Kia Ora! Day 14

... Which means hello/welcome/good health/goodbye etc., in Maori... it's pronounce 'kay-or-ah' but you have 'clip' the r, kind of like when you're speaking Spanish.. While we're on Maori, I guess I could tell you how to say New Zealand: Aoteoroa. Pronouced 'ah-awe-tay-row-ah' means land of the long white cloud. When you say both of them, it has to be fast. Hello random.

Today I had class from 9am to 12pm, then 2pm to 4pm. The anatomy & physiology class that I am taking is extremely boring, owing to the fact that the professor feels that she must repeat everything 6 or 7 times before moving on. After classes today, I didn't do much, so I'm taking this time to give you more insight on NZ. For instance, they have superb saltine crackers. Not only do they taste better, but they are immense. Our cracker pales in comparison. I feel like the following photo just begs to be in this blog, how can I deny it? By the way, this is the street in front of my building, warning oncoming traffic of judderbars. Today I received an e-mail from one of my cousins, informing me that another one of our cousins lives in Australia, which is very exciting. That's about all of the random news that I can come up with today. Here are a few more pictures from yesterday:

New Brighton Pier from a far.

This is my building... Très Moderne

Throw some money in my hat... Day 13

Today I was a tourist. It was quite exhilarating. I went downtown and took pictures like it was going out of style. The Cathedral was pretty sweet, I didn't know you could go inside, but you can & you can take pictures. There were so much gorgeous tile work inside the cathedral as well. I spent $7NZ on a cute dress and a hot pink sarong today. I feel like I'm getting better & better at thrifting here, there are so many good second hand shops to wander through. The city was rocking today, there were 2 street performers that I saw, although one wasn't that great, the other was quite funny. I'm going to throw a lot of video at the end of this post, including the street performer... The video isn't extremely high quality, as I took it with my digital camera instead of my video camera. I stayed to watch a quite intense game of chess on the giant chess board as well. After being a tourist, I went down to the north shore to walk the beach. Quite fun, I walked probably a mile until I reached New Brighton Pier. I found some guys surfing and felt the need to video them... they are quite hard to see, but this is the first time I've ever seen someone surfing, up close. Anyways, I feel like this post is chock full of media, so I'm gonna shorten it up. Look for more later.

Here's a street performer

Look really hard for the surfer

Hmm... I wonder who drew this in the sand? I miss you all :)

Schoolin'... Day 12

I've had my first class. It was slightly amazing. The professor was asking if there were any non-New Zealanders, which there were a few. Interestingly, I'm the only American in my Acoustics & Phonetics class. The professor is slightly intrigued by my accent, so she's been using me as a teaching tool. She says a word, has us transcribe it phonetically (those ridiculous looking symbols that are supposed to mean sounds), then she has me say it and the class has to transcribe it as well. It was quite embarrassing at first, since I sound really funny compared to them. For instance, the word 'art'. As Americans, we pronounce the 'r' pretty significantly. It's not so here, it sounds similar to the word 'at' but with a soft 'a' sound... more of an 'ah' sound. They all laughed when I said aRRRRRt. Evil Kiwis.

Class # 2 was Anatomy & Physiology of Speech and Hearing Mechanisms. It was quite boring, we started off by going over the anatomy of the human body... which isn't really pertinent if you're studying the head.

Now I don't have class again until Wednesday morning, although I'm probably going to hit up New Brighton beach tomorrow morning with Kate. Sweet as.

Intermission... Night 11

So I had the weirdest dream last night. First I was in NZ and my mom came out to visit me & we were walking by the ocean... then a bus driver came down and gave us $8,000. But then, quite near the end of the dream, I realized... oh, I'm asleep, so I started talking to my mom like... hey, we're not really gonna get $8,000 because this is a dream... and she said "Yeah I know" like Andy from Little Britain. Then I woke up.

So classes start this morning (it's Monday here...). I have Acoustics and Phonetics from 11-12, then Anatomy and Physiology of Speech and Hearing Mechanisms from 3-4. Woot.

