calls with their phones, they just sit around and text all day! It's so irritating, because nothing can ever get resolved in anything less than three texts. A sample text conversation goes like this:
Me: Hey, I'm going to the Bowler tonight for quiz night...you should come.
Somebody else: Oh sweetas, that sounds wicked. When are you going?
Me: We're leaving my house at 10, come on over before then.
Somebody else: Where do you live again?
And it goes on like that. A simple phone conversation would be over in 30 seconds, but no...the texting conversation goes on. It's $1.49 per minute to call somebody else, though, and I get 500 free texts for $10/month. I will be thrilled to return to the States and have the decision available whether to call or to text, depending on the situation. Stupid texting.
I just looked at a syllabus for my child development class, and it looks like I have an essay due next week...hmm. I might want to look into what it's supposed to be about. The prof is clearly American, since no kiwi prof assigns any sort of work due till at least April. Oh well, it'll give me something to do. I never ever thought I would describe writing an essay as "something to do" but NZ classes have not proven to be the most challenging academically. Still, just being over here is a constant learning experience, and I knew from negative day 30 that exploring the culture and the land were going to be just as fulfilling for me.
Heaps of love back home...
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Last One To The Car is a Sheep Shagger!
New Zealand is the bomb, in the least 90s use of the word. I love it here. Prepare yourself for a long entry, because there's lots to update and lots to say!
1. My flat. I love them all. We have become an adorable cute flat family, and it's perfect. We eat together every night around 6:30 and alternate who cooks (I'm on Thursdays for now), and everybody is amazing at learning to cook vegetarian-style for me. Evan made lasagna soup the other day (it was supposed to be lasagna, but it was really soupy), and Joe made enchiladas, except in my veg one he put zucchini, carrots, broccoli, onions, spinach, beans, and cheese so it wasn't really so much an enchilada as a heap of veggies rolled in a really soggy tortilla. He's learning though, and it's the thought that counts. We all have really intelligent conversation, which is awesome because I was getting sick of so many, "so, what are you studying?"s and all the other boring drivel. We had a long talk about politics and civil liberties the other day, and today we discussed high-quality cinema. I got ridiculously lucky in having a great relationship with all of my flatties. Plus, Evan came up to me today to tell me that he had broken up with his girlfriend and while that's terrible news to have, I was really impressed that he felt comfortable to bring it up out of nowhere and to ask my advice. Random fact: he ran a marathon this weekend with absolutely no training and came in first for the men! The kid is ridiculous, he acted like it was no big deal too, even though I could barely run three miles let alone twenty-six.
2. My classes. I love my education class, it's a total mix of education and psychology, and it's right up my alley. Lisa, my lecturer, is a mix between Jan Rabinowich (my Hebrew school teacher), Tim's mom, and Barbara Streisand. It's a really weird mix, but it's hilarious and I love her. She's from New York and bashes on America quite frequently, but it's all in a jovial spirit. My film prof is so passionate about the importance of media in portraying minority groups correctly, I love it. Maybe it's just the young college student in me, but I feel like if I sat down and had a conversation about politics with him, we'd be right on the same page. It'll be a really interesting class, and I'm really excited to do the readings too, for once! That always helps classes go better.
3. Dunedin. It keeps getting better, I keep discovering cooler things about it! At first glance, it's a total college town with lots of crazy college kids and parties that are nuts and ridiculous antics, but if you dig deeper, there's tons of really awesome things. The other day, I walked over to the Botanic Gardens with two other guys, and it was crazy cool! The entrance we took is hidden behind this pub, but once you walk in, it's full of gorgeous trees, a rose garden full of really seasonal roses that smell amazing, a lake, tons of ducks, and an aviary part with the most ridiculous birds ever...parrots, macaws, cockatoos, a peacock, and they're bright jungle-colored. Reilley had a full-on conversation with one parrot, it was hilarious. One could eeven whistle part of Singin' in the Rain...does it GET cooler than that? The other day, Evan and I also discovered this jazz place off of one of the main streets, and we scored some really chill jazz the other night. We danced around with the other old people there and I sang along to one of the songs with the wife of the trumpet player. It was so fun! Afterwards, we grabbed a beer with her and the trumpet player and I felt so classy, it was excellent! I never knew this place was in Dunedin, I love it.
4. Christchurch. Overall, it was a great trip, with just a couple of glitches, namely, that the kiwi girl we went with is legit LOCO. Her mood swings are out of control. At one point as we were driving up, she got mad that we were all sleeping in the backseat, which was part of the deal since we left at 4:30 AM, so she pulled over to the side of the road and demanded that we stay awake, and cranked up her music, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't terrible pop and if her crankiness hadn't created a terrible tension in the car. ANYWAYS, Christchurch itself was pretty sweet. We ate brekkie at this cute hippie cafe that reminded me of Portland, and I ate a bagel with pumpkin seeds on it which was amazing. I'm slowly learning the coffee terms here: a short black is an espresso shot, a long black is an espresso shot with hot water added, a flat white is a latte with extra milk, and iced anything will come more like a frappuccino than like ice cubes.
