uggg I am my mother's daughter

So my flattie (roommate) totally called me out this morning. I was in the middle of my morning routine, making breakfast before class, minding my own business. I have cearal in the morning, and I was taking ever thing to the table...put the bowl of ceral down, poured the milk in it, and walked the milk carton BACK TO THE FRIDGE!!!!!! I didn't even notice what I was doing, when all of the sudden my roommate was like "what ARE you doing????? why don't you just eat?" I didn't even have a response....all I said was that my mother doesn't allow milk cartons on the table. WELL....roommate starts laughing hysterically saying she has never ever heard of that and told me next time to just leave it on the table, and I just stand next to the fridge not believing what I actually had done. OH DEAR! 

Will I too become a pitcher person????

Now you see it...

So Butler is having a photography contest....so naturally I decided to enter a few pictures. We could choose the subject, but it had so somehow be "New Zealand-esque." Here is an example of one of the pictures I entered that I doctored in Photoshop:

Now you see it...

Now you don't!

I thought it came out really well, you can't even tell the lamp post was once there. I dropped the photos off today to enter, and Cara (the judge) seemed to like them....so fingers crossed :-)

Cheers!

Well now that you know

everything that has been going on in my life in NZ thus far, it's time for some normal posts (in length....topics probably slightly less than normal lol). The past few days it has been offically "cold" in New Zealand. I will agree, that the past few days have not been shorts and T-shirt weather, but in no way is it truly COLD (or even FREEZING, which is what my flatmate from Australia keeps on telling me it is). 

To me its just like any other rainy summer's day. It's probably low 60's or mid 50's (It's 15 in C. I can never really remember the Celcius conversion and have given up on trying to do it in my head...most of you know my math skills and lack of them lol). People back up in Vermont would be wearing shorts and flip flops (or jandals as they are called here...short for Japaneese Sandles non PC culture here lol). I will admit, I did put on a sweater and long pants today, but it is still strange to see people walking around in Parkers (parkas...I can never remember which is right....down jackets lol) and wool pea coats. Last night my flatmate was wearing gloves... AROUND THE HOUSE!! I thought that was a little extreme. If this is as cold as it gets here I will be happy, however, I believe we have a little bit more cooling off before "winter" comes. 

One thing about living in a temperate climate like NZ, they don't really understand the concept of insulation. The houses here are very drafty. It's like living in the ol' wooden tent-- its always colder inside the house than it is outside. There have been a few times that I have walked outside wearing pants and gone right back in to put shorts on because it was so much warmer outside than in! So I am not looking forward

Another concept that New Zealanders haven't quite grasped yet is window screens.  When I first got here and noticed that none of the windows had screens in them, I thought yes! no bugs. Boy was I ever wrong! They have plenty of bugs, mosquitoes being one of them!! And yet, not one window has a screen on it to keep the bugs OUT! I have mentioned this one or twice to my Kiwi friends, and they don't even have a clue as to what I am talking about. Why would we need those? Isn't that a funny idea, wire mesh in windows so bugs don't fly in...

All in all, life in NZ is a lot slower than back home. Everyone here is much more relaxed. Even in classes; In English, I asked one of the lecturers how we were to know what was compulsory to read for each lecture since it was not clearly outlined in the syllabus and she looked at me like I had two heads!  "Oh, just read over a few of the poems in the class reader that look like they go with the lecture topic for the day", she said to me. 

I thought I would be ready for this...I believe I am pretty laid back person; most of the time I go with the flow, unless I am managing the flow, then I tend to stress out a little if the flow is not going right, but MOST of the time I am pretty relaxed.I mean I go to school in Burlington, VT, that has to give me some points right? And yet, I do stress over the fact that to get a coffee in the morning (before class) I have to wait at least 10 minutes when I'm the first in line!! 

 Now I know from experience (well not actual making experience, just more waiting in line at Starbucks experience) that it does not take a whole 10 minutes to make a vanilla mocha, but of course the barista (Josh, he actually is a really nice guy) needs to find out how my weekend was and what class I'm on my way to, and he also needs to tell me about the goings on in his life. So the time from when I put in my order to the point where he actually hands over the cup is a decent amount of time-- time that I might not have planned for on the first day of class and arrive a minute or two late for my first lecture (whoops). The coffee is really good over here though.

So I am adapting: I do the reading for English after the lecture, and I leave a few minutes earlier if I want a coffee before class, and I try to drag my heals when I walk because people are always commenting on how fast I walk. I don't mind it really though, it is actually quite nice to have to force myself to slow down. Who knows, maybe I will learn to care less about the little things that always get me going...wouldn't that be nice!

First week of classes!!

Wow, we are almost up to current events! Yay me!!

 

Well the first week of classes went really well. I really like my class schedule and all my subsequent free time. But first and foremost, a New Zealand vocabulary lesson:

Paper: what American’s would term a class. It’s a specific series of lectures,held by a lecturer (or multiple, depending on the paper), which fulfills requirements for a course.

            Course: A field of study. What American’s would term a major.

            Lecture: A weekly meeting of a paper.

            Class Schedule: An outline of the paper for the semester. What the US would call a     class syllabus.

            Class Timetable: The schedule of the papers one have throughout the week.

            Tutorial: It’s a smaller section of the class held once a week by a tutor, or in some cases the lecturer. This is the same…just thought I would throw it in there to say that all my classes have these.

            Lecturer: Not to be confused with a lecture— a lecturer is the person who teaches the paper. Also, one should never refer to a lecturer as “Professor” unless that title has been awarded to such person.

            Professor: A very prestigious title only given to those who have worked in the department for an extended period of time and have millions of things published. It seems to me, in the US we would think of it as a teacher who has received tenure.

Now for someone new, who does not know this jargon and is taking an English class, on the first day of class, when the lecturer is explaining the essays we need to write for the paper, and that we should check on our class schedule for the tutorial times so we can choose a time that fit into our class timetable…it all becomes quite confusing! But I talked to my Kiwi friends, and got it all straightened out later that day. lol 

I am taking 3 papers over here (which translates into full credits back at UVM…I’m stoked!): New Zealand Lit, Marketing Communications, and Social Marketing.

New Zealand Lit: This paper seems like it is going to be a good class. We have 5 different lecturers, so it will be nice to constantly have a different view of the material being presented. However, it seems like it might be a little bit more work in the beginning for someone who is not familiar with the culture. The first class we talked about the National Anthem (God Save NZ) and its significant and importance; however, no one ever handed out the words, so after the class I looked up the lyrics so I would have a better understanding of what my notes meant!! It meets three times a week (Mon, Tues, and Wed. which is nice), at 10^am, which gives me a reason to get up—also nice. It also has a tutorial that meets once a week. The tutor is actually the head lecturer, so the discussions seem like they will be very helpful throughout the class.

