And I'm Off....

So after a minor meltdown last night (and an early morning for my mom), packing and weighing and repacking a bajillion times, making sure I have everything I need, metally preparing myself for the adventures/lack of showers/cold nights/greasy hair(don’t worry, I have a game plan so hopefully it won’t be too evident in pictures J)/amazing experiences/incredible scenery ahead I’m off to catch the NakedBus to the airport at 9:20 right outside my door! 

Be back in 2 WEEKS with a looooong and descriptive post about it all!!!

Until then, check this out…

Have you ever heard of the Susan G. Komen 3-day?  My Mom, Aunt Paige, Aunt Barbara, and Aunt Beth (ß my mom’s 3 sisters) will be participating in late October!  They will be walking 60 miles over the span of 3 days to help end breast cancer.  They are walking in memory of their mother, my grandmother, who died of breast cancer in 1994 when I was 4 years old.   

Please consider supporting them in their fund-raising efforts!  You can learn more about their 3 day journey HERE

To support my mom, click HERE

3 DAYS. 4 SISTERS. 60 MILES. RAISING $10,000.

Aunt Barbara, Aunt Paige, My Mom, Aunt Beth

13/16 done with college.

As of today, I am 13/16 of the way though college (sidenote: I told a girl this today and she looked at me very confused, so I added, ‘my mom us a math teacher, don’t worry about it’.  Thanks for making fractions make sense, mom!).  I have finished 13 half semesters!  I’m not sure that’s something to be happy about though, because I sure don’t want to finish any sooner than I have to.  Such a bittersweet milestone.

Other than reaching that highly esteemed and fractional milestone, this week has been pretty routine.  I went to classes and tutorials, handed in a paper, went to library, the gym, ate some meals (including the spaghetti filled “kiwi pizza” pictured below), and prepared for the 2 week trip (which I am excited for, but anxious and nervous about) around the south island!  Tomorrow is my free-day Friday and I will be doing laundry, working on school work (to ease my mind over the break), and packing!

Yesterday, a girl at lunch got on a quick America kick and said that poptarts were AMAZING, but was so confused as to how we eat chocolate ones for breakfast.  I kind of just let her go on thinking that it wasn’t only the 6 year olds that ate the chocolate cookie dough poptarts.  Sorry that sometimes its more fun to give kiwis a slightly skewed perspective of America :)  Then, she marveled over the thought of a twinkie.

Unfortunately, Julius (the name that I gave my computer after it suffered, but lived through, a severe orange juice spill last January with only minor operations) will not be accompanying me to the south island for the next 2 weeks.  I decided that since it’s basically useless without this honking monitor and such, it probably would be happier left at peace on my desk awaiting my return.  I will keep a daily account of the things we do and see and I’ll be sure to write down everything hilarious that happens so I can report back.  I’ll be taking LOTS of pictures as well, but that’s a given. 

Here’s a list of some of the places that we’ll be visiting:

Christchurch

Dunedin

Invercargill

Fiordland

Millford Sound

Queenstown

Wanaka

Franz Josef

Abel Tasman

Nelson

Picton

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

            Phillipians 4:6-7

Interesting observations:

-sickbay=clinic

-stand-down=suspension

-NZ people pronounce “says” as if you put an S on the end of say.  That sounds really stupid written out, because that is actually exactly what the word is, but sound it out and it will make sense.

-ICE. Today I just realized that I haven’t had ICE since I’ve been here!!! I literally have not consumed one single ice cube.  It just hit me that we don’t have ice in the dining hall and the few drinks I’ve gotten at restaurants did not have ice in them.  This was so mind-blowing when I realized it.

-They don’t have free refills. Sad sad sad day.

By request, here are some short bios of Adam and Pep:

Another Fun Weekend!

