Hot Springs, Roommates, Climbing and Kiwis

Even though this is a mandatory assignment and I have a completely free schedule, I still have managed to put off writing a new post! Probably not a good sign in some ways, but the fact that I'm not writing them all the day before they're due in July actually makes me feel a lot better. Because that is something I would do. Aw who am I kidding, I still have five months to mess this up!

But that's beside the point. The point is that I've actually had a pretty busy week and I just haven't had a large chunk of time to record it all. Well, in a way.

The best thing to happen this week are all the new arrivals to campus. Tons of people have come starting on Monday and it's like freshman year all over again. Everyone is really keen on meeting as many people as possible. The only downside is that you feel like you have a ton of friends the first couple of weeks, but in reality you probably won't talk to 80% of them ever again. Believe me, this is the third time I've done this, haha.

Ok, so now onto the events of this week.

Tuesday was actually pretty uneventful. I went grocery shopping, again, and that's about it. I went to a store that's a little bit farther away called Pak 'n' Save. It's totally worth it as it's really cheap AND on Tuesdays they have all of their specials. I had no idea about this when I went in, and I wish I had. Don't get me wrong, the specials are great, but it's a mad house in there. It's literally like trying to drive in Boston. No joke. People have no problem cutting you off or running into you with their cart or stopping without warning. And it's packed. Next time I go on a Tuesday I'm waking up early and getting there when it opens to (hopefully) avoid the rush.

On Wednesday we went into Lyttleton. It's a port town about twenty minutes from Christchurch. As they say, "Christchurch is actually a suburb of Lyttleton, not the other way around as they'd have you to believe!" In other words, Lyttleton was founded first, but due to its hard to inhabit area the mountains were soon crossed and Christchurch and other cities were built. Blah blah blah boring stuff aside, I thought that Lyttleton was one of the most beautiful towns I've ever been to. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but I hope to be back for the Summer Street Fair next week.

Looking back over the past week or so, I realize I really did have a lot of time on my hands, haha. Because on Thursday I just wandered around campus again. This time I checked out all the buildings my classes are in so that I won't be late on the first day.

I'm such a nerd.

These are some shots of campus. Pretty right?

I ate lunch on campus at an Indian shop called Spice Traders. It was delicious. You really can't go wrong with Indian food. My friend Mervin (whose from Malaysia but is Indian) hates that I go out to eat Indian food so much. He keeps saying, "Kelly! I'll cook Indian food for you! Why, WHY?? do you eat out???" So one day soon a bunch of us are going to get the ingredients and Mervin is going to teach us how to make real Indian food. Not just curry and cauliflower either. The real thing! Mmmmm I can't wait.

Since people were starting to arrive on campus, I had decided to spend some time by myself (aka without Paul and Katie) to see if I couldn't branch out a bit. It didn't work so well. Haha. However I knew that if I didn't I was going to snap soon. My mom calls it a White thing. I don't know. Sometimes I just need a different scene.

Friday we went up north to Hamner Springs. Basically they are natural hot springs, marketed. That is to say we had to pay to get in, there were tons of tourists (even three other people from Utah!) and all the pool structures were fake. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to sit in a hot tub on a rainy day, but I don't think I'll do that again. I can take a hot bath at home...for free. Haha. However we drove with a Mexican kid named Diego and we got to see a lot of the countryside. Again, think Lord of the Rings. Oh, and most of these were taken out of a van window, so don't mind the random raindrops.
Diego, Katie and Paul demonstrating the coldness. New Zealand is known for having four seasons in a day.

OH! And I learned some funny things while we were on our adventure:
-Pickup trucks are called Utes here. That really surprised me because it's such a localized term back home.
-Deer are not native to New Zealand, so they farm them. Ahahaha that one I actually laughed out loud about.

There was a BBQ on the lawn that evening and I finally met a TON of people. Mostly Americans, but other nationalities too.