Marketing Communications (301): It started out rough on the first day: our first class being 2 hours long! But it is getting more interesting as we progress through the material. The teacher was nice and only kept us for an hour and a half for the first class. She started out very tough as she “laid down the rules of the class” and was pretty dull, but as the lecture went on she started to warm up a little. Since our first class was actually on Tuesday (my other two classes meet on Monday), I was a little worried at the beginning of the lecture that I wouldn’t like this class as much as my Social marketing paper. The lecturer for that class is very energetic and excited to teach her lecture, whereas this lecturer seemed to not be enthused to be teaching Mark 301. But after a while she warmed up and in the end the paper seems like it will be a very interesting paper. I’m more interested in this class, since it’s all about Marketing and advertising, but I don’t think I will like my social marketing paper any less (if anything I will probably end up liking it more because of the lecturer). 301 only meets two times a week (1 two hour class, and 1 one hr class), but it also has a one-hour tutorial once a week.

Social Marketing (316): Last but not least. I really am looking forward to this paper. The teacher is really nice, and is VERY excited about what she is teaching. She started off really energetic, and didn’t lose any momentum as the class went on. I think I would be a lot like her when/if I am a teacher (so that gives you a better sense of the speed and energy she brings to lectures lol). The topic is fairly interesting to me. I really chose it because it fit into my timetable and didn’t meet on Friday’s lol. It’s all about public service announcements/ campaigns and how they market an idea/ behavior. Basically, the class is about all the public service announcements and campaigns that the government and other agencies put out; like the stop smoking adds and breast cancer awareness, and all those wonderful commercials.  It also meets two times a week (one long class one short class) with a tutorial.

I do have to say, it is really nice to have so much free time and get Friday’s off. Especially at the beginning of the semester, when I am still trying to get settled in my flat and have to walk everywhere because I don’t have a car and also I don’t have enough energy to sit down and figure out the bus schedule. It’s also so nice out I don’t really mind walking up and down all these hills. Like I am sure I have already told all of you—Wellington is like San Francisco on steroids! No one could have prepared me for the 45º hills, or the gale force winds that really can blow a person over if your not expecting it (seriously, when I was crossing the motor way the other day, I had to hold on to the guard rail to stay on the sidewalk. No Joke!). But I do enjoy being out side in this lovely weather, so for now I will not complain so much.

It was also a fun week: Monday classes started, and we had just gotten back from the South Island so we all kept to ourselves and got to know our flatmates better. Tuesday the group got back together for our first pub quiz down at the local Irish pub. That was heaps of fun!! We had a huge group (probably 10+ of us). Mostly American’s with a few Kiwi friends to help us with the NZ trivia. Overall we got 5^th place, out of 15 teams, so, for the obnoxious Americans in the bar, we thought we did very well. However, if we had chosen better for our bonus rounds (there are 10 rounds and you know all of their titles before hand, so as a team you pick two that you think you will excel in and your score for those rounds are doubled), we would have tied for 2^nd and won bar tabs. Too bad, next time we will know better lol. Wednesday was student night downtown, so we started off bowling (they call it dice night—you are given two dice, and what ever you role you pay for one string. I ended up rolling a three for the first string and snake eyes for the second…I was lucky, which never happens). Later on, we went out dancing since none of us had classes before noon on Thursday. Thursday night was another quiet evening. We all took a break from going out and caught up on our sleep. Friday a few of us went to an all day international cricket game. It started at 2:00 and normally would go until 9:00. But the weather wasn’t great and they kept on delaying the game due to some drizzle, so by 5 I decided I wanted to go home and change and do some work before going out with the group that night for some Chinese food. We were all very disappointed to find out that General Tso’s Chicken does not exist in this country. L How these people every survive I have NO idea. We all decided that “hot chili chicken” (which was my best guess for closest to General Tso’s on the menu—nothing like it) is tasteless, and that Orange Chicken or Sweet and Sour Chicken (my personal favorite from the evening) are really the way to go. But I digress. After dinner we all went back to our perspective flats for the evening.

Saturday was our first Butler organized event, and we had to meet Rebecca at the train station by 8:30^am so it was nice we called it an early night on Friday. The trip was up north (about a 2 hour bus ride) for some outdoor activities followed by some New Zealand culture. In the morning, the group was split in half (based on what we had filled out on our trip form privously): those of us who wanted to go quad biking on ATVs (that’s what I did) and those who wanted to go horse back riding. Quad Biking was a lot of fun, but only 2 hours, so we didn’t get to go too far. The trail was very pretty, through some bush, over some hills, and through some rivers—a very picturesque ride. Sadly, I was driving so was not able to get very many shots of the actual views. And Oh were my arms sore after! It took a little getting used to control it (the accelerator was very jerky and it was really heavy to steer!), but once you got the hang of it, it was a very easy ride.

After our 2 hour ride, we met up with the horse back riders at a farm where lunch was served. After kai, there were some dog trials and we got a tour of the farm’s wool shed. The dog trials were really fun to watch. Basically, the farmer was showing off what his sheep dog could do. The dog (with a few commands from the farmer) gathered the sheep into a mob, and then directed the mob down 3 fields and through 2 gates to get them into their proper pen. It was awesome to watch. The dog was really funny to because before he was working, he was the most social dog who wanted attention from EVERYONE. But as soon as he saw the sheep it was down to work, and boy did he looked mean! Lol  The wool shed was also cool. I kind of expected everything that the farmer showed us from my Drumlen Farm days (sp?). But it was still interesting to see him sheer a sheep and explain the NZ wool market and why it has been such a cornerstone to their economy.

After the farm we went to the Golden Sheers competition in Masterton. That was absolutely amazing to watch. It’s an international competition between the best sheep sheeres in the world (really what else do Kiwis have to do when the sheep population equals 12 sheep to every person??). Those guys could sheer a sheep in under 45 seconds! The judging is also really interesting. They start at 0 and are given points for every mistake. A mistake would be a second swipe at the sheep because they missed a spot or that the coat coming off the sheep is not one continuous blanket of wool. Then once the sheep is sheered, the sheerer pushs it down a shoot where another judge inspects it and judges the sheerer on the tidiness of the sheep. So if they nicked the sheep and the judge upstairs missed it, someone downstairs will see it. The competition is not just for the sheers either; it is also for the people who take care of the wool after its off the sheep (I forget their actual title). They are judged on how well they throw the wool blanket on to the cleaning table, and how much bad stuff they take out of the wool and so on. I didn’t really understand that as well, but they were judged down to the time it took them to sweep up the floor after all the sheep were sheered.

