Kia Ora from Auckland!

Hi everyone!

Kia Ora from Auckland! Kia Ora is the Maori welcoming greeting which literally means "be well/healthy" but more informally means "hi!" The Maori are the native New Zealanders and are very much apart of the New Zealand society. In fact, New Zealand's two official languages are Maori and sign language, but everyone speaks English. All government buildings and signs around the city are in both English and Maori. Just a little interesting tidbit to start with. So I have made it to New Zealand and am currently sitting outside of the University of Auckland using their free wireless internet. Now I'll attempt to tell you about everything I've done and seen so far.

The flight from LA to Auckland was much better than I expected. There flight was not full so I had an entire 3 seats to myself and was able to lay across them to sleep (very similar to wheels) so I slept for the majority of the flight. We got into Auckland at around 10 am on Sunday January 3rd. While we were descending it was absolutely gorgeous! The water around Auckland is just beautiful especially with the mountains/volcanos surrounding it. Once we landed we had to go through customs and everything. New Zealand is VERY strict about what they let you bring into the country - especially things like fruits and vegetables so there were signs everywhere! After getting our luggage the group piled up into a van and went to the UniLodge - our home for the next 6 months. The UniLodge is pretty nice and very centrally located which is great. It's less than 10 minutes for me to walk to my class at the University of Auckland which is great, around 5 to get to a supermarket and about 10 to get to Queen Street which seems to be a big center of the city. The UniLodge is split up into different apartments with 2-4 people in each one. My apartment has 4 of us - 2 from BU and 1 from Alabama. The apartment is nice enough it has 2 bathrooms, a common area, kitchen, stoves (no oven though), fridge (which is quite small), freezer and 4 singles. My room is pretty small and oddly shaped but it's alright. The UniLodge also has a big common kitchen, common space, a movie theater area, game room, outdoor patio and a small (literally a 1 lane) pool. The common kitchen and outside area of the UniLodge have been really nice and a great place to hang out and cook/eat dinner with people from the group.

Now I will try to tell you about all the different things I have done since I've been in Auckland. I know it's pretty long, but as always if you have any questions/comments/want more info just let me know and I'll be happy to supply it! I decided it would be easiest for you guys (and me) if I break it down by day. So here we go:

Day One:
After throwing our things down the whole group (37 of us) met downstairs and walked to the Sky Tower for lunch. The Sky tower is downtown and seems like a smaller version of the Seattle Space Needle. There was a lunch buffet inside and we were all starving by this point so ate up (courtesy of the BU program). Then as we walked outside we saw someone free fall off the Sky Tower - I swear I probably screamed louder than the person doing the jump did. I knew that New Zealanders were into adrenaline activities but it was crazy to see it so close! Upon closer inspection he had a chord attached to him (but not bungee) and there was a map/tramboline area that he fell on. After lunch we went to "The Warehouse" which is a much smaller version of target to get necessities like bedding. We then made the walk back to the UniLodge and had a bit of downtime before our UniLodge orientation. Then my suitemates and I went to an internet cafe and dinner. In New Zealand January 2nd is a national holiday (after New Years) but because January 2nd was a Saturday, the national holiday was pushed back to Monday January 4th. Because of this, not much was open on Sunday or Monday. We finally found an asian place for dinner but it was not that great so we all made a mental note not to go back there. We then made our first trip to the supermarket (Count Down) and got essentials like cereal. They have different cereal brands here and I decided on Honey Crispex - they're pretty good. We then went back and hung out with people from the group for a couple hours before going to sleep. It stays SO light in New Zealand though that it didn't really get late until close to 9 pm and then it got light again before 6 am - guess I'm going to have to get used to lots of sunlight while I sleep!

Day Two:
Monday January 4th was our "orientation" day. I had a University of Auckland orientation early in the morning. However, because of the public holiday we had to have our orientation in the bar/museum Forde's next to the UniLodge. I am pretty positive that is the only time I'm going to have an orientation in a bar. We then had our BU orientation, broke for lunch for the one place that was open - a food court that was slow and very overwhelmed by the entire program going in to eat at the same time! Then we met back at Forde's to do the internship part of the orientation. Then anyone who wanted to was given a tour of University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology (about half the group is at each school, but the campuses are really close together). It was so nice seeing the campus and I am starting to figure out where everything is! We then had the rest of the afternoon free. One of my apartment mate's and I went to the supermarket again and stocked up on food. Lets just say the peanut butter here is NOT like it is at home and I miss Skippy's. But I guess I'll get used to it (just like soynut butter) throughout the semester. They also don't have jelly or grape jelly/jam so I had to settle for strawberry jam. The supermarket is pretty nice actually and has most things which is very convenient! The problem is fitting everything into the fridge. Then the group met downstairs at 5:30 to go to our "pub night." The director took us to a pub which is in a beautiful section of Auckland - right on the water! He gave us each a voucher for a free drink and gave us LOTS of delicious appetizers. Afterwards a bunch of us walked around the water area and checked out different places.

