So after a month at Lincoln...

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*Disclaimer: so because i suck and can't manage to ever keep up to date with this thing, I'm giving y'all a very brief version of my adventures. if you wanna know the details, just ask *




...I decide to finally write again. Yeah, somehow I should discipline myself to write more often.

Let's see... what have i been up to?

well, I started school. wait, what? school? I have to go to school here? but why? oh yeah, that's right, i'm STUDYING abroad. well, eff.

Let's just say that school here versus Berkeley is kind of a joke. yet the funny thing is, i'll probably do worse academically here than i ever have at Berkeley, because one, I'm not stimulated enough. and two, I'm too flippin distracted by all the awesome pretty things to see and do! Classes are legit though. I'm taking Agroecology, Organics, Soil Science, and Maori Studies. Oh man, my professor, Roddy, teaches both Agro and Organics, and he's a crack up. He's a silly Brit who cusses up a storm and essentially lets us decide everything, including when our assignments are due. but really, he's a good professor. right now, he's trying to help set me up with a volunteering opportunity. ideally, on an organic sheep farm. we'll see how things go...Maori is pretty easy, and the professors lectures are boring, but the material itself is pretty interesting. Soil science is definitely my hardest class, because it's just SO MUCH memorizing! i mean shit, dayum! fortunately, i'm taking it pass fail, so i'll be okay. I was taking a Viticulture course, but decided to drop it after realizing i only was taking it for fun, and after sitting in on it for two weeks, realized it wouldn't be all that fun at all. they essentially make you slaves to the vineyard. not down.

alright, enough about school. that's the boring stuff.

moving on....

so this is actually the first weekend i haven't gone on a crazy adventure. it's kinda nice not to sleep out of a car for once. oh yeah, btw, i bought a car. An '89 Nissan Bluebird station wagon. basically, it's a total piece but hey it gets me from A to B. Originally, i bought it with two other girls. but then, one of the girls flipped her shit out of nowhere. to make a long story short, she no longer owns the car with us. so now it's just me and Elyse.
oh, Elyse. this girl. she's from Detroit, or the "D" as she likes to call it, and she is fucking funny. i love her. she lives right across the hall from me, and shes super loud and outgoing and just great fun. she's really the only person i feel i've made a really good connection with here, but i'm fine with that. i didn't exactly come here to make friends anyways. i've been feeling like i don't exactly fit in here, but it hasn't bothered me all too much, because i know i have everything i want back home.

but yeah! so, adventure time!

let's see, the first weekend after school started we headed up to Kaikoura, this quaint little beach town on a pennisula on the east coast about 3 and a half hours north of here. we spent the day drinking and chilling on the beach, ate the most amazing pizza EVER, and passed out way early. oh yeah, and Katie and I, one of the other girls from my floor, went to this super awesome recycled fashion museum! I was thinking of Amanda the whole time, and her fun dresses made of plastic bags and paper. well, that night, i had the worst hangover of my life. no joke. i'll spare y'all the fun details. once i finally begin to feel a bit better, i fall back asleep again, only to be woken up by a police officier banging on our windows at 5am. i freaked out, and was like wtf what are we doing wrong?! so we open the window to find out that there's a fucking TSUNAMI coming in a couple hours, and we're literally sleeping on the beach! phew! if there's ever been a time in my life that i've been grateful to the po, it was then. so we all pile into the car, stressed as shit, to find out the car isn't starting. FUCK MY LIFE. but after a few more times, it did. thank goodness. so, hungover at 5am, we headed for the hills. literally. we got all the way up into the mountains, and we think to ourselves " well , fuck it, we're already this far, let's just keep going" so we did, and ended up in the lovely mountain town of Hanmer Springs. really, this worked out perfectly, because this is the place where the awesome hot springs were! After passing out in the car for a few hours, we wake up and hit up the springs, and it felt amazing. afterwards, we somehow stumbled upon a great hike to the top of a mountain above the the town. 3 hours later, we made it to the top, and boy did it feel great!!! although not as planned, that weekend was pretty wonderful.

hmmm second weekend?
this time, it was off to Arthur's Pass National Park, about a 2 and a half hour drive from Lincoln. something i love about where i'm living is how accessible it is to lots of cool shit. the first day, we went on yet another hike to the top of a mountain, but this time it was even better. it took us about 6 hours roundtrip, but totally worth it. at the top, there was this awesome hikers hut with bunks and a fireplace and fun carvings everywhere, it was quite rustic. we cooked lunch up there and basked in the glorious sun. looking around, all you see is snow capped mountains and vast valleys and oh god, heaven on earth essentially. oh and that night we splurged!!! we actually stayed in a real hotel! not even a hostel! it was only 80 bucks a night. split amongst the five of us, so not too shabby considering what a luxury it was after a strenuous hike. the second day, we took it easy and hiked up to this glorious waterfall. I, being the curious lil thing i am, decided to ditch the trail and climb to the top of the waterfall. i had a few close calls, but made it. aw man, so great!! not too long afterwards, we headed back to the ho hum life that is Lincoln...

