O-Week NZ Style

Greetings from Rotorua!
I have once again found myself in a McDonalds with free wifi! For the past 3 days I have been at orientation and staying in a hostel called KiwiPaka.  The other Australearn students are here as well (total of about 100) and we have been exploring the city, going to orientation sessions, and doing touristy things that they have had planned for us.

-Thursday: We learned the Haka, which is a traditional Maori dance type thing.  They get REALLY into it and let's just say it wasn't really my type of thing.  It was fun to learn it anyway though.  That night I walked into town with some other people.  We came across a Thursday night town market with food, wine, crafts, and desserts.  We ate dinner and walked around a bit.
-Friday: We spent the day volunteering at Papamoa Beach.  This was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen!  The horizon line seemed SO far away and the sky seemed SO low.  The coastline went on for what seemed like forever and you could see islands out in the ocean.  We helped out with a dunes restoration project by pulling up roots and planting dunes right up close to people's houses.  That night, we went to a Hangi dinner, which is a traditional Maori dinner.  It was a pretty touristy place but it was interesting anyways.  We learned more about their culture and ate what would probably be equivalent to a Thanksgiving meal.  Chicken, lamb, mussels, fish, carrots, stuffing, potatoes, pasta salad, and more... It was all steamed though which left it tasting pretty bland, so I pretty much just stuck to the chicken.
-Saturday: Today was DEFINITELY the most fun so far.  Today was "Adventure Day" and we all went on different little adventures that we had already signed up for back in the US before we left.  I did the white water rafting trip and it was awesome! I had never done any rafting before this and honestly, I was pretty freaked out when I learned that the conversion for 7 meters is 18 FEET aka the height of the waterfall that we would be going down.  Oh gah...  After we got our wet suits on and headed down to the river, I was even more freaked out and scared.  There were 4 boats of 6 each (mine had 3 kiwis from Auckland in it!) and luckily I didn't get the one with the leader/guide guy that pushed the boat into the water and then made everyone SWIM to it.  Not cool.  Anyways, everything was going great and I was taking the directions over the rapids pretty well until the 18 foot waterfall...  Our leader guy had warned us about what to do in the worst case scenario and good thing he did!  Our boat tipped over and the next thing I know, I'm under the flipped over boat underwater.  I got to the top of the water, still holding on and it literally felt like ice water was inside my body and freezing my lungs so I couldn't breathe (sorry if this is freaking you out, Mom).  Imagine jumping into the Chattahoochee River as the dam is being let out without a wet suit on.  It felt like that and I even HAD a wetsuit on.  Anyways, we got back in the boat and kept on paddling while also keeping on chattering my teeth.  It was SO fun and honestly, I'm kind of glad that my boat tipped because it was definitely more of an adventure.

This orientation has been good but I think I am more than ready to get to Waikato in Hamilton and get everything set up for the semester.  Luckily its only a bus ride and not a plane ride like everyone else has.  It will be nice to get out of my little hostel room, although I am living the life with a single room (with two beds, one for my luggage of course) while everyone else has anywhere from 2 to 6 in a room.  I don't know how I pulled that one off, but it's great!  Also, I will be more than glad to get away form this group of people.  It has definitely been a wake-up call from my Furman bubble and even my southeastern US bubble.  Very few people knew each other before coming here and most people are from Colorado, California, the northeast, and Minnesota (sheesh those accents are STRONG).  Most people just seem like they are trying to impress everyone else in ANY way they can... from cussing to drinking to bragging to making jokes. Anything.  It got old to me in about 3 seconds and I am thankful that I have a friend from Furman here with me (for these few days) to vent to and exchange thoughts with.

One more thing.  The land here is the most amazing thing I have EVER seen in my life.  In every direction you look, there are mountains in the distance.  I never knew so many shades of green existed before now.  During all of our bus trips I have had to stop myself from constantly taking pictures or else my camera would be dead after every bus ride.  Hopefully I'll figure out how to post some pics on here.  Just imagine what a NZ scenery calendar's pictures would look like and then multiply that by infinity.  Rolling hills, sheep, more rolling hills that are naturally terraced, mountains, clear blue skies, white puffy clouds, more sheep, grass, trees that are natural fences, you get the picture...

I've decided to include an interesting observations at the end of every blog post.

Interesting Observations:

-diagonal crosswalks in Auckland. Why not kill two birds with one stone and cut the corner? (literally)

-"pineapple lumps" aka pineapple flavored marshmallows covered in a layer of chocolate. ew.

-postoffice=postshop

-"that's alright" is often the response to "thank you" aka that's alright=thank you.

-little kids with NZ accents are possibly the cutest things ever.

-looking right, left, right when crossing the street is SO hard to remember.

-keeping up with coins is very important because they don't have bills less that $5.  

That's all for now, sorry that was so LONG! But I guess I'm not sorry because you don't actually have to read the whole thing if you don't want to :)