Hi New Zealand!

A post! To let you know I am



1. alive

2. well

3. exhausted from running around the Port Hills all day.

Caution: this is a very long blog post. The next one is shorter and more interesting.

2/20/09

A blog post! What?? I’ve been inspired by the downpour to write my very first New Zealand blog update. It’s been just about a week now, so I’ll try to go light on the details and only do highlights, but most of you know how good I am at summarizing…

In my mind, the week has been divided into three parts:

While Kate was here!
When IES went to Springfield.
Post-Springfield.

So let’s start from the top! Those of you who know Kate will be so jealous! I’m hoping that you will be so jealous that your only option is to come to New Zealand to hunt me down and take revenge. Then, once you get here, you’ll see Kate for yourself, your jealous rage will abate, and you can hang out with us. See, I’ve got it all planned out here, eh?

Kate met me at the airport. I was late, which was great, because the taxi driver seemed like he wouldn’t have waited very long for Kate (he was sent special from IES, so he really only had a responsibility for me, and I was already late, so he was less than happy with me). I had to go through biosecurity because my shoes had red dirt on them. Note to people coming to visit me: no fresh food (especially fruit and nuts), you have to declare all food (they won’t take it away from you, but you might have to go through biosecurity anyway), no camping gear, etc. If you’re going through Kauai, clean your shoes as best you can, especially the soles. They cleaned my shoes for me, which was nice, except that those were the ones I was wearing, so my feet got a little soggy. The only person I’ve talked to who actually got something taken away is Melissa (IES, from Bellevue!). She had some juggling balls and they took them away and burned them.

I got really lucky about my flights and everything, though. Alyssa (IES – goes to UR, actually) was told to get their bags in Auckland, which is ridiculous, because there is like an hour and twenty minute layover between the Auckland flight and the Christchurch flight. The airlines have it set up so that if you have that close connection, you do all your stuff in Christchurch. So they left to go collect their bags, and their bags never showed up (because they had been checked through to Christchurch). So then they not only had to rush through security again, but they had to figure out what had happened to their bags. I’m impressed she made her flight, even with an airline worker expediting them to the front of the security line.

Wow, so already failure with the skipping of details. Sorry. On to Christchurch!

The first couple of days, it was pretty overcast. Kate can attest to this. It was like 30 degrees until the day we got to Christchurch, and then it dropped to probably fifteen. Of course, it was roasting up in Taupo, so Kate was a little cold coming from there to here. The first day involved

Getting lost in Chch repeatedly (but not in a bad way).
An epic search for pizza.
An Irish B-movie with Minnie Driver and Alan Cummings in it.
A constant struggle to stay awake.

Kate did a good job of making me stay awake until 8:30. Otherwise, I would have gone to sleep at like five and been completely messed up for the first few days. At 8:30, full of yummy pizza, I crashed.

The YHA is right off Cathedral Square, which is very pretty. They have some nice shop stalls (I’m pretty sure they are for tourists, but whatever… for the first month, I’m allowed to be a tourist. I bought a fun bag for like US$6, so yeah), a giant chess board (Wizard’s Chess :p but you don’t actually get to be a piece, unfortunately. And you don’t get to hit people, even more unfortunately), and of course the cathedral.

The next morning, we got breakfast at a cute little place across the street from the hostel. Then we got lost looking for the bus stop, and then we went to the uni! MY FLAT!!! Kate can be my witness, my flat is awesome. It is a new Ilam flat, so it is nice and clean and beautiful and well lit and spacious and comes with dishes and such!

My flatmates are all cool so far. We all sort of run on different tracks, and honestly, when we do run in to each other, it seems to be in the kitchen, which means we are all in each other’s ways. But they are really friendly, and last night, Nana even ate dinner with the dinner group (getting there). Unfortunately, I don’t know how to spell any of their names except for Nana’s. So, I’m going to guess, and I apologize if their names are misspelled. Nana and I share a bathroom and Misuyu and Wawa have a similar two room one bathroom set up on the opposite side of the kitchen. To be honest, I am probably the least tidy, so I am constantly checking and myself to make sure I haven’t left a mess somewhere out in the common areas of the flat.

I met Kate in the evening after walking to the city center with IES. It was sad, because we had to get to the airport for her flight, but we went to a sushi place first, and they made Kate’s veggie roll with mayonnaise. So there was some sort of miscommunication after that, and basically we left without Kate getting any sushi :( We nearly missed the airport bus because the stop is in a strange place. If it hadn’t been for some random kiwi guy, we probably would have missed it. But he overheard us talking to Wawa, whom we saw at the bus exchange, and he pointed us in the right direction. Then Kate left :( but she’s coming back (I hope!)!

So that’s Part 1.