One Hangi, two Hangi, red Hangi, blue Hangi... Day 11

Last night, my final roommate came and he's the biggest sweet heart. His name is Manosh and he's from the North Island, Auckland area. Quite a nice guy... eventually I'll post pictures of all of my roommates... eventually.
So today we had another Hangi (Maori BBQ... the food is cooked underground). It was pretty good, although the meat was dryer than a camel's ass in a sandstorm. I know, what an awkward idiom. Whatev. Anyways, I pretty much hung out with my friend Ashley, from Minnesota & her Canadian roommate Angie. I think about half of the Americans here are from Minnesota, apparently they wanna get out. We went on this walk up a rock quarry, which was pretty cool, as there was quite a breeze near the top. After the Hangi, we went around to Sumner Beach and went swimming... I went a little more than five feet into the ocean... but not too far. I also went into the cave & took video... not gonna lie, there's not really any audio to it, but its a sweet cave. Around 7, we went for fish & chips at this little takeaway place. Good stuff. I got the most amazing sunburn today. I applied sunblock about 80 times, but I still came out looking like a lobster. A rock lobster. I'm going to go take a bath in aloe vera... wish me luck. Here's a weird sign I saw and felt compelled to take a picture of. <--

Oh & a quick thank you to my faithful readers that comment, I LOVE YOU... comments are like the Christmas presents you get to open early. So thank you to Cat and Mutha and Dana for all your lovely comments. If you're reading this and don't comment... doooo itttttt :) OH and wish me luck on my first day of school tomorrow!!!!! I'm so excited.

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Suddenly I see... Day 10

So I've figured it out. Everyone here drinks. Every single person. That's why I don't go out @ night, because everyone is going to the bars to get plastered. Lame. I need to find the other person in NZ that doesn't drink so we can hang out. Today was probably the coldest day so far, the wind is not dying down at all. Oh, I got my mom to sign up for Skype, which is this thing where you can call computers for free. It's amazing. I tried it out today. You should all sign up, then you can call me, for free, at really odd hours of the night. My username is samantha.underwood32 . Because I'm original.

I'll use this time to post things I've noticed.
~When you're checking the calorie content of foods, you won't find the word 'calories' anywhere. It will have a listing called 'energy' and the amount of energy will be listed in kj(kilojoules) 1 calorie is approximately 4 kj. Tricky at first, but it's pretty easy.
~I like you're standing on the bus & it goes over a judderbar (read: speed bump), you feel quite a bit like you're going to throw up... but in a good way.
~New Zealanders don't believe in window screens... there's usually a fly or two chillin' in my room... but more excitingly, there were two birds in our kitchen today when Hiren & I walked in. It was slightly awkward.
~Our campus has it's own bar... priceless.
~It's really hard to understand a Kiwi when they're mumbling.
~I'm pretty much going vegetarian for my stay here, as meat is soooo expensive. Hello tofu.
~It's socially acceptable not to wear shoes... anywhere. While I personally don't subscribe to this, I've seen people on the bus, in the grocery store and walking around town, not wearing any sort of shoe at all.
~Thrifting is amazing.
~Paper and plastic products are so expensive... I had to get a packet of loose leaf paper for classes & it cost me $4NZ ($3-ish US) for 250 sheets and $6($4.50) for a crappy binder to put it in.
~Everything made/grown locally is awesome and pretty cheap, including produce.
~I can't watch Grey's Anatomy on the ABC website because I'm not in the US. And they know I'm not... which is creepy.
~American music is everywhere.
~Kiwis spell the word 'curb' different... here it's a 'kerb'

Alright, enough for today.

Here it goes again... Day 9

Click on my face & I'll talk to you :)

Moving on... like I said, it was pissing down rain all day today, but I went out anyways. Let me just give this picture a little preamble... New Zealand isn't messing around, I think there's an underlying kinkiness to the place. Judging by this poster, it's not so underlying... You kinky bastards. This poster is next to a Sauna called "Menfriends" Hmmm.... interesting. I tried to take a picture of the name but it didn't come out well. Lame. Anyways, I hung out with the roommates for a bit tonight, now I'm probably heading to bed, since I am lame.