After the semi-final competitions ended (which was around 4:30), it was back on the bus to Wellington. It was a really fun day and a very interesting introduction to another aspect of the NZ culture. I was very happy I decided to go. We got back around 7pm where we all grabbed some dinner and hung out for the night!

For pictures go here.

Sunday was very uneventful; I think I did laundry lol. I still have yet to get up and go to a church service on Sunday, but I know of two churches I can go to: the Wellington Cathedral or a smaller church a little further downtown (St. Peters I think).

so again this post became longer than I thought it would, but now I am pretty much caught up, so shorter posts from now on. lol

cheers for now!

~Marjorie

 

Road Trip! South Island style

So I would just like everyone to know that I worked VERY hard to keep this short-ish. This is the last of the VERY long posts anyways...and soon we will be up to current events (yay!) so then of course I won't have as much to write anyways! So off to the South Island!

Originally, the plan had been to go wine tasting around the North Island for the few days; but when the boys realized that it was our last free full week before mid-trimester break, they convinced all of us that a week long tour of the South Island would be a better idea. Mind you, this discussion happened on Saturday night and Sunday morning, so there was VERY little time to plan. All we had really planned was buying the ferry tickets on Sunday, and that didn’t even work out in the end because the boys had to leave on an earlier ferry than we did. We were all using one computer to buy the tickets on (since we were all together) and the boys went first and found a ferry ride at 1pm, which was perfect since two of the girls still needed to register for classes in the early morning (they had decided not to wait in the really long and pointless line that I waited in on Friday). But once the two boys bought their tickets THE FERRY SOLD OUT!!! None of us could believe it. So us girls ended up taking a different ferry that left an hour later. So after that we just decided that we would make decisions as we went and would find places to stay when we needed them…who needs hotel reservations?!?!? They are too expensive anyways!!

The ride over for us was not to eventful…the boat didn’t sink or anything exciting like that. It was a lovely day, bright and sunny, and like all weather in New Zealand…temperate. The ferry ride was only about three hours and, since it was such a nice day, we decided to sit up on the top deck of the ship and get some wind in our hair. It was really quite an enjoyable ride, and the three of us managed to take a nap (in shifts of course….someone was always watching the bags because I am now PARANOIED! thanks to some wonderful pieces of advice before I left lol).

Everything seemed to be going according to plan (well …really just going smoothly since there was not plan). We had decided, since the boys were leaving on a ferry an hour before us, they would be the ones to secure our rental car for the week. The girls were quite happy about this and were excited to come into port with a car ready and waiting, so of course no complaining from us lol. Well, some ferries are faster than others and the earlier ferry seemed to take about four hours instead of three. So the boys were a little worried that they were not going to get into port in time and so started calling rental companies from the ferry. However, since it was the week before Universities around New Zealand were starting, and the last full week in February (the last of the summer months down here), all of the major rental companies were all booked and did not have a car to give us. So once the boys landed (also at a different port that was down the street from the major terminal, so first they had to find there way over there), they ran around to multiple car rental companies trying to find the best deal. Being turned away a few times they became very worried, but just as we walked out of the terminal they found a place that would rent us a “people mover” van for NZ$375 for the whole week! It was awesome, and fit all five of us comfortably. If we had wanted to we could have folded down another row of seats in the back so everyone had more room, but we never ended up doing that, leaving plenty of room in the back for our stuff.

We got into Christchurch around quarter-to eleven and still needed to find a place to stay for the night. One of the boys had brought traveling cheaply in NZ and so we tried to find a place in there to stay. All of the lodging were hostels, and by 10:45, they were all pretty full if not entirely, or not taking any more people for the night. After being turned away from the 3^rd hostel we thought we might have to sleep in the car for the night, but I mentioned going back out of town a little bit and seeing how expensive a motel for the night would be. It was also 11:15 by that point and I was getting tired. We ended up staying at the first motel we stopped at. For NZ$160, we ended up getting a full suiete, with a kitchen and everything, and we all got a bed to sleep in! We also got a deal for the next night, $140 for night two, so it ended up being a pretty good deal.

Christchurch was nice, we stopped a diner for breakfast and made our way into Cathedral square. What we didn’t realize ( and I soon remembered) was that we were traveling around Christchurch on February 24^th which happened to be a Tuesday. It was Shrove Tuesday!! It was fun to be there then because there was pancake races and other fun Marti Gras events. So we wandered around the cathedral for an hour or two and then walked over to the Kiwi exhibit across the street to see a kiwi up close and in person. Once we had seen that, we drove across town to the gondola, which takes you up to the highest point in the city and had wonderful views of Christchurch. Soon after, majority decided to drive back to our motel for a little while, since we were all pretty tired from the drive down the day before, and were going out that night to meet a friend who was studying in Christchurch.

 

Overall I wasn’t too thrilled with Christchurch. The center of town is quite nice, all walking district in and around Cathedral Square and that is really where all the “quaint” things (the English style gardens and bridges and such) are. Once you leave the city center, it is really just like any other city with not too much character. I would have liked to go punting on the Avon or walked around the botanical gardens, but it wasn’t a great day, overcast with the threat of rain, so I didn’t make a big deal of not doing those things (really I just wanted to go punting and not fall in haha). I’m hoping I’ll be able to go back at some point during my time here, and that will be a nicer day when I do.

The next day was another traveling day. We got up and were on the road by 8am (I know I was very surprised myself!).  It was quite a long drive to Queenstown, all together about 7 hours, but we stopped along the way a bunch so it was not bad. It was on this leg of the journey that I got to try my hand at driving on the wrong side of the road in a big minivan. The car was very old (a 1987…old for a car, not a person) and had a few of its own characteristics—like the fact that it pulled to the left quite a lot (later on we discovered it was probably because one of our back tires were flat, but by that point it was too late to fix the problem). But after a while I got used to it and in the end it wasn’t too bad at all.

On my leg of the trip, we passed a lot of pretty landscape (of course when I was driving so I missed some of it L). Up until then, we were driving through a lot of cow and sheep country, which was very mountainous but there wasn’t much to look at. But once out of the Remarkables (the Mountain range that spans the South Island), we passed a few glacial lakes and such. We stopped at both glacial lakes that were on our way to Queenstown (Lake Tekapo and Pukaki for anyone who cares).

