Adventure 6: Dummy half! BACK UP!!!

February 21^st-Feb. 24^th

In the spirit of trying new things and immersing myself in the New Zealand culture, what better way to start than by learning how to play what seems to be the nation’s favorite sport: rugby.  That’s right, me, playing rugby, never thought you’d see the day, did you? Me neither.  Fortunately, this was only “touch,” meaning no tackling (in theory…) and none of those scrums, as I think I’ve heard the big, painful-looking pile-ups of people called.  Each year, there is a big Sports Day during O’ (orientation) week for all of the freshman colleges (dorms) to compete against each other in volleyball, soccer, touch, and netball, which is a sort of combination of ultimate Frisbee and basketball (to be explained later).  This year, the Uni Flats decided to organize teams for the international students since we (unfortunately) have much in common with the freshman (need to make friends, not a clue what’s going on, directionally challenged, etc.) and it’d be a good opportunity for us to learn some of the New Zealand sports.  They organized a teaching session/practice on Monday before Sports Day so that they could teach us how to play touch and netball, since many people that signed up to be on the teams had never played either before and we want to beat the “freshers,” of course! 

We started with touch, first explaining the rules, which flew straight over my head except for the most important of don’t throw the ball forward and something about a dummy half being able to pick up the ball and they can’t be touched.  Right…  After seeing the looks on most of our faces (blank stares, raised eyebrows, confusion, pure terror) the leaders decided that the best way to learn would be just to start playing.  The minor problem was that there were about 20 of us and you’re only supposed to have 6 on each side, but we all had to learn so we split up and took our positions in lines facing each other.  The play started and everyone started running towards the ball with very little semblance of order, reminding me of little kids playing soccer, who inevitably end up in a disorganized herd following the ball around the field and making very little measurable progress.  Each time someone gets touched they have to set it down and step over it before the "dummy half" can pick up the ball and resume play.  While this is occuring, the defense has to run back 5 meters before they can attack again, so the refs had to keep yelling at us to "back up!!" about every 5 seconds.  Eventually, things started coming together a bit more after we all made enough mistakes that we started learning at least what not to do, even though I still wasn’t exactly sure how we were supposed to score a “try” without breaking some mysterious rule or another.  Finally, we decided it might work better to split up into smaller teams so that there would be a better chance of everyone playing and being able to spread out a bit more, instead of clumping all together and getting nowhere.  I stayed on the field for the first round and actually got a pass (backwards, of course) and managed to get touched and start over without breaking any rules for the first time! Progress!  Oh, did I mention that this was all happening in the rain? Because it was, which made changing direction and running backwards after every touch much more of a challenge than it would have been under normal circumstances.  By the end of about an hour of practice, we had actually made quite a bit of progress, though it was still rather entertaining to see everyone running around and slipping on the grass with looks of confusion when they got called for something that they didn’t know was even a rule.

After this, we moved over to the netball court, another big field but this time with a basketball hoop at each end, sans backboard.  Interesting…  This was a much easier game to understand, as you could actually pass the ball forward like normal, but the catch was that you couldn’t move your plant foot once you got the ball, which was very difficult for people to remember.  There were also different zones that players couldn’t enter, depending on their positions.  I didn’t actually play this game, since I had signed up for volleyball and had about enough of slipping all over the grass, so I just watched the chaos from the sidelines.  People were much more competitive in netball, since it was more familiar to most than rugby, but I’m still not sure we would have been very competitive with any team, due to the lack of ability to stand still with the ball.  This might have been easier if it was dry though, to be fair.  Unfortunately, Sports Day got cancelled due to rain, so we never got to test out our skills, but it was fun to learn something completely different from anything I’ve done before!

