Aussie!

After talking about it and trying to plan it for ages, I finally bought plane tickets to Australia!! I will be going to Sydney on August 24th-August 28th, then to Cairns and doing a 3 day, 2 night liveaboard dive trip with Megan!  I will then fly back from Cairns to Brisbane (I have a 10hr layover in Brisbane, so I could checkout town, but it's from 11pm-9:45am) then Brisbane to Dunedin leaving Sunday the 1st and getting back home the afternoon of the 2nd!  Next I will book the liveaboard and then figure out the details! I have a friend who is 30min outside of Sydney and its a $2.50 train ride into the city from there, so I may spend 2 nights with her and 2 nights at a hostel in town.  Anyway, more to come later.  Off to Christchurch this weekend still, but looks like a rainy weekend--good thing we have rain coats!

Farming and Beaching

So, for those of you who I talked to early, some of this may be repetitive, but some is new, so deal with it!  The weekend started off great.  July is beach season, eh, so we went to the beach between my classes on Friday.  We (Nick, Lauren, and myself) went to Tunnel Beach, which is named that for the tunnel that the ocean runs through and the tunnel you walk through to get to the beach.  It was GORGEOUS!  The weather here has been beautiful and the beach was awesome (plus, it's hard to get to a beach between classes in Colorado).  Then Friday night we drove down to a friend's farm in Mataura.  They live a very simple farm life, with not many unnecessary luxuries (such as TV), so we ate dinner then played some card games and watched a movie on a computer.  Saturday we had to herd the cattle into a truck to get them back to the dairy farm to milk them, so I sorta learned how to herd cattle.  Then we just got a chance to drive the ATVs around and afterwards fixed up my car.  We got new brakes for $25 as opposed to the $180 the mechanic quoted (sorry Dad).  Finally after lunch, we went out rabbit hunting and ended up with one hare!  Although it had been over a year, I still remembered how to skin it without instruction, but her dad actually shot it.  It was very relaxing and I learned all kinds of new things--for example, a windshield is a windscreen, a trunk is a boot, and a hood is a bonnet.  Then on our way back today we stopped by Gore--the Brown Trout Fishing Capital of the World, but it had nothing else going for it... Around dusk today we went to Sandfly Bay on the Otago Peninsula, which is the same beach I went to before and saw sea lions, but today we were after penguins.  It's hard to see in the picture, as they are small (yellow-eyed penguins) and were in the distance, but we saw one!  Another thing off my NZ-to-do list! He was really cool, but didn't move for the about 15 minutes that we watched him other than turning or shaking--not quite like Happy Feet.  On a side note, this week was the Dunedin Cadbury Chocolate Festival and on Wednesday they had a cooking with chocolate seminar.  I wasn't planning on going, but ended up driving two girls to it and stayed, but since we were a few minutes late, they didn't charge us and I got free chocolate!! Plus, we got a cookbook, so I was inspired and tried brownies--they looked like a disaster, but they tasted good!  Well, that's about all for now.  Off to Christchurch this weekend and hopefully buying tickets to Australia this week!!  P.S. sorry my posts are so long!

Random rambling

So, I know I posted yesterday, but I have random things to ramble about (which also procrastinates my lab report) and you're my lucky recipients!  I won't be offended if you don't read...

1. People here are really nice except they don't hold doors for you and only half of them will say "cheers" if you hold a door for them.
2. Cars don't stop for pedestrians.  Pedestrians are supposed to stop or get honked at--I get honked at a lot.
3. Ol Faithful (our car's name for now) get its first speeding tix, but luckily I wasn't driving!  Nick got pulled over right where it dropped from 100k to 50kph.
4. The earthquake was way north of me and I am fine!
5. I got a ticket for the All-Blacks (the world's winning-est pro sports team at 90%) vs Australia which is a big rivalry game and about a 10 minute walk from my place!
6. My phone for some reason isn't texting Australia numbers like it's supposed to.  I'm learning to not worry over insignificant things. HOWEVER, I went to the store and they gave me $20 balance back on my phone, which is enough for one free month!

I think that's all I've got to ramble about at the moment.  Here's a picture of Ol Faithful.  And a place where we tried to go watch the sunset, but got a little lost and missed it, but got a cool picture anyway.

