Wellington, All Blacks, Tasman Sea and Otaki!

Chickens pecking my toes!

Bears together!

Cheesy Picture that people do at the beach

Polar bear?

Otaki Beach

The Stadium!

Testing our stride lengths 

As they say here, "Sweet As"

There has been so much happening I can't behind on my blog or I will forget something. But from my last entry we had an indoor soccer game friday and we lost 2-5 but I scored  with a nice little nutmeg on the keeper literally 5 seconds after I went in. It was great.

But then for Saturday...was epic. I woke up at 7 and went to the farmers market with Zaki, Giso, Zaki's friend with a car Chelsey, and our neighbor Rashmi. The market is awesome! I will never buy fruits or vegetables at the grocery store every again here. It is so much cheaper and more fresh, plus it is fun to go to. But I spent probably like $10 or $15 and got so much fruit and veges!

Oh those jumping photos

After the market I met up with more neighbors to go to Wellington. It was one of the girls birthdays so we had birthday cake for breakfast that had delicious frosting that tasted like fudge. We had 8 people just with us, mostly international students, a lot of which are the girls I hang out with here. Ema from Canada, Julianna from Germany, Franziska from Germany, Shobeck (Indian but from Auckland), Anja from Germany, Jess from Germany, and Benedict from France. On our way our cars got a bit separated so our car stopped in Otaki at the first place we could find, which happened to be a rose garden. There weren't any roses yet but we made friends with the lady there and some chickens. After the other car caught up we went to the town where they have a lot of good outlet shopping, so we stopped and some people did some shopping. I bought a few souvenirs type stuff because it was definitely the cheapest shop for that I have found. After some shopping we went to the beach on the Tasman Sea! It was pretty windy so we just hung out, took some pictures, and watched the waves for a bit. We had a lot of fun with the pictures though, I will put most of those on facebook. Then back to the road. We made it into Wellington and went to Te Papa which is the national museum. Its true what they say about Wellington...its windy, very windy. The museum was really cool, there was a lot about Maori history and English settlement, they had a special exhibit with a squid, I am not sure if it was an actual "giant squid" but it was giant! They had it floating lying long-ways in a class case of some sort of liquid dead. It was super scary looking, I would never want to find one those while I was scuba diving and their tentacles especially were super intense. They have those suction cups with jagged teeth around them and then also hooks around the cups. But they had a sorts of other exhibits on animals, plants, migration, extinction, war, and more.

Wellington Harbor

Seaweed and driftwood fort

Then it was off to the game! I was so excited!!!! So our seats were all pretty much pairs all over the stadium so Ema and I had our tickets and we were going to try and sit by our friends but we got kicked out so we went to find our other friends on the other side of the stadium. While we were walking around looking for them this big group of people totally decked out in all black stuff and they saw we were lost looking so they asked if they could help and we were just like we are looking for a couple of our friends, then they noticed our accents, canadian and american, and we started talking and they invited us to sit with them on the front and second rows! They gave us flags and got us doing all their cheers and stuff with them. They told everyone we were from Canada because they couldn't remember where I was from. They nick named us Jema (Ema and Jen together). They were like the loyalists of Real games and it was just a big party section. They were like just a couple big families who really loved rugby...and pretty drunk. But super nice drunks. Then a Franziska and Julianna joined us too and it was a blast! It was probably one of the most fun professional sporting events I have ever been too! And I didn't even understand most of the game. We watched all of it and I am catching on, the hardest is just understanding the fouls. But the All Blacks won 40-7. They played South Africa but it was just their B team. Still is was a good game, I wouldn't want to be around that many New Zealanders if they had lost. 10 minutes in to the second half we got kicked out of our seats pretty much because the band that played the halftime show was sitting there, so we moved back a row and then were sitting by the band and some more friendly people. Everyone here is just so fun and they loved talking to us because it was our first game and we were foreigners! We got invited to tons of after parties and made lots of friends! Afterwards the 4 of us girl together were headed to meet up with the people we drove with and looked up at the tv monitor to see them down on the stadium turf getting autographs so of course we went down there! On our way we found 3 more flags when ran onto the field and met 2 of the players! I got autographs from Ben Franks and Cory Jane. I fill like kind of a liar because I don't actually know who they are but I will eventually ha ha. They were huge and really quite nice! It was a great way to top off our experience. After the game we went to a ice cream shop with some of the best ice cream, it was like soft serve mixed with the hard stuff....so good! After all of this we were exhausted and made the 2 hour trek back to palmerston without any more stops and got home about 12:30. It was one incredible day...and very long. There are a bunch of pictures below too!