Later that night we all went to a funk/jazz/blues bar called Fat Eddie's in town. We got there around 10:30, thinking, oh we'll get a drink before the band starts at 11, get a good seat, etc etc. Little did we know that even though the band started at 11, people don't actually start going out until about 12:30 or 1. Which is ridiculous in my personal opinion. So the bar was full of old(er) people until about that time and that's when our friends and other people our age started showing up. We ended up staying until about 3. Which is perfectly normal. In fact, bars don't close until the last person leaves. Most won't let you in after 3, but they don't kick you out either. I'm not too sure I'm ok with this staying out all night business. I was pretty beat the next day.

I went to the farmer's market again on Saturday and bought a lot of fresh produce and homemade hummus and pesto.
This picture is actually from last week, but you get the idea.

I kept trying to take a nap on Saturday but people kept coming by my door to hang out. Believe me, I'm not complaining though. The best knock on my door was my new flatmate, Brandy. I was so happy to finally have someone to chill with. So far, we get along really well, she's a climber and vegetarian so we're able to split groceries which is SO NICE. Groceries are expensive, and I've been eating out a lot.

I didn't go out on Saturday because of the night before, but I did watch The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants with my friend Brad. I promised not to tell, but I figured he won't find out if I just post it on the internet, haha.

I really didn't do much on Sunday either. Gosh, I didn't really realize that I could have done this ages ago. I just keep getting distracted. For example, I started writing this particular entry on Monday night, and it's Wednesday evening, and I'm still writing. Hopefully I'll finish during this sitting.

International Student Orientation was on Monday. It was so boring. I guess New Zealand law requires them to do it though. We sat in a lecture hall from 9am until 1pm. However, we did get free lunch. After orientation a bunch of us went to a climbing gym in town called The Roxx. It is way cool and super cheap. All of the walls are carved out of wood so it really emulates the real thing. Other climbing walls are usually flat and hard to use for climbing (the wall part, the holds are perfectly fine). We climbed for about 5 hours and then went into town for dinner. It was the best climbing I've done in a while. On top of that, I met a lot of really neat people at the gym and we've already started to plan climbing trips around the country. Even though summer is ending here, apparently the best climbing is in the winter. It doesn't snow much, it's not crowded and you don't get hot!

I went to the beach with a whole heap of people on Tuesday and got worked by the sun. I keep forgetting there's less ozone here.
YIKES! I just read on the beach the entire time, the ocean got cold after about fifteen minutes, so all there was to due was lay out. Darn. Haha.

Brandy and I had a party in our flat that night, which was really cool. And by party I mean about 10 or 12 people were over having a good time. We hula-hooped:
And today (finally! I'm on today! I think I'll finish now!) was enrolment (yes with one l) in person. I was really scared because everyone who went yesterday said it takes hours upon hours. Even when I was standing in line to first go in the building around noon, my friend came out and told me she had been there since 8:15! Luckily I was given a fast track card and everything checked out. It was pretty ridiculous though. It was an entire maze set up throughout the building with barriers and everything shuffling you from one station to the next. And you wouldn't be allowed into the next area without a stamp from the last one. I had to prove I had a visa, show I was approved for all of my classes, submit an emergency contact form, submit an address form, prove I was on a program, get everything previous entered into a computer, prove I went to orientation, get insurance, get a list of my fees, and then pay my fees. All in all I think it went as smoothly as it could have for me: 45 minutes. I kept holding my breath though, waiting to be stopped, to be sent to a different line, or told to start over. It was like being in a war zone. Of the ten people I walked in with (they only allow ten to go in at a time), I was the first to walk out. Different people were getting picked off along the way.

When I got back to my flat, the rest of my flatmates had arrived. Laura, Grady and Darryl. They're all from New Zealand, in their first year (aka 18 years old) and not that interested in hanging out. We'll see though. Maybe they're just scared of me and Brandy. As long as they don't make a mess they're fine by me.

Well, that's all I'm willing to write for now. It's 8:30 pm here and I think we're going to go check out the campus bar, The Foundry.

I love and miss everyone back home, but I can't say I'm jealous of your weather!!! Mwah!

