First Weekend in Christchurch

So my first night in New Zealand was spent hanging out with my flatmates and meeting lots of neighbors in the block across from us that all of our windows face so people are always shouting back and forth across the balconies, there was even mention of creating a zipline. I've met so many people in the past 2 weeks and had to introduce myself so many times that I was tempted to make a shirt that read:

Hi my name is Erika

I'm from NY

NO NOT NYC

I'm here for 1 semester

I'm studying Commerce

It's nice to meet you

What's your name again?

That's basically what the first few days consisted of over and over and over again, but it was awesome to meet so many people especially from all over the world.

Since I stayed up until midnight my first night I didn't experience too much jetlag but I had absolutely no conception of time which i think was mostly due to losing a whole day during flight-i just didn't have a wednesday and also going from winter to summer really threw me off..i'm still getting used to the fact that it gets dark at 9:30.

During the day i got my room all set up and went grocery shopping at Countdown which is about a 15 minute walk from my flat which was quite the experience. Everything was so foreign and confusing because certain things go by different names Ex: granola =muesli and all the American brands I'm used to buying of course cost so much more than all the NZ brands b/c of the cost to import them. One of my favorite thigns so far about New Zealand is that they're HUGE into Cadbury chocolate...my favorite kind of chocolate if you didn't know. So cadbury eggs are everywhere and every other type of Cadbury chocolate imaginable, and its cheap. I'm currently eating a bit of Cadbury coconut rough chocolate....itss soooo goood. Today in my strategic management class I learned that NZ is the biggest exporter of dairy products in the world and they have a dairy products surplus of about 90-95% so yes NZ dairy products are really good...which makes for really good chocolate :) Also, theyhave Kiwifruit Chocolate which is really good. It's funny, since New Zealanders are called Kiwis, the call kiwis (the fruit) kiwi fruit. We found this out by having a conversation about eating kiwis (the fruit) w/o distinguishing btwn kiwi and kiwi fruit which led to some serious confusion with our Kiwi friend.

For our first Friday night in NZ I went into "town" (downtown Chch) with Julie (from Geneseo), her flatmate Laurie (from WI) and our friend Katharina (from Germany). We had a blast but were surprised to find that it was pretty dead, apparently Friday isn't that big of a going out night, most people go out for happy hour and then save up their energy for Saturday which is big. We had some Pavlova(a traditional NZ dessert) at a little cafe then continued on to a small bar called the Bard on Avon Ye Old English Pub ( there's a river that snakes around Christchurch called the Avon River pronounced with a long A like Straford upon Avon as opposed to the Geneseo short A version...confusing me even more). It was really nice though, there were 2 guys called Oliver and Topia playing these sweet acoustic covers-they were great! We also made quite the impression on Kiwi rockin a mullet who loved to talk about BBQs, quite a character...veryyyy entertaining. We then proceeded on to another bar where we were treated to some delicious free appetizers, some of the best I've ever had. The best thing about going out in New Zealand is there's no cover charges and tipping isn't customary so we had a night on the town for $17 USD which was awesome!

Sidenote: When you get IDed you have to show your passport it's show strange. What also weird is not getting IDed most of the time because the drinking age is 18. And what's even weirder is seeing school stuff sponsored by alcohol and getting coupons for bars and alcohol during orientation and enrolment. Also, all the on campus clubs try to entice students through free alcohol, it's pretty funny. I actually joined the engineering club called ENSOC which is basically a huge social club, hundred/thousands of ppl join just for the free BBQs and parties and they have a few other events and bus trips planned to places I'm looking forward to visitng.

ANYWAY, we spent our beautiful sunny Saturday exploring the city of Christchurch. First we got our metro(bus passes) then we walked around downtown , and got some ice cream which was mixed with fresh fruit right there at one of the vendors in the square. The city center is really pretty and filled with a bunch of vendors and there's lots of neat little shops and restaurants and cafes and bars. We went into Chch Cathedral which was beautiful and did the tower Climb which was really neat. It's 134 steps up this tiny spiral staircase (which reminded me a lot of Ireland), I was so dizzy by the end but the view overlooking the city was worth it! We then went home, had dinner, got changed, and went back out with some of our flatmates and friends into the city to dance the night away.