National anthem

ALL BLACKS across the stands

Scrum

Line out (like a throw in) :) 

Our crazy friends Janine and Amelia....and Ema!

Cory Jane #14

Ben Franks #3

HAKA and Hangi!

Well it has just been such an exciting last few days! Full of cultural diversity and not too much studying! Wednesday is my easy day but it began with my flatmate waking me up to help her. I guess she was really sick all that night, so we went down to the clinic and she saw a doctor and got some medicine. I am happy to report she is doing much better.  The excitement started Wednesday when I finally got my student id card so I can ride the bus for free finally! So I went into town to pick up and helmet and bike lights because I bought a bike on an online auction. I also looked everywhere for jalepenos for my salsa but I can't find them! I can't find coriander or cilantro for a reasonable price either. But after a bit of shopping, I went to the bus station and waited for like 45 minutes for the bus to take me over to the church for my relief society activity and it didn't come so I text my friend Yuko who always gives me rides to church and she was just on her way and was able to come pick me up so it was super great! For relief society we had a luau! Now I have had luaus before and they are pretty great, but I have never had one where I was one of the only people not actually from Polynesian descent. It was sort of an international evening so it wasn't just islander stuff. But they had a few different presentations. Some sisters did dances and sung songs. So like one lady did an the Samoan dance and she even said she would teach me if I wanted! Another cute girl sung over the rainbow while she played the ukulele. Yuko is from japan so she taught us all how to make origami cranes. Another group did a Maori dance. It was a lot of fun, and super authentic. Then afterward we had a potluck, I wish I even knew all the things I ate. There was a lot of islandy food and definitely some weird stuff, but mostly all very good. I was stuffed after. I met a bunch more people in the ward, once you start talking to people they are all so friendly. Afterward I went and met up with my friend from Rangitoto, Marco, he was traveling through the area and came to hike the gorge until he got rained out. He is back on his way to Auckland so he can fly out and go backpacking through Malaysia.

Thursday I had a few classes and then finally decided I should study! So I went to the library and checked out a textbook and tried to study...too bad the teacher based his chapter assignments on an old book so they were totally off so I gave up after 2 pages. And Yuko and Warren, my RAs, were having the missionaries over for dinner and invited me to join them. One of the missionaries is from ogden and we even knew some of the same people. But we had shepards pie, I have never had it before and it was delicious, I'm totally writing that down in my "to cook" book. Afterwards the RSO put on a dessert night with some entertainment. It just so happened that it was it was the Maori RAs of the university doing the Haka and teaching it to us! So we learned the words first then the actions! It was so fun. The words are hard to remember though because I am not super familar with the language, but it goes like this:

KA MA-TE!   KA MA-TE!  KAO -RA,    KAO -RA 

    KA MA-TE!   KA MA-TE!  KAO -RA,    KAO -RA  
  TE-NEI TE   TA-NGA-TA  PU -  -RU - HU -RU

   NA     NEI   TI-KI MAI    *  WHAKA -WHI-TI TE  RAAA!
  AH...     U - PA - NE !    AH...    HU - PA - NE !

A HU-PA-NE! KAU-PA-NE! WHI-TI TE  RAA !     
 HI !

This was not actually my Hangi but it looks just like it!