Adventure two: in which we take a really long walk to Taylor's Mistake

A few things to note about yesterday before I begin on today:

I didn't do much during the day as I was still tired/burnt from the day before. I wandered around campus and unfortunately forgot my camera. It is (like the rest of this country) beautiful, full of trees, streams, ponds, flowers and winding paths. I didn't have anything specific in mind, I just wandered. So in other words, I still don't know my way around! Later I decided to take pictures of the ducks. As I took this one they all stood up and started walking toward me. As (some of) you know, I'm terrified of birds. So that wasn't a pleasant experience. I went inside to grab my backpack for some groceries and heard ducks outside my window!
They're onto me.

Later I marinated some mushrooms and Paul, Katie and I joined a bunch of kids that live in the village for a barbaque. Most of them have been here for a while, but they were all very welcoming to us. And OH MY GOODNESS New Zealand has done the best thing EVER to the potato. I don't know what it is, but it's like a giant tater-tot that come in packages of twenty for dirt cheap. Mmmmm I want one right now. (In case your wondering, the other kids grilled some and that's why I thought of it!) After dinner we went to an Irish pub where we played pool for a couple hours. Despite my terrible pool skills, we all had fun and my team actually ended up winning most of the time. Apparently there's a bar on campus that has pool, so we're going to check it out later this week.

ANWAY! On to the good stuff. Today after doing the dishes, spilling granola all over them, eating breakfast and not cleaning anything up again (I was worried that my roommates would think I was a slob, as a lot of people began moving in today, but luckily mine didn't come!), I met up with Katie and Paul to go hiking. We took the bus out to Sumner Beach (not the same beach as Saturday...that was South Beach and I was confused). Again, beautiful:These are the houses that look out onto the water. The amazing thing about NZ is that the houses are ALL different. There is no such thing as Cookie Cutter Mcmansions. America should really take a page out of...I digress. The water itself was just as breathtaking:

What I found funny is that the rocks are all completely covered with mussels.
The notable thing about this beach is that there's a gigantic cave you can explore when the tide is low:

That's Paul.
That's the back of Katie. The light was very dark and I didn't even know she was there.

The cave totally reminded me of something out of The Goonies. After I had found a good corner I changed into my bathing suit and jumped into the ocean with Paul. We got our fix in, and decided to find the hike. It consisted of walking up and over a peninsula to another beach called Taylor's Mistake. The pictures say the rest:

Starting out on our adventure. The hill behind Katie is part of the cave.
Walking along the esplanade. The actual trail didn't start until we reached those houses up on the hill.
Whitewash Head Road=very steep. But that wasn't even the steepest part of the walk. Oh, and the ocean was to the left and straight down!
An alley between two houses...I thought it was a secret garden.
This is where we ate lunch after about fifteen minutes. It was a fantastic view looking north onto the ocean and Christchurch. Little did we know that we had a ways to go otherwise I doubt we would have stayed for so long!
We walked along these cliffs. Our destination was the second-to-last inlet seen at the top of this picture.
A sweet tree.
Giant yucca plants. That's a house behind it to give you some perspective.
Spider webs. Apparently there aren't any poisonous snakes in NZ, and there's only one poisonous spider that's rarely seen.
Probably the best bench on the trail...we're about half way at this point.
Getting closer!
This is for Patrick. It says, "The white-flippered penguin is a unique-to-Canterbury form of the little blue penguin. They nest in burrows or nest boxes between August and November.

"Fiordland crested penguins and yellow-eyed penguins also visit occasionally."
Katie and Paul walking across a bridge (haha duh).
As I said before, all the houses here are different. The ones along this trail were absolutely magnificent. This was obviously prime, prime real estate and the residents pulled out all of the stops. I thought this one was hilarious, it looked like a tape player to me. It was all one level!
This was my favorite house. The bridge in the top photo led to the building in the bottom photo.
The trail was dotted with these flowers.
The luckiest donkeys in the world.
Some real ocean front shanties. You can't really tell in this picture, but these houses came right up to the water, and some even came out over it. They weren't accessible by car, only steep trails. We figured they were probably pretty sparse on the inside as you couldn't even haul a refrigerator or a couch to them.
Katie and Paul on another bridge, haha.
Another neat resting spot.
Taylor's Mistake beach. Finally!
Even though the waves weren't great (according to a local), there were tons of people waiting to catch one. When we got to the beach (after about three hours of walking!) we rested for awhile. And by that I mean we sat down and watched the surfers, barely talking as we were all so tired. We soon realized that it was nearly 5pm and we had no idea what time the buses stopped running at Sumner. So we quickly walked back. We took a short cut on the way , going through the neighborhoods on roads instead of around, so it only took about 45 minutes.
This is a tree in a park we encountered along the way. We swung on the swings for a bit and all agreed that they were the best swings ever! Once you got going high enough, you could see the Sumner beach, Christchurch and the ocean for miles.