Due to the high percentage of days which are at least partly rainy and our lack of transportation options, other than our own two feet, we have been spending a fair amount of time walking in the rain.  It really makes you appreciate the convenience of having a car or everything being within a 5 minute walk.  It’s interesting what you put up with when you don’t have any other options, such as walking 15 minutes each way to the grocery store in the rain just to get supplies for making cookies and dinner, because you don’t have anything else to do and there isn’t any other way to get what you need.  Similarly, our flat does not have central heating, which means that we are often rather cold, especially when we wake up in the morning.  There are little heaters in each of our room, but in our effort to save energy we’re trying to hold out as long as possible, so we just add layers and sit in the kitchen, which normally seems to be the warmest part of the flat.  Also because of the rain, it’s very humid everywhere, which has led to some minor mold growth on any bread products which are not refrigerated…a lesson quickly learned and hopefully not repeated.

 Yesterday, we had our first required orientation session, which reminded us that we will actually be starting school next week…that was a nice little reality check!  No more doing whatever we want all day and exploring and hanging out all night?  We knew it was too good to last.  To start out, one of the professors of Maori studies greeted us with a traditional Maori speech.  He told us it was shortened, but man, am I glad he did not say the whole thing then!  It was interesting at first, but there wasn’t a translation, and there’s only so long you can hold a room of about 500 students attention at 9am when you’re speaking what might as well be gibberish.  The presentation was pretty basic stuff that we’d already heard multiple times, but the women were at least entertaining to listen to. 

The international office had bought out the entire train for a trip to Taieri Gorge, so later that day many of the international students converged on the train station for our free trip out to a little town in the middle of nowhere, but amidst some gorgeous scenery.  We felt like we were going to Hogwarts, all waiting at the train station when an older-looking magenta and yellow train pulled up.  Fortunately, Amanda, Leslie, Ford and I were able to find four seats together with a little table, though we had to pretty much run to the back of the train because the compartments were filling up so fast!  The ride was about 2 hours each way, but it didn’t seem nearly that long because we kept looking out the window and oohing and ahhing over how beautiful everything was.  At first we were going through the Gorge, so there were grass and tree covered mountains on one side and a river running down below on the other.  The mountains were so majestic, especially when their sides had partly fallen away into the gorge below, so that the rock almost looked like tribal faces carved into the stone.  The last leg of the journey looked like it was straight out of a Lord of the Rings movie.  There were rolling green fields which suddenly dropped down into the river below, with huge rocks that looked like they’d been scattered about by giants in some distant past.  We really wanted to hop off the train and take pictures like Sam and Frodo in LOTR peering over the rocks, but that didn’t really seem like the smartest idea, so we’re hoping to find somewhere else to get our “Frodo Photo.”

Once we reached the end of the line, they provided us with a traditional New Zealand barbeque, which we were all very ready for, considering it was around 3:30 and most of us had eaten a minimal lunch before we came.  The meal consisted of steak, ham, burgers, and sausage with potatoes, cold vegetables, and coleslaw.  They don’t seem to use buns for sandwiches here, so we got pieces of normal bread if you wanted to have with your meat.  After lunch, we walked down to a little ice cream store about 2 blocks away, which pretty much got us a tour of the whole town.  After some more hokey pokey ice cream, meeting a very friendly little dog, and taking a picture with the sheep statue (town mascot?) we hopped back on the train and got to appreciate everything we missed on the way there, like standing out between the cars while going through a tunnel with literally about 5 inches separating the stone walls from the train cars, quite the experience!

This has gotten to be rather lengthy, and I and 6 others are heading out for a 4 day backpacking trip to Stewart Island (small island south of the South Island) to hopefully see some kiwis in their natural habitat!  It’s going to be my first backpacking experience, so I’m sure there will be many stories to tell when I get back!

Adventure 5: Can you still see? Kind of… Then don’t turn the lights on.

