Who Knew About the Giant Male Sex Organ on My Wall?

Did my title intrigue you? You'll just have to keep reading then. It took me the entire day of feeling under the weather for the second day in a row and thus being completely unproductive to realize that I should have been updating my blog. To compensate for this, let me provide you with some pictures taken over the last week:




Chloe, Liz and I making homemade lasagna last Friday night. Tomorrow (this week's Friday), we're making mussels in garlic sauce and crinkle cookies. Somehow, I have never heard of or tasted this particular chocolate desert before so it could be interesting.









Liz, Ebony, Chloe and I at the annual Jaffa Race last Friday during the Cadbury Chocolate Festival (details below).









Some of my flatties and I out and about on Saturday night after watching the rugby match (details below)!














Andrew and I attempting to reclaim our Jackpot prize at quiz night. Unfortunately we failed miserably but, we're now on The Bog's website!













Carnival Night at Re-O week (details below)!














Me on top of the EPIC wall which proved to be a challenge for Chloe and Ebony.













On the ferris wheel at the carnival with Ebony and Chloe!








What, you couldn't guess my entire week just from those photos? Fine fine, I'll fill in on some of the gaps. As I prefaced in my previous post, last Thursday night was the carnival portion of Otago's Re-Orientation week. Although the festivities lasted for most of the day, Ebony, Chloe and I went later on in the evening where we enjoyed quite possibly the longest swing ride known to man, a freezing ferris wheel ride which gave us a nice evening view of the campus' clock tower, and a bouncy climbing wall. While I relied upon what little upper arm strength remained from my prime tennis days to pull me up the climbing mountain multiple times, my other flatmates unfortunately floundered (not that I didn't enjoy watching them make it an inch off the ground before falling right back down again). Despite acquiring a few war wounds from the wall, I had a fun time and found it interesting to be on the swings in the freezing cold while, if I was at home, I probably would have also recently gone on the same ride with my cousins under completely different weather circumstances.

The night continued as we headed off to "Velvet Burgers," a burger restaraunt that Ebony had been promising to take us to since I encountered my first NZ hamburger at the 4th/5th of July party weeks earlier. The staff was clearly overwhelmed by the large reception they were holding in a downstairs room and they managed to mess up almost all of our orders except for one. At one point, the waitress came out saying, "one chicken little with no salad" while setting down a burger that obviously was topped off with a large bed of lettuce. All in all, it was certainly no "Five Guys" although I must admit, it introduced me to alioli (a garlic mayonnaise) which I am rather fond of. To kill time before the movie began, we ordered hot chocolates at a nearby bar and watched a medley of comedic clips played on the bar's TV. Finally, we made our way over to the movie theater to watch the sixth installment of the Harry Potter movies. I don't know what this says about the actual movie, but the most exciting part of the whole movie-going trip was the theater. Our assigned seats were located near the back but, that did not matter. All of the seats were armchair like and there was so much floor space that you couldn't reach the chair in front of you even if you tried (or at least I couldn't). If you are a true Harry Potter fan, of course you have to see the movie in theaters (if you haven't already) otherwise, put it on your netflix lineup. As this is a blog about my study abroad experience at the University of Otago and not Hogwarts, I will not go into further detail.

After classes (or should I say class) on Friday, Liz, Chloe, Ebony and I attended the annual Jaffa Race on Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world (see picture above). This race is the climax of the Cadbury Chocolate Festival where people essentially roll thousands of big Jaffas (round Cadbury chocolate candies with an orange flavor coating) down Baldwin St. Unfortunately, my jaffa could not compete with the others and I did not win the year long supply of chocolate promised for the winner. Later on, we went to Pack'n'Save to prepare for our first Friday cooking night. For our first meal, we made a tasty lasagna followed by a less than tasty apple concoction. Although Chloe and I set out to make Jewish Apple Cake, we added about three times the amount of apples the recipe called for which resulted in a doey apple mess. Andrew actually seemed to enjoy it and, since I felt bad wasting all of the apples, I managed to scarf down a few slices myself. Hopefully we will have better luck with our weekly dessert this weekend.