Back to Christchurch. The first day, we rented bikes and rode around the city heading towards the beach which would have been really cool if a) we knew how to get to the beach, b) we hadn't ridden in the opposite direction of the beach for about 45 minutes, c) Dan hadn't popped his tire and made me fix it, d) Dan hadn't popped MY tire while stealing my bike and leaving me laughing in a ditch, e) dan hadn't made me fix that too, and f) the beach, once we finally arrived there after 4 hours of pedaling all over the city, hadn't smelled sulfur. Still, it was fun to get out on a bike again, and I got to see a better part of the city. Three people on our original orientation weekend go to Canterbury in Christchurch, so I slept on Erica's floor. It was fabulous to save money on accommodation and it was great to see her again. I randomly met up with my other friend Dan around the campus which was wickedas because it made me feel like I have connections all over New Zealand, even though those are really the only other people I know that aren't in Dunedin. On Saturday, we drove out to Hamner Springs, another geothermal area, and played in the natural hot springs out there. It was me with Jenn (the crazy kiwi), her friend's brother, and her friend's brother's flatmate. Despite being an odd group of people, both boys turned out to be really cool and we had a great time soaking in all the potassium and whatever other minerals there are.
Sunday we drove out to Mount Cook, but it turned out to be raining the entire time and we had a total crap view of the mountain. After much discussion, some tears and some blood (well, not the blood, but the tears yes...the kiwi claimed she was "stressed," even though we'd been relaxing the whole weekend), we decided to spend a spontaneous night out there since the weather was supposed to be better on Monday. We stayed in an old-person's hostel which was hilarious--we got back at 9 and everybody was asleep with the lights on! It's advertised for "mature guests," but the YHA, a youth hostel, was full, and it was the only place that had space for five. Minus the Dutch woman that had no concept of a whisper, it was a good night's sleep.
We hiked around Mount Cook today, and it totally paid off all the discomfort, the extra money we paid for accommodation and gas, and the two classes I missed. It's the tallest mountain in the Australasia area, and it towers over everything else! We saw the Hooker glacier, climbed up to see a better view of the range, and crossed two wood bridges. All the scenery around here is so unbelievably gorgeous, it's like the Oregon coast times thirty thousand. All my lecturers are all for international students exploring around, so while it'll be a bit extra work for me to catch up, it was totally worth it. On the drive back, we stopped off to see the Moeraki Boulders, these giant perfectly round boulders off the Oamaru coast. They were really cool, except I slipped off one of them and had a wet foot for the rest of the car ride. Despite the slippage, it was a cool stop and a much needed break from being shoved in the middle seat of the backseat of a tiny car between two big guys.
Now I'm off to do some reading, drink some tea, and watch some Flight of the Conchords if I have time. Next weekend's adventures call for either a rugby game or a backpacking trip through Te Anau and the Milford Sound depending on the weather. Sweetas, bro.
1. My flat. I love them all. We have become an adorable cute flat family, and it's perfect. We eat together every night around 6:30 and alternate who cooks (I'm on Thursdays for now), and everybody is amazing at learning to cook vegetarian-style for me. Evan made lasagna soup the other day (it was supposed to be lasagna, but it was really soupy), and Joe made enchiladas, except in my veg one he put zucchini, carrots, broccoli, onions, spinach, beans, and cheese so it wasn't really so much an enchilada as a heap of veggies rolled in a really soggy tortilla. He's learning though, and it's the thought that counts. We all have really intelligent conversation, which is awesome because I was getting sick of so many, "so, what are you studying?"s and all the other boring drivel. We had a long talk about politics and civil liberties the other day, and today we discussed high-quality cinema. I got ridiculously lucky in having a great relationship with all of my flatties. Plus, Evan came up to me today to tell me that he had broken up with his girlfriend and while that's terrible news to have, I was really impressed that he felt comfortable to bring it up out of nowhere and to ask my advice. Random fact: he ran a marathon this weekend with absolutely no training and came in first for the men! The kid is ridiculous, he acted like it was no big deal too, even though I could barely run three miles let alone twenty-six.
2. My classes. I love my education class, it's a total mix of education and psychology, and it's right up my alley. Lisa, my lecturer, is a mix between Jan Rabinowich (my Hebrew school teacher), Tim's mom, and Barbara Streisand. It's a really weird mix, but it's hilarious and I love her. She's from New York and bashes on America quite frequently, but it's all in a jovial spirit. My film prof is so passionate about the importance of media in portraying minority groups correctly, I love it. Maybe it's just the young college student in me, but I feel like if I sat down and had a conversation about politics with him, we'd be right on the same page. It'll be a really interesting class, and I'm really excited to do the readings too, for once! That always helps classes go better.