On Friday, Loren (a NZ girl in my dorm) drove Megan and I downtown to listen to some live music at a bar.  No clubs are open on Friday nights, just Thursday and Saturday (isn’t that weird!), so it was pretty low key and quiet, which is just my kind of night!  Loren is so sweet and chill so it was fun to hang out with her too (and I know she’s probably reading this, hey Loren!).

Megan, me, and Loren under a bridge in Hamilton

Saturday.  Saturday was an adventure to say the least.  Remember the time I posted about how I am a slight germophobe, but just with people germs, not nature germs..?  Well, Saturday is for sure evidence for that, cold hard evidence.  Shannon and I had plans to go hiking, so she picked me up at Uni around 11am and we headed over to Te Awamatu (stopping by the grocery to get some granola for fuel up the mountain of course).  Since I didn’t know how intense this trek was going to be, I ended up wearing my tennis shoes but bringing my hiking boots just in case.  Good thing I brought both because Shannon was about to hike up a 4 hour return in little ked’s type sneakers!  I unhesitatingly insisted that she wear my boots instead.  Since when do I let people wear my shoes? Who am I over here?  Anyways, we started up Mount Kakepuku.  It went from an open grassy area to a muddy track covered with rainforest-y trees and such.  It was “muddy-as” and “slippery-as” from the very beginning.  My tennis shoes are up there with flossing and Dr. Pepper on the list of things that I love so it was nearly breaking my heart that they were getting so dirty and muddy.  Shannon can attest to the fact that I was literally about to cry when we saw people on their way back down the mountain and their shoes were COVERED with mud. Top to bottom, front to back, no white anywhere.  Long story short, I took one for the team (I guess the team of myself?) and took my shoes off and decided to just hold them about 1/3 of the way up.  Yep, that’s right.  I went barefoot up the mountain and back down.  It was freeing and gushy and felt pretty darn good.  Shannon and I finally got to the top of the mountain after about 2 hours and lots of false alarms.  You know when you can tell you’re pretty close to the top and you can see the sun shining through the trees and then you get to the point where you thought the top was and it turns out its not actually the top?   That happened about 5 times.  Such a tease!  But eventually we made it, saw miles after miles of pastures and farmland and hills and mountains, and then headed back down.  She dropped me off at Uni and I headed straight to the shower.  I just cleaned off my shoes and put them in the washing machine, so we’ll see how that turns out.  They should be alright though, I’m not too worried.  Congrats to Shannon for completing her very first mountain hike! Get it girl!

...and then shoes came off.

I am so thankful to have gotten to spend another fun and adventurous day with Shannon.  She is SO hilarious and I feel like I just always end up laughing at everything she says, which I guess isn’t really that abnormal for me.  She is so encouraging and has such a love for Jesus.  I for sure can’t wait to hang out with her again, but maybe we should wait until the soreness in my legs and feet go away J

We did it!

This morning timed the bus just right and went to Reformed Church of Hamilton, where I went last week.  As soon as I got there, John, a man I had met last week, told me to find him after the service so I could get his wife’s number and they could pick me up from now on instead of me taking the bus!  He even remembered my name and everything!  So great.  I sat down in the same place and pew I had sat the week before and just all of a sudden got overwhelmed to the point of tears in my eyes by how much love has been shown to me here in New Zealand.  The Lord has blessed me with so many incredible new friends, situations, and adventures.  It was so humbling to just sit there in that church and think about how big and constant and all-knowing Christ is!  It’s so awesome that I can be in a different country across the world and still sing praise to and worship the same Jesus with people that I’ve never met before!  So incredible.  Anyway, after the service, which I really enjoyed again, the old lady behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked where I was from.  I told her I was from the U.S. and was here for the semester studying at Waikato Uni.  Her response was, “Wow, so you must really miss your parents?”  Ok lady, I’ve already been brought to tears this morning, way to make it worse.  Sure enough the tears welled up in my eyes, but I managed to keep them from streaming down my face and getting that wobbly I’m-about-to-cry chin.  She was sweet though and just wanted to make sure I had a ride anywhere I needed to go, so I told her I did.  I found the Hemmes family (the ones that so generously brought me to their house for lunch last week) and ended up going to their house again for lunch!  Homemade bread and treats were waiting at their house.  They were so fun to hang out with and I’m SO thankful to have met them!  Unfortunately, I will be in the south island, which is actually not so unfortunate, for the next 3 Sundays, so I’ll have to reconnect with the folks at church after that!  And, the 80 year old man that I randomly sat down with last week at tea after the service waved to me today! He remembered me too! I love the people over here!