Then came my first official weekend of the school year which is always a rewarding and much needed couple of days. Saturday night was particularly enjoyable as I spent the night out hanging with some of my flatmates. We first head over to Starters Bar located a few blocks from our flat where we ate dinner and then watched my first rugby match, the All Blacks vs. The Wallabies rugby match. I am not one for sports and usually lose interest in watching sporting games within the first two minutes, a fact which both my dad and brother can confirm. However, while I still am not quite sure what I was really watching or how the game is played, it was an exciting experience. Unlike football, rugby can only last 80 minutes and I think knowing this gave me a goal and helped me make it to the end of the match. Another factor that contributed to my extended interest in this rugby match was that the All Blacks won! Our group celebrated the All Blacks victory by traversing over to The Bog where we spent our bar tab earned from quiz night (see pictures above and on Facebook).

Let me not neglect to mention one of the more memorable moments of the week (even if I didn't blog about it, I'm sure you would find out about it anyway as it seems to be a favorite discussion topic among my flatmates). A few nights ago, I awoke in the middle of the night facing a glow-in-the-dark penis. Half asleep, I initially started freaking out and began contemplating all of the possible types of cosmic signs that a neon penis could be sending me. Once I came to my senses and realized that the previous, most likely male, occupant of my room had found it humorous to deface my bedroom wall by painting a male organ in glow-in-the-dark paint invisible to the eye except at night. How I managed to avoid noticing this until now, I do not know but, I wish my oblivious nature had continued to shield me from such a sight. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Unable to continue sleeping knowing what was displayed on the other side of me, I arose and frantically searched for something to cover up the horrific image. Single sheets of paper proved too translucent and I eventually had to settle on my campus map.

On Monday night, Team Epic unsuccessfully attempted to win another bar tab at quiz night. It was around that time that my immune system welcomed in an illness that has been plaguing the rest of the campus. Since then, I have been lying low, trying to sleep the sickness out of my system. While my symptoms continue to persist, I have not become desperate enough to use the travel sized netty pot which my mom skillfully managed to sneak in my carry on bag (for those of you who have not encountered my mother when sick and are thus unaware of the netty pot, it is a torture device used to pour hot salt water into one nostril and out the other).

I suppose I should also update you on my course selection. After much debate, I have finally drawn up a final course schedule which I am not too excited about. It looks like I will be taking a 200 level New Zealand Plant Ecology Class which seems absolutely horrible, uninteresting and extremely challenging. The other biology class I am taking, entitled Bio112 Animal Biology, now seems to be lets just say, less than interesting. At least we will get to dissect a possum and an eel and there will be guest lecturers talking about their NZ based research. Yet, I am already disappointed in the teaching fellows who failed to correctly sign my course change sheet three consecutive times. If I am ever aggravated while blogging, chances are, one of these two courses is to blame. Moving on from the uninspiring biology classes, I am taking Maori Society with a few of my flatmates and what seems like the rest of the university. Originally the class was supposed to have 200 people however, it now has 500! It is by far the largest class I have ever enrolled in. The lecture theater is massive (this is coming from someone who freaked out when she had a class with more than 40 people in it freshman year)! The class has potential although it is extremely hard to follow when the instructor throws out Maori terminology which bears no resemblance to English or any of the romance languages. Finally, my most enjoyable class is a 200 level classics course entitled Life and Death in Roman Society. Thus far, the class has been quite insightful and filled with interesting readings. Hopefully the course will carry on in this general direction.

Most days I am sprinting from one end of the campus to another in-between my back to back classes. They keep telling me that the University of Otago is fairly small but, I have concluded that they clearly have not visited Bryn Mawr College. Usually I leave approximately two minutes prior to class, walk across Merion Green and I am ready to go. Here, I have to leave my flat at least 15 minutes to reach the closest place on campus on time. Let's just say that I will try my best to no longer refer to Park Science as the "far away building." While I have already acquired blisters from trekking to class, I think it is worth it (well, I think I would trade in some of my classes in return for intact feet). Not only do I get to experience New Zealand culture but, I also have the opportunity to experience the culture associated with larger universities as well. If you ask me to reevaluate my stance in a few weeks time, my answer may change but, I think in the end, I will appreciate having a taste of the big university environment.

Now that I have finished this post, I have successfully managed to end the day without touching my books! It's OK, I only have one class tomorrow and then it's the weekend (as much as I dislike my classes, they do allow me to only have one Friday classes which is a delightful treat). I'll let you know how our Friday night dinner goes.

