The First Few Days

Day 1: I moved into my flat, which includes 5 bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room. I live in a place called Ilam village which is about a 5 minute walk from campus. So far I have met two of my flatmates who are both from New Zealand. After getting settled in we started our orientation with a walking tour of Christchurch. Although it was raining the whole day, I still had a fun time. The hardest part was crossing the street because I would always forget to look to the right first. I was amazed at all the different types of trees they have here compared to the states. After finishing up our walking tour we had lunch in the botanic gardens and then headed home. That night we left for Springfield, which is a small village at the foot of the Southern Alps. I wish I had photos to share, but the weather wasn't great. We stayed in a backpackers inn which was run by a family and slept in bunk beds which were spread throughout the house. The owners were very nice and cooked us all a delicious dinner and breakfast the next morning. That night we also went to the local pub to watch the Christchurch Crusaders rugby game. It was fun hanging out with the locals and learning about rugby.
The next morning we started off by going to a local sheep farm where we learned how the farm is run. On this farm there were 3000 sheep spread out on over 5000 acres. The sheep shown in the photo is a Romney breed and it's wool is mainly used for carpets. The farmer was also in the process of training his dog to herd the sheep, which was fun to watch. They then made us a bbq lunch consisting of lamb patties and steaks and delicious home made bread. After lunch we went jet boating in a nearby river which was fun but would have been better if it had not been raining. We then were supposed to go to Castle Hill which is a place with huge limestone boulders but due to the weather we headed back to Christchurch.

On Sunday I saw the sun for the first time since I had arrived so a bunch of us decided to go to the beach. There's conveniently a bus which picks us up at the school and takes us directly there, which takes about 40 minutes. The water was pretty cold but the sun was definitely working because my arms and knees were burnt. I learned after I returned that there's a hole in the Ozone layer over NZ so the uv rays are much more intense. The town by the beach was called Sumner and reminded me a lot of California. As you can see in the photos there are beautiful homes covering the entire hillside. It was pretty cool relaxing at the beach in the middle of February!


We had school orientation on Monday which was pretty boring and took up most of the day. We then went shopping. The groceries here are pretty expensive although the meat isn't too bad. The greatest difference is the cost of beer. A 12 pack of decent beer costs 20 NZ dollars which is about 16 bucks US. The pub which is on campus opened Monday night so we thought we'd try it out. It was a pretty cool place but packed with people. It took about 20 minutes just to get a drink.



Tuesday (which is when I'm writing this) a small group of us took a bus to the "port hills" and did a long hike. We started off at the base of a gondola which took people up the mountain. It was $21 bucks so we opted to hike instead. The hike to the top took about an hour and was fairly steep and tiring. Once at the top we decided to hike an additional 2.5 hours to Sumner (the beach from Sunday) The views which overlooked a harbor and the surrounding mountains were great. The hike also included all sorts of terrain from cliffs and large rocks to jungle-like forests and then grassy fields where sheep were grazing. After finally getting to town we all had our minds set on pizza so we luckily found a place which had a "tasty tuesday" deal which got us large pizzas for the price of a small. One thing that's nice about restaurants in NZ is that you don't have to tip. Waitresses get something like a minimum of 15 bucks an hour! It was certainly a great way to end the day.

Overall I've had a great time so far. Everyone I've met has been extremely kind and friendly. I register for classes on Thursday and then next Monday is when they begin. We're hoping to do some sort of mini road trip this weekend to either the Fox glacier or somewhere else. I'm sure I've forgotten to mention some things but oh well. I guess I'll have to update the blog more frequently. I'll eventually be uploading more photos to my flickr page, where you can view the photos in a larger view.