haere mai to my blog once again, or welcome in Maori! For the those faithful followers I have certainly left you hanging and i apologize. It has been quite a struggle to get online without my laptop and still being on the road for a while, but i FINALLY have settled in at Wellington and hope to keep a better record of all that occurs. Last time i checked in i was still in Auckland and had yet to meet up with the other international students. Well we finally did and it was strange, i mean it was weird to be around Americans again! They were all fresh off the plane and just seemed SOOO American. haha. Listen to me, as if I am saying im not American anymore. Let me explain, its more just the attitude and the outlook and such, i had it when i first got here, but after like 7 weeks, i think it wore off and i started to feel like i really kinda belonged here. It was almost a shock though, i had only met a small handful of Americans on my whole time travelling, and then bam, there were like 80 of them (us). I was a little skiddish around them almost, first off because I didnt want to sound like a know it all becuz i had travelled and knew the country kinda, and second off because idk, just funny to see what they were most worried about, which tended to be centered around where to go out, and what bars were best. I was surprised to see that after there long plane ride here, most were right and ready to hit the town and go to the pubs, so much for jetlag! I think another thing that kind of happened, was i realized how little money i really had, and deff knew my restrictions. This kind of put me in the position to hold back, but yet trying not be antisocial at the same time. In the end I hung out a bit, but still kind of felt a little akward. We spent a night in Auckland and had a few orientation type things, and then jumped on the bus for 4 more days of orientation in Rotorua. There were both students from my Uni, Victoria, and from Auckland Uni, in our group and we did some fun things. The first day we learned how to play rugby and had a few games of touch rugby out in the back field behind the hostel. Then we went and learned the Haka, which is a traditional Maori war dance. It is most recognizable from the All Blacks, which are the NZ national Rugby team who pretty much are like gods here and sweep up at international competition. The haka was a ton of fun to learn the words and the movements, and to put all this energy into making scary faces and sticking out tongues out. Just youtube it, if you want to see more. So we learned all the movements and such and then the instructors split up the girls and the guys and told us to drop down to our skivvies. haha, we did and then put on these like loin cloth type traditional costumes and got our faces tattoed. Face tattoos are representational of power in the Maori culture and tattoos on the thighs and buttox are often only held by chiefs. We performed the Haka and had a blast. The rest of Orientation week we did a bunch of things, got to meet some pretty cool kids and wander around Rotorua a bit more. We did a day of community service where we went to a local Maori settlement, which sat on one of the most geothermal areas of Rotorua, and we got a tour of the village. There were some really cool things here and I got an insight into some traditions that were quite interesting. The geothermal activity plays a big role in the way the live their everyday lives, including earth ovens which they called their own "microwaves" would cook entire meals, to the baths which still were open for everyone in the village to use. Our community service project was basically de-weeding some of the grounds from non native plants. It began to rain and for a bout an hour and a half we pulled up bamboo stalks, and other brush. It was actually really enjoyable and felt good to do some manual labor. I ended up standing in the big dumpster and squishing down all the brush and trees to make more room. haha. That night we went to Tamaki village and were treated with an awesome welcome and showed some of the Maori performances. It was great. Then we were again treated as we were fed a traditional Maori hangi, or earth oven meal. It was awesome, it felt like thanksgiving, because i just kept eating and eating. I literally had to loosen my belt! My friend Corey from Texas got to be the chief of our group and he led us into dinner. We finished off our dinner by singing a song together and learning some words of wisdom. When Maori's are asked what is the most important thing in this world, they respond by saying, "It is people, it is people, it is people". I really took this to heart. It was so cool to see how everyone at the dinner came together after this, and it gave me kind of a simple outlook on life, that we often take for granted. The following day we had yet another awesome experience as we went to Waitomo to go caving. After 2 bus breakdowns, the same bus, haha, we arrived in Waitomo and split into different activities. I chose Honking Haggis Holes and our group of ten ventured off into a cave to abseil, or basically repel into this giant cave with our wetsuits and headlamps. It was sooooooo crazy! man what a rush. Our first abseil into the cave was almost 35 meters! or like 100 feet! Our guides were awesome and it was sucha blast. We made our way through the caves for about 2 1/2 hours and did more abseiling, traversed waterfalls and crawled on our bellies through very small tunnels, certainly not for the claustrophobic! That night we all had a little goodbye party as the two groups were splitting up and all the friends we had made from Auckland were parting ways. Our Wellington group was due to fly from Rotorua to Wellington the next day, but i decided to take the bus instead, as it was over 100$ cheaper, but 7 hours longer. haha. o well, there was