Who Knew My Study Abroad Courses? I sure don't.

Hey there! It is pre-dinner blog time at 2a Forth Street. As I mentioned in my last blog, I started classes this week. This Friday is the end of Otago's shopping week and, as usual, I have yet to decide on my final schedule. My course schedule is a bit of a sore spot of the moment but, once I finalize my schedule which, with any luck, should be happening sometime tomorrow, I'll fill you in.

Meanwhile, let me avoid doing the reading for my classics 224 class by telling you what has been going on the past few days. I awoke early on Monday to poke around the online course catalog, which had been down the day before, and then embarked on my first day of classes (I will provide you more detail on the academic aspect at a later date). As part of the lab for the New Zealand Plant Ecology class, we took a field trip to the botanical gardens. As I walked home from the gardens with a few classmates, we came upon Castle Street. Now, before I left, you may have heard me freak out over the state of the student flats at Otago. While my flat is lovely, all flats are clearly not created equally. Immediately I saw why the university flats garnered a bad rep. It was only about 4:30PM when we were walking home and already there were people participating in keg stands and smashing empty beer bottles on the ground. We weaved in and out of the many police officers patrolling the street and avoided stepping on bodies of passed out students lying on the side walk in the dead of winter. Generally I spend the first night of classes freaking about my course schedule and catching up with friends but, I guess some Otago students take a different approach to welcoming the new semester.

I too had an unconventional conclusion to my first day of classes. My flatmates and I joined some of my kiwi host's friends at "The Bog," a local bar, for their weekly quiz night session. As I mentioned above, I usually spend the first night of classes fretting about academics so it was a little odd for me to not only nonchalantly neglect my school work but to ignore academics in favor of a bar. Since the legal drinking age in New Zealand is 18, I am completely legal here. In fact, I will be legal for almost the rest of my life, except for the 24 days between when I arrive home and my 21st birthday (crazy, right?). I am still surprised by the fact that I can walk into a bar and order a drink (and judging from their reactions, so are the bartenders...I am going to be carded until I am 70). Anyway, this quiz night was quite an improvement over my previous experience with NZ quiz night (see previous blog post). Although I only managed to contribute minimally, our team, Team Epic (OK, so my obsessive use of the word 'epic' did contribute to our team name), managed to score a large plate of free food and a 100 dollar bar tab which we plan to use this weekend. The coolest part of the entire night was a question in the final round which asked, "Which 10 time Tony Award winning Broadway musical just won the 2009 Tony Award for Best Musical?" Answer: Billy Elliot the Musical! As I joyfully scribbled the answer down, I shouted out, "My uncle has one of those 10 Tony's!" What's even funnier is that I was just telling some of my flatmates about my uncle's Tony Award win earlier that night. For more on the Tony Awards, check out my facebook album.

Yesterday, I made my first souvenir purchase! Since I needed to buy a lab coat for my biology labs (why I need a lab coat for working with plants, I do not know), I opted for the lab coat/scarf deal, which actually was not a deal since the price amounted to the same cost as buying the coat and scarf separately. Nevertheless, I now have the official scarfie scarf! All the students here are known as scarfies so scarves are a big deal. Of course, I have not worn my scarf out yet as I am afraid that it will instantly mark me as an international tourist. I also now have a lab coat with the University of Otago crest. The lab coat is actually a size too big but, the xxxs coat did not have the Otago emblem on it and I felt bad spending this kind of money on a coat that couldn't double as a souvenir.

In other news, my flaties have all become obsessed with facebook/bebo/internet stalking one another. While I briefly participated in this stalking frenzy, as far as I know, I have avoided serving as the subject of one of their stalking endeavors (although Chloe did ask me why I was all dressed up in some of my facebook pictures). In light of all of the stalking going on down here, I thought I would let you in on the fun. Here is a chance to get to know a little more about my lovely flatties:

Ebony is our flat's kiwi host whom we appreciate very much since she keys us into the Dunedin happenings and especially because she does not resemble certain other insane kiwi hosts. She has completed her French major and is back for more as a part time student. If you hear me mention Shortland Street, just blame her as she's the one who got the rest of the flat hooked on this particular soap.