3. Dunedin. It keeps getting better, I keep discovering cooler things about it! At first glance, it's a total college town with lots of crazy college kids and parties that are nuts and ridiculous antics, but if you dig deeper, there's tons of really awesome things. The other day, I walked over to the Botanic Gardens with two other guys, and it was crazy cool! The entrance we took is hidden behind this pub, but once you walk in, it's full of gorgeous trees, a rose garden full of really seasonal roses that smell amazing, a lake, tons of ducks, and an aviary part with the most ridiculous birds ever...parrots, macaws, cockatoos, a peacock, and they're bright jungle-colored. Reilley had a full-on conversation with one parrot, it was hilarious. One could eeven whistle part of Singin' in the Rain...does it GET cooler than that? The other day, Evan and I also discovered this jazz place off of one of the main streets, and we scored some really chill jazz the other night. We danced around with the other old people there and I sang along to one of the songs with the wife of the trumpet player. It was so fun! Afterwards, we grabbed a beer with her and the trumpet player and I felt so classy, it was excellent! I never knew this place was in Dunedin, I love it.
4. Christchurch. Overall, it was a great trip, with just a couple of glitches, namely, that the kiwi girl we went with is legit LOCO. Her mood swings are out of control. At one point as we were driving up, she got mad that we were all sleeping in the backseat, which was part of the deal since we left at 4:30 AM, so she pulled over to the side of the road and demanded that we stay awake, and cranked up her music, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't terrible pop and if her crankiness hadn't created a terrible tension in the car. ANYWAYS, Christchurch itself was pretty sweet. We ate brekkie at this cute hippie cafe that reminded me of Portland, and I ate a bagel with pumpkin seeds on it which was amazing. I'm slowly learning the coffee terms here: a short black is an espresso shot, a long black is an espresso shot with hot water added, a flat white is a latte with extra milk, and iced anything will come more like a frappuccino than like ice cubes.
Back to Christchurch. The first day, we rented bikes and rode around the city heading towards the beach which would have been really cool if a) we knew how to get to the beach, b) we hadn't ridden in the opposite direction of the beach for about 45 minutes, c) Dan hadn't popped his tire and made me fix it, d) Dan hadn't popped MY tire while stealing my bike and leaving me laughing in a ditch, e) dan hadn't made me fix that too, and f) the beach, once we finally arrived there after 4 hours of pedaling all over the city, hadn't smelled sulfur. Still, it was fun to get out on a bike again, and I got to see a better part of the city. Three people on our original orientation weekend go to Canterbury in Christchurch, so I slept on Erica's floor. It was fabulous to save money on accommodation and it was great to see her again. I randomly met up with my other friend Dan around the campus which was wickedas because it made me feel like I have connections all over New Zealand, even though those are really the only other people I know that aren't in Dunedin. On Saturday, we drove out to Hamner Springs, another geothermal area, and played in the natural hot springs out there. It was me with Jenn (the crazy kiwi), her friend's brother, and her friend's brother's flatmate. Despite being an odd group of people, both boys turned out to be really cool and we had a great time soaking in all the potassium and whatever other minerals there are.
Sunday we drove out to Mount Cook, but it turned out to be raining the entire time and we had a total crap view of the mountain. After much discussion, some tears and some blood (well, not the blood, but the tears yes...the kiwi claimed she was "stressed," even though we'd been relaxing the whole weekend), we decided to spend a spontaneous night out there since the weather was supposed to be better on Monday. We stayed in an old-person's hostel which was hilarious--we got back at 9 and everybody was asleep with the lights on! It's advertised for "mature guests," but the YHA, a youth hostel, was full, and it was the only place that had space for five. Minus the Dutch woman that had no concept of a whisper, it was a good night's sleep.
We hiked around Mount Cook today, and it totally paid off all the discomfort, the extra money we paid for accommodation and gas, and the two classes I missed. It's the tallest mountain in the Australasia area, and it towers over everything else! We saw the Hooker glacier, climbed up to see a better view of the range, and crossed two wood bridges. All the scenery around here is so unbelievably gorgeous, it's like the Oregon coast times thirty thousand. All my lecturers are all for international students exploring around, so while it'll be a bit extra work for me to catch up, it was totally worth it. On the drive back, we stopped off to see the Moeraki Boulders, these giant perfectly round boulders off the Oamaru coast. They were really cool, except I slipped off one of them and had a wet foot for the rest of the car ride. Despite the slippage, it was a cool stop and a much needed break from being shoved in the middle seat of the backseat of a tiny car between two big guys.
Now I'm off to do some reading, drink some tea, and watch some Flight of the Conchords if I have time. Next weekend's adventures call for either a rugby game or a backpacking trip through Te Anau and the Milford Sound depending on the weather. Sweetas, bro.
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