“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” ~smash

I arrived in New Zealand yesterday (Sunday, July 3d) and I’m finally settled in enough to write a little bit about where I’m living. Unfortunately I can’t get the internet to work, so I’ll be posting this a while after I wrote it. Let’s see, where to begin…this will be a long entry, so get comfortable. J I flew from Newark to LAX to Auckland to Dunedin, for a total travel time of about 26 hours. On the flight to Auckland, I happened to be sitting next to a girl who’s also studying abroad at Otago this semester! It was really great to talk to her and ask each other questions, and I’ll email her once I connect the internet because it’ll be fun for us to hang out here. When we arrived in Auckland and I stepped outside (we had to go outside to get to the domestic terminal), the change in temperature hit me. I could see my breath. It’s cold here. It actually felt nice when I first stepped outside, but I’m rethinking that now. Anyway, at Dunedin, a van from the school picked up eight of us studying abroad here. It was about a twenty-minute ride to pick up our keys, and no one spoke that whole time. It was kind of surreal. It wasn’t really uncomfortable silence; it was more like the silence of contemplation and awe. I stared out the window the whole time, just taking it all in. This is quite possibly the most beautiful place in the world (which I’ve heard before). I thought it would be similar to Australia, but it’s not. If I had to compare it to anywhere in the world I’ve been, I would say it’s a little like Turkey, but greener. It is SOOOO hilly. There are 14 sheep for every person, and I confirmed that fact on the drive into the city. You can’t even imagine how many sheep there are; they’re everywhere. We were driving through the countryside, and then we entered the city of Dunedin. It’s not really a city, at least not compared to what I’m used to, but it’s a very cute area. We picked up our keys at an office and then the driver took us around to our flats. My flat is on the edge of the city. It’s really close to a botanical garden, which I’ll have to explore. There are three flats where mine is, and they’re supposedly three of the newest ones. This means that it’s one of the nicest flats available to students. It’s ten times better than a Richmond apartment. And twice as big, too. There’s a nice living room with two couches and a tv, a kitchen, an eating area, a laundry room (with our own washing machine and dryer), two bathrooms, and five bedrooms. I love my bedroom. It’s all blue (the walls, the carpet, the bedding) and right in front of my desk there’s a huge window overlooking the city. I have a double bed, and the person in the room before me left me two comforters, pillows, and a space heater, which was very nice. The ceiling slants over my bed, and there’s another window over my bed. And I have a walk-in closet. Of course I can’t make good use of it because I don’t have that much stuff. Figures. Anyway, I love my room. I’m still working on personalizing it a little. It seems so empty. I don’t have any posters with me, so I’m hanging up random pages from magazines for now just to fill some wall space. I'll post some pictures later.
Only one of my flatmates is here. Her name is Perrine and she’s from France. She’s very nice. Maybe I can practice my French with her. There’s another girl from the U.S. who will be living with us, and two New Zealand guys, Matt and Richie, who will be back next weekend. Yesterday Perrine and I walked into town. It’s about a 15-minute walk to the main street. That street is the center of town and it seems to have everything on it. Restaurants, K-Mart, banks, lots of clothing shops. It was bustling with people. Later I went to the grocery store by myself. It’s about a 20-minute walk, and the trip back was not fun. It was dark (it gets dark here by 5pm) and I was hauling these incredibly heavy bags. It took me about half an hour to walk back, and I seriously can feel it in my arms today after carrying those bags. It’s gonna be hard to cook for myself all the time, I’ve never done that before. And to shop for food for myself. I guess I’ll get better at it.
It felt SO good to take a hot shower and crawl into bed. I was exhausted. I basically hadn’t slept for 40 hours. I tried to sleep on the plane, but that never works well for me. I dozed off a few times but never for long. Last night I went to bed at 8:30 (it was hard for me not to fall asleep before that, but I’m trying to set myself to New Zealand time) and woke up this morning at 6:30. I sat here at my window to watch the sun rise as I type this, but it’s too cloudy. I’m freezing, by the way. There’s two things that really get to me about the weather: 1. It’s hard to go from 90-degree weather to 40-degree weather in a day. That’s a big change. Usually we have autumn to adjust to the coming of winter, but dropping 50 degrees in a day isn’t easy to cope with. I’m afraid it’s making me sick (my nose keeps running). 2. There’s no central heating. It actually feels colder inside than it does outside. I have a space heater in my room, but it doesn’t do much and we’re supposed to conserve energy by not using it too often. Perrine and I are walking around the flat in our winter coats. It’s especially cold when you step out of the shower. And I usually take a shower before I go to bed and just sleep with wet hair, but there’s no way I can do that here. I would freeze to death. So I have to dry my hair before I go to bed.
If you made it this far in the entry, good for you. I’m gonna go get breakfast. Today I have to go to the bank and the International Student Centre, and I’ll explore some more. If it doesn’t rain. Which it is supposed to do.

Random Revelation: life is expensive.