Liz, the toast-loving, hot chocolate imbibing, flatmate hails from Austin, Texas where she is prelaw, majoring in Philosophy and possibly double majoring/triple minoring in a series of subjects. At the moment she is pressuring me to take a 100 level biology class with her by using the persuasive tactic of poking me until I give in. Like me, she is an extremely picky eater and from the looks of it, only eats seasonable vegetables (that is a vegetable once a season). One of her favorite NZ pastimes is laughing at funny New Zealand slang.

Andrew comes from Scotland although he would rather that I describe him as being from the UK. He's traveled all over the place and as he put it tonight, "he's a citizen of NZ when they let him." Unfortunately for him, he has to take all 400 level papers at Otago since he is too ahead of the game in his law program at his home institution. However, I still am spending way more time in class than him, a fact which he never grows tired of pointing out, so I have very little sympathy. When he is not busy mocking me, he can be found yelling at Dell Computer people, checking cricket/rugby scores, obsessively watching Shortland Street, or listening to his eclectic music which consists largely of Michael Jackson and Miley Cyrus songs.

Chloe made the transition from southern California summer to Dunedin winter. She planned on studying abroad in France but at the last minute, she decided to take on a new minor just so she could study abroad in New Zealand. It's always great to be greeted by her since she has such a cheery "Helooo!" During quiz nights, we usually end up chatting while the rest of the team attempts to answer the questions. She is an excellent baker, a fact that I discovered after I helped her bake a scrumptious apple pie. Eventually we plan to travel various places together such as Sydney (which she pronounces oddly), and Wellington (where she wishes to purchase a pair of willies).

Thatcher is the sixth flatmate who traveled to NZ from somewhere on the east coast. I believe he is an Environmental Studies major studying at Saint Lawrence University. He intends to spend a lot of time in Queenstown skiing while here in NZ. Apparently we have a class together which is cool. He tends to keep to himself so we haven't seen much of him but, he seems alright.

Hopefully you now have an idea of the awesome people who make up 2a Forth St! Well I best get some sleep. Tomorrow is University of Otago Re-O week's carnival day and immediately after that, I am sitting in my assigned movie theater seat to see the sixth Harry Potter movie with my flatmates (and I unfortunately must make my final course schedule decision)! I'll get back to you on how everything turns out!

**Small addition: Tonight, the rest of my flat felt earth tremors associated with an earthquake. As I was sitting on my bed, I unfortunately did not feel said tremors. Now that I have included "the most exciting thing that has happened to us since the Jackpot win," I have concluded that my blog is still dominating.

Who Knew You Could Add a Title? Sorry, still new to this whole blogging thing.

Hello again! Today, I am going to start with something that's worth 1000 words and then proceed to add a few words of my own. Here are some of the much anticipated pictures (eventually, you will be able to find more on facebook):



The dinner meal provided by airNewZealand on my trip to Auckland









The plane I boarded that took me to Auckland, NZ. I realized that I neglected to mention the safety video played on my flight from Auckland to Dunedin. Fearing that not enough passengers paid attention to the safety information, NZ decided to take a different approach. Just a few days before my travels, airNewZealand launched its Bare Essentials Safety video where body painted crew members delivered the safety information. Judging by the number of passengers who tuned in for the video, this approach definitely seems effective. If you haven't checked out youtube's newest sensation, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Mq9HAE62Y





The Cadbury Chocolate Factory located in Dunedin (I clearly picked the right place to study abroad)












The Dunedin Train Station where the international students caught the train for the Taieri Gorge Train Trip














View from the train on the Taieri Gorge trip













Some of my flatmates at the BBQ which awaited us at the end of the train trip













A little tour of my room



























One of the many quirky NZ things that myself and my flatmates cannot get over. Eggs are not stored in the refrigerator. My eggs are currently sitting in the pantry. How odd.






I hope you enjoyed the pics since they took 40 minutes to upload onto this site. Now on to the less visual stuff. Judging from the last post, I left you off at orientation. This past Wednesday was international orientation and boy was that a treat! It began early in the morning with some man chanting in Maori for at least 5 minutes and then concluding with a song in Maori. As I was to find out soon, this was the first of many musical performances yet to come. Next up was a group of middle school children who serenaded the lecture hall with a series of tribal welcome songs and dances. The mayor of Dunedin, adorned in his regal regalia, took center stage, listing all of the countries which this semester's international students belonged to (as expected, Americans filled up a good portion of the lecture hall which I might add is one of the largest lecture halls I've ever been in). After the mayor, who happens to do a little opera on the side, concluded with his song, the boring and typical orientation material commenced.