Once we got down, we got some ice cream and caught the bus back to campus. We each made dinner and quickly passed out. It was easily one of the best days of my life!

Alive and Well!

As promised, a blog to let everyone in on what's going on in the Southern Hemisphere.

I got to UC yesterday around 9 in the morning, and upon looking at my watch (which I purposely left on Mountain Time) I had been traveling for 23 hours exactly. Luckily the trip went smoothly.

On the way to Auckland I sat next to a man who lives in the states but is from NZ and was going back for the first time in 2 1/2 years. Needless to say he was stoked. He talked my ear off which made the time fly. From President Obama to hating Aussies to rugby and cricket, he told me about everything I needed to know when I got to New Zealand. He also told me three times that "New Zealand's a binge drinking country." I countered with my Irish heritage but that didn't seem to phase him. Reese was sure NZ topped it all. So then we just decided to exchange drinking game rules and regs.

In Auckland I exchanged what cash I had left...magically 38 American dollars turned into 62 New Zealand dollars. And that was after the fee. I got a row to myself on the way to Christchurch, but would have been happy being surrounded by crying babies. I was so excited to be in New Zealand! I spent the flight looking at the ever-changing landscape below (although I must admit, when we were over the ocean I read Cosmo). This place is beautiful beyond description. Rolling green hills (think Peter Jackson's shire in Lord of the Rings) gave way to dormant, dead and active volcanoes, deserts and coastline.

In Christchurch I began stressing when I got to customs. I had declare my hiking boots and I was a fool and also declared that I had been hiking in the past 30 days. I thought for sure they were going to take them, or at least scold me. Luckily, the worst of it was over after I unpacked my large duffel almost entirely to find them. They of course passed.

An older man named Rob picked me up at the small airport. I didn't get the luxury of walking out of the terminal and seeing my name on a board. We were early and he was running late. When he turned the odometer/price tracker thingy on (he was a taxi driver) elation turned into frustration. No one told me I had to pay for the cab. I was under the impression that the University sent a shuttle. Rob however, distracted me with a miny tour of Christchurch and his stories of the area. He knew exactly where the Ilam (pronounced like I'll not ill) office was. When I took out my wallet he told me with a wink that the University was charged and that I needn't worry. At that point I wouldn't have minded paying him as he was so interesting. No one was in the office so I had to call an RA.

I sat on my bags to wait and finally took in my surroundings. Although campus was empty (it was only 9am on a Saturday) it was loud. And not because of cars. The street lights buzz as if there were a thousand bees in them and there are about a million ducks in the area. No matter. It was about 65 (Fahrenheit, I have yet to understand conversions) and again, absolutely beautiful. Palm trees intermingle with old growth pine and willows. The grass is perfectly trimmed and the landscaping is wonderful.

My RA showed up shortly after Rob left. She gave me a linen pack (75 NZD for sheets, pillow, two pillow cases, some sort of comforter thing and a cover for it...not too shabby) and we took a stolen grocery cart to my dorm. I live in the I block. Ilam has blocks A-P each about four stories high and two to four apartments on each floor. It's very art deco (as is a lot of Christchurch). Concrete buildings are accented with stainless steel and one specific color (my building has yellow panels under the windows). The apartments themselves are pretty sweet. I live on the ground floor, which isn't the best. My window is right on street level and there aren't screens. Also our porch is accessible from the sidewalks, whereas everyone else (obviously) have elevated porches. But no matter. I have four other flatmates, as they're called (they haven't arrived yet) and we all have our own rooms. As you walk in the door, there's a bathroom on the left and two bedrooms on the right. Keep walking down the hall and there's a living room with two couches and an arm chair and a flat screen (!) on the right and the kitchen on the left. The kitchen is equipped with an oven, stove, fridge, microwave, toaster, water boiler, plates, cups, bowls, knives, forks, spoons, can opener, spatula, sharp knives, pots AND pans. It's fantastic. I might buy a few more things, but for now it works. Of course everything is black, white, gray or steel (for example our counter top is stainless steel ha). Keep walking down the hall and there's another bathroom on the left, a bedroom on the right and my bedroom is at the end. I have two full-wall windows, TONS of closet space and my desk runs the length of one wall. There are also two huge built in cork-boards. It's perfect for me.