  Pronoucning a lot of those worlds can be a little tricky, for example wh = f pretty much and Hi is like he, the vowels are just said a little differently. But hopefully I can put a video up soon of the RA's doing it, I'm just having a hard time getting it to load. After the dessert night and haka we had volleyball practice for my social league team (like intramural) and it is super intense! Ha I though volleyball was just a lot of whatever and hit it over, nope they made me try and spike a ton of times and then do some blocking. The coaches have high hopes for me because I am so tall...ha ha get it "high" hopes. The night just got better and better because after volleyball practice was indoor soccer practice! I feel like we have a some hope, its just a bit of an adjustment to me to play on a gym floor. But it was a blast! And very tiring after all of this, I know because I woke up late today at 9 for my 9:00 class. But I still made it! Then today, they had a special lunch thing going on on the concourse where you could buy "hangi" its like the authentic maori food that they cook in earth ovens. There was chicken and pork with some stuff that reminded me of stuffing and then potatoes and pumpkin with some sweet bread. It was really good!

So tomorrow, I was going to go to Manawatu gorge and hike into it with some people but then most of them decided they want to go to Wellington to see the rugby game. It is the All Blacks vs. South Africa. It should be epic. They are like 2 of the best rugby teams in the world! Don't worry, I am cheering for the winning side, I already have my All Blacks flag! Whoot Whoot! I can't even wait!

Earthquake, hail, and record cold temperatures!

Ya that is sort of a scary title but that has been whats up here at the bottom of the world. Sunday night there was a small earthquake, I didn't even realize that is what is was until someone pointed it out, it just felt like there was a big truck driving past the building but there weren't any roads around, not too big of a deal though I guess, it happens here a lot so don't be to worried Mom. Then yesterday it started to hail or maybe it was snow, I am not quite sure what they considered snow here. Yesterday was on of the coldest days in NZ in like 50 years. They had to close a bunch of roads at the higher elevation places and they closed one of the ski resort because they couldn't handle the whopping 20 cm of snow (8 inches) ha ha. It really has been pretty cold, but it doesn't help that there isn't any insulation in the buildings, otherwise I wouldn't notice too much. Sunday at church I was pretty cold, it took me 2 hours afterward to get my feet warm again. But Sunday night I went swung by one of my friends flats and stayed longer then expected and didn't get home until about 12:30 but I hadn't taken my key so my flatmates had locked the door and all their lights were off except Tamil's. So I threw sticks at Tamil's window for awhile but she never came to the window so I ended up propping up the garbage can and climbed through the only window that was open into the shower! It was quite an adventure!
Monday started with nice run and then I got to talk to Erica on her birthday back home! Happy Birthday to Erica! I had a few lectures Monday afterward. Lectures can be brutal because instead of meeting 2 or 3 times a week for an hour, we meet once or twice a week for 2 hours and it is so long! But then last night a bunch of us went to the club sign up meeting for the alpine club and I am hoping we will get to go on some fun hiking adventures in the weeks to come! I think this weekend me and a few peeps are headed to the Manwatu gorge, its like a 4 or 5 hour hike in and then out. Should be fun! Also I found tomatoes for $5/kg yesterday, that is like half the price of the store so its salsa making time! I am so excited! I made ground beef tacos with beans last night in anticipation! I just need to go into town and pick up everything I need. mmmmm!

Good Eats by Jen :)

One week of classes down! And I only went to 3 lectures that even mattered! But now I have my schedule set and I am ready to get crackin! Well kind of….I just have to get in crackin mode again, which never actually happened last semester so maybe I can get back into now because I will have awesome classes. I still have no books, but I don’t know how many I want to buy anyway because they are going to cost me $300! Also, do not fear, I have a credit card and money in my bank account now so I am not going to have to beg and starve. Although at my current spending rate it won’t last long. I just calculated all my costs and it has been pretty outrageous since July 7^th and the 8^th was only like 2 hours long so I didn’t even buy anything that day! But getting settled I guess will do that, but my cupboards have food and I filled my section of the fridge, so I think costs will be decreasing a lot. Plus I will get my free bus pass from the university next week, that $3.20 to go to town and back was adding up! Copying one of my flatmate’s, I put together a little budget, but I am not too sure what I should be spending or what I could be spending, all I have done of the past 2 years is worked and saved so it is weird going the other way and a little scary.  I like shopping in my mom’s pantry J ha ha. That doesn’t work here, they arrest you if you just try and take stuff. A single person can eat a lot a week, even me. Oh but that does bring me to my next point….chicken parmesan from scratch! Yep that’s what I made today. Made my own bread crumb coating and basted the chicken with it then fried it a bit and baked it with cheese and spaghetti sauce, put it on some pasta and broiled some French bread, throw in some passion fruit juice and I was eating good! Ha ha maybe meals like that could be the key of why I have spent so much money already! But it sounded so good I couldn’t resist. Today was pretty low key, just walked into town and got my new Zealand sim card and bought some groceries. Then went through my costs and made a budget and talked to some friends. It has really been a pretty quiet day. Graeme went to the rugby match and I about went but decided to save it for another day.