Well after our few pit stops and four and a half hours of driving, I was relieved from duty and it was onward to Queenstown. The drive was fine, though the one thing about the “highways” in NZ. THEY ARE NOT HIGHWAYS!!!! I don’t want to know what would happen if anyone from NZ went driving on real highways in the US! No all of these roads are mountain trails! The only thing that makes it different from driving around Appalachia is that these are pretty well paved….but they are AWFUL! I have never been on windy-er roads, and they take then SOOOOO fast. But oh well we got there, it just took a lot longer than it looks like it should on a map. I do have to say, the estimated times on the map between cities was right on. So at least they warn you that it is going to take longer than it looks lol.

We got to Christchurch around 3:30, and after getting our bearings of the city a little bit, we decided that we would find a place to stay then, and not 11 o’clock that night (at least we learned a little….but still no reservations in advance…it’s a road trip!) Well, one of the boys had brought a 2 person tent, so the boys wanted to see if it would be cheaper to stay at a camp site with a tent and a car rather than at a hostel. So we looked into it…it was going to be more expensive per person than the numbers we had for the local hostels…so it was off to find a hostel. Well, it being the most popular travel time of the season, all of the reputable hostels didn’t have any vacancies. Well, after that we felt a little rejected and pulled ourselves over to the most expensive looking motel to just see how expensive it was going to be. WELL were we ever WRONG! It was the best deal out of anything. Per person the REALLY NICE motel was cheaper than staying at the cheapest hostel. And here we were sleeping on real beds…not bunks! There were 2 balconies (a front and a back of course), also had a kitchen, 2 bathrooms, 2 HD satellite TV (we got our fix of the discovery channel and other cable tv stations that we don’t get back at our flats), and beds for all (well not all, the boy who brought the tent decided that he wanted to “rough it” and sleep on his camping pad on the ground because there were only 2 king size beds lol). So it was so great we stayed there all 3 nights.

That night they all actually planed ahead and reserved their spot for the Nevis Bungee Jump (The tallest in NZ). I ended up not going, I was going to go and watch, but it was going to be VERY expensive to go with them, so I ended up sailing on the New Zealand NZL14 Team New Zealand America’s Cup sailboat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so needless to say I was not too bummed that I didn’t jump off a cliff lol. I was absolutely stoked!! It was an AMAZING morning the next day, it was beautiful and sunny and we had really nice winds, when I was sailing (yes I got to take the helm for at least 20 minutes of 2 hr sail, anyone else who took the helm only got like 5 or 10 J ) I also had the boat sailing the fastest…10 knots, ok well now I’m just bragging lol. The rest of the group didn’t get back until about 5pm so I had most of the day to myself, which was actually very nice. I went shopping a little bit and picked up a few gifts and tourist-y things.

On our last full day in Queenstown we decided to take a bus tour around Milford Sound in the Fiordlands. It was a gorgeous day once again (we really lucked out with the weather every day of our week trip, it was all beautiful!). We saw a lot of natural bush and went around a few walking trails before finally taking a cruse around Mitre’s Peak (the largest sea cliff in the world. A sea cliff is a cliff that rises directly out of the water.) It was an all day excursion, so we didn’t get back until about 7pm. On our last night we found a GREAT place to have dinner—ferg burger. The largest burgers you have ever eaten in your life!! If anyone ever makes it down the Queenstown, you have to go, just to experience it!! Lol

The next morning we were on the road by 8am (again I was very impressed lol) for an all day road trip back up to Picton. We didn’t stop much on our 12-hour car ride—only for food once (we went shopping in Queenstown and got some munchies for the car so we wouldn’t have to stop a lot). It was the only day that it rained constantly all the way up the coast for our wonderful ride back. But we got back to Picton by 9pm, got the car in on time and were one of the first groups on the ferry back to Wellington. By 1am I was very tired and was happy there were many cabs that I could take back to my own bed in Wellington. It was a great trip, I am so happy that we ended up doing it, even without planning much for it!

Link to pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/parp4lyfe/sets/72157615280515271/

Installment 3: Welcome to Welly

Only a few more days of super long posts.....I hope lol Enjoy!

Welcome to Welly!

Well my first few days in Wellington were basically one big slap in the face. People had warned me that it was hilly. But I had dismissed it by saying that UVM is at the top of a hill, so I’m used to it. People warned me that it would be windy, and I once again dismissed them, saying that UVM is very windy as well so I could handle it. And people warned me that the weather was unpredictable in Wellington, and my dismissal was, I live in New England so duh I’m used to it.

Well, what they did not tell me is that I would encounter 45º hills up, or that to go up to my friends’ flat, I would have to go down hill first and then up hill….TWICE!! They told me that it was “like San Francisco.” Well that is half true—there are not as many hills in San Fran as there are here!! San Fran on steroids= Wellington.

They also did not tell me that this said “strong” wind is actually strong enough to push a grown man over if he is caught off guard. Or that if I wanted to cross the motorway and there is a strong wind, I would have to hang on to the guard rail to keep out of the street!!

And New England weather is NO comparison to the weather here in Wellington. The “wait a minute, it will change” phrase I have grown up with in New England came true every once in awhile back home—but here it most definitely will come true! You never know what the weather will be like when you leave the house: moral? Always bring a rain jacket. 

But, all joking aside, my first week in Wellington was very nice. The weather was GEORGOUS! Sunny, warm, and amazing, really pleasant weather to arrive with. We arrived on Tuesday night (you guys already heard about that...)

Wednesday the group went off to explore the city. We wandered around downtown and found a really good kebab restaurant for lunch. After lunch we decided to go down to the waterfront and find a beach. Someone had mentioned that Days Bay was only a short ferry ride away and was a nice beach—so it was off to Days Bay that afternoon. It was a nice tour of the harbor, we stopped by a small island in the middle of the harbor that is a nature sanctuary. We didn’t get off, but I would like to go back sometime soon. Days Bay was an OK beach…it did not, by any means, give Crescent Beach a run for its money. But a few of us decided to jump off the wharf that the ferry had come in on, which was a lot of fun. The water here is very cold though. The only way I can convince myself to go in is to sprint into the water and not stop until I can dive in and get my hair wet. Once you are in, it only takes a few moments to get used to it (aka become numb to it), and the water is actually very refreshing. Around 5 we decided to head back to a barbeque at a friend’s flat.  

Thursday morning was a little more business with International student Orientation and registration stuff happening all day. We had briefings from 9 in the morning until about 4, which introduced us to student life at Vic and what we should expect from registration the next day. Most of what they told us was actually a repeat of the briefings Butler gave us on Victoria, so the morning was pretty dull.

Friday : registration day and complete Monsoon. After getting completely lost (and therefore totally drenched) on campus trying to make it up to one of my friend’s flats it was a day of waiting in lines. 