Jackie and Lisa with a plate of treats! They are so nice!

I’ve got one more week of school and then we leave for the south island on Saturday! ONE MORE WEEK.  My day was made (for about the 5th time in one day) this afternoon when I finally figured out some accommodation for our 2 days in Christchurch.  Follow me here… my Dad’s brother’s kids’ mom’s cousin’s daughter (phew!) lives in Christchurch and has offered to let us stay with her!  I am SO excited to meet her and so thankful for random family connections on the other side of the world!  On another note, I’m super nervous about it snowing or being icey down in the south of the south island when we’re driving so prayers for safety and minimal driving troubles during this trip would be awesome!

I know this post is long enough, but I can’t forget the…

Interesting Observations:

-Because of their accent, NZ people put “an” in front of certain words.  Example: “an historical…”

-They put an “s” on math here.  Maths.  That just came up as a misspelled word on my spellchecker haha.

-The Red Box phenomenon has not hit NZ yet.

-scrogen=trail mix

-This mailbox:

the view from Mount Kekapuku

A special message from Adam:

97 more days to soak in!

So there’s nothing special and unordinary to report from the other side of the world, but I thought I’d share a few things anyway…

First and foremost, I almost fell off the treadmill at the gym tonight when JOHNS CREEK, GEORGIA appeared on the TV!!!!!!!! I know you’re thinking yeah riiight!  But, yes, I am right.  Dear Atlanta Athletic Club, thank you for hosting the 2011 PGA Championship, which is apparently internationally televised, and thank you for being located in Johns Creek, so that I could experience a little bit of home tonight!!!  I literally did a triple take at the TV and gasped loud enough to hear myself over the music blaring in my headphones.  I thought, no way that’s MY Johns Creek, GA, but then I remembered that the PGA Championship is in mid-August and well, it’s mid-August.  I was so excited that I wanted to scream and shout and run around and tell everyone that was my hometown on TV, but I decided to just stay calm and soak it in.  I may or may not have exceeded the maximum 20 minutes the gym allows you to stay on a cardio machine just to see if it would make it back on after all the other sports highlights from around the world came on.  No big deal or anything that Johns Creek was on the same newsreel as a bike race in Europe and the footage of the games leading up to the Rugby World Cup.  Get it, JC, you’re world famous!  (PS: I hope you Johns Creek-ers are having a grand ol’ time with all the traffic that’s bringing in.)

Today was a long day of class with an in class essay on the Treaty of Waitangi mixed in.  The teacher (Nadia, just Nadia, no Dr. or Ms. It’s still so weird to call teacher by their first names) gave us the question that we would be answering in advance so I basically memorized my whole essay and just reproduced it in 40 minutes!  I stress out about things like that so I decided I would reward myself with a chocolate chip cookie :)  It’s the little things.  Anyways, that’s over now and I have NO CLASS tomorrow!  I plan on starting out the day with a drawn out breakfast (it might be unhealthy how much I love breakfast!), working on a paper, going to the grocery, and walking around town. 

I realize that I forgot to mention some news from home a few weeks ago… Drew and Diane are expecting another little one!  Who wouldn’t want another baby as cute as Anna running around the house?!  Wooooo!!!!!!!

Interesting Observations:

-NZ doesn’t have elementary school PE teachers.  Instead, the general teacher also teaches PE in the regular classroom.  I just realized this today and I’ve been in a class centered around PE for 5 weeks now.  My reaction to this epiphany was “Dang! That seems impossible!”  Then my whole class laughed.