Chicken Parmesan

                Yesterday was a bit busier. I got my schedule set and even went to 2 classes! That’s a big deal kind of. But I got a lot of administrative stuff taken care of no problem because the people here are super fast. Oh also I got my first letter in the mail! But then I came back and made my own potato stew. I didn’t have a bullion cubes to I tried to make a broth my simmering some onions and extracting the flavor of those then added potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic salt, and tomato sauce. I sort of combined a few different recipes I read about online and took a few other liberties…ya know like garlic salt instead of garlic and salt and tomato sauce instead of tomatoes. But it was actually pretty good! A thickening agent would have really made it more stew like but it was good. Then me and most my flatmates start to play cards when our neighbor came in and was like hey we need some more people for a game and then we just all decided to play, so our neighbor came back with like 5 more of our asian neighbors we hadn’t met yet and we had a big international game night! We would say stuff in one of the 6 different languages we had available. But we all ended up playing spoons and it got pretty brutal. I only lost once though! But I have a huge bruise on my leg from jumping over the table to get a spoon during one round. But every time we lost we had to do something so when I lost I had to stand in the middle of the room and sing part of a katy perry song. It was awful! But it was a fun night. The rest of the night we just hung out and talked about all the crazy differences between countries, culture, and religion. It was super interesting and a lot of fun!

Abroad!......Study Abroad?

I’m here for school…..I tend to forget that a lot. But the good news is I got 2 whole classes to transfer back to the U! Structural Kinesiology and Sport Biomechanics 2! It was crazy trying to get people at the U to listen to me, but  I finally made some headway. So I am pretty satisfied in that realm. So my other class is  He Tiro O Mua….something basically its Maori: customs, lore and economics. So that should be very interesting, I am excited! I spent today trying to find my last but it is difficult to explain to an academic advisor that I just want a easy class that will be interesting. I’m currently in a  Sport in the Social context class but I need to get out of it because I feel way behind because I know nothing about the society here and how it effects the sports I don’t know how to play! All the examples are from cricket, rowing, rugby, and netball. Except watching a couple rugby matches I have never played or seen any of those sports! Ican’t really find any classes that would possibly transfer back to the U so I just want something I can breeze through and maybe learn a little. The people here don’t really get that ha ha. But I have a couple in mind. There aren’t any ice climbing classes L But I guess I have it pretty lucky because I have the Maori class with my flatmate Giso and I think it is super interesting but he says it is really hard for him because he has to translate the material in his head to German, that would be tough! I have a hard enough time interpreting our professor Maori accent. But I like it so far.

So I’m going to have a hard time adjusting to the school system here, basically I go to lecture once, maybe twice for a class then I am just expected to study 12 hours outside of class, that does not work well with my most recent study habits, Jessica and Kaitlyn can attest to that! So far I don’t have any of my books because I don’t have enough money to buy them! So that is my excuse to not study. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get a check deposited to my NZ account and that will solve some of those problems, because if not I am going to be begging for food next week!

So the highlight of my day was when my flatmate told me she hated most 20 year olds and most mormons but she said I am pretty cool so I must be doing really good! ha ha hopefully I’ll give a little better reputation to both groups there.

