Flatmates

I really have not shouted out enough to my three awesome flatmates. Also, due to the wonders of facebook, I now know how to spell all of their names.

Mei Xiu is always inviting me to join them for dinners and helped me get the skeeter eater out of my room. Wawa and Mei Xiu taught me how to heat my room. Wawa provided the extra mattress for all of us to use, obtained a super long telephone extension so that we can all take the phone into our rooms for private use, and is constantly trying to feed me delicious food. Nana is pretty much the best person to share a bathroom with - our bathroom is immaculate. Also, and this is the reason I am posting this today instead of some other day, she got a moth out of my room this morning.

So I was getting dressed, dum de dum, what shall I wear, Jesse Bear, and I noticed a leaf on one of my dirty socks, and my first reaction was Oh god moth freak out, but that happens to me all the time and after that moment of panic I tell myself, quite reasonably, that it is probably just a leaf and I should make sure before freaking out. So I leaned in closer, and yeah, it wasn't a leaf, it was a proper moth. They have these little ones that Kate pointed out to me when I first got here

Lisa: There is some sort of dead bug over here.
Kate: Oh it's just a moth.
Lisa: Oh god! (recoils)
Kate: Oh right, oops...

Anyway, those barely even count, they just look like normal insects. The one on my sock was like the kind in Juneau that land on the window at dinner time and stay there until dawn the next morning like a little spade of death. So I stood there a little bit panic stricken for a moment before I had the sense to go and ask Nana if she would help me. So she got a tissue and picked up the moth and took it outside. It didn't move when she let it free, and she was like, I think I killed it... So then she disposed of it by wrapping it up in many tissues because she is an angel.

I hope that I can meet up with them in Wellington just because they are awesome, but I'm not sure I will go to the North Island after all because it is such a short amount of time. I will probably go either with Ben or Claire, or with both, so maybe I will just wait. Also, Erin will be here then! and if I leave, I will see her for one day... she will be here from the 7th to the 22nd, and if I go ahead with my present travel plans, I will see her on the 16th and that is it.

Oh, and some other New Zealand things.

1. Crutches here are different. There is this sort of cuff that goes around the lower arm. The cuff goes at the top and comes off the crutch at a ninety degree angle. Then lower down there is a handle coming off the crutch at a ninety degree angle as well. That's where the hands go. So there is no part that goes under your arms like the kind we see in the States.

2. "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" (or worms, or however you learned it) is "Never Eat Soggy Weet-bix" here. Weet-bix is like a big, solid wheatie. It's eaten with milk so that it softens up. It is sort of a cross between cereal and a muesli bar. I said "never eat soggy waffles" while we were determining strikes and dips and Nick and the other Kiwis around me all laughed at me... I suppose it is sort of silly, since "soggy" is not a usual state of waffles, but you know if you leave them in the fridge, they get sort of soggy... anyway. So Weet-bix. Weet-bix is also a sponsor of the All Blacks national rugby team.

3. There are hardly any crosswalks (getting to uni from Ilam across a busy road each day is a learned skill), but when there are, they are non-negotiable. Cars must stop there for pedestrians NO MATTER WHAT. They are marked with large orange circles, and some pedestrians don't even look when they cross at zebra crossings.

4. Cashiers will check the signature on your credit card if you sign for it (instead of entering a pin, which they have for both debit - called EFTPOS - and credit). I always put my card away (because it is often self-swipe) and then have to fetch it out again when I remember that they want to see it.

I don't have that many this time around, sorry. Hope all is well!