February 15^th- Feb. 20^th

Becoming domesticated is going to take a bit more time and effort than expected.  Since we have to pay for power as we go, it’s become a sort of game to see how long we can go without turning any lights on or charging any of our technology or appliances.  As a result, we normally sit around the kitchen table (usually playing cards of some sort) until after 8, when we realize that we can no longer see the numbers on the cards and someone gives in and turns on the kitchen light.  Ford’s sister, Tanya, is living in Dunedin right now and has a running joke that whenever she comes over it’s to find us sitting in the kitchen in the dark…pretty true.  We also have to pay for internet, and only get a certain number of GB per month, so we’re all trying to figure out tricky ways to save, like going across the street to the student union to charge our computers and use the internet or taking showers at the gym to save on water and energy usage.  It’s a lesson in conservation, we’ll see how well we learn!

Another learning experience has been shopping for groceries.  Today (the 20^th) is the first day that we have not gone to the grocery store for something, and we made a pact that we cannot go today, no matter what we think we might need, so that there will at least have been one day out of the week that we haven’t made the 10-15 minute walk there and carried sometimes rather heavy bags back.  We’re trying to plan our meals about a week in advance and starting to get stocked up on some of the basic cooking needs, but none of us have much experience in cooking for a group so we’re learning as we go!  Food is quite a bit more expensive here, especially meat.  Chicken breasts were on sale for $15 per kilogram, normally over $20…yikes.  Fortunately, canned chicken is not as scary as it sounds J  So far we’ve done pretty well using a couple of recipe books that Leslie and I brought and have successfully made homemade macaroni and cheese, lasagna, crepes, stir fry, tacos, and lots of pasta varieties!  There is a great farmer’s market every Saturday morning so we went yesterday and bought some fresh produce that seems better and is cheaper than at the grocery store.  There was a really great variety of fruits and vegetables, so we’re trying to stay healthy J

On a different note, Amanda and I explored some of the botanic gardens today, which are only about a 10 minute walk from our house and are HUGE and absolutely beautiful!  There is a duck pond and the information center provides free food, so we of course had to take advantage of that and were quickly surrounded by a flock of hungry and rather pushy ducks.  Unfortunately, some of them did not distinguish very well between their food and my shoes, so my toes got a little nibbling…I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was accidental.  The gardens are more like miniature ecosystems all put together and plopped down in the middle of the city.  We explored the rose gardens, Mediterranean, South African, and rhododendron sections before deciding to take a little side trail that eventually led us back to the street level.  It’s really neat because the gardens are built going up the hillside on different levels, so as you climb they transition into different regions and there are a multitude of different ways you can take to get to the same place, it’s definitely a place that I will have to explore more in the future, and looks like a great study spot as well!

Ash, our Kiwi host, is a leader in a group called StudentLife, which is affiliated with the same group as Campus Crusades in the US, so he took us to a late service with him last night which was held not in one of the beautiful old churches, but in a Bowling Club building!  We haven’t quite figured out what exactly bowling is, yet, but our best guess is some relative of cricket or Bocce ball…investigation to be continued.  It was a nice little service, with lots of students, both Kiwis and new internationals, like ourselves, so we got to meet a bunch of new people and it sounds like there will be a lot of activities in the future which will be great for getting to know people and exploring an area which has been slightly lacking in my life in recent years.  Plus, they have free dinners on Thursdays and occasional BBQ’s, which will be a nice respite from cooking all the time J  Speaking of free stuff, O’week (Orientation Week) officially starts tomorrow, so lots of activities and deals and hopefully lots more stories to tell soon!

Adventure 4: Penguins and Sea Lions and Albatross, Oh My!

February 16^th- Feb. 18^th

On my first full day in Dunedin, there was a lot of wandering about and trying to figure everything out, a rather large task, as it sounds.  It’s very convenient that our house is right across the street from campus; most of the buildings that I had to go to for international registration and then course approval the next day were very close.  The Physical Education building, which is where two of my classes will be, is only about a minute walk right down the street and it looks like there are some great facilities for fitness testing and other activities for my exercise physiology class.  Many of the buildings here are very old and beautiful brick, with intricate details and clock towers and hidden paths with wrought iron gates.  There are also a fair amount of more modern looking buildings; huge glass structures that look slightly intimidating, but are beautiful and open on the inside.  A small river runs through the middle of campus, and I’ve already seen students reading by its banks during the day…future study spot, perhaps?  Most things on campus are less than a 15 minute walk from where I live so it shouldn’t be too bad getting to class in the morning, especially since my earliest is at 9 and in the Phys Ed building.