After 3 beautiful days that storms are coming back and its cold again! I liked warm new Zealand better, but it will get there!  Still loving it here! Teaching myself how to cook….no food poisoning yet! But I made chicken burritos last night and I put some extra stuff in them and they were super good and then just the classic pasta tonight with sauce and mozzarella melted on top, I’m not to bad in the kitchen so far! I’m making chicken parmesan this weekend! That reminds me, I need bread crumbs….cool. Hope all is well in the USA! Oh ya so far my most unexpected adjustment has been walking on the sidewalks and stair wells, I didn’t even realize I naturally walk to the right of people going the opposite direction, they walk on the left here! It is so awkward! You know those moments you have when you don’t know who is going what way? Ya I have those all the time! especially in  stair wells! I have to consciously think about walking. Anyway all the best from NZ.

I haven't been this excited about school since kindergarten!

So things have been super crazy since I arrived, well actually they haven’t been that crazy, its just been crazy in my head. But I am finally getting everything sorted out. The first 3 days in Palmerston were filled with orientations and meeting people. Meeting loads of people from around the world. I mostly hung around my flatmates but was also able to find a few other groups of friends. We had a good time at orientation, although boring at times, and they even fed us a bit. It was rainy off and all the first 3 days which made for a muddy walk through the jungle stairs to my house. On Thursday I went into to town and bought a bunch of necessities. It was crazy going in the stores and not recognizing a single brand! But the supermarket was  kind of fun because I was meeting my flatmates there after we all went to different stores but then I ran into a bunch of other international kids and just ended up shopping with them too it was like a little world adventure in the grocery store with people from like 8 different countries….as it turns out all college students like pasta fyi. After loading up all my bags looking like a homeless person carrying my life on my back, I met another group of kids at the cinema to see Harry Potter 7.2! I figured I had to go see it because that was like half the reason for coming here to be able to see it before Jessica and Kaitlyn in America because of the time difference ha ha jk. But it was good and I made friends with a few more kids. Afterwards our big group went to get drinks and bumped into all my flatmates! It was just a crazy day of going around the city and seeing random people and random places unexpectedly.

Friday was a bit more exciting on the orientation end. They loaded us all into bus and took us to the dairy farm and the sheep farm! It smelt awful. But it was interesting to learn about the cows and milking them. All the asian exchange students acted like they had never seen a cow before…and honestly I don’t really know if they would have or not. But the sheep farm was even better because it didn’t smell so bad and they did demonstrations of sheep shearing and the sheep dogs herding the sheep. I even got some fresh wool to make my own mini wool pen cozy or something else very small. But the sheep dogs were incredible, I posted pictures in an earlier blog of all that. We finished the day with a bus tour of the city, there isn’t a lot to it, just one big square and everything important is around the square. Afterwards some Americans went bike shopping but I didn’t get a bike yet. That evening we a nice sit down dinner at the world renowned Massey University dining hall. But we did have some authentic new Zealand dessert, Pavlova, it was  very sweet, just basically whipped egg whites with sugar. Dinner was followed by a traditional Maori dance performance by a bunch of local primary school kids. They were super intense and legit. During like this one war song I feared for my life a little because their facial expression were super intimidating. Oh then we had the best part of the night! So the day before we had to take this quiz and whoever finished it and got 100% was entered into a drawing for a bunch of different stuff and so we had the drawing and guess  who won first pick? That’s right! …..not me, but it was some kid who wasn’t there…so guess who won second but really first pick? ME! So I pick this very cozy Massey Hoodie that was just the right size. And actually I went to the alumni shop today and it basically retails at NZ$80 so I got an awesome prize and a lot of people were jealous. It was even better because at dinner I was freezing the entire time even with a jacket so when I won I was SO happy and quickly grabbed the jacket. That night we had a good chat with all of our flatmates, it was so cool just to talk about the different places everyone was from.

Saturday started out pretty boring with orientations so we decided to leave about halfway through and we had some reasonable rationalizations in doing so. But then my flatmates and I all walked into to town, it took about 45 minutes but there weren’t a lot of buses on saturday. But we hit a few different shops and spent a lot of money getting groceries and things for the flat. I finally got a duvey! No more sleeping with a my towels and winter coat as a blanket whoot whoot! We had to take a taxi back to our flat because the lack of buses. Then the evening go t started with about 6 or 7 peeps showing up at our place then we all headed over to a little get together with all the other international kids. It was when the all preceded to the pub that I realized I’ll probably need to make some adjustments if I don’t want to drink and still do stuff on the weekends, so that is a work in progress.

