New Zealand Adventures continued...

Well it has been a while since my last entry. In the past month I can say that I feel like I have stopped traveling and am now just living. Classes have begun and my routine has been established.

Thankfully, the weather has improved greatly since I last wrote. From what I understand it was just unusually cold, but it did give a scary glimpse into the months to come. The past couple of days have been especially nice with the temperature in the 20-250C range.

The way the courses over here that I am taking transfer over I have chosen to take some random courses and get rid of some of my arts credits. I am in 3 courses (still considered full time, but the max number you can take at once is 4): Sociology of New Zealand 101, Gender Studies 101, and Sports & Exercise Nutrition 232. These courses are very different from those back home. Granted they are at a lower level than the courses I take back at the U of A, but they seem so easy. The 100 level courses baby you so much and the nutrition courses has get to really get into any great and complex detail. It feels so counter intuitive not to constantly have work to do. Having said this, it is exactly what I wanted for my semester abroad. The way things worked out I don’t have class on Mondays or Fridays (that’s right I have the dream 4 day weekend) and I have so much free time that I can explore more than just the library.

As an orientation for international students, the school organized a free train ride on the Taieri Gorge Railway and BBQ. Fortunately, it turned out to be a gorgeous day and the view was spectacular. The gorges and valleys surrounding Dunedin were so lush (and full of sheep). I think that I have seen more sheep than the entire human population of New Zealand. New Zealand seems to be a rather sparsely populated country with lots of rolling farmland between towns.

Eve and I both joined the Tramping Club (aka the Outdoors Club), as did half the student populace. This is Otago’s largest club and runs trips pretty much every weekend. I have done a few outings with them thus far. They began the year with a small afternoon hike of one of the local “mountains” (really it a big hill) and we ended the hike in a gully where a free bbq & beer was waiting for us. This hike gave some amazing views of the city and surrounding areas. The view of the ocean and harbor was truly breathtaking.

Eve and I also participated in the mandatory River Crossing training. It was an amusing site to see about 90 people all in groups of 4 or 5 linked together as they walk back and forth across the river. The hot chocolate they gave out at the end was greatly appreciated as we were all soaked. Between the rain and the walking up to my waists in the river I was soaked to the bone, but was glad I went as they use a different system than I am accustom to.

Sadly on the next trip I went on, I did not get to use my newly acquired river crossing skills thought there were many rivers, they all were accompanied by bridges. Whilst Eve went to the West coast for the Wild Foods festival (where she ate a bug amongst other things… ) I got one of the last spots on the Paradise Valley camping trip. We drove for what seemed like forever considering the size of the island and arrived at our campsite in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. Following some mild confusion in the pitch black we managed to set up camp for about 90 of us. The odd person had a tent, but the vast majority of us camped under a fly. Apparently, this is how the club camps. They set up these red tarps between two trees and keep it down by attaching it to a couple of rocks. It was rather hardcore to say the least. There are no sides to the “tent” and no ground sheet either. So here I am setting up my sleeping bag on the soaking wet ground (with a little $5 foamy between the two) and on a massive root. Amazingly, I was warm and dry all night long. The Saturday we all broke up into small groups to do our chosen hikes for the day. I was in a group that ended up hiking the Routeburn track. It was a very well maintained track with a couple of beautiful huts along the way. It was a very full day to say the least. Astonishingly, we were hiking by 8:30 am (with such a big group to organize I expected to get out of there by about 10 am) and we hiked solidly until just after 5 pm. Looking at a map later on we covered 27 km and had a total elevation gain of about 1500 meters. By the end of it I was physically and mentally drained and in need of a big dinner. Fortunately, that night was a big cooking competition between the groups. My group made a missive pot of spicy curry with rice. The night was followed up with copious beverages and shenanigans. The following day was a relaxing one. People end up wandering over to Sylvan Lake with the odd person brave enough to go for a dip. The drive home was much more enjoyable as we had the daylight to see the beautiful “lord of the rings” type surroundings.

Next weekend is Easter and everyone has a 5 day weekend, so Eve and I and a couple of other friends are planning on renting a car and driving down to the Fiordland to do some hiking there and visit Te Anau and Milford Sound. The weekend after we are doing a sailing course on the Otago Harbour that I am really stoked about. And with any luck I will have many more adventures after these as I take advantage of all NZ has to offer and my sweet four day weekends.

The flatmate situation has been interesting to say the least. We started off with 6 people, but after only 4 days, one of the Americans went home. From what I gather, she has never really been far from home and couldn’t deal with the homesickness. We were then down to 5, but only for a few weeks. Charlie another guy from the States ended up leaving our flat and going to a different one. To be honest he was a bit of an ass and really clashed with the rest of us in the house. In the end he just didn’t fit in well. And then there were 4. However, within days, we had a new roommate. Gavin is a friend of our kiwi host and he was looking for a place to stay, so suddenly we were back up to five people: Two Kiwis, two Americans and me, the one Canadian. Following the Kiwi way, we do communal cooking whereby everyone cooks one night of the week and we shop of groceries as a flat. I was quite hesitant to begin with (I’m a bit of a picky eater and we all have different schedules) but it seems to kinda be working, at least for the moment. One positive thing it that it does save us all a fair amount of money in groceries.

Other than that, life here is similar to life back home. There are some definite minor differences but nothing to major. One thing that surprised me was that it is completely legal to drink alcohol in cars, so long as the driver is not drinking. The first time I was in a car and this happened I was completely shocked (not to mention convinced that the driver was drinking until I realized that the driver sits on the right side not the left…). Little things like their tradition of burning couches I don’t really understand and I am learning new words daily (or rather relearning the names of things I already know).

Well that was more than I was intending to write. Congrats if you have made it thus far in my meandering thoughts. Hope you are all doing well and keep the news from home coming.

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