Danielle L.

Danielle in Dunedin

Danielle L.

I'm a college student spending a semester abroad at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Excited and nervous- Looking forward to new friends and great adventures!

Wellington and Matamata

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Wellington June 9th 2009

Danielle in Dunedin

Finally something decently interesting to report: I took a quick trip with a friend up to the North Island, against my better judgment and money concerns. I had to return today because I have an exam tomorrow, but we spent a day in Wellington and a day in Matamata in order to visit the location of the Hobbiton/Shire film set from The Lord of the Rings. However, it took us four days to do all of this due to airplanes and especially due to buses. In Wellington we ate lunch at Fidel's, which was apparently a favorite place of the LotR cast to eat at when they were based in the city. The food was good and the place had a funky vibe. It is located on Cuba Street, which is kind of a bohemian/artsy area ... read more

Just an Update

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Dunedin May 26th 2009

Danielle in Dunedin

Well, it's been a long while since I've written, and some of you may be wondering where I've gone. The answer is, nowhere, and that's why I haven't written anything! There isn't much excitement to report when I've spent the last month stuck in Dunedin going to class. Somewhat interesting things I've done here in town, or close to it... -Saw a concert of local bands (which I won free tickets for) at a theater at center city. -Climbed Signal Hill with some friends in the pouring rain! The views of Dunedin were a little foggy... -Saw the University's Capping Show, which is an annual comedy show. I managed to understand 95% of the jokes that were specifically related to Dunedin, the Uni, or NZ culture, which I was quite proud of. -Visted the Otago Settler's ... read more

Recap of Break

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island April 21st 2009

Me and Boris!

Danielle in Dunedin

I got back from our semester break yesterday, just in time to present a project for one of my classes. Break was about 10 days of fun. Now we only have another month of classes before exams. Since I only have two exams and they use the entire month of June for them, I’ll have a lot of free time in between my studying later on. But sadly I don’t think I’ll have enough money to do much more travelling. Some people went to Australia or Fiji over break and that would be really cool if I could only afford it. Anyway, here’s a recap of what I did over the semester break. I’ll try to make it as brief as possible, not too many details to bore you all with: April 9: Spent the majority ... read more

Karitane Boat Trip

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Dunedin April 4th 2009

Seal

Danielle in Dunedin

Hi all, Today one of my Arcadia friends and I took an eco-tour to Karitane, which is north of Dunedin. The trip was organized by the University of Otago, and there were about 15 international students who signed up. I haven’t met many non-American international students so far, but we were in the minority this time- there were mainly students from Germany, Sweden, and Hong Kong. We took off by boat from the Otago Harbor and then sailed to Karitane. We got lucky because the weather this week has been gorgeous, sunny and summery. On the way we saw a lot of beautiful scenery (as is the norm in this country!) and also got up close and personal with seals, albatrosses, and other birds. There were also some opportunities to try fishing (someone caught a barracuda) ... read more

Finding Fun in Dunedin

Oceania » New Zealand March 27th 2009

House on Baldwin Street

Danielle in Dunedin

I've been spending the past couple of weeks in Dunedin, doing schoolwork and making plans for our semester break in April. Meanwhile, my friends and I have been finding things to do in and around Dunedin. We went to a rugby game at Carisbrook Stadium, about a 30 minute walk from our area of the city. This was organized by Arcadia so it was free for us. We saw our local team, the Otago Highlanders, play a team from South Africa, the Cheetahs. I still don't understand the rules of the game but I know that we won, by about 30 points. The fans in New Zealand get pretty crazy because rugby is their national sport. A lot of people dressed up in the team colors and wore capes, clown wigs, and had wooden swords and ... read more

A Day Trip to the Pennisula

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Dunedin March 15th 2009

Albatross

Danielle in Dunedin

Hi all, Another quick entry before I go to bed. I tend to write on here whenever I do something more interesting than classes, and that is the case again. One of my friends from the Arcadia group and I booked a day trip to the Otago Pennisula today with Elm Wildlife Tours. The pennisula is just outside of our city, Dunedin, about an hour's drive, but seeing as we don't have a car we had to book a tour. This was my first major purchase and soon, probably within the next week or two, we'll be making plans for our semester break so I will be spending the most money of probably the whole semester very shortly. Traveling with a tour was different than traveling through Arcadia, like when we went to Queenstown. It was ... read more

A Weekend in Queenstown

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Queenstown March 9th 2009

On the Way to Queenstown

Danielle in Dunedin

Just a brief entry because it's been a little while since the last one. I've settled into life in Dunedin and classes are now in their second week. (That was a little bit of a letdown- the vacation was over, the work has begun!) Classes are run differently here and it looks like the class I hoped to use to replace my Science methods course will be too easy so I will have to take that once I'm back in the States. The "replacement course" is a lot of fun so far- it's all about learning science concepts through toys and how to incorporate that into classroom learning. I'm also taking an Anthropology course, which will involve a lot of reading and studying- definitely the most work of my courses. My elective is Early History of ... read more

Here We Go

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Dunedin February 21st 2009

Danielle in Dunedin

Sent some of you this in email form, but for the rest of you... here's a quick update on my life in NZ thus far. It has been pouring rain since the day I got to Dunedin and it has not stopped yet. A lot of my clothes are soaked from walking around the city in the rain, including my shoes, coat, purse, socks, pants.... It is 1:16 pm on Saturday here. This morning I went to Cadbury World and took a tour of their chocolate factory. They gave a little bag of chocolate with my ticket. I went to two different grocery stores and got some cereal, granola bars, sunflower seeds, soup, and rice. This morning I also went to the Dunedin farmer's market at the train station and got some pears and apples and ... read more

T-2 Weeks

North America » United States » New Jersey February 3rd 2009

Danielle in Dunedin

Hey all, Less than two weeks to go until my big adventure in New Zealand and I wanted to set up this blog as a potential way to communicate with everyone back home. I still don't know exactly what the situation with my internet will be once I settle in so I may not end up using this blog. But hopefully, I'll be able to post on here at least a few entries to update everyone. Still have some shopping to do and of course I haven't even started packing yet. I'm going to try and fit all of my stuff into one suitcase because I really don't feel like dragging around two suitcases plus my carry-on. It might be a stretch, but I'm normally a light packer so we'll see. Here's my itinerary for the ... read more

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