Ch-ch-ch-changes... Day 9

I got a hair cut :) YAY. I really like it, it's super easy to manage. Anyways, it was pissing down rain today, so my hair kinda frizzed out. I went over to New Brighton Pier, which was quite nice, even though it wasn't sunny. There were some people surfing, which made me excited. I also went thrifting a little bit today, I got a pair of pink board shorts and a t-shirt for about $15us. Okay, I'm being pressured into posting these pictures, so I might post more later.

Can I have ten sheep... all to myself?... Day 8

Today was a pretty ordinary day, I woke up really late though, which I didn't expect. I was going to go to the beach, but it didn't look like a beach day outside, so I went down to Riccarton to see if there were any used bikes around. Neg. Then I went over to a store that had a sign made of a British Flag. I was intrigued. Funnily enough, the store was called "Little Britain Foods." I will go back and take a picture. Then I went over to the Salvation Army, which they call "Sally's." Anyways, I found a really cute skirt for $2nz, so it ended up being about $1.40us... It's black with white & pink flowers... sounds tacky, but it's not too bad, I swear. Then I went over to Riccarton Mall. Pretty much like every other mall I've ever been to. Except this one had a K-Mart and the K-Mart doesn't have anything... not too different from home. After Riccarton Mall, I went over to Countdown to get some fresh fruit & veggies. Delicious. I've worked it out so I have about $100nz per week for shopping. That should be way more than enough, but if I'm buying meat, it gets kind of expensive. Except lamb. You know why? There are more than 10 sheep to every person in NZ. 4.3 million people, 50 million sheep. Too bad I don't really like eating lamb.

I went home and talked online for a bit, then I made my supper... or tea, which also means evening meal. I've been drinking a lot of tea here. Yummy. Anyways, I made pasta & I put fresh mushrooms and some chicken that I'm trying to use up, in the sauce. Turned out really good. I also bought some couscous yesterday, it's really good, I was surprised. Not too lead you on by thinking I made couscous out of the blue, Adam made some & let me try it... thus leading me to purchase a box of my own. Adam is a really good cook, by the way. He's a veggie so he gets really creative with his food.

Last night, Hiron's friends came over and it turned into a shit show. That's about the time I went to bed and locked my door. I don't need a drunk guy coming into my room, that's for sure... Apparently one of them fell off the balcony... lucky its only the second floor...

Quicksand... Day 7

Today I went to the International Student Enrolment (they spell that wrong too...) even though I was supposed to go tomorrow (Thursday) morning, I just kinda skated in. It ran really smoothly and it means that I got my internet, as well as my metrocard, today. The metrocard gets me really cheap bus fares. Hopefully I'll be getting a bike within a week, as I heard about this deal where you can buy a bike, then sell it back for half price.

Anyways, today I went into the city for a little bit, talked to Jason & Becky online @ a cafe, then I went down to Sumner Beach, about 1/2 hour outside of the city. I'm going to have to go back with my camera, it is gorgeous. The water was kinda nice, but the rocks and stuff were amazing. There was this huge cave right in the middle of the beach, that you could explore during low tide. It was super sweet. I might go back tomorrow on a picture taking expedition. There's a quicksand warning there... which kinda freaked me out, so I stayed away from that area like whoa.

Anyways, in the enrolment, I got all of the classes I wanted, so I'm good to go! Woot. I think I'm going to catch up on Grey's Anatomy from last week :). Awesome.

Hmmm... Day 6

So today I really didn't do anything important at all... I went into the city for a little bit, I bought a book, which I'm sure I'll be made fun of, but Kent will appreciate it. It's called Inside Little Britain. It's a pretty good book, it's about half biography, half autobiography. Anyways, boring day.