A weekend of firsts

I was going to write this post tomorrow, but I saw I had 4 page views today, so apparently there's pressure to get this up!  I had a ton of new experiences this weekend--not sure where to start.  We took our new car on its first road trip and it didn't break down! We were in the Southern Alps for the first time!  I went south of the 45th parallel for the first time!  I snow skiied in July for the first time!  I stayed at a hostel for the first time! So many firsts!  I even saw my first Kea or "mountain parrot!" All I'm really left with, though, is that New Zealand is a beautiful country--the mountains were amazing.  Hitchhiking is fun.  We didn't take our car up the rough access roads, so we just hitched from the bottom to the top and vice versa and I got picked up each time within 10 minutes and met some cool people!  One of our friends hitched from Dunedin to Wanaka (normally a 3:30 drive) and got there in 5 hours and 3 cars, which was really impressive!  We skiied Treble Cone one day and Cardrona one day.  The resorts made me realize how spoiled I am in Colorado, but I really just appreciated how beautiful this place is and how friendly the people were.  We met a guy from Russia, who now lives in Sydney at the hostel and he ended up skiing with us both days--he was really weird, but cool to meet people from around the world! Next weekend we are off to our Kiwi friends farm and her dad's going to replace the brake pads in our car!!!  Well, hope to catch up with you all soon!  P.S. neither of my 2 debit cards are working and my student discount card didn't work for my discount, so I understand this whole thing about little frustrations, but nothing major is broken!  P.S.2 The video is a funny and accurate representation of how Kiwis talk... (not sure how to put it at the bottom yet)

Kiwis and their country

Kiwis are awesome people.  I've decided that they are all laid back and on island time, but they are all really friendly and I've made more kiwi friends already than I expected too.  I'm skiing this weekend and borrowed gear from a kiwi, today in class one of my kiwi friends gave me a venison and swan sausage that he made from his hunt.  I put in a word that I want to join him on a hunt if the schedules work out!  We may go to another kiwi's family cattle/sheep farm about 2 hours from school for the weekend next weekend because her dad was all excited to show us around his farm and we were excited to see it!  I also found a sweet fruit stand on campus that's really good and really cheap!  This post is kind of random, but I just am realizing how friendly the locals here are and I've already got friends in all of my classes and from outside of class and wanted to write about it.  One kid Josh is already a pretty good "mate."  This country is basically every cool feature of America in a country with the land mass of Colorado and half the population of NYC. Well, off to Wanaka to ski at Treble Cone one day and probably Cardrona the second day!

Lab, plans, and sports

It's only Wednesday, but this week has been great!  In my first lab for my marine system "paper" (they're called papers, not classes here), we were going to go out on the university's research boat out into the harbor to do water and seafloor measurements.  Of course, though, the boat broke down, so we didn't get to go, but the harbor was sooo blue!  There was tons of kelp and we found a dried up seahorse on the dock!  Last night (Tuesday night) my kiwi host (roommate from NZ) was going to play a game of netball and said her team needed players, so I jumped right in.  It's a very interesting game.  I feel like if we were good, it'd be really intense and strategic, but we weren't.  Essentially, it's like ultimate frisbee in that you can't run with the ball and the defense has to be 3ft off of you at all times.  However, then it's like basketball in that you have to shoot the ball through the hoop in order to score.  Then the positions were a little complicated, but unnecessary to explain here.  Monday night a group of us met up to make some tentative plans so that all of our great ideas could actually happen.  From now until October 12th, I only have 4 free weekends as of now!  The activities include visiting Abel Tasman National Park, mountain biking on the Otago Peninsula, a wildlife tour around Dunedin, a weekend in Christchurch, a weekend in Queenstown (world's tallest bungy!), Lake Tekapo (trying to become the world's first starlight preserve), a 3 day field-trip with a class, skiing this weekend, and a weekend trip to Kaikoura for their Seafest--you dress up and for $40 you get all-you-can-eat or drink local seafood, craft beers, and local wines!  Our mid-semester break is from August 26th-August 30th and I plan to spend that week in Australia scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef and visiting Sydney!  Then our final exam period is from October 14-November 9, so once I get my exam timetable (schedule), I can plan a few more things.  There is an All-Blacks (NZ National Rugby Team and winningest pro sports team in the world--they win 90% of their games) here on October 19th, but I also am hoping to get to Fiji for 4 or 5 days and to Mt Cook.  Plus, I have a backpacking trip planned on the Milford Track (the "greatest walk in the world") from November 11-14th and have a friend (long story) doing that with me! Then I'll have from the 15th-26th to road trip from Dunedin to Auckland! So exciting, but 5 months seems so short now...  Well, weather's beautiful here, unlike at home!  Talk to ya later!