I spent Sunday at New Brighton Beach with some of my flatmates and our new friends from France and Switzerland. Although it was cloudy we still had a really fun time and played soccer or football on the beach which was a blast. We saw a couple getting married on the pier which was really cute, and reminded me that it was Valentine's Day which i completely forgot about, like i said i had absolutely no conception of time, and still don't b/c the who sun setting so late and the fact that I've been so busy and haven't even had the need or want to look at the time. When we got back that night we celebrated Vday with a bottle of champagne and the chocolates Mom sent me off with-THANKS MOM YOU'RE THE BEST! After that, finally went to bed early in order to be prepared for orientation that was to follow the next day.

My Flat

When we got to campus we were shown to our "flats" aka apartments which are part of the campus and about a 5 minute walk to the actual class buildings. There's a bunch of different "blocks" aka apartment buildings located around a central quad which is a really nice place to hang out for people and ducks alike (there are ducks everywhere!). Since all of the international students are placed in the Ilam Apartments, I'm surrounded by people from all over the world which is really cool but the majority of international students are from America ( my 2 non American flatmates are calling it the American invasion). Anywho I ended up in a pretty diverse flat which is great. Our 5 person flat is made up of me, Alex a sophomore from UVM who is here for 1 semester, Jacob from Montana who is getting his second degree at the University of Canterbury (from now on referred to as Uni Canty or just Uni), Emir from Paris who is doing an internship here at the Uni for 1 year, and Rebecca who is originally a kiwi but has been living in Australia for the past 7? years. We each have our own bedroom which is nearly the size of a double dorm room from back home and the beds are definitely wider than Geneseo beds which is sweet! We have 2 bathrooms which each have their own shower so we designated a boys bathroom and a girls bathroom which is quite convenient. We have a fully furnished kitchen and a living room with 3 couches, and a small flat screen tv. But my favorite part is the balcony, even though it looks directly at another building (as does my window which my desk is in front of) it's soo cool! We've had a few dance parties on the balcony already which is always a fun time. One thing that's different than at home is that there's no screens on any windows because there's barely any bugs here. Other than the extremely loud humming of the cicadas I've only seen a few flies which is soooo nice. I can just leave my winow open all the time and not really worry about bugs-can't do that at home! Oh another fun fact, all of the flat buildings are solar powered; when you open a window the heat turns off...very eco friendly here in new zealand. But yeah, I love my flat, it's awesome....and Emir is a realllly good cook! By the way, I'm going to come home speaking French (or with an improved vocab of useless french slang) and cooking Tunisian/ Arabic/French food...last night we had some delicious crepes! So far the only problem or slight downfall that I've encountered while here in NZ is the fact that the 3 boys i live with love Sardines...our fridge smells GROSS, but I think i can live with that minor misfortune.