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The American Stereotype... Day 5

Today I had my international student orientation, which on the whole, was pretty boring. I got a few pieces of relevant information, but I could have gotten that in less than the four hours we were there. After orientation, a few of us went off to get phone cards, then I went with a few girls that I met, Stacey & Taylor, who are from Boston, to check out the city. We went downtown on a bus, which only took about ten minutes. We really didn’t stay downtown for very long, maybe an hour and a half, but it is a rockin’ little city. It’s really easy to navigate and it’s absolutely gorgeous. There’s this really cool life size chess set that I saw in the middle of Cathedral Square, which is vaguely reminiscent of the chess set from the second Harry Potter movie, only about half the size. Anyways, we got on a bus to go back to Ilam.

We definitely got on a bad bus, we should have known when the bus driver went nuts at some people, but the geniuses we are, we stayed on. Big mistake. The beginning of the bus ride was fairly uneventful, one guy pretended to be deaf so the bus driver would stop yelling at him. Granted, I knew there were other Americans on the bus, I didn’t know that I would be pretending to be Canadian in only a few moments time. We were at a university stop and the bus driver closed the doors. Well, the other people that were on the bus decided it was time to fulfill an American stereotype. Loud and rude. This big girl and her friend realized that they needed to get off at that stop, just as the doors were closing, then the girl yells, at the top of her lungs ‘WAIT!’ then proceeds to tell her friend, very loudly, that this is their stop. The bus driver said something about not paying attention, which totally set this girl off. She yelled something like “WELL I DON’T KNOW, I’M FROM THE STATES!” She proceeded to yell obscenities at the bus driver as she disembarked. I promptly told the guy next to me, ‘I swear I’m Canadian.” The people on the bus were completely awestruck. Someone actually asked if she was being serious.

Anyways, we walked about 15 minutes to the supermarket called Countdown, and picked up a few grocery items. In addition to groceries, I bought a reusable grocery bag for NZ$.99, since it’s not only eco-friendly, but it’s also easier to carry and way more durable than a plastic bag. And I kinda feel like I’m doing something good for the world. It’s because I’m amazing.

I learned something really weird today. If you are dating someone and you live together for a year, you are legally in a marriage, so if you break up, you are entitled to half of everything, even if you have more. Lame. Also, they have maps that are Southern Hemisphere on top, as well as ones that are centered on the Pacific Ocean, instead of the Atlantic Ocean. I’d be sweet to get my hands on one of those.

So right now, I’m battling a cold that I think I got on an airplane, it’s trying its hardest to knock me out, but I’m fighting it tooth and nail, and I’m drinking tea like it’s going out of style. One more thing… I found the coolest crackers, they’re kinda like saltines, with perforated edges and all, but they are four saltines together in one cracker, they are about three inches square. Simple things make me happy. I think I’m going to get up lazily tomorrow and head downtown. Now I’m going to sleep.

New Home? Nah... Day 4

I just need to start by saying that last night was absolutely ridiculous. Every single person that I came across was half in the bag. I went to bed around 9:30 and passed right out, but around midnight, one of my roommates came in, somewhat drunk, with this guy that was definitely drunk. I think she was getting her bathing suit… which New Zealanders call ‘togs’. Anyways, he whipped his manly parts out and rubbed them on someone’s bed… effing sick.

Today we got up pretty early to get packed up to fly out to Christchurch. When I was packing my blanket and pillow, the zipper broke on my suitcase… luckily its one of those zippers with two on it, so I was able to zip it up nice. After that, I went down and had breakfast, then got on the coach to go to a meeting before we got on the plane. Somehow, I did not get booked on one of the group flights to Christchurch, I ended up on a Quantas flight with another guy from my group though, which was cool. Our flight was a little delayed and unfortunately for the group, our flight was the last to come in, so they had to wait for us. Haha. We got on a questionable bus, then drove over to Ilam Village, the international student flats. Pretty sweet rooms actually, I have my own bedroom, which is a pretty good size, then we have a good size kitchen and dining room/living room. And we have a balcony! Score. So far, I have four roommates, but one is still coming. Anyways, they are Adam, a guy from New Jersey; Jen, from Boston; Kate, from somewhere in the South; and Hiron, a Kiwi from Roturua. The other guy is a Kiwi too, no idea where he’s from. My roommates are pretty sweet so far.