My first NZ tramp

No grandpa, this has nothing to do with a girl... In NZ, hikes are called tramps and I found out that it's because tracks (their name for trails) are usually muddy, so you're tramping through mud.  Hiking here means hitch-hiking. Anyway, we went to Jubilee Hut (the Dept. of Conservation has huts throughout the country) in the Silver Peaks Scenic Reserve.  Some one dropped us off at 9am Saturday morning to begin.  There were 5 of us, one of which had done it before and he said it's a 3-4hr walk, then 2hrs past that to some caves.  Sounded sweet.  He didn't tell me that was from the 2nd trailhead, but we came from the 1st one, which was 6km further.  Plus, the trail isn't maintained in winter, so it took forever.  We literally army crawled under branches and had to climb over trees.  It was crazy.  However, the weather was beautiful and the views were amazing of lush green mountains with the ocean in the background.  So, we eventually, exhaustively, made it to the hut around 4:30pm and 15km!  It had 2 platforms with 4 mattresses on each.  It was more of a half-mattress/half-sleeping pad, but it'd work.  Then it had a small counter and table as well as an outhouse and water spigot.  We already drank straight from the stream though--so fresh!  Plus, it was warm, so we ate our weak little dinner and played cards by headlamp.  We could've had a fire, but no one brought a lighter or matches.  I had to leave a lot of that kind of stuff home and out of my pack.  Then, we went to go look at the stars.  It was INCREDIBLE! You could see tons of stars, the entire milky way, and what we believe were Jupiter and Mars.  Just like any other group of college kids, we went to bed at 8:45pm on a Saturday night and I had my best sleep yet.  Wendy, I see why you sleep so well in your cabin.  11 straight hours!  We decided to skip the caves altogether, but we're going to watch the sunrise (remember it rises late here for winter).  At 8am, Will woke us all up to a little surprise--3-4cm of snow on the ground! It was still coming and we figure they probably got 4-5cm today (2inches about), so we made our trek back in the blowing wind and snow, but there's no such thing as bad weather, just improper clothing!  Luckily, we were all prepared, so we made it back, doing the same crawling and climbing, but now through the snow.  While driving back, we saw a sweet rainbow, which was a great sign!  It was the most extreme "tramping" experience I've had, but I'm looking forward to tons more this semester!!

Car and camp

So we bought a car! 1994 Subaru Legacy sedan (but the back seats fold down in several ways to make it possible for skis to fit.) I split it with 2 other guys and we got it for 1350, they asked 1500.  I'll put pictures up sometime, but we're going to take it to a shop to get it checked out if anything's wrong.  Also, the surfing thing fell through, but I'm going camping tomorrow night at Jubilee hut by Silver Peaks!  There's a cave there and rock overlook and things to do, so it'll be fun.  I think 5 of us are going, but I'm not driving.  Pics to follow Sunday!

Checking in!

Hey all! Hope your summer's are great!  I don't have much exciting stuff to say at the moment, mainly just checking in.  I test drove a car last night, so finally drove on the opposite side of the road.  It wasn't too bad except I hit the windshield wipers on instead of the blinker every time.  I don't think the lady is going to take our offer for her car though. Class is going good.  All of them seem decent, but final exams are worth at least 50% of my grade in each class.  I've made one friend in one of my classes, but in 2 of them, we do small group projects,  so I'll definitely get to meet people! It's odd though that people here don't wear backpacks, don't text and walk, don't listen to Ipods while walking to class and professors say "over in North America..." but I'm getting used to it! Otherwise, I'm bummed I'll miss all the stuff at home, but I think I'm headed to the beach for some climbing and surfing this weekend!  Working on planning more trips...

Touristy things

So Friday I got to do the Taieri Gorge Railway trip for free.  It was a really beautiful train trip into central Otago and the rail station in Dunedin is an amazing building!  This morning we got up and went to the farmer's market, which was huge then hiked up Signal Hill which gave us a great view over all of Dunedin, then took the (expensive) bus to St Clair beach. This is the second time i've hiked up a hill/mountain then gone to the beach!  Next I need to ski and then go to the beach on the same day!  We also saw a random rugby game going on, so we sat on the beach and watched some rugby game.  What an awesome sport!

Classes and Contact

Hey,

Just registered for classes! I got into freshwater ecology, global marine systems, and ecological applications! I should have Wednesdays off, but have class every other day.  Also, my phone number here is 022 395 4183.  I can receive your calls and you get charged at whatever rate your company charges, but not me.  My address is 378a Leith Street, Dunedin,  NZ 9054.  Miss you all and happy 4th of July (it is the 4th here)!

Love,
B