Course approval was very different from what I’m used to, and seemed rather old-fashioned and inefficient to Leslie (lives in my flat, from Canada) and I, who were trying to navigate things together as best we could.  Every student has to go visit the professors in their departments to check their prerequisites, and then has to wait in line for a chief course advisor to get their classes approved.  Seems like a lot of extra walking and waiting for something that could all be done online, but it works!  Just rather slowly…I was lucky that I somehow managed to bypass the lines for the course advisor and just talked to a couple of very nice professors, one of whom will be my Psychology of Sport “paper” (what they say instead of “class”) instructor and got my necessary signatures for all of my classes and added a class with relatively little hassle.  I am now signed up for Exercise Physiology, Psychology of Sport, Maori Society, and Medieval to Modern Europe, which will hopefully be a nice mix of difficulty levels and also be very interesting!  I also got my student ID and “diary” (planner/agenda), so I’m an official student, whoo hoo!!

I was also able to get set up with a phone and new prepay plan down here, so now I can really start embracing the student life again J  It’s surprisingly inexpensive to send and receive messages, only $10 for 2000 texts, so hopefully I won’t have to spend a lot of my money on phone bills.  The phone I got was the last of the super-cheap ones that they had in stock (good timing!) and seems like a little brick that would probably survive a tumble down a mountainside, perfect for tramping around and having adventures! 

My first big Dunedin adventure was going to the peninsula, about a 45 minute drive from the University through hills that looked like they were straight out of Lord of the Rings.  There were many fields filled with sheep, of course, and beautiful lakes and inlets along the coast.  The drive was gorgeous, but the most exciting part was when we got to the tip of the peninsula where there was an albatross museum and…sea lions and penguins!  They were so close to us, right on the rocks and we saw a mother penguin and her little babies in a nest in a hole in the hillside, it was amazing!  I went with two of my flatmates, Amanda and Ford, and Pipa, a woman from Australia who is working at a church here and volunteered to drive us out.  Amanda and I were trying to take pictures with the sea lions that were on the rocks, but then they started getting a little too close for comfort so we chickened out and retreated farther back from the water.  We also spotted an albatross flying overhead, which apparently is really rare!  It was really fun to see a bit outside of the city and the wildlife in its native habitat instead of a museum.  I can’t wait to see the different types of penguins and other animals throughout the rest of the country! 

Welcome to Dunedin! Land of 10,000 sheep

On my final morning in Auckland I decided to just do a little more wandering over to the Sky Tower just to take a look around.  It looked pretty incredible from the ground and there was a group that seemed to be getting ready to do the sky jump (bungy from the top of the tower) which looked like it would be a lot of fun, a bit scary heading straight for the pavement, though.  I still had some time to kill before catching the bus back to the airport so I found a reasonably priced coffee shop and got a delicious banana chocolate chip muffin, complete with chunk of banana in the middle and a “Long Black” coffee because it was the first thing on the menu and I was under pressure to make a decision.  Apparently, it’s like an Americano and comes with its own little pitcher of boiling water which I used to dilute the coffee a bit, assuming that was its purpose, still not really sure if that was correct or not… but it was nice to sit and read the New Zealand news and get perspectives on the world’s events other that America’s, such as the crisis in Egypt and Obama’s new policies.