Anyway, as I was walking to my dorm, who should show up but Paul (my friend from Northeastern University). He lives in the building to the right of me, and our other friend Katie lives in the building to the left. As soon as I was showered I wandered over to Katie's window (she's on the first level too). She was talking to a kid from Malaysia named Mervin. We decided to embark on our first adventure.

We walked about fifteen minutes to the mall where we ate breakfast. I had spinach, feta and pine nut quiche with a latte. Apparently there is no such thing as just a cup of coffee. The place we went (a chain we think) is called Muffin Break. The muffin's looked delicious. They had sweet ones and savory (like ham and cheese). Later in the day we noticed a closer one to campus and I'm sure I will frequent it. After breakfast we wandered farther into town in search of the farmer's market. As we were looking at our map, a man came up to us and asked us where we were going. When we told him he gladly pointed us in the right direction.

The farmer's market is held every Saturday until noon in a park with "notable trees". That is, they are very old. We got there toward the end, but there was still a good selection of produce, organic eggs, homemade hummus and pesto, bread and meat. I didn't buy anything because I wasn't sure when I was going to be able to put it away. Katie bought homemade blackberry champagne that came in a milk bottle for eight dollars. It was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. I'm definitely going to get it next week.

After the farmer's market, we went to Kmart so that I could buy a towel. We then took a bus into the city center and I proceeded to follow Paul, Katie and Melvin around in a complete daze. The days without sleep were finally catching up to me. After checking out nearly four outdoor stores (not even half of what was in the area!) we caught a bus to Sumner Beach. It was about a 20 minute ride in which we got to see all parts of Christchurch. The beach itself was beautiful, but chilly. The wind made it seem like it was about 60 or colder. It didn't make for great lying out weather, but I still managed to fall asleep for about fifteen minutes. After watching the surfers for a while, we hopped on a bus that took us right back to campus. Not before an old lady could help us with directions again, though. The people here are extremely nice and seem to love helping lost foreign kids.

Katie and Melvin went their separate ways once we got back to Ilam village. Paul came to my room to help me set up the internet. We found out that we have to pay for gigabytes used. 1.5 gigs cost me about 19 NZD. It was sort of a bummer until Paul's mom found out. Luckily she thought it was an outrage as we were never told we had to pay for internet. She contacted the school and they agreed. I guess they're in the process of working something out with UC.

Paul and I went to Woolworth's, the grocery store down the street and bought enough to last a while. Included were portabello mushrooms, coffee, grapes, bananas, granola, bread, yogurt, dish towels, local summer ale, oil and vinegar. I'm hoping to get at least one roommate who shares my cooking habits so that we can split groceries.

We met up with Katie for dinner around 630 and went to an Indian restaurant near campus. At first we were all astonished at the 18 dollar-a-plate prices, but then remembered the exchange rate. The food was delicious and the service was excellent. One of the servers noticed our accent and asked us where we were from. She told us all about Castle Rock (?), a nearby world-class bouldering area and when we left, she said "See you at Uni [=University=school]". Just another example of the friendliness we've encountered here.

I got to my room after dinner, made my bed and thought I would lie down to see how comfy it was with EVERY intention of wandering over to Paul's later to share a beer. I woke up at 6 am with my clothes and lights on. I changed into my pj's and slept until 9.

This morning I threw open my windows, made coffee, turned on my music and sat down to record the events since leaving. I had no idea it would take me so long, but I want to remember every detail even if readers don't want to know, ha. I haven't taken many pictures yet, but I'll be sure to include some in my next post. Adios, for now.