-Yesterday, a boy dropped a ladle of SPAGHETTI on his toast.  This spaghetti thing just continues to weird me out.

OVERWHELMED...

…by GENEROSITY!  Definitely a good kind of overwhelmed.  Just a few examples:

1.    I took the bus out to a church that one of my brothers suggested to me on Sunday.  The bus only runs every 35 minutes on the weekends and I definitely timed it wrong.  I showed up an hour early and ended up sitting on the church steps until people finally came and unlocked the doors.  This would’ve been miserable back home, but it was actually relaxing just to sit there, reading and watching the clouds go by (I promise the sky is SO much prettier and closer here!).  The service was very much like what I’m used to at home and it didn’t hurt that I sat by 4 adorable little boys with bleach blonde hair, all under the age of 6… so cute!  Anyway, after the service I took a chance and went to get “tea and biscuits” in a nearby room.  After aimlessly wandering around for a few minutes, I decided to sit down next to an 80 year old man.  We talked for a few minutes and then he introduced me to a girl around my age.  I guess he either felt sorry that I didn’t have any friends or was tired of talking to me… or he was just very generous and thoughty J  Anyways, I talked to a girl who ended up to be the minister’s daughter and she introduced me to her friend, Lisa.  After I talked to them a bit, I noticed it was POURING outside and I would basically have to swim back to the bus stop.  Lisa was so generous and offered that “Uncle John” drive me back to Uni.  It turned out the Uncle John was “going to have lunch with Mummy” after church, so Lisa said her family would take me to Uni.  Then she changed her mind and asked if I just wanted to come to her house and eat lunch with her family!  Yes please!  Six members of her family and I piled into their van and went back to their house.  We walked in to the smell of homemade cinnamon raisin bread.  HOMEMADE.  You know in animated tv shows when they try to depict the smell of something by putting those swirly little smell lines coming out from the top of something? Well that’s how good it smelled.  If this scene had been animated, those little swirly lines would’ve been there for sure.  After about 3 hours, they took me back to Uni, but not before they gave me their phone number and demanded that I call them for ANYTHING.  Seriously?  How generous to take in some random American girl you’ve never met before… not only take her back (not home, this is not my home) to where she’s staying, get to know her, feed her lunch, make her hot chocolate (aka milo), offer her “anything”, give her your phone number, and show her SO much LOVE?!  Ahhh it was so great!  I think I’ll be going back to Reformed Church of Hamilton next week… and I’ll time the bus ride better.

2.    Today after my HPE class, one of the girls, Kelsi, in my group offered for me to go home with her to Tauranga one weekend.  Yes please!  She calmly asked me what cities I’d been to so far and then told me I was welcome to come with her anytime.  I think I was a little overenthusiastic in my response (lots of excitement mixed in with ‘wait are you serious?!’, ‘you rock!’, ‘I don’t think you understand how awesome that would be!’, ‘I’m totally taking you up on that sometime!’, etc), but it didn’t scare her off too much because I got a text from her this afternoon inviting me over for dinner at her flat!  Sheesh, SO generous!  I’m totally taking her up on the offer and going home with her one weekend, don’t you even worry.  

3.    This Saturday I’m going hiking with Shannon (see an earlier post if you don’t know who Shannon is... hint: Dr. Pepper) and some of her friends!  Shannon is so kind to include me in her outings, want to hang out with me, and want to show me as much of New Zealand as she can.  It’s so nice not having to plan a bus ride or rent a car, but to just go along with kiwi’s when I can!  I’m sure I’ll have plenty to report about the hiking trip!