Sunday was a beautiful day and I got up early to go to church and got a ride with Warren and yuko, the RAs of my village. I met a bunch of people at church, unfortuntately I can’t remember most of them because 1) there was a lot, 2) many were Polynesian or Maori and I had a hard time pronouncing their names let alone remembering them. But it was fun and a way nice ysa, Nadia  Allen, invited me to her house for dinner. So at 4:30 Nadia picked me up and we had dinner at her house with her two brother, her mom, a friend, and the elders. It was so tasty! We had islander food which consisted of chicken with a vegetable I didn’t recognize, taro (a root) with coconut milk, sweet potatoes, and rice. Her mom is a great cook and there was so much food. She even made pumpkin pie for dessert with ice cream. It tasted almost just like home. But it was a lot of fun talking with them, their family is from Papa New Guinea and joined the church about 13 years ago. After dinner we played scrabble and I got my butt kicked. Their family was really smart and I think I might have left some of my brain on the plane. But it was a fun night! I really enjoyed spending  Sunday with them. They said there are a bunch of ysa activities throughout the semester and hopefully I can go to some of those. Afterwards I came home and all my flatmates were worried I had died because I didn’t really tell anyone where I was going because I left in a rush, but when I told them they were all a bit jealous, and I don’t blame them, it was a great dinner.

Sorry for the boring day by day events, right now this is mostly just me trying to remember everything that has happened. Monday started out with a class I got way excited about, Training Principle and Practice. Unfortunately I am dropping it to take another class  that is the same time and will transfer back to the U. But the first lecture was interesting. I was sort of the unlucky kid that got called out to help with a demonstration that basically demonstrated that I might have a slow reaction time and can’t catch a marker…..3 times. It was embarrassing. Afterwards I spent the day trying to meet with advisors and add and drop classes. The people here and seriously so friendly, like all the advisors and support staff all go above and beyond my expectations from the U. Even the ones from America and super helpful. I have been emailing advisors at the U for the past few days with no response. I got more done in 10 minutes with one professor here then I did in months at the U. Even if they can’t help you they will call people until they find someone that can. Even during this week, which is always the craziest week of a school year, they are so patient, I love it! As a result I now have at least 1 class that will count at the U, which is really a victory, maybe tomorrow I can find another! After running around all day all of our flatmates were just hanging out and decided to play cards. Another kid and I taught everyone to play spoons and it was probably the funniest game of spoons I have every played! It was crazy! At one point we were all laughing so hard we couldn’t stop for 5 minutes and we all started crying we were laughing so hard. The RA had so like come tell us so quiet down because she could hear us from a few houses away. The guys this morning  even said their abs were sore! It was lots of fun.

Today was another low key day, with one disappointment, I got rejected from taking an upper division writing class I was hoping to get into but the people were still very nice when rejecting me J. So then I didn’t have class until 3 so I did my laundry and even go t my phone unlocked for free! So now I can use it and not have to buy one, just a new sim card! yeah that’s $40 saving and I get to keep my favorite little smart phone! So my one class today was on Maori customs and it will be super cool but for now I can’t understand or read any of the maori words the teacher uses, but I hope I’ll get there soon. Afterwards I went into town to set up my phone but I forgot my passport so that didn’t work so well. But I did some excellent grocery shopping. I almost cried when I found a whole section of shelves with Mexican food I was so happy! I’ve spent way too much on groceries but I finally feel like I have food to eat for awhile. I have blown through all the money  I brought but I should be getting my meal stipend money on friday so then I will be ok, but everything is just so expensive here and getting settled costs a lot! But no matter how annoying things can be so far everything has been ok because you know what? I am in an awesome country! Actually last night I had a dream I came back to CWH and I was so mad. I wanted to stay in NZ! I wasn’t ready to be home and I am really enjoying everything here! I really was super upset in my dream it was funny. But don’t worry I still love CWH. Props to anyone who is still reading this by now, because this might be the longest blog post ever. Most of the corresponding pictures are below in the ragitoto post. 