The first line, which was the actual class registration looked like it was going to be the longest wait of the day, but about 10 minutes after we arrived someone who looked official walked down the line asking anyone if they were registering for Communications classes. Thank god I knew that marketing classes were part of the school of communications! So we buzzed up to the front of the line and only had to wait for another 5 minutes to talk to someone. I had a little bit of drama registering for classes because Vic had switched the trimester that some of the papers I had originally decided to take (I filled out a request form back in November) were offered. I was actually really bumbed, because the one marketing class I was pumped to take was Marketing for the Arts (how perfect right??), but due to student registration at the end of the school year in 2008 they decided to move a few of the classes around. Annoying. So, due to all this switching, there was only 1 marketing paper, which Vic had already Oked me for, that I could take. So I just chose another one that fit into my schedule. However the woman behind the desk was not so happy "I just chose" another class. So after some kind words to the registration woman and a short call down to the marketing department, it was decided that I could take Social Marketing (thank God!). 

So then from that line, there was another line to check that I was insured (probably only a 30 minute wait), and then off to another line to check visas and passports and a lot of other fun stuff (another hour and a half of just waiting). AND THEN it was down to the most pointless line of all (and thus the longest). There was just one more signature on a form that I needed and by god I was going to get that signature. Many people were giving up on this line, the lady at the front was saying "its not that bad and afterwards you will be completely registered for classes!" However, I had come this far, was almost completely dry, and thought how long could it really be??? OH was I ever wrong!  After standing in line for 2 hours (!!) and meeting some very nice people in line, we found out what the final step in the registration process was (aka how to get the final signature that would finalize our registration into Victoria). Well, in every line, another part of our PAPER form was filled out, and we were told to hang on to our paper and not to lose it. Well.....the final step in registering for classes…..the part that took two hours to get to….drum roll please..................................Inputing the data INTO THE COMPUTER! yes ladies and gentelmen the thing I waited 2 hours for was to sit down with someone and have them input the entire form (four pages in all) INTO THE COMPUTER!!!!! Don’t you think they could have been imputing information at each point, instead of doing it all at once??? One thing these Kiwis are not are technically savvy (or at least the Kiwis in the registration office at Victoria). We were all a little frazzled by the end of it, but in the end we all registered without a problem.

Once all of the registration process had been completed, one of our Kiwi friends took us to our first rugby game. The Wellington Hurricanes v. the Highlanders (from somewhere on the South Island). It ended up to be a really good game in the end. After the 2^nd half the Hurricanes decided to play and beat the highlanders by a very small margin. The game went pretty late, so afterwards we all decided to go our separate ways.

Saturday and Sunday were both pretty uneventful. Mostly more exploring Wellington, but sometime on Saturday one of the boys thought it would be fun to go and explore the South Island for a week, since the next week would be the last free week we would have until mid-trimester break. So we did a little bit of planning…we mostly just bought our ferry tickets and looked in a few guide books to see what we wanted to do. And then Monday morning it was off to the South Island!

Tune in tomorrow for the adventures around the south island.

~Marjorie

The wonderful world of Telecom and flickr

Hi Guys,

So as you probably have notcied, the posts have not been coming as regurlarly as I had once said they would. That is because the internet (and phone) provider down here, Telecom, is the WORST!!! We have been waiting for over a week for the people at Telecom to switch on our dial tone, and they have yet to get back to us about when our modem is being delivered. My final roommate did move in last Wednesday, and brought with him another provider's modem and turned it on. Hence how I was able to upload fun posts for a while. However, Woosh (the other internet provider) told Boris (my flatmate) that since it had been over 6 months with their service he needed to change his password and reboot the system with the comptuer specified on the contract as the "partent" computer. Well, his comptuer has shut him out, telling him he has "forgot" his password and therefore will not even let him log in! So woe is me and I must wait for a little while longer for home internet access. Back up to the library for me.



Also...flickr sucks. I do not feel like paying for it and so it gives me limited storage space. Well of course, I (like my parents) always take the highest quality pictures, so when I export my pictures from my computer they are pretty large. I tried to upload the first of FIVE albums I have ready in iPhoto waiting to be shared with the world, and it told me that I had already gone over my monthly allowance. So I have uploaded smaller versions of one album worth of pictures to my Flickr account. In the future I will be uploading larger versions of the pictures to my Picasa account (since I have no limit on the storage space there). But for now, here are the pictures on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/parp4lyfe/sets/72157615167918220/
if that doesn't work then flickr is not my friend.

~Marjorie

Installment 2: Orientation continued…

When we last left our hero…

Day 2 in New Zealand.

Everyone was very jealous of me/ wanted to kill me, due to the fact that my 7 hr nap on the plane in conjunction with my wonderful 12 hours of sleep that night allowed me to be the morning person I can be when I want to wake up early! [also the reason for why my campers end up hating me every morning I wake them up at TASP….but I digress.]. Kai was served at the wonderful hour of 8^am followed by a fun “pub-less quiz”  at 9^am.

Fun fact: many pubs in NZ do pub quizzes on a weekly basis. It’s a fun time, where groups of friends create teams and go down to the local pub for some brews and a good time answering trivia. There is normally a draw for a prize at the end, and the winning team receives a set amount in bar tabs. Since all Butler events are alcohol free, their way of briefing us on NZ and its culture was through a fun pub-less quiz, where apple juice was served and they offered us a little of NZ culinary at it’s best: Chicken flavored crisps (otherwise known as potato chips). [I kid you not— they are REALLY chicken flavored.]

Part of the pub-less quiz, was a nice afternoon ROGANE. What is a ROGANE, you ask? It is basically an outdoor scavenger hunt encompassing a large area of land. It is a fun acronym starting with Rugged Outdoor, but I can’t remember the rest.

Any who, we ran around the grounds of the park for about an hour finding little targets and writing down their symbols on an answer sheet. The team that won (not my team…we came in 2^nd to last) received fun prizes, none of which I can remember, so they must have not been that good. It was fun, and it was wonderful weather, so it was nice to be outside in the sun. But DON’T forget to put on sunscreen! Due to the hole in the atmosphere that is wonderfully located DIRECTLY over NZ, the burn time here is 5-8 MINUTES!! So, I diligently put on my sunscreen every morning, 15 minutes before I went out in the sun, just as my mother taught me, and I never once got burned (the scar on my nose did get a little scorched…but no serious, fall-asleep-on-the-beach-in-FL-in-March-and-have-Nancy-take-care-of-you-for-the-next-two-days burns lol). We ended up coming in 3^rd overall in the pub-less quiz, but no prizes.