Part 2 was Springfield, which I actually will try to keep short. In a nutshell: I got to feed sheep and a goat, see a sheep shearing (which is actually sort of petrifying), go jetboating, ride a horse (also petrifying), and see Narnia twice. On the jetboat, a hornet ran into my neck. I can’t put into words quite how that hurt. There was definitely a stinging sensation, but also a feeling of that side of my neck tightening up. Then it sort of felt like it was burning, and then it just got sore. Strange… Oh, and I played pool for the first time! I’m unbelievably bad.

We stayed at a HI hostel that was run by our bus driver/tour guide named Colin and his Japanese wife Keiko. Colin reprimanded me (in a friendly way) for not knowing Japanese. He has three kids, and the family speaks in both English and Japanese at home. The hostel was amazing. Three of us were in the Narnia Room. Colin gave everyone else instructions to their rooms, but to the Narnia Room folks, he just said, take a look around and see if you can find it. If you go through the kitchen, there is a closet door next to the fireplace. But, if you open the closet door, it leads to a staircase, and if you go up the staircase, you’re in the Narnia Room! We took up the entire hostel. Keiko made an amazing dinner for us, and all in all, Springfield was very pleasant. It was probably 25 degrees while we were there; it was fantastic.

We also went to Castle Hill, which is a vast, rolling, yellow grass field with huge pieces of limestone jutting up out of it. It is right near where the final battle scene in the first Narnia movie was filmed. It looks pretty much just like that, too, only far cooler in person (but without a talking lion).

So that’s Part 2.

I did much better there, see? I just condensed two days of constant activity into three paragraphs! On to Part 3!

Since we’ve been back from Springfield, we’ve mostly just registered. We’re no longer booked all day every day by IES (which wasn’t bad, it was just non-stop), so we have our own time. A group of us have developed a dinner group. We all decide on a dish and each bring ingredients to contribute and then usually two people cook (we max out on cutting boards, knives, and counter space at around three, so two is usually a good number), and then two people are on KP (do you know what that means? Apparently none of them had heard it before. It’s Kitchen Patrol, which means clean-up, in case you hadn’t either). So far, we’ve had falafel pitas (Melissa as head cook), tacos (Alyssa as head cook), and curry (I was head cook for that one). But Greg and Tamar also cook, too. Olivia came to tacos and Kate came to falafel, but we’re the core group. Nana came and ate for curry, and Morgan (Melissa’s kiwi roommate) came for tacos. Morgan said that she would lead a dish soon. She wants to make Moroccan chicken, which I have no objection to. After dinner, we usually watch a movie or play a game or something.

I have been on a wild goose chase for a means to get internet. Sadly, my Ethernet port has finally decided to die for realsies. So I am trying to find a USB to Ethernet port, but that apparently is hard to come by. I’ve been to the main electronics chain, the lesser electronics chain, the little closet computer store, all over. I was so close today, and I was so happy, but then I saw that it was only for Windows/Linux/Vista. That was such a huge disappointment, I got so upset, and then I got homesick just because I was already upset, but now I’m feeling much better. Melissa, Alyssa, and Greg climbed through my window and cheered me up (I’m on the ground floor and the windows are huge and there are no screens. Just so you’re not super creeped out on my behalf, I was sitting here, at my desk, watching them do it, so it’s not like they snuck in while I wasn’t paying attention (the window was locked anyway, so they couldn’t have.)).

Earlier today, I made a shoe rack out of one of those earth friendly reusable shopping bags. It wasn’t the greatest job I’ve ever done, but it holds three pairs of shoes, which is all I need.

Sunday night, right when we got back from Springfield, a big group of us went to the lantern festival in Victoria Square. I guess it was for Chinese New Year’s? The lanterns were amazing, though. I’ll have pictures for you at some point, but internet costs a bit much for me to go throwing them all over my blog, sorry.

Tonight is pasta night, so I have to go get my stuff together and head over to Alyssa’s flat. Classes start on Monday, so hopefully I will meet some more people (not that I don’t like Melissa, Alyssa, Greg, and Tamar, but I didn’t come all the way to New Zealand to hang out with a bunch of Americans all the time), and also I will fall into some sort of routine.

I am taking a mineralogy/petrology course, a structures course, a field studies course, a linguistics course, and a Maori studies course. Three lab classes, and not one day that I start before ten, so I am in for some long days, but I think it will be okay. Most days I start at noon or later, which some of you may know is something I have tried to avoid all throughout college. But, with the lecture halls being large and few, they only offer one section (sometimes two sections) for each course, so scheduling options are pretty much nil. Some people have arranged to have no class on Fridays so they can leave for tramping or outing or whatever on Thursday, but my Friday is from one PM to six PM, so no such luck there.

This was a long one, and I apologize. Next time I won’t wait so long and it’ll be shorter. It’s not as cool as DanRose’s, but I guess that’s the price you pay for having a brothel-free week!