"You know, you kinda made me look like an idiot when you left" "... well I think you kind of did that by yourself when you fell over..."

Good day everyone!


This week has been quitee eventful! The Orientation Week events are still going on, and I've been a good sport and gone to some of them, and have met quite a few kiwis here in residence (though I am probably the oldest one here, apart from the RA's and staff). All of the people on my floor are really great to get along with, and it's a pretty interesting mix of different people as well, so there's rarely a dull moment.


Monday consisted of basic university orientation activities- how to be safe, cheer off between the halls, various residence activities etc. I managed to get away for a few hours and dance for a bit, so that was nice.


Tuesday was the international exchange and study abroad student orientation, so that was slightly more of the same information that I had received the previous day. When one of the presenters first walked into the lecture hall (of about 200 people) she asked everyone from the States to raise their hands, and about 90% of the people there were American- unbelievable! I think there are about 10 Canadian students- more or less. And there are a number from Europe and Asia as well. Tuesday afternoon was painfully boring, as I had to wait in line for 3 and a half hours to enroll in my class and get all of that sorted out. I went out that night with a few people from my res to a bar called "The Big Kumara" (Kumara being a sweet potato, they just call them kumaras here...). It was very grungy, definitely not my cup of tea. But since it was a Tuesday night, it was really the only place open, so we made the best of it. It was actually pretty fun watching Rocco (an Indonesian student on my floor) open up and start dancing more.


Yesterday I was sort of having an off day, so I decided to set out and go exploring. I eventually ended up climbing to the top of this mountain-type thing where there's a big wind turbine there. Only one, which I thought was strange, particularly since it's not even that big, compared to some of the wind turbines we use in Canada. Apparently it was put there as a pilot for other wind farm projects in New Zealand. Wellington is a great place to maximize on wind power, because I heard one person say that it is the windiest city in the world- and even if that's not true, I can definitely vouch for it being quite the blustery urban centre, regardless. Anywho, when I got back form my hike, I stopped at a little cafe in Te Aro (just down -literally- from Te Puni Village). I had a really good spinach quiche thing, and a chocolate pancake thing-a-ma-bob that was also quite tasty. When I got back home, there were a few soccer games going on on the field beside campus, so I changed, and headed down there to play soccer for an hour or so. It was so much fun- I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed playing it. Last night was an exchange meet and greet at one of the bars in town. It was really great to meet people from all over the world. The quote in the title happened last night at this bar (called "Hope Bros") when a very drunk guy came up to a few of us and asked if we wanted to dance. I typically have a strict no dancing with drunk guys policy, butttt the song was "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers, so I had to. Well I tried to teach him how we dance to that in Canada- i.e. linking arms, stomping it out, jig-style. And he didn't really have the coordination to do much. Then he ended up falling over. It was kinda funny, but I ended up helping him up, and then walked away, because there wasn't really any point in prolonging that any further. Then he came over after and the conversation in the post title ensued. Poor guy.
The rest of the night was a lot of fun, though it poured rain last night, so it was quite the walk home.


Today not much of consequence has happened- I slept in because I was super tired from last night. And then I went and danced/stretched for a bit. I also bought a pretty cool hat today too.


Andddd the moment you've all been waiting for- I'm sure- Pictures! I haven't posted any before, so I'm hoping this will work...


This is the opera house in Sydney, Australia. I didn't go inside, but I walked around it, the harbour, and the beautiful botanical gardens there as well (which is where I got sunburned). Something I've learned since then is that apparently there is a hole in the ozone layer near here (near Antarctica I believe, but don't quote me on that), and therefore the sun's UV rays are much more powerful than they are at home, which is why us North Americans often get sunburned on this side of the world.

  This is a picture of the Sydney Harbour and Botanical Gardens

These are massive bats that were in the Sydney Botanical Gardens, outside, in daylight. Super cool.

Welcome to the beautiful Wellington harbour front.

More of the harbour...

This is the cool man statue that marks the shortcut I take to get up to the uni campus.

When I went on my hike to see the wind turbine, I took some pictures of the Wellington landscape (#1).

#2

The walk up to the wind turbine- up and up...

Made it!

The view back down- so beautiful.

Self-explanatory

Ze 'arbour. Finit.

I'll have more pictures to post later- preferably ones with people in them.