It was relatively easy to catch the bus from the hostel back to the airport, where (thankfully and surprisingly) I had no trouble checking both of my bags and getting through security.  The plane ride was relatively short, but flying Air New Zealand was a great change from the last airline because they came around with snacks, drinks, and little candies, all for just a 1 ½ hour flight!  Upon arrival in Dunedin, I found a shuttle van service that takes you right to the door of wherever you need and was also taking other students to the University.  On the 40 minute ride from the airport into the city, I swear I saw more sheep than I have in the rest of my life combined.  I had to resist the urge to get out my camera and start taking pictures immediately, partly because I was in the middle seat of the van and partly because I didn’t want to make it too obvious that I was an international student and had absolutely no clue what I was doing.  Plus, I figured the sheep probably weren’t going anywhere, so there would be plenty more photo opps.

I was a little nervous about getting a bedding pack, because they said there were limited amounts and I didn’t want to end up using only my hostel sheet for the entire 5 months (might get a little cold) or having to buy everything myself (might get a little expensive) but fortunately there were still some left and I was able to get checked in and get my key for my new home!  My flat is right across the street from the main part of campus, so it was only a short trek from the office and I was greeted by one of my flatmates, Amanda, who is originally from Wisconsin but is now in grad school at the U of M, we’ve been so close to each other at school and now we’re living together in New Zealand, what a small world!  Having only 2 suitcases, it didn’t take me long to unpack and explore the flat.  There are 5 of us living together and we each get our own room with queen sized beds (a big step up from a lofted twin!) and will be sharing 2 bathrooms and a nice (furnished!) kitchen and living room.  Our flat was recently redone, so we have new orange furniture and freshly painted walls, one of which is teal in the living room.  It took a bit of getting used to, but the bright colors are growing on me.  My room overlooks the street and has 3 big windows which is really nice for letting in light during the day, but could get loud at night…good thing I’m a sound sleeper!

The other student who was already in the flat, Ford, had met a couple people earlier in the week so we went over to another flat that night and were able to meet some more students, a couple Kiwis but mostly from the US.  Three of them go to Macalester, so we were able to bond over our mutual dislike of Carleton and St. Thomas, a firm foundation to any relationship haha ;) It was fun to meet the Kiwis as well and learn a little bit more about the school and student life from people who’ve been here their whole lives.  The nightlife here is a bit different, people apparently go out later (around midnight) but then places stay open until 6am sometimes, not sure if I’ll ever be able to stay awake that long, but to each his own!  I’m looking forward to meeting even more people once the rest of the students start filtering onto campus and I can really get a taste of what life will be like here J

Adventure 2: What's a beach without a towel? Very sandy.

February 14th

Valentine’s Day! Which I didn’t even realize until I finally figured out why so many people were wandering around with flowers…between the time difference and not having a set schedule to follow I managed to lose complete track of what day it was after only 4 days of travel!  Being alone in a foreign country, what better way to spend Valentine’s than relaxing on the beach? None!  The previous day I’d bought a ticket for a ferry and bus tour to Waiheke Island, about a 40 minute ferry ride from Auckland’s harbor.  I didn’t realize how many small islands there were just off the coast of the mainland, but the scenery on the ride was absolutely breathtaking.  Pictures really couldn’t do it justice, with all of the rolling hills and bright turquoise waters.  There was also one island whose cliffs must have been eroded away over time so that it was just a huge sheer rock face that dropped straight into the ocean…no wonder Kiwis love extreme sports…spelunking, anyone?  It was a nearly perfect day for an island tour, only a few moments of overcast weather and it’s been unusually warm in New Zealand this year, which is a great change for me from the frigid temperatures of the Midwest!