After the quiz more Kai and then some afternoon fun[I would just like to take this moment to say that all of the food the four days we were there was AMAZING! For them to be able to serve 40 of us in a timely fashion and have it be REALLY good is awesome. I would have to say it rivals Tabor food…yeah I know!...so props to the cooks at YMCA Shakespeare National Park.]

 

Afternoon fun included activities such as mountain boarding, rock climbing, tramping, sailing on a catermaran, kayacking, TTYS (time to yourself), and CYEFH (check your eyelids for holes). Wonder what I did? I of course went sailing with 10 other people on a good size cat, pictures on the flicker page [here]. Though I did laugh at the CYEFH. Mike, the head counselor at the Y camp, explained the last one to us like this: since the sun here in NZ is very bright, something that can happen after being in the sun for extended periods of time is that the sun can burn holes in your eyelids. The way to check for this is to go far away from everyone else, find a nice shady spot, close your eyes, and scan the insides of your eyelids for holes. It normally takes about 30 to 60 minutes to complete this task, but is necessary.”

 

So I’m not sure how that will transfer to all of you who were not there and did not hear him say it…but it was funny at the time and I thought I would share. [For all of you who didn’t get it, he was sneekly talking about taking a nap.]

 

The sail was great—definitely check out the pictures, I have some fun ones of everyone on the boat. Getting out was interesting; the counselor somehow got the jib halyard stuck at the top of the forestay and had to dry capsize the boat to get it un-stuck. I noticed this as he was towing the boat to the water, but it took him about 10 minutes to understand the problem and fix it, no help from me…the stupid Butler Orientation kid. OH WELL. We got out in the end.

 

After the first session of fun outdoor time, there was another session, where I decided to lay out on the beach and start on my base tan. After that there was a Maori briefing (pronounced Mow-ree) where we learned about the Powhiri we would be participating in the next day. A Powhiri (pronounced po-fir-ee) is a welcome ceremony between a Maori tribe and visitors on the tribe’s Marae (pronounced Ma-rye). There is a whole choreography to how the visitors enter the sacred grounds of the Marae and what is said, and so on, so we learned about this at the briefing the night before. Before the briefing, we learned two traditional Maori songs and also had to pick our two representatives to speak for the group during the ceremony at the Marae.

 

Traditionally, the Maori culture has held men and women as equals, however with some rules. During a Powhiri, the only women permitted to speak is an elder woman who speaks on behalf of the group (normally someone who is part of the Maori tribe, inviting the visitors in). The representatives who speak directly for the group must be men—women can only sing. However, the way the Maori culture keep things equal is that the women of the group/tribe vote on the two male representatives. So in true Maori fashion, the women of our Orientation group picked two male representatives. At the briefing following their election, they found out that they had two fairly long speeches in Maori to memorize by the next evening. Needless to say, both men were a little nervous, and not so grateful to have been nominated. But they both survived.

 

After the briefing, more kai, and some free time before bed. A few of us decided that we wanted to help out the kitchen, so we took the food scrapings out to the pigs that night. We watched them mow the food for a while, took a few pictures, and then decided that they smelled bad and that we had seen enough. I then went down to the beach and watched the sunset and took some nice ahtsy pictures of the beach and rocks and such.

 

Day 3 in New Zealand

 

Our third day in NZ was filled with most of the business stuff they had been neglecting to tell us. In the morning we had just one (2 hour) briefing, where we met with our Student Rep. from our perspective university. Rebecca (the rep for both Victoria and Massey students) told us all about the fun stuff we could do in Wellington and what to expect and where the great coffee was, and so on. She also told us our housing at that point and went over what our schedule would be like once we got to Wellington and left the nurturing hands of the Butler staff.

 

More kai and then it was packing and off to the Marae. We left with some time to spare, so Mike (remember him, the head YMCA guy) took us on “Mike’s magical mystery tour” of Auckland. Our only stop on the tour was to the tallest point in Auckland. It’s a dormant volcano with BEATIFUL views of the city. Again, check out the pictures. After that short stop, we had another quick stop at a gas station/ souvenir shop (however no one had made dosh easily accessable…thanks Mike) (dosh = money), before a short tour of downtown Auckland, and then it was off to the Marae.

 

The powhiri was so moving. During our entrance on to the Marae, as part of the ceremony the whole group stoped midway to take time to remember those family members who have died or were unable to be present with us. Maori culture believes that when you travel somewhere you take with you all of your relatives and friends both dead and alive, and that they are as important to meet as those people who stand before them, so a moment of reverence is given to allow visitors to “bring” those people with them onto the Marae. It was such a special and moving moment for me, and it really caught me off guard. I did not expect it to affect me as much as it did, but I was very happy I had that moment of memory and memorial for myself— especially since I was not able to make it out to Nevada to visit my family before I left.

 

We stayed on the Marae that night; they cooked a traditional Hangi for dinner. Basically they dug a pit, filled it with coals and food, covered it back up and let it sit there under the dirt for a few hours and then dug it back up for us…I forgot to bring my camera, but I am in the process of trying to get some pictures from it off of fb. After dinner, a group of traditional Maori dancers came and performed for ys. Of course, participation occured and there is a great picture (that I will be getting at some point) of my participation. It’s floating around facebook somewhere for those of you who can find it. But the boys were also asked to participate in a traditional Haka (pronounced Ha-ka) or war dance. The dance was traditionally performed by warriors before a battle to intimidate the other side. So they bang their chests and slap their legs and bulge out their eyes and stick out their tongues to look as grotesque and scary as possible to psyche out the other side. Today, the All Blacks (NZ’s Rugby Team) perform a Haka before each game (for any of you who have seen that or want to YouTube it). It was really funny to watch the boys try and perform a Haka. They did pretty well, considering the amount of direction they got before hand. After some much needed embarrassment, the group preformed an actual Haka for us. The entire evening was a wonderful introduction to the indigenous people and culture of this land. After the festivities, we got ready for bed and listened to our elder tell us the history of the Maori people; from ancient religion to the colonial settlers arriving to the issues of today’s society. However, she had a very soothing voice, and some of us were still jet lagged, so most people fell asleep. But it was a really interesting lesson. We slept in the marae, which is a sacred building with carvings on the outside, and inside is a memorial to all who have passed on in the tribe. Pictures and portraits hung on the walls, but since it was sacred grounds we couldn’t take pictures inside, just of the outside carvings.

 

Day 4 in NZ

 

We had breakfast at the marae (not as good as dinner) and then we were off on another installment of Mike’s Magical Mystery tour before being dropped off at the airport. It was another “beautiful day in paradise” (as someone I know would say), so we stopped at a lovely beach called Sunset Beach on the West coast of the North Island for about 2 hours. Sadly, that was the only stop on Mike’s Magical Mystery tour, so by noon we had to say goodbye to our Orientation friends who were staying to study at the University of Auckland, and then we grabbed a plane to Wellington!