Then came the least favorite day of my travels thus far: course registration. Thursday morning, I woke up early along with the rest of my flatmates and began the time consuming process of University of Otago course registration. All started out well as we were the first in line to get our course form sheet and I began the day with a chocolate croissant and hot chocolate from an on campus cafe. At Otago, you must go in person and get course advisers from each subject area to sign off on your courses. The classics and Maori studies advisers quickly signed off on my first two courses. Then came the science room. Apparently, my transcript was never sent to the advisers so I could be approved for any of the science courses I was planning on taking and need to take in order to complete my biology major back home, a fact I did not realize until after spending 20 minutes in line waiting to speak with the rude physiology adviser. After rushing to the international office to obtain a copy of my transcript and waiting another half an hour in queue for the science adviser, I was informed that I have not really met any of the prerequisites for any of the upper level biology courses. Classes start on Monday and, as usual, I have no idea what I am taking and I am of course internally freaking out. Leave it to me to find an international schedule problem (for those of you who are not aware, scheduling problems are nothing out of the ordinary for me). At the moment, I am signed up to take some 200 level NZ Plant Ecology class which, sounds horrible as I am not really an ecology kind of person. I am still frantically searching for one additional biology class. Once I establish my course schedule, which probably will not be until after their pseudo-shopping week, I'll let you know.

In an attempt to block out all memory of the afternoon's events, I attended the oh so fun International Student Quiz Night, held at The Cook, one of the 40 bars in or near the octagon of Dunedin. I, along with my kiwi host and other flatmates, sat through 10 grueling rounds of 10 questions in topics ranging from alcoholic beverages to science and nature. Apparently I suck as an American but that's OK because I was the only one who knew what really matters: Miley Cyrus' character's fictional last name (The answer is Stewart for anyone who was feeling intrigued enough to resort to google. How that qualifies as general knowledge, I do not know.). When we were asked who was the T.V. personality Borat fell in love with, I instantly snatched our team's pen and for the first time ever, appreciated my dad's obsession with the Kazakstanian character. Unfortunately, they were looking for CJ, not Pamela Anderson. For the rest of the night, our team of four sat in the corner and lamented the fact that we had shelled out five dollars for this infernal torture. We concluded the night by finishing off the Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy although I fell asleep about half way into the movie (an event that seems to be a regular occurrence for me these days).

Yesterday, most of the international students went on the Taieri Gorge Train Trip sponsored by Otago (See pictures above. More to come on Facebook). We pretty much sat on a train for a little over an hour until we got the the BBQ site where we ate lunch in the cold and then we took the train back home. The view was alright, nothing too spectacular, mostly just a lot of sheep. Afterwards, my flatmates and I took a group trip to Countdown (a supermarket) and ordered Pizza. I again managed to skillfully avoid watching Shortland Street, a horrible soap opera which my entire flat watches on a regular basis. However, I am sure that no matter how hard I resist, I will eventually end up becoming hooked. It's not a good sign when I am interested in finding out what is going to happen to "Mad Maya" who apparently went crazy, killed somebody, and is now back at her old nursing job. Not to worry though, I can find Shortland St. on demand and the show has its own wikipedia page.

Today I have just been lounging around, dreading the thought of starting classes on Monday. Didn't I just finish my second semester? As excited as I am to be in NZ, nothing can take away the sting of beginning another semester of courses, especially when I am not sure what courses are going to fill my semester. Wish me luck for my first week of classes. It looks like I'll need it!

Well hello there! I am delighted to see that you have found your way to my blog. Let me just preface by noting that I am one of those people who gets really into something initially but usually loses interest or time somewhere down the road and I am expecting this to impact the frequency of my blog postings. Nontheless, welcome! So what has sparked a non-blogger to alter her ways and enter this html based world? To be honest, I think that fact that I had the option of customizing my background with these nifty polks dots had a lot to do with it...that and the fact that, as the title suggests, I am New to New Zealand.