last weekend?
we were off to the Wild Foods Festival in Hoikitika!!!!!!! it's one of the largest ( if not the largest) festivals on the South Island every year. essentially, this quiet beach town on the west coast goes from zero to 38479043893498 overnight. the streets are bursting with people such as: underage teenagers who think they're the coolest people alive, bums, hippies, crazy college kids, older crazies, and the like. Saturday was the day of the festival, and it was pretty great! although Elyse and I only made it to about two hours of it cuz we got going at like 10 am and were fucked up by noon. passed out again for a while, then went. o man, we ate sooooooo much good shit. funny though, because the whole premise of the festival is to eat really weird ass food, like Hu hu grubs ( these gross meal worm things ) and Mountain Oysters (bull testicles) and we didn't eat any of it. but hey, i don't think we missed out on much. later, we were just chilling on a hill by the river trying to figure out our lives, and this guy gave us some free weed. oh man, he was my favorite person in the world at that moment. so we went back to the car, smoked, and passes out for another few hours, only to wake and continue to drink. hah. we wandered out to the beach and chilled at some bonfires and met some really crazy funny kids. one of them was the president of the Gentleman's club at Canteburry University, another was dressed up as Waldo and tackled us, and another was an actually decent samoan dude named James. oh and btw, Elyse was dressed up as a leopard, and i was a "sexy indian" as this one kid put it. you're supposed to wear costumes to this thing. overall, a great night.
Sunday morning rolled around, and we headed another 2 hours south down the West Coast to Fox Glacier. the drive was awesome, i felt like i was in Hawaii it was sooo tropical! and then, we WALKED A FUCKING GLACIER. oh man, it was exhillirating! and i drank fresh NZ glacier water right off of it, and it was seriously the best water i've ever had in my life. holy jesus. the place is so interesting, because it's only a few miles from the ocean, and its basically a tropical rainforest, and then, out of nowhere, a giant glacier. you can see all three environments when you're on the giant hunk of ice. great juxtaposition, i'm telling ya. i even went into the glacier! i managed to fit my body into the shape of a torpedo and slide myself through a hole in the ice for about 10 feet. don't worry, the guide told me it was safe! it's crazy how many people have been killed by being retarded with glacier walking. not us, though!
so after the long hike up the ice, we decided to reward our selves with a delicious meal at Cafe Neve. so i think i said that pizza in Kaikoura was the best ever, but i think the stuff at this place was even BETTER. seriously, i didn't expect this country to have such amazing pizza, but it does. we had the best waiter, too. his name was Mike and he just chatted up a storm with us and kept cracking jokes left and right. good times. well, that is, until we left to head home. ha! so we find out that the gas stations actually CLOSE here, the hard way. with no gas and no way to get it, we were stranded. well, the boys were determined to get home that night, even though us girls didn't really care. so as we sat in the bar, Kevin and Jared managed to find a way to get us home after 2 hours of asking around. we drove on our last bit of fuel to the next town, met up with some dude who had a mobil card ( which is the only thing that works after closing time) and he filled us up. after 6 hours of driving, we got home at 530 am. woo hoo! yeah, definitely did not make my class the next day... heh. whatever, totally worth it.

and THIS weekend?
so no epic weekend trip, BUT an epic day trip out to Akaroa with Malia, Bronwynn, and Blaine! o man, this place is only an hour from here and its seriously so gorgeous. i dont know how exactly to describe it but it's basically a bay that leads out to the Pacific ocean, surrounded by lush green rolling hills covered in trees and sheep. so. fucking. beautiful. and Akaroa is this small beach town right in the middle of it all. so we hiked to the top of yet ANOTHER mountain. okay, maybe it could be described more accurately as a very steep, tall hill, but still! the hike took about 5 hours and was a steep incline practically the entire time. and half of the trail was not kept up at all, so i got all kinds of cut up by various forms of vegetation, but whateves. it was great because the weather was pretty gloomy all day, but as soon as we made it to the top, the sun shined its glorious rays upon us. it was like the universe was congratulating us. i can't wait to make another day of it.


and today, i've just been chillen. i went running! like, i hate running. i really hate running. but, i want to get in better shape and i don't think buying a bike here is really worth it anymore, so i decided to run around my campus. wow, i felt good afterwards! so this is why people torture themselves... ha.

alright, i'm done. i should've been doing school work this whole time, but i forced myself to finally update y'all on my life. again, if u wanna hear more, please ask, i'd be more than happy to share!

be safe out there!
<3Lannette

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