 

The plane to Wellington was actually a lot larger than I had expected. I thought we would be taking some small puddle jumper type plane, but it was actually normal size (3 seats on either side of the plane)—a nice surprise. Once we arrived in Wellington and got our baggage, we were divided up by housing and shuttled off to our perspective homes. At Everton, I was placed in temporary housing (which really annoyed me….no unpacking for Marjorie…EVER), but met some really nice Kiwis (New Zealand people…not birds and/or fruit). Once I was settled (a little) I met back up with Butler people and we went on an adventure in Wellington to find a little Italian bistro where Rebecca was collecting the group for one more meal on Butler, and a guided trip to the Wall-Mart of New Zealand (The Warehouse). Dinner was good, the warehouse was a necessary stop— I bought a blanket, sheets, and a pillow so I didn’t have to spend another night in the sleeping bag (using a mummy bag that is good to -30 degrees Fahrenheit gets a little sticky in muggy, fairly summery climates). Then the group went out to a local pub for our first night in Wellington. Yes for those of you who have been keeping track of the days ….it was a Tuesday night. But that is pub quiz night anyway, so plenty of people were out with us! It was a great first night in Wellington, but it was sad to leave our other Orientation friends behind in Auckland. The Wellington group was larger; the majority of the kids at orientation did go to Victoria (about 25 of the 40 of us at orientation).

 

Here ends the rest of my orientation story.

 

No witty comments for tonight; funny though, that this post is just as long as my previous post about my arrival to New Zealand. Oh well! I talk a lot…you should know that by now!!

Next time we will hear about the fun adventures exploring Wellington and then it’s off to the south island for a wonderful weeklong road trip.

 

~Marjorie 

So lets try to catch you guys up….

Installment 1

WELL…Internet has taken longer than expected to reach 32 Clifton Tce…. but it has arrived…FINALLY!!! No lie I have been going INSANE without it…the 10 minute walk to the library has taken its toll…. my legs are sore, (its up hill both ways…. for real not fake!) and I am glad I can tap into civilization from the comforts of my own home.

 

But don’t you worry; I have been diligently writing down my adventures…all docs waiting patiently to be revealed to the world!! So for a while the posts will be all about what I have been up to these pasts few weeks, and hopefully within a few days you all will be caught up and the posts will become real time J

 

So, my last post was the cliff notes version of my trip thus far…so now for the sans-sparknotes what-your-teacher-ACTUALY-assigned-to-read version of my first day in NZ.

 

After a too early wake up alarm (3:15^am to be precise), I arrived at the airport only to find a VERY long line at the check in desk. One might think that leaving the house by 4^am would have gotten me to the airport in time for a comfortable, no stress, arrival and plane boarding, but you would be WRONG! It was 4:30 in the morning, why there were so many people at Logan Airport International is beyond me….but the boarding pass line was at least 45 minutes long, and then it was another 30 minutes through security. The flight out of Boston left at 6:30. After being stopped for a routine security check of my person and personal belongings (no Logan Airport….I am not a terrorist) I was allowed to SPRINT to my gate (at the VERY end of the terminal of course) and boarded my plane with 10 minutes to spare. Thank god for the nice woman behind me in security, she told the stewardess that I was coming and they held the door for me.

 

The flight to LAX was very normal…not a lot of turbulence, a nice ride actually. Until about 11am EST when one of the flight attendants came on board and said, “if there is a doctor on board could you please come to the back of the plane.” We didn’t make any emergency landing or anything, which was nice, but when we landed in LAX a young girl was carted off the plane in the skinny stretcher made specifically for airplane aisles. I couldn’t tell what was wrong from the quick glimpse I had from the window seat. I just hope she was on her way home and not going on vacation.

 

The people sitting next to me were very nice. They were going to LA for a short vacation in Santa Monica before heading to a family vacation with their 2 daughters and newborn grandson. I told them they MUST stop at the Lobster for dinner, I wonder if they ever did. They of course asked why I was going to LA and I said it was a “short” stopover on my way to New Zealand.  As I told them my study abroad plans, the kid across the aisle leaned over and said, “Through Butler?” I said yes and, instead of talking over the nice people next to me, mentioned to wait for me when we landed and we could grab lunch.

 

By the time we had landed in LAX, a small group of four study abroad students had emerged. Since we had a wonderful 10 hour layover to enjoy, we decided to wander around the terminals for a while. We ate lunch in the international terminal (surprisingly enough NOT the terminal we were leaving from), sunned ourselves in the parking lot for a while, and had a drink at the sky bar in the middle of the airport [side note: ever since I was little I’ve wanted to go up in the building that’s in the middle of the parking lots. We always drove past it whenever we went to LA, so needless to say I was very excited to go up…and it didn’t disappoint either…if you are ever at LAX with some time to kill and have yet to grab a drink there…do it, its definitely an experience lol].

 

With 3 hours left to wait, we decided it was probably time to mosey on into the terminal and see if we could find any other lost Butler soles. We succeeded. Loud mouth me got the attention of anyone we saw with a sleeping bag for carry on (yes we had to bring a sleeping bag with us for orientation... everyone agreed that it was stupid and they should just give us bedding at orientation. But after the fact, the sleeping bag has come in VERY handy throughout the trip and has been used multiple times, so good job Butler).

 

So after a while, (and me shouting, “Hey [insert anything unique on their person here]! Butler?”) we had about 20 Butler kids in the back end of the terminal getting to know each other and being very loud obnoxious 20 something’s (I of course was not one of the loud and obnoxious ones….that was mostly the boys).

 

So the time came to board the plane, and sitting next to me was a Yankee fan from Jersey-- also a Butler student. The only good thing about the seating arrangement was that the middle seat was empty ( I only tease…the Yankee fan isn’t too bad and we are now friends, we just never talk about sports lol). HOWEVER, about 45 minutes into the flight, one of the attendants came over and asked said Yankee fan if he wouldn’t mind switching seats with a couple a few rows back, because ONE of the two TV screens (there was one in every seat) was not working and the couple wanted to stay together. Well, he had to be the hero…so good-bye empty middle seat. It would have been nice if the seat next to me had been empty for the entirety of the THIRTEEN-HOUR flight. But it was fine, I didn’t really end up caring too much because I fell asleep sometime around 10:30 PST (is that the right abbreviation for whatever time it would be if I had still been on the ground in California? Whatever, moving on…).