Anyways, I went to the grocery store to pick up some essentials, then I came back and made toast and yoghurt for dinner. I promise that I know how to spell yogurt, I figure I should start spelling things like they do, otherwise I won’t fit in… They spell everything like the British, then they have some of their own spellings. After dinner, I unpacked everything that I brought, then I realized I really brought nothing. I’m going to need to go shopping eventually… but everything is neat and organized.

Caving made my body snap... or Day 3

Today was super intense. We went caving up in Waitomo, which was equally sweet and painful. I went on the most difficult one, as it sounded like the most fun. We had to suit up in wetsuits, Wellington boots, helmets and harnesses.

Here's the top side of the cave... it's called Haggas Honking Holes:

The first thing we did was abseil/rappel 70 feet down into this cave. That was totally awesome. Then we trekked some more, which was okay, but the wetsuits really restrict your movement, way more than I expected. The next thing we had to abseil down was this waterfall, which was amazing. After that, you had to get down on your hands and knees and climb under this ledge by the fall, to a tunnel that took you to the next abseil. I think we did one or two more abseils, then started our assent. It was pretty easy at first, we had to scale a 25-foot wall, while harnessed, but that was the easy part, because it wasn’t too wet. And then my asthma decided to come out full force. It was great, I couldn’t breathe and I was trying to rock climb on wet and slippery rocks. Eventually we got out and got to take showers. Shower = nice. The worst part of the day was definitely realizing how beat up my extremities are. I’ve got bruises all over my arms and legs, and my hands resemble ground beef. It was definitely worth it. The bus ride back to the hostel was uneventful, I fell asleep a few times and I was rubbernecking like it was my job. We got back to the hostel around 6:30pm and I got to the shower as fast as possible. Which meant doom. My hands were completely on fire from all the cuts and such. Dinner was an hour later and now I’m trying to stave off sleep, but I’m failing.

Now I know what my clothes feel like... Day 2

This morning I woke up at about 6:00 am, completely on my own. Apparently I’m not on New Zealand time yet. I watched the sun rise for a minute, then I just went back to the room and chilled. After a while, we went to brekkie, then had a meeting at the Roturua Boys High School. Every boy there has a different hairstyle, its really cool, like totally off the wall sort of stuff. Except the mullet. The Kiwis are trying to bring the mullet back. I really hope they fail. Around 10, we went to the Rainbow Springs Flora and Fauna center. It was okay, the trees were gorgeous, but the wildlife wasn’t really my forte... except the Albino Rainbow Trout. That was cool stuff. We came back for lunch around noon, then most of us went zorbing. It was absolutely amazing, completely unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. They made us dive into the giant plastic ball, then they threw a hose in there with the three of us. After there was an adequate amount of water, they told us to walk ourselves down the hill. It was awesome, we were slipping and sliding all over the place, then a whole bunch of people from the group were laying down in our track, so we ran them over.

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Sweet. After that, we had quite a bit of free time; I used it to call Mom, Dad, Cat & Coop. Around 7, we got on a bus to go to the traditional Maori feast. It was such an experience. While on the bus, we had to pick a chief, then said chief had to go do the hangi with the bus driver, which is the greeting of Maori’s. You gently touch noses twice. This guy kinda screwed it up. He started off good, then he looked like he was leaning in for a nice smooch. Needless to say, the bus cracked up. He immediately fixed his posture. The village had a lot of interesting things to do, then we had our supper. It was delicious. That’s about it for the day, I’m off to sleep now.