Once on the island, I took a bus tour around the western half and learned about the lifestyles of the people who live there year-round (very few actually do, most homes which we saw were “lifestyle homes” which were huge and bought for vacationing [easily over $1 million] or rented homes on the beaches) and got to see a couple of wineries and beautiful views of various beaches from the top of the island.  This was all very interesting, but I couldn’t wait to get dropped off back at the harbor so that I could hop on a bus to Palm Beach, which had been recommended to me by a couple people whom I’d met in the hostel the previous night.  A very short ride later and I was at the beach with only a few minor problems: no towel and no sunglasses.  Since these were out of my control, however (didn’t want to waste precious suitcase space packing a towel and sunglasses got squished somewhere on my travels L) I plopped myself down on the sand and held my book above my face to block the sun.  The beach was very reminiscent of Puerto Lopez in Ecuador, from the layout of the sand and rocks to the relative calm and isolation.  Based on these similarities, I decided to avoid the rocks on the far right side, just in case New Zealand waters house sting rays as well, best to avoid a repeat of that situation.  The water was nice and cool, but I didn’t venture too far in due to my limited drying options.  I also entertained some people with my attempts at self-timing photography, but hey, I’ll never see them again!  Once I’d been sufficiently fried (only got burned on the top of my shoulders, but that took about 3 days to fade completely…that’s what being under the hole in the ozone will do to you, I guess…duly noted), I took another bus to the main (very small) town and found a pizza restaurant that was reasonably priced and overlooked a beach, the price qualification being the standard which was much more difficult to meet, unfortunately.  However, I was able to get a small pizza and then had leftovers for dinner later!

I caught the 4:00 ferry back to Auckland and had a great view of the skyline and sky tower coming into the harbor.  I decided to treat myself to some gelato from a self-proclaimed “award winning” shop that was right by the ferry landing.  New Zealand has a special flavor called “Hokey Pokey” which is vanilla ice cream with caramel swirls and little chunks of honey comb candy, aka DELICIOUS. I wandered over to a park by the University to eat my cone and do a little people watching before heading back to the hostel for the night.  Jet lag was finally starting to catch up with me, so after chatting a bit with the other girls in my room, who were both from England but had met while travelling in Australia, I called it an early night and made good use of the sleeping mask which the Foot family gave me in my bag of travel wonders J

Adventure 1: A Lesson in Patience (Feb. 10 USA-Feb. 13 NZ)

Normally, I would consider myself a pretty patient person, but this was seriously put to the test when I arrived at LAX, rushed to get my bags and find the right terminal to check in for my flight to Sydney, and upon arriving was welcomed by a line of literally hundreds of people waiting at the V Australia counter.  Looking at my watch, I realize I’ve got about an hour and a half to get through this line, security, and to the gate, “Well, this isn’t going to happen…”  I’ve never been more right in my life.  I weave my way through the masses to the end of the line, which has wound around about 3 times after the normal queue was supposed to end.  Fortunately, I was standing by 3 other students who were also stuck for the night and who were all going to study in various locales in Australia, so we had a good 3 hour bonding session in LAX and then the next morning at 4:30 when the shuttle picked us up from the hotel for another couple of hours of waiting in the airport.  Being some of the last people in line, the hotels that the airline normally used ran out of rooms, so that was a rather worrisome 20 minutes while they searched for somewhere to put the remaining 19 of us around 10:30 at night.  Of course by the time we finally were put up in a Holiday Inn the restaurant and room service were both closed, but I was so tired that I didn’t even want dinner.  There was a rather disappointing boxed breakfast in the morning, but then some good karma paid off once we finally boarded the plane!  I ended up getting a seat with extra leg room (no one in front of me) for the 14 ½ hour flight to Sydney and it was really nice to be able to stretch out!  There were also a lot of good movies and TV shows playing for free, so I was able to get caught up on some new movies and shows, which, in addition to Sudoku, books, and crosswords, kept me pretty well entertained.  I was also lucky that I didn’t have any firm travel plans like a lot of people, some of whom were missing cruises or tours by getting to Sydney or New Zealand later than planned.  Understandably, there were a lot of not so happy people on that plane…the poor flight attendants had to listen to a lot of complaints L