On July 2nd, at 2PM eastern time, I departed from Philadelphia on the 6 hour plane ride to San Francisco and thus initiated my 5 month study abroad experience. The trip did not start off well as a person assigned the middle seat in my row did not react well to my refusal to swap my window seat for hers. After my lengthy layover in SanFran, I, along with what seemed like every high school band member of the state of California, boarded a 12 hour airNewZealand flight to Auckland. While I feared that, with a seat number ending in K, I would end up in the middle of two rowdy high schoolers tossing a football overhead, the flight was actually quite pleasant. Somehow, I ended up in a window seat next to a nice high school band couple who managed to limit their PDA. The upside of flying with a marching band is that the there is no room for screaming children. This flight also intruduced me to the beyond friendly diposition of New Zealanders. Once I stepped on the plane, I felt the warm glow of the flight crew and noticed how they genuinely cared about your experience on board. Unlike the previous flight, we were served two meals, dinner and breakfast, both which were served in non-plastic containers along with wine and other drinks (picture is coming). Once in Auckland, I rushed through customs and thankfully spotted my bag in the baggage claim almost immediately. While going through security for the umpteenth time at around 6 in the morning NZ time, I bumped into a fellow Otago student who was traveling to the University on an earlier flight. So far, I have not run into her again, but perhaps during orientation. As I waited in the tiny terminal to board my next flight, I ended up conversing with a student from India on his way Australia, where I would be staying for only one day in order to see a wrestling match. He had a heavy accent so I'm not entirely sure if I caught everything he said but, he was extremely friendly and we exchanged e-mail addresses at his request. At 8AM NZ time, I grabbed my aisle seat on my final plane ride to Dunedin. After briefly stopping in Wellington, I finally arrived in Dunedin, my home for the next few months, at 10:45 AM NZ time on July 4th. I then met up with the taxi driver who was scheduled to transport me from the airport to my flat. I gaurantee that you would never find a NYC taxi driver as delightful and chipper as this one, who told me about his life and love of sports as he showed me around the city.

Eventually, I ended up at my flat, 2a FORTH STREET, DUNEDIN 9016 NEW ZEALAND (this is so not a shameless plug to try and encourage people to send me mail) where I was greeted by flatmates Ebony (my kiwihost), Andrew, and Liz. Coming from the palace known as Bryn Mawr, I was expecting a downgrade in my living arrangement however, much to my surprise, I actually really like my room. The room is fairly spacious, with a double bed, two large windows, and a porch. Pictures will be coming soon so you can see how my dots have crossed the international date line. On the flipside, the entire flat is absolutely freezing as it is winter down here and Dunedin is not familiar with the concept of central heating. This morning, I could see my breath as I ate my breakfast. Today, our last flatmate, Thatcher, arrived. Out of the 6 of us, 4 of us are Americans and one is from the UK. So far, I've met mostly Americans, including someone who grew up in Haverford.

I know that I have spent a while going on about logistics but, there hasn't been much going on yet sinc orientation doesn't start until tomorrow. On my first day, Ebony drove us to the Wharehouse (a discount type store reminicent of Walmart) and the Pack'n Save food store. The following day, I wondered around Dunedin with a flatmate in search of rainboots (or gumboots as they are known in NZ) and groceries. I am regretting not bringing my pastel mead notebooks with me since all office supplies here are extremely pricey (I have a bit of a fettish with office supplies, so this was a bit of a problem for me). Unwilling to shell out 20 dollars for a binder, I settled on some flimsy, unstylish notebooks. It has only been a few days but, I am already hooked on Tim Tams, a NZ chocolate cookie which, as our kiwi host demonstrated, can also serve as a straw. Since Cadbury chocolate originated in Dunedin, I have stocked up on several of their products. I did also score some American food at the 4th/5th of July party I attended. Yesterday I woke up and walked up several unnecessary steep hills until I managed to find the University Flats office where I picked up my bedding package and then struggled to drag it back to my flat. The rest of my time has been spent trying to decode NZ slang and getting over jet lag (a task which some of my flatmates are attempting to move along).

That's pretty much it so far. I'll keep you posted on how orientation goes. Here's hoping that I will overcome jet lag tonight (an improbable feat seeing as I am currently feeling under the weather)!