 

The couple next to me was also nice, and after I woke up (7 hours later. I would just like to say to all of you who told me ‘get sleep where I can’, and ‘don’t try to stay up all day just so you can sleep on the plane to NZ’, I’m glad I didn’t listen and ended up staying up all day because I was the only one at orientation who was not completely exhausted by the end of the first day…so HA! Moving on…) we had a very nice chat. The couple was American and on their way to Australia and thought it was wonderful that I was taking such an amazing opportunity blah blah blah. I also learned the life stories of their 2 daughters (one who is just my age…). What is it with me and strangers? I always have people talking to me and they end up telling me their life stories, I must look like an approachable person…oh well for another time, can’t get too far off topic this post is becoming much longer than I originally expected.

 

Oh just a note on the couple who HAD to move seats because of a broken TV screen. The wife who was next to me occupying the once empty middle seat NEVER ONCE turned on her TV. Just the husband watched TV. So in fact, what they could have done is switched seats when they were a few rows back, both been happy, AND completely avoided disturbing the stewardess and me and my empty middle seat!!!!!!!! People…go figure.

 

So I slept for 7 hours on the plane and woke up with only a 6 hr flight left. That was a nice surprise since I am VERY used to a 6 hr plane ride, and it actually went by rather quickly. When we landed (2 days after I had left…I got to skip Friday the 13^th!! I have decided it was lucky), I was able to call home from the customs line ( I was amazed I was able to figure out the phone…thank god for one of Dad’s co-workers programming in Dad’s cell phone number previously so I was able to find out the country code….its 001 for anyone who cares….). 

 

There were some very nice people from Butler waiting for us outside of customs. They collected our stuff, shoved us onto a bus, and proceeded to not let us sleep at all on the hour long bus ride from the Auckland airport to our accommodations atShakespeare National Park YMCA camp. They were also sneaky about not letting us sleep too, because it was only ever so often that they would come over the loud speaker and give us some fun fact about NZ or whatever we happened to be passing. It was never a constant stream of talking, oh no, that we would have been able to tune out. No they were evil. They would wait just until the whole bus was about to conk out and BOOM—“AND IF YOU LOOK OUT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BUS YOU WILL SEE…” as the whole bus groaned.

 

We arrived at the park by 7:30 in a torrential down pour where there was an introductory briefing for about 30 minutes, a little time to grab our bags off the truck, put them in our room, and change for the morning tramp. They then served us some Kai( otherwise known as food) and then it was off to the mountain by 9^am! It was actually a very nice hike in the rain (we were all drenched). I was able to bring my camera (since it is waterproof) and take a few pictures.

 

The rain did subside by the time we got to the summit and it was a nice afternoon when we got back. More kai was in our future, and we were able to get out of some of our wet clothes and headed down to the rugby field where the “counselors” (I have no other word for them than that…they were not really our counselors, they did not care whether we participated or not…but they did work at the Y camp that had finished a week before we arrived…so thus for lack of a better word I call them counselors) proceeded to teach us the wonderful sport of touch rugby. They were a little more into it than the rest of the group was (maybe it was because they had not been up for 24s the day before). During the game, one of the counselors asked me why I could not understand the idea that I needed to be behind the ball to receive. I just laughed at him and said, “because in all other sports you rush the ball!!” He did not make a friend out of me with that comment.

 

After all the sports and tramping of the day, they gave us some free time before our trip into the little town of Manly (the signs to “Little Manly Beach” and “Manly Pub” made the whole bus laugh) to the natural hot springs. By this time it was 5^pm NZ time and all of us had decided that we must have been in NZ for at least a week. The hot springs were pretty commercialized (there were water rides and everything), but it was nice to relax in the sulfury hot waters and sooth our sore muscles from the plane and the day’s adventures. After about an hour at the springs, we then went across the street to the local pub and grabbed a casual drink before it was back to the lodge for more kai, free time, and some much-needed rest. By 9:30^pm the entire lodge was silent, not even a mouse dared to make noise.

 

Here ends my first day.

 

In the next installment, we will see what other adventures our heroine encounters at Orientation!

 

Sorry this became so long….I don’t know what got into me. I hope you actually get to this part and didn’t get so bored you peaced out somewhere in my description of my adventures at LAX and so are not even reading this. I will stop now.

 

~Marjorie

 

PS. I know I will have some wise ass comment later on about my grammar and the lack of it and the fact that I am a writing tutor and should know better blah blah blah. Just to nip that in the bud now –I have intentionally made these errors. They are for literary effect. I do, in fact, read over every one of my posts at least once before posting them. I want this blog to be more of a conversation with the reader (all 3 of you), not an academic essay, therefore errors in proper grammar will abound. Deal with it.

So Hello from NZ!!

Internet at the flat......FINALLY!!!! for those of you who might have heard my issues with the phone company....still not figured out yet, but my final flatmate moved in yesterday, and he brought internet with him...so I'm borrowing it for a while.

Well since I have not been very good at my hope to update this blog weekly (it's not really my fault) I have a little bit of catching up to do. So for the next few days I will post about what I have been doing in NZ thus far. Hopefully by next week I will be up to current events :-) 

Kia Ora from NZ

HEY from the other side of the world!

Sorry that this post has taken for ever to come, but I have been without internet for the past 2 weeks. Believe me, it has been killing me more that it has you lol. But I am alive and I did arrive safely for everyone who has been worrying.

I got here almost 2 weeks ago (it seems like more than that). Details on everything as well as pictures will be coming as soon as I get internet at my flat (right now I am writing this at the school library and I can only be on the computer for 15 minutes since there is a wait...).

My life in NZ so far in breif:
Left on Thrusday Feb 12th, landed on Saturday Feb 14 [what happened to Feb 13th no one will ever know...]
Had orientation about an hr north of Aukland at Shakespear National Park for 4 days...it was georgeous and amazing with lots of kai [ explanation to come later].
Landed in Wellington in the late afternoon of Tuesday Feb. 17th and wasn't really able to settle in becuase I was put into temporary houseing. But i did have fun exploring Wellington and attended the largest street carnival in NZ (which wasn't THAT big lol). Oh and I also registered for classes.
Saturday Feb. 21st I was able to move into my house (its awesome!) and on Sunday I got 2 flatmates (also known as roommates in the states lol)
Monday Feb 23rd I was off for a week to explore the South Island (New Zealanders are very creative with their names...) with four of my friends. Took LOTS of pictures all which will be coming soon....I hope.

Well the libraray attendents are giving me bad looks, and the que for the computers is getting longers, so I should go. But AS SOON AS I get internet at my flat I will be posting all of the details of the trip thus far and posting the long over due pictures of this beautiful land that I am calling home for the next 5 months!

Hope all is good stateside!! Cheers ~Marjorie