The Journey Across the Pacific

Surprisingly the 34 hours it took to get here wasn't so bad. Our flight left from JFK on Tuesday, February 9 and arrived in Christchurch on Thursday, February 11. Everything went very smooth and we didn't have to wait more 20 minutes in any security line. The only hassle was my thumb which I had sprained 3 days before leaving, so ripping all my electronics out of my overstuffed carry on a bunch of different times was quite a pain and it was really hurting throughout the flight. From JFK we "hopped off a plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan" (sorry, I had to do that), which surprisingly was quite empty, where we had dinner and I had my last opportunity to have a legal drink in the states before arriving in NZ where the drinking age is 18. Thankfully on all the flights I was seated next to Julie, one of the girls from Geneseo who I was traveling with, which was especially nice on the looonngggg flight to Auckland so I could fall asleep and not worry about knocking into a stranger on both sides. Air Zealand was actually a really sweet company to fly with and made the long journey quite bearable. Every seat had a tv screen with hundreds of up to date music artists from around the world (I enjoyed discovering some kiwi bands) and probably 100 new movies and a bunch of tv shows ( I watched some shows on exploring the Christchurch and Canterbury region). But mostly I slept which shocked me since I usually can never sleep on planes. I was woken up at around 2 or 3am local time due to some extreme turbulence which actually happened when we were flying right over the pacific islands. For all you LOST fans out there, Julie and I had been joking about Oceanic 815 the whole way over and when that happened we both were like ahh it's the island! it was pretty funny. And when i talked to my dad the next day, he said he had been tracking my flight and around the same area the pilot turned the tracking off and dad was freaking out and when he found the plane again it had taken a 90 degree turn and was headed for south america...weird right? Anyway we made it safely to Auckland on the North Island after being in a plane for 12 hours and experiencing about 20 hours or so of darkness since we wre flying away from the sun. When we got to Auckland it was so nice and sunny and tropical feeling, it kinda reminded us of Florida. After waiting around for 3 hours and attempting to freshen up in the bathroom we hopped on a plane to Christchurch where we first watched the most hilarious air safety video ever, the kiwis (btw new zealanders are called kiwis) were so funny (wayyyy better than any required safety video i've seen back home) that i actually watched the whole thing. We also sat next to a man who had been to NY before and in our conversation made some conversation about how gross NJ is...funny that even on the other side of the world people have the same opinions about dirty jersey. Anyway the hour and a half flight was absolutely beautiful-all the water we flew over was a pretty teal and tourquoise color, it was hard to tell the water from the sky. As we got closer to Christchurch (from now on I'll refer to it as ChCh) it became cloudier and when we landed it was raining. Right away we were greeted by our taxi driver who was very friendly and fun and of course had to say something that totally fit the American stereotype when we passed 2 MacDonalds in the foodcourt. Forgetting that Kiwis drive on the other side of the road, when we got to the taxi one of us went to get in the drivers side of the car which of course the driver made fun of us for. After a crazy drive (on the left hand side of the road-going around roundabouts was terrifying)we reached our final destination: THE UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY, CHRISTCHURCH NZ.

"Kia Ora Aotearoa" Welcome to New Zealand

Hello everyone! After 11 days of being in Christchurch the one thing that keeps coming to my mind that I want tell everyone over and over again is I LOVE NEW ZEALAND! This past week has been absolutely incredible and so jam packed with fun and adventure that I've barely had the time sit down at my computer let alone send emails or blog. But, I've been jotting down a few notes at the end of each day so I won't forget anything, and now that classes have officially started and I can no longer be galavanting through Middle Earth everyday I'll have time to keep this blog updated with all my latest and greatest adventures.

Warning: I'm going to use this to basically unload my brain and throw down as many details as possible so entries might get a little bit wordy and there will definitely be grammatical errors so no criticizing (Will and Jackie that was for you, but mostly Will)

Anywho I'm going to attempt to inform you of everything that has happened in the past 11 days, so here goes...Enjoy!

"Kia Ora Aotearoa" Welcome to New Zealand

Hello everyone! After 11 days of being in Christchurch the one thing that keeps coming to my mind that I want tell everyone over and over again is I LOVE NEW ZEALAND! This past week has been absolutely incredible and so jam packed with fun and adventure that I've barely had the time sit down at my computer let alone send emails or blog. But, I've been jotting down a few notes at the end of each day so I won't forget anything, and now that classes have officially started and I can no longer be galavanting through Middle Earth everyday I'll have time to keep this blog updated with all my latest and greatest adventures.

Warning: I'm going to use this to basically unload my brain and throw down as many details as possible so entries might get a little bit wordy and there will definitely be grammatical errors so no criticizing (Will and Jackie that was for you, but mostly Will)

Anywho I'm going to attempt to inform you of everything that has happened in the past 11 days, so here goes...Enjoy!