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!
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