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Published: February 26th 2007
Today was the first day of classes. Or, class in my case. I only have one class on mondays and fridays so that's great...aside from the fact that it's spanish. Despite the my disdain for the subject, the lecturer seems very nice. There are a few kids in there that have studied abroad in Spanish-speaking countries so I felt behind at first, but I think that most of us in the class felt the same way. I really wanted to go to the beach after class was over, but I was the only one without late classes so I settled down under a tree in a park up the road and read for a while instead. I was also a good little athlete and went for a run before dinner.
Yesterday (sunday) we had a welcome “Hangi” which is the Maori tradition that’s like a barbeque. Usually they dig a big hole in the ground and cook all the food in it over this stone fire, but today it was catered by 0800 Hangi’s. It was still delicious though. It was put on by the hall we live in and they bussed us all out to the park it
was at. It was called Halswell Quarry Park, used to be an old rock quarry but now it’s a nice little park with lots of fun hills to climb around on. So far it’s been the best views of the city and you could see the Southern Alps in the west. It was a fun day, I got even more freckled (it was in the 70’s and very sunny). Most of the day was spent on top of the hills just talking and enjoying the scenery. A few of us went into town that night and found a cool coffe shop that was delish. I almost took a picture of my drink it looked so good...but I decided that was a bit too touristy and kept my camera stowed.
On Saturday I met up with Erika and Chris (both from Geneseo as well) and we went into the Botanic Gardens in the city. It’s kind of like Central Park in that it’s a huge park in the middle of a city, but it is so much better than Central Park. There are trees that are wider than cars, beautiful flowers, the Avon River runs through the middle, and there
was a great rose garden in the middle. People go punting down the river (Gondola boats…VENICE style...sorry carley). It’s gorgeous and I took a ton of great pictures. We wandered around there for quite a while…played on the spaceship…yes, it also comes complete with a spaceship. We left the gardens and wandered around the city for a while. Erika had been in more than Chris and I so she showed us some new stuff we hadn’t seen. Cool bead shop, a few pubs and bars that look good, and we also ventured into a “party pill” shop. These pills are legal here, from what I’ve heard the effects are like coke and ecstasy put together complete with a 48 hour hangover. None of us would ever think of taking them, but being biology oriented people we went in exploring and asked the woman working there about their content. She tried to paint them as “light uppers” but her light description was torn down when the other pretty haggard looking dude in the store told us that they are made from horse tranquilizers. No thanks. There are also a surprising number of sex shops and “massage” places in the city. I
say “massage” because prostitution is a legal profession in NZ. And I thought I couldn’t get a job while I was here! Juuuust kidding.
I also decided I'm going to start putting my pics up online, here's the link:http://picasaweb.google.com/waitingforvienna
Check 'em out. Cheers!
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Lindsay
non-member comment
i really have nothing to say. i think it's funny that you could only bring 2 suitcases to nz, but somehow your fh paper plate award ended up there :) i miss you, mel!