4.    I came back to my room after dinner to a missed call and a voicemail.  It was Barbara, the looong lost relative that happens to live about an hour from where I am.  She was calling to tell me that she hadn’t forgotten about me and that she and her husband would be glad to come pick me up and take me back to their house anytime.  Again, the generosity, so overwhelming.  Last week I actually talked to a few girls who offered to take me to Barbara’s house on their way home one weekend.  I told Barbara that and asked if it was okay if I spent a weekend with them instead of just a day.  Her response was, “Of course! We would absolutely LOVE that!”

These past few days are just a glimpse of the love and generosity that has been shown to me here.  The Lord is continually revealing Himself to me through little situations like this and showing me that He has indeed placed people here for me.  His faithfulness has been and is awesome to the point of overwhelming as well.  It’s so real that God is watching over everything here, from the conversations to the phone calls to the friendships and even who I sit with at lunch.  How awesome that we have a God that is so loving and merciful when we are so sinful and undeserving! 

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,

For I have put my trust in you.

Show me the way I should go,

For you to lift up my soul.

Psalm 143:8

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

Deuteronomy 31:8

Interesting Observations:

-“allgood(s)”=”that’s ok" Example: "Allgoods, bro!"

-Lots of kiwi’s in Hamilton have never even been to the south island!  Who would’ve thought?!  I guess I don’t have much room to talk though since I’ve never actually been west of god ol’ Tupelo, Mississippi.

-Trucks and SUVs seem to make up about .5% of the car population.  

Kenzie’s House and Some Funny-as Conversations

Friday was filled with paper writing and walking around town (the reward system was used once again).  I headed downtown, which is about a 40 minute walk or a 30 minute power walk, because I had yet to check out all the shops and such.  I ended up walking around and up and down some random streets just exploring.  They have mall type places in downtown Hamilton that are basically connected to the same building as other stores outside of the mall, but then you can come out on different streets and such.  That didn’t make much sense, but sadly that’s the best explanation I can come up with… sorry, just try to picture it I guess.  Anyway, I ended up meeting a friend that I met at a church about a month ago (still weird that I’ve been here for that long already, dang!), Melissa, for coffee at Starbucks.  It was super fun to get to know her better and hopefully I’ll get to hang out with her again!  I walked around a little more after that and accidentally didn’t give myself enough daylight to get back to Uni, so my speedy run/walk only took about 20 minutes, that’s a record! Hamilton doesn’t seem too unsafe, but better cautious than sorry, right?  I’ll leave before the sun is setting next time for sure.

I got back in time for inter hall basketball, but it definitely wasn’t as fun as volleyball was.  The refs were students and didn’t care about fouls one bit, so it ended up to be more of a free for all than a structured game.  Furman intramurals, I miss you already!  Owen, they could really use your help here!

TODAY.  Today was spectacular, but then again, any day that begins with a 1.5 hour breakfast is spectacular.  After doing some school work with a little procrastination mixed in, Megan and I went to our friend Kenzie’s house/farm in Cambridge, which is about 15 minutes outside of Hamilton.  He invited us to come see his family’s organic farm, mini rainforest, goat, bird, dogs, cows, and river front property!  Yes please!  After a tour of his beautiful house, we put on some gummies (aka gumboots--aka rainboots) and headed down to through the rainforest-y area to the river.  Oh wait, first Kenzie equipped us with a weedeater, a huge hoe, and a pitchfork/ax type thing.  I wasn’t expecting a clear cut, brick laid pathway lined with flowers or anything, but still, a gas powered weedeater?!  Is that really necessary?  We got on our way and within seconds I felt like I had crossed the border into the rainforest in Brazil.  We trekked through mud, grass, weeds, and other green plant type things covering the ground.  Also, Kenzie did indeed use the weedeater to clear some of the brush and vines out of the path, so yes, we did need it.  We were down there trekking and exploring for about an hour and we saw the Waikato River, creeks, waterfalls, and such.  Just imagine Montreat (in Brazil) times a bajillion.  Did I mention Kenzie’s Chihuahua, Georgie, came with us too?  Through the mud, water, thorns, brush, rocks… yep, a fluffy little Chihuahua.  Nope, not kidding.  She made it the whole way, get it girl!