Day Three:
Tuesday January 5th was our first day of classes at the University of Auckland. We got up early and the program director walked us over to the campus center to get our ID passwords so we could check where/when our classes meet. I also got a notebook from the bookstore and discovered that New Zealand uses much bigger paper than the US and hence uses different types of folders. Anyways, I found out that I got into Geography 207 which meets Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9-11 am. The class also includes a 1 week field trip during the 1st week of February to Northland (which not going to lie, is the reason I decided to sign up for the class). There is a pretty big group of BU people in the class but the rest of the students are New Zealanders. I think it'll be such a great way to get to know Kiwis (what New Zealanders call themselves) on the field trip. We got to class and it actually seems like it is going to be a really good class. On the first day we talked about how people see landscapes differently based on their past experiences, which I find to be interesting. The class actually has 3 lecturers who rotate around. I've only had the first one so far, but he seems good. The coursework doesn't seem too difficult either - we just have an essay (less than 5 pages) and a final exam, in addition to different activities we will be completing during the field trip. We also have reading assigned but the professor hasn't really told us how to access them. He mentioned something called "cecil" which seems like Brandeis' "latte" but I'm not really sure how it works so I'll have to go to the internet help desk to figure it out. Anyways after that I had a few hours free before my next class so I went back to the Warehouse to get plastic drawers and other things (which was NOT at all pleasant to carry back). Then from 4-6 I had my New Zealand Culture class that everyone in the BU program needs to take. The classroom is at the Auckland University of Technology (less than a 20 minute walk away). The class seems really interesting and also has 3 different lecturers and field trips included. The coursework is one essay and two exams (based on the breakup by the professors). We learned different Maori works and then we all listed off the facts we know so far about New Zealand - which the professor greatly expanded upon. It was so fascinating to see what we had already learned about New Zealand in just a couple of days! In a later post I'll write to you about everything I've noticed about New Zealand culture so stay tuned! After class a bunch of us went to a street restaurant called "The Lady Burger." It's basically this huge van on the side of one of the streets that serves huge burgers. I got the "veggie deluxe" which has a veggie burger, fried egg, pineapple, lettuce, tomato and onion. It was absolutely delicious and very messy to eat! After that we came back and hung around the UniLodge.

Day Four:
Wednesday January 6th I had my geography class again. It's so funny because I've never had a 9 am class at Brandeis but here I am with one in Auckland but so far it has not been a big deal at all. The sun is SO bright in Auckland that I've been automatically waking up early anyways (it also stays light out late - usually until after 9!). Anyways so after not having a problem getting up, I looked out my window and saw a HUGE traffic jam outside. My class is less than 10 minutes away and I was just thinking how nice it is that I don't have to deal with the traffic because I can just walk to class - WRONG! Apparently they are filming the new "Yogi Bear" movie right next to where I am living so the entire street was blocked off to pedestrians and cars. The traffic jam I saw was actually part of the set from the movie. They had cars on the American side of the road (which was funny to see in NZ) and a lot of the cars had fake Montana license plates (which looked nothing like Montana license plates) it was hilarious. Anyways it was a bit difficult to get to class though. Luckily I was with other people going to the same class and the Yogi Bear people helped us get around (we basically had to do a loop around the park to get to our class). So after finally making it there, the second geog class was good. We talked about one of my favorite topics - SCHOOLS!! Honestly, I almost started laughing when I realized we were talking about something that I spent at least half of my classes at Brandeis talking about in a geography class. It was really interesting because we were examining how the government has been making some schools in Northland close down due to lack of resources and they think a merge would be better, but then that impacts the town's sense of community. Let's just say I was paying very close attention the whole class! Then during my break I FINALLY got a phone that works - YAY and figured out how to use that and skype :) Then we had the New Zealand Culture class again (did I mention that it is Monday - Thursday 4-6 and sometimes 4-7) - it was a 4-7 day and it was kind of hard to sit through a 3 hour class at that time. We talked about Maori myths which are really fascinating and the first people and settlers of New Zealand. After class we were all starving! A group of us went to the supermarket and got stuff to make kebobs. It took a while to get everything assembled but it was so worth it and delicious!

Day Five:
Thursday January 7th (today) a bunch of us did not have class until 4 (because Auckland University of Technology does not start until next week and everyone in geog class only has class on tues and weds) so we decided to have an adventure! We met at 8:45 am in the lobby and took the ferry to Devonport. The ferry cost $10 roundtrip (which is really around $7 US) and was around 10 minutes away. Devonport is such a cute quaint town! The houses are adorable and it is right on the harbor connecting it to Auckland. Devonport is considered a suburb of Auckland. We first went and climbed Mt Victoria which is a dormant volcano. The view from the top was absolutely breathtaking and I took lots of pictures (which I will hopefully figure out how to upload for you all soon!). Mt Victoria is really not that big and more like a tall hill kind of. We hung out up there for a while and then went back down. As we were figuring out what we were going to do next, a New Zealander walked by and made a suggestion which we readily followed. We went to North Head national park which was around a 10 minute walk from Mt Victoria. We went around the outside of it, through a tunnel and then walked along this path right by the water - it was GORGEOUS! On my left were magnificent rock formations from North Head and on my right was the water with rocks and an incredible view - lets just say that I did not know which way to look because it was all unbelievable! We then came to a small beach clearing and some people ;went swimming. I just walked in and climbed on some rocks with another girl and we found really cool fossils! After spending some time there we walked around the rest of the park and decided we were all hungry so went in search of lunch. I found a good fish 'n chips place and we ate them in the park. We then took the ferry back and had an hour before our New Zealand Culture class. I was exhausted from being in the sun all day (don't worry I put LOTS of sunscreen on and reapplied many times to protect me from the lack of ozone over NZ and tried to stay in the shade as much as possible and drank water). The class was interesting again today though. We talked about the tattoos that some Maori put on their face and their bodies and watched a movie about how New Zealand came to be (apparently it used to be part of a massive continent with Australia, Antarctica, South Africa and more then drifted away, and then the plates shifted and the whole country reorganized itself - because of where New Zealand sits there are lots of earthquakes daily but we can't feel them in Auckland - more in the South). Then I came back and made some dinner (salad and pasta) and now I'm writing this blog to you!

It's getting dark now so I'm going to head back to the UniLodge (a mere 2 minutes away). I hope you all enjoyed my update! Let me know if you have any feedback or want to hear more about anything I wrote about! I would love to hear what is going on with all of you so please update me on your lives when you get a chance!!

Lots of love from New Zealand!