another kid who was gonna ride too. He however didnt secure a ticket and was nearly left behind twice. haha. Finally arrived in Wellington, where it was gloomy and wet, haha, on the 18th of Feb. and caught a Victoria Shuttle to my housing. At this point i had no idea what to expect when it came to where i was going to be living during my time in Wellington. I knew i would have a Kiwi-flatmate, but other than that i was completely unsure. We pulled onto my street and it was a dead end, with all these small houses on it, it looked really peaceful and quiet. Got my keys from the RA down the road and went and checked out my flat. I have a kiwi-flatmate named Kirsten and unfortunately, haha, jk, but 2 other Americans living with me. I was kind of hoping to end up with more Kiwi's, but they are pretty cool. Shallin is from California and she was with a different program so she had been there a few days and Brodie is from Westchester New York. He plays rugby and was hoping to play here as well. Our flat is pretty nice. We have 4 bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, kitchen with all the cutlerly and pans there, and a back deck. Laundry is just a floor below and we dont have to pay for it! Our house is on the corner of the street and we have a little front lawn with a tree for some shade. Overall i was very happy with it. Some of the other kids from my group ended up in overflow housing, basically a hostel like dorm, downtown. They were a bit jealous i got a real house. A few others ended up just down the road so its cool. My room is pretty big actually, with a really comfy bed, a desk, a bookshelf and a closet. My window looks out to the next house a few feet away, but it keeps my room really nice and shady and cool. Just a few yards down the road there is a lookout over the city and the harbour and it is pretty amazing. For those of you who saw the picture i posted of Wellington from Mount Victoria, just imagine the view from the opposite side of the city basically. Its pretty amazing. I like how its only like a 15-20 minute walk to the city, but like Hartwick there are SOOOOO many stairs, its rediculous. haha Prolly even 10x worse than Hartwick actually. But its still not bad, and for being just outside the city our street is really quiet. We had a day of international student orientation and went through a few of the protocol things, got registered and enrolled in classes and i just got my student id card. We went to a few of the pubs and saw some live bands which was fun as well. The first year students just got here yesterday and the returners will be here soon too. There are 20,000 students here, so it will deff feel a bit biggger than tiny 15 person classes in Hartwick. I already got to see some of the lecture halls that fit like 400+ people and was a bit turned off by it, but will see what happens. SOOO i got my classses all set up. I am taking four papers (classes). THEY are- A history course titled Race and Racism in in Modern Europe, which is a 200 level course, Another history course titled- The Great Sacrifice: WW1 which is a 300 level course. An Anthropology course titled- Ritual in the Modern World at the 200 level and Maori Society and Culture which is just a 100 intro course. A bunch of us took the bus like 25 minutes outside the city the other day to a beach that was super beautiful. We wandered up the beach for a while, but realized the Red Rocks which we wanted to go see were a few hours out. We still had a lot of fun and i got to talk camera shop with a couple of others. I had come down with a cold a few days before and kinda felt reallly blah... it was one with the barky kind of cough that just hurts your chest. I realllly didnt want to be sick, but i think i caught it from the US kids who all had just come from winter and sickness. haha. idk, but i kinda have been taking it easy the last few days. There was a rugby game the other night i was going to go to, but i was a bit tired. But the Wellington Hurricanes won! i will prolly try to go to the next game. There was also an all whites soccer game last night as well, but again, ill have time to attend these as i still have like 4 months in Wellington. A group of us went to the farmers market on sunday and got some fresh produce, which was sooo nice and it was held just behind Te Papa, the national museum right on the harbour. I actually am contemplating whether or not it is possible for me to get an intership there, or somewhere in the city. Maybe even pick up a small job under the table so i can actually live! it can be a bit expensive to go out and food and such, so will see. I dont want to hold back from going to all sorts of cool things because i am broke, so i am thinking about just taking out a private loan, and just enjoying myself here because it is kind of one of those once in a lifetime thing. Money shouldnt get in the way, but there are also all sorts of art and music events held which are free and tons of things happening around the city. I may not enjoy the bustle of city life, but it has been nice so far, Wellington isn't a daunting city and it deff has it advantages. Welllllllll i think that i have caught you up to speed a bit. I will keep updating as i go to my first classes, which i still have like a week till! so i have all this free time, and some of my friends are going to explore the south island, my roomies are thinking about buying a cheap car and i am just going to find something to do this week! haha. shouldnt be too hard, but to telll ya the truth im ready for papers to start so i can feel busy again, for those of you who know me well, i deff would rather be busy than lounge around and do nothing. Well i am getting a bit hungry, so i am going to go find out what i can do about dinner and then a couple of us might go to a comedy festival tonight! Cheers all!