The view from Kenzie's house.
The rainforest area is in the pit and the river is winding in the background.
So beautiful!

Megan, Georgie, and Me

After that, we helped get some firewood, chatted with his Mom, had a delicious homemade blueberry muffin, and headed back to Uni.  Kenzie let me drive. I REPEAT… I DROVE.  A CAR.  ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD.  Alllllll the way back to Uni!  Sheesh this boy obviously has no trust issues, that’s for sure.  It was SUPER weird, but I actually adjusted to it a lot faster than I thought I would.  The only thing that really confused me was making turns.  It just felt so wrong to cross the WHOLE intersection when making a right turn!  SO EXCITING though!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight, Megan and I walked about 5 minutes to a tavern to watch the NZ All Blacks vs Australia rugby game, which NZ won.  It is SO cool to be in the All Blacks gametime atmosphere in this country!  I’ve never experienced EVERYONE, literally every single person, in a public place cheering so intensely for the SAME team.  They have so much NZ pride here and I love it!  I got some more rugby questions answered and also got a high five every time NZ scored.  They make American football players look like complete WHIMPS.  These guys get mauled, stepped on, tackled, pushed, slapped, etc and they don’t even wear pads or helmets.  Toughen up America!

I’ve had some super hilarious conversations with kiwis lately.  Here are some highlights…

“So what state are you from?”

“Georgia”

“Oh, that’s above California right?”

From there, I ended up geographically explaining America using my lunch tray.

“Oh ok, so you’re the one above Florida, or the corn, right?”

“Are the cinemas HUGE in America? Like two stories?”

Not sure where this idea came from, but maybe..?

“What are those red cups called?”

“Solo cups..?”

“Yeah! Oh sweet-as so you really use those?”

“Yes”

Who knew other countries were so fascinated with our plastic disposable cups?!

“The food in America is probably so much better than ours.”

“Yeah, I might agree with you on that one, but why do you think it would be better?”

“I don’t know, I mean you guys have turkey sandwiches”

Apparently the only sandwich choices here are ham and chicken.  I hadn’t noticed that one yet.

“Don’t you have a McDonald’s on like every corner on America?”

“Yeah, that and Waffle House.  Have yall heard of Waffle House?”

“No, but that sounds awesome-as!!”

To a boy in my hall:

“Pep, you’re our favorite kiwi.”

“Ahhh you serious?! You guys need to seriously reconsider!”

“There are Starbucks drive-thrus in America, eh?”

“Yep.”

“Awww no way! That’s SO cool!”

The little things are so fascinating!

“So Atlanta is in Georgia right? And that’s wear all the rappers are from?”

“Yeah, there are some rappers in Atlanta…”

“So what does ‘Throw some deuces on it’ mean?”

“Well, I think that means like 22 inch rims on a car, so deuce means 2, which would make 22 plural, so deuces.  So I guess it literally means… put some 22 inch rims on that car…?”

Haha! I had never really thought that whole thing through, but hopefully I explained that right.  We all know I’m not the rap/ghetto expert.

I wish that typing/reading could depict how funny it was to hear a kiwi say, “Yall come back now, ya hear?!” in an attempted southern accent. Hahaha! Hilarious!

Interesting Observations:

-Lots of people are not married, but in a civil union here.  I’m not sure what the advantage to that is or why you wouldn’t just get married though…

-“mean”=”cool” or “awesome” or “rad” Example: “Ahh bro, that pizza was mean!” or “Check out that MEEEAN car over there!”

-Custard is used a LOT here.

-“petrol”=”gas” Example: “petrol station” or, if watching a sporting event… “Bro, you’re running out of petrol out there! Slow-as! Speed it up!”

-Apparently there was a girl here last semester from Alabama, so they just called her “Alabama”.

Cows.

The Waikato River

Hello Weekend!