Atawai Village

Living in Auckland I was a little skeptical of the fact that there were 10x the sheep then people in the this country....the drive from Palmerston to Auckland definitely put those doubts to rest. New Zealand is really a country of rolling green pastures filled with sheep and cows with a few thick dense forests along the way. It is absolutely beautiful. There are huge rivers and one giant lake, Taupo, in the middle. It was very rainy the whole day and a bit cold but I was comfy on a half empty bus for most of the day. We stopped for lunch and then afternoon tea. I tried to call the Massey at a pay phone along the way because I never had a confirmation that someone was picking me up so I was pretty excited when I saw a man with a sign with my name on it standing at the bus terminal. I got dropped off at my house which is way nice! It had wood walls and kind of feels like a cabin but house like. My room is a nice size with a desk, shelves, small dresser, a closet, bed, and my own sink. Pictures following. I met a couple of my flatmates and another guy and we went to a dessert night hosted by the housing staff. There was a ton of candy and desserts and I met a bunch more international students and found a few going to Harry Potter 7.2  the next night. I also found out my RA's wife lived in Sandy and the RA and his wife met at BYU Hawaii, and are active LDS members, which is way exciting in a foreign country. My other two flatmates came in the same night. It was really weird waking up in the morning to 4 almost strangers. But everyone was pretty chill. 

So there is Tamil. She is a short, dark, curly haired women. She is 32 and from New York and really funny. She laughs a lot. I also discovered she is a pretty good cook. She is going to be getting her whole degree at Massey. 

Then there is Zaki. He is from Canada here studying the vet school. He got married two weeks ago and his wife is staying in Canada finishing here ER doctor residency. He is muslim but super chill, and my non-drinking buddy. He is really nice but likes to give me a hard time sometimes. He is 26.

Giso is the resident soon to be famous artist, not really, but his name is Giso Pila and we thought it sounded like he should be famous. But he is German. He is a musician that plays drum and base. He is respectful, clean, and usually pretty quiet but definitely funny even if you can't understand what he is saying. He is here for a semester. At first he looks like a guy you shouldn't mess with but he is really super chill.

And then there is Graham. His is the Scot, and quite a scot. He was an archaeologist in Scotland but had to come back to school and is doing renewable energy. He is just here for a semester too. I don't quite know what to say about him. He seems like a angry scot at first but really he is a good guy and generally happy. He is 33.

I can't really leave out Brayden. He is our honorary flatmate, he lives a few houses down but has boring flatmates so he hangs out at our place. Also from canada, he does a lot of outdoors stuff.

So I live with guys and girls, so far it is really great, we really all get along super well and respect each other. I didn't know it was a mixed house and was a little worried when I saw guys moving in but it really has been fun. I think a lot of it is because we have all lived with roommates a lot before and know how it works. Our flat is pretty well set up with kitchen stuff and a lady cleans our kitchen I think. We have a good size kitchen, living room, dining room, 2 showers, and 1 toliet. I really like having a house again, like when I did the ACCESS program. We got lucky and don't have any super crazy or weird roommates. Its really cool to here about the different countries and places we all come from. Giso told us about berlin and the wall and the wars. Graham has told us about how he hates the english. All the Canadians I have met are super cool. We all just kind of hang out together for now and go into town together when we need to get stuff. 

Rangitoto with Marco

Manawatu River

Harry Potter 7.2 

Dairy Farm

After shearing of the sheep

sheep dogs

Bridge I cross every day to the jungle to walk to my flat

Very small section of the stairs I walk up through the jungle to get to my flat

Spaceship water tower behind my flat

Owl on the way to campus

Bare Room!

Front door/washer

Kitchen

Living Room aka party central

Dining room

Rangitoto Volcano

Lava!