Totally Skipped Valentines Day

Yesterday was quite possibly the longest day of my life. Actually, I don’t even think it counts as yesterday. My day started at 6:00 am, Eastern Time. I got up, had a shower and mom and I left around 7:30 am, since there was a major snowstorm rolling in. We stopped and had breakfast, then continued on to the airport. We went through customs and all that stuff and the airline lady gave mom a boarding pass so she could wait with me for my flight. We just kinda hung out and looked at pictures on my computer. When my gate finally got called at 11:35, we both kinda lost it. But then I regained composure to get on the plane.

The flight to Dallas/Fortworth was long and boring. I was sitting next to a man from Wichita, Kansas. Exciting. I arrived @ DFT at about 1:30 Central Time, so that’s one hour gained. Total hours awake so far: 8.5. Then I had an hour and a half layover. I love that airport, it was so big, they said it was the size of Manhattan. It’s so pretty. My flight to Los Angeles left at 3:15pm Central Time. I got to LAX at 4:00pm Pacific Time. Total hours awake thus far: 13. Then I had a five-hour layover. Running total? 18 hours. During the layover, I met a whole bunch of people going the same place that I was. I met one girl, who looked like upper class white trash… figure that out. Anyways, she looks uncannily like Matt Lucas. Which is quite unfortunate for her… and funny for me.

Anyways, I boarded the plane with the rest of the group and I couldn’t believe how amazing it was. The plane was an Air New Zealand 747-400. Effing huge. And each of the seats had it’s own television. And a whole bunch of movies, tv shows, documentaries and music, on demand. We had dinner, which was kinda shady, but only because of the chicken. I still ate it like a ravenous animal. I tried to watch three different films, The Queen, Babel and Mary Antoinette, but I kept passing out for small parts of the movies. We arrived in Auckland, NZ @ about 6:30am New Zealand Time, which is –12 Greenwich Standard and 18 hours behind home. Running time awake? 30.5 hours. We had to go through customs and all that; we finally got through and to the AustraLearn people at about 7:30am. I immediately bought a huge bottle of water and downed it, the plane made me super dehydrated. We left about an hour later, but we were all zonked. We rode on a bus for the next three hours, with a few stops for food and the toilet. Here’s one place we went to, to use the toilets: Yes, I peed in a giant dog. I know, it’s kind of exciting.

We arrived in Rotorua around 1:30 pm and got settled into the KiwiPaca hostel. Sweet as. ß We learned some new words. That’s pretty much saying ‘awesome’ or ‘it’s all good’, they say it all the time. Ready for a lesson in Kiwi English? Dairy = small grocery store, chuddy = gum, dodgy = shady, fanny = vagina… That one is kinda weird, since we were playing a version of bingo to match the Kiwi word to the American word. All the sudden, Tommo, the guy on our bus, is saying ‘The Kiwi version of chewing gum is…? The Kiwi word for female genitalia?’ It was slightly awkward. But whatev.

Total time awake thus far? 37.5 hours. A little while later, they provided a buffet style sandwich bar, which was amazing, as we were seriously famished. A while later, we went to the school across the street to get some super important (read: boring) information about NZ. I tried really hard to stay awake, but it was rough. At about 4:30, we went on a little tour of Rotorua, I wish I had brought my camera, as we went to Lake Roturua, and it was absolutely gorgeous. We drove through town a little bit more, then came back to the hostel. Dinner was pretty delicious and it was all homemade food. After dinner, I went for a walk with a few people to the park behind the hostel, which is a geothermal area. It was really cool, as we saw a whole bunch of little springs. I don’t really remember a whole lot else, as I was awake a grand total of 45.5 hours. I slept very well. Probably because we crossed the international date line and I had absolutely no Valentines Day what so ever.

T-minus 2 days

With 2 days to go before my departure, I'm finally packing. I realized that I want to pack way more than I can bring with me. Shite.

T minus 12 days

I leave for New Zealand in 12 days for my orientation in Roturua, New Zealand :) I'm super excited. Look forward to a video journal and other exciting stuff to come.