This week has been another good one!  I got my first 3 graded assignments back in my Philosophy of Education class on Monday and one in NZ History today.  Let’s go over the “marking” scale real quick (America, take note):

A+ (85-100)

A   (80-84)

A-  (75-79)

B   (60-75)

C  (50-60)

Fail (below 50)

Don’t worry, you’re seeing that correctly… A’s are 75% and above.  What?!  Fine with me!  I’m happy and proud to report that, according to this scale, I have received 4 A+’s!  Let’s hope I can keep that streak going!  Furman is really going to damage my ego after being graded on this scale for a semester.

More school news to report:  I finally talked in my NZ history tutorial today!  5 times!  Class discussion is definitely up there with movie theaters and feet on my list of things I absolutely hate, but I today I went for it.  I was chatting with a kiwi girl, Shaynah, before class started and told her how intimidating it was to talk in that class and she helped me psych myself up for it (then she told me I was on fire after I made 2 comments, so encouraging).  We had a nice little conversation about America as well…

“So you’re from America?!”

“Yep, I am”

“What part?!”

“Georgia”

“Ohhhhhh…”

“You don’t know where that is do you…?”

“Not at all”

“Above Florida”

“Ohhhh yeah ok!”

“Have you ever been to the US?”

“Oh my gah no, but I would absolutely die to go!  I want to go to LA and meet everyone from Grey’s Anatomy!  Have you ever met anyone famous?! You probably get asked that question a lot.””

(I decided not to burst her bubble by telling her that they probably don’t all live there and that famous people aren’t just out on the streets signing autographs all the time.)

I love having conversations about America with Kiwis!

Another accomplishment of this week is that I found the public library and successfully got a library card!  You know you’re not at Furman when you have time to read for fun during the school year.  Isn’t that the truth!  I have thoroughly enjoyed leisure reading while I’ve been here (who am I?! this country is just turning me into a new person!), but I don’t want to buy books (1. that costs money, 2. that just means I have to add more weight to my bag on the way home and I already know I can’t afford that.) and the Uni library has a poor selection of fun books.  I directed myself to the Hillcrest public library, all 20 square feet of it, on Wednesday via my trusty map and got myself some leisure books!

More fun news… One of my Aunts has relatives who live in NZ and as it turns out, some of them are only about an hour away from me!  I got their phone number, but was really scared about calling them.  I could just picture them thinking that I was some random girl with an American accent who claimed to be distantly related, but was actually a crazy hobo setting up some scam on them.  However, once again, the more outgoing NZ version of me dominated over the other me and I called them anyway.  A sweet, sweet lady answered the phone and for a split second I forgot everything I had planned to say in order for it to all make sense.  Anyways, I told her who I was and quickly connected the dots to how we were sort of, kind of, maybe very distantly related.  We talked for a few minutes and as soon as they or I figure out a way for me to get to their house, I’m going to go meet and hang out with them!  How cool and exciting is that?! Thanks Aunt Rozanne!!

This weekend will be filled with “inter hall basketball” tomorrow (Friday) night, writing papers, reading (for fun(!) and for school), a trip to a friend’s house/farm, and a continued church search on Sunday!  I’m sure I’ll have more to report about all of that, but until then…

Interesting Observations:

-When Kiwis pronounce words with that start with T it sounds like Ch.  Example: Tuesday=Chuesday, Tunes=Chunes, etc.

-“whorry”=”rugged”  Example: “Ey bro, look at that whorry-as guy over there in sweats and no shoes.”

-“shout”=”this one’s on me” Example: “I’ll shout you a vanilla coke next Tuesday since you’ve got 5 hours of class to get through” or “I lost the bet so I’ll shout you some pizza tonight”

-Today we had fries for lunch.  FRIES. Fries as the main dish. Just fries.

-“heaps”=”tons” Example: “You like heaps of spaghetti on your toast, eh?” Sometimes they drag it out too… “There’s heeeeeaps of rolling hills in this country!”

A playground in Raglan