Shores of Rangitoto

Door to the bathroom (see sign below)

Ferry

So I didn’t plan out the morning super well so it ended up me needing to dry my hair in 5 minutes and sprint down to the harbor to catch the 10:30 am ferry to Rangitoto Volcano. Rangitoto is the youngest volcano in New Zealand at 600 years old. It has formed an island the marks the edge of the harbor. It’s a pretty small island, considering I walked most of it in just a few hours. Nobody lives on the island but it was used as a lookout and for some other military operations during the wars. Now it is just a popular spot for people to take a ferry and go hike the volcano to the summit where you can see the crater, the entire harbor, and Auckland. There is no food or accommodations so it is very important to catch the last ferry at 3:30pm. The ferry landed and I got off at 11 and began hiking. I took a path through a lovely grove and the whole time I was thinking “I love this place!” It really was so beautiful! The thick tropical forests were incredible! The path was small but the vegetation on every side was so lush and green like nothing in Utah. So after I came out of the grove I got back onto the main trail and I was hiking pretty fast but there was this dude behind me who was going even faster and I was a little weirded out so I started to walk faster but then he caught up with me and I guess he was lost so he was just trying to catch me to see if I had a map….I felt kind of bad but then. But turns out he was looking for the same trail as me and we found it and just started hiking together. His name was Marco and he was Portuguese but lives in Switzerland. He was used to engineer the type of equipment that I would use when I worked in the lab like bioreactors and tube shakers and stuff. We hiked to the lava tubes and you could even walk through one of them to the other side, it was about 100 meters and very dark. Then we hiked up to the summit and it was spectacular! The view from the top is pretty much indescribable. There is a giant crater covered is trees and bushes and then you can see the neighboring islands, the harbor, and the city. It was starting to rain in the city and so a giant rainbow came out over the ocean! But then those rain clouds that were over the city quickly made it over Rangitoto and we ran into an old war lookout building with some other people and waited for the storm to pass for just a couple minutes. If you thought Utah weather changes fast, try coastal weather in the winter! I can’t believe how fast I could be totally warm in a t-shirt to wishes I had my winter coat on. But the rain did pass for a bit and we continued to hike around the crater. When we got to the other side we had to make a choice, whether to go back the way we came and be back in 1 hour or take a trail that was marked to take 3.5 hours. It was 1:00 at this point and, as previously mentioned, we had to be back by 3:30 or be stuck on the island. So of course we decided to go for the 3.5 hour trail. We were both fast hikers and there was no way I was missing that ferry, so we hauled. But it was beautiful!  A large part of the trail was along the coast and we watched sail boats and we could easily see the neighboring island, which was very different because it was not formed by volcano and was just filled with green rolling pastures with cows. We would have gone over there is we had more time but we were in a bit of a rush. At one point we took a wrong turn that took us to the old WWII fort, it was a bit out of our way but still pretty cool. We were making very good time so I wasn’t too worried. But then we started onto the part of the trail that was through the island jungle. We couldn’t see the ocean, or the city, and didn’t see any other people for over an hour. It was crazy and felt like a movie. The trail was very skinny, it was easy to find but not too traveled I think because it was supposed to take 2 hours and most people were like us and didn’t have a lot of time to waste going on a really long and hidden trail.  But we did it and my legs were super tired but it was worth it. Marco told me about Switzerland and just throwing it  out there, in that country parents and required to pay for their kids college and help them live until they are 25. But it turned out to be all good and we made it back to the ferry pier with a half an hour to spare! We were both pretty tired but I thought it turned out to be quite the fun adventure. The whole time we were talking about how we would survive if we had to. I said I would run and catch a cow and we could stay in the army houses and then we decided we would just steal a sail boat but then we realized neither one of us knew how to sail. So we kept hiking fast. We got back to Auckland and went to a café for a bit and got some refreshing beverages and he told me about his plans to travel through Malaysia and Thailand. I think I would like to go to southeast Asia at some point.  Afterwards I grabbed a $5 6 inch at subway and went to the library to do some emailing. I got back at my hostel to pack and finally met the new British girl that had come. I discovered I cannot take British people seriously. She was talking to Anna and I and I just had to turn away because I was laughing so hard. I couldn’t help it! I don’t know why but her accent just made everything sound so funny! She was being super dramatic about getting a cell phone too but between the drama and the accent and I just about peed my pants laughing at her. It was awful, I felt bad and Anna thought I was crazy. I should probably never go to England. But after a long day of hiking I was exhausted so I packed everything to leave for Palmerston North and went to bed.