Upon arrival in Sydney, most people had missed their connecting flights, including me, so I ended up being put on a flight into Christchurch, which is on the South Island, near Dunedin, for that night, where I would stay and then fly up to Auckland, on the North Island, in the morning.  This seemed like a bit of a round-a-bout plan to me…but at least they were getting me there! However, in keeping with the theme of delays, the flight out of Sydney was delayed as well, so by the time I got to Christchurch it was about 1:30 in the morning New Zealand time (by this point I’d stopped trying to keep track of time zones, I just knew that I was tiiiired!) and the flight to Auckland was scheduled to leave at 6:40am…giving me about 2 hours to sleep in the hotel before heading back to the airport.  Benefit of being put up for free, however, is that we actually got a meal voucher this time so I got to have room service breakfast for free! Coffee was definitely needed by then, and I was well supplied with a whole little pot J  There was a minor fiasco with baggage check at the airport since we had to change airlines and the one we switched to had different weight limits, which led to me attempting to reorganize my suitcases on the floor by the counter at 5 in the morning…not a happy camper.  But they finally let me through and supposedly I will be reimbursed for the fees they made me pay if I maneuver my way through enough customer service websites, we shall see.

The good thing about flying out so early was that I got into Auckland around 8am and was able to find the right bus which took me basically to the door of my hostel, very convenient!  I spent most of the day exploring Auckland, loosely following a walking tour and stumbling upon a path which took me to the Auckland Museum, which was free (perfect!) and surprisingly interesting!  There were a ton of cool Maori (native culture) exhibits and a really amazing house which was made of carved figures of Maori gods and must have taken an extraordinary amount of time to build.  I was also able to wander around the University of Auckland a bit, and it was fun to go into their library and a couple other buildings to see the differences of a big university.  The campus was beautiful, with a mix of old and new architecture and a nice big park right across the street. 

After some more wanderings (aka getting lost) and checking out the harbor and finding a gelato stand (yay!) I headed back to the hostel move my luggage into my room, which was quite small but had a bed and sheets and was not an airport, which was all I really wanted.  While checking email in the lounge I met a couple people from Canada and the US so we all went out to dinner and found an international food court which was the least expensive thing that was not McDonald’s or Burger King.  There are also a surprising number of Subway’s around, which I was not expecting to see here.  Food is a bit more expensive here than at home, but it will be nice to get to the flat and be able to buy groceries instead of single meals all of the time.  After dinner we all went down and hung out at the bar that’s affiliated with the hostel, where I met a guy who is originally from Canada but works in Queenstown with the bungy company that I am planning on going to, so it will be fun to know someone when Amanda and I go when she visits!  Once I started falling asleep on my feet I realized that it was probably time for bed and so called it a night after a great, but exhausting, day of exploring a beautiful city and making new friends J

And so it begins...

And so it begins, as I sit in the Denver airport, from where I will fly to LA, run to get through baggage claim, re-check my luggage and get through security, and find my gate to board a plane which will probably come to feel like a home by the time I arrive in Australia after a 15 hour flight.  From there I will go on to Auckland, on the North Island of New Zealand, where I will spend a few days seeing the sights of the city and hopefully combating my jet lag by laying on a beach somewhere...sounds OK to me, I guess :)

I'm not really even sure how this whole journey started, except that I went to the information session on semester abroad programs on a whim and instantly fell in love with the description of New Zealand and the University of Otago and its programs.  It was not my intention to ever go abroad for and entire semester when I first arrived at St. Olaf, but after living in Ecuador for a month I fell in love with traveling and decided that I need to see as much of the world as possible, starting with the opposite side!

Though I can't pretend like I'm not at least a little (fine, a lot!) nervous about going on my own to a new country and starting afresh, the excitement completely outweighs any fears that I may have, especially after I look at pictures or my Lonely Planet Guidebook (aka my best friend for this trip) and add to the already long list of things that I want to do or see in the next 4 1/2 months.  Things like bungee jumping at the site of the first ever official jump, sliding down sand dunes on a boogy board, and seeing where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, just to name a few!

It's about time to board now, but I look forward to having many more exciting posts in the future, and thanks for taking the time to read about my adventures!

Lots of love,
Anna