Kia ora!

Question mark?

It's so typical of a study abroad blogger to apologize for taking longer than expected, and as someone who regularly posts pictures as my group's unofficial historian, I've always found it to be silly -- of course you have time to update your blog! It doesn't take long! ...Now I understand what they mean. Especially since the longer I go without writing this, the more I have to write and thusly the longer it'll take to do, so I have been avoiding it as much as unable to write it. I finally have some free time though, so here's my (hopefully extensive enough) recap of my past week. I apologize for the length, but it's been awhile.

The day was finally here! My countdown clock on my phone reached 0 at midnight Monday night, and the excitement just bubbled up. Everything was finally so real. After a mother-daughter date at the nail spa and a slight scare with my trusty Rainbow sandals, I had my last Whataburger (and consequently, Dr Pepper) for a solid 5 months. Of all of the tear-jerking things of the day, that was probably #1. Kidding. Maybe. Anyways, after being dropped off at DFW by my parentals, I safely made it to LAX with about 5 hours before my international flight. As the terminal where Air NZ was situated in LAX isn't exactly the biggest of places, IFSA-Butler students found each other, and also started a game of "do you think that person is coming with us or not" with pretty much any 20something that walked past. We got pretty good at it. Eventually it was time to board the biggest plane I have ever seen in my life and probably will ever see (save my return flight home, which I assume will be on a similarly-situated aircraft). I wish I had taken a picture of it. After the best airplane safety video I've ever watched...

This literally happened.

...we finally were in the air. Thanks to James' thoughtful pre-flight gift of two NyQuil, I had a wonderfully easy trip as I was asleep for a solid 10 hours. We landed on a beautifully sunny day (it's summer here), and drove straight to the YMCA-operated Shakespear Park. (No, I didn't spell that wrong; it was the name of the family that used to own the land before it became a national park.) From then on, I could not stop taking landscape pictures.

I wasn't joking about the landscapes.

Also, sheep.

And there's literally tens more where those came from. Orientation at Shakespear Park is a big blur of physical activities -- hiking, kayaking, archery, rock climbing, the usual things that granola people like. 

An accurate itinerary for every day of orientation.
(Kai = Maori for food)

They also fed us the most food of all time, except all of it was extremely healthy and grass-fed and super organicky so I obviously ate little of it. But not to fear, we honestly ate 6 times a day, so I am not withering away to nothing just yet. The last night of IFSA orientation, we spent the night at a Maori marae (muh-rye), where we learned about the history and culture of NZ's indigenous peoples. At the gift shop of said location, we discovered an English-to-Maori translation guidebook that provided hours of endless entertainment, and has also inspired me to do a Maori word/phrase of the day on this blog, time permitting.


On Sunday, us Chch'ers (Chch is the shorthand version of Christchurch, FYI) bid our tearful goodbyes to our IFSA Auckland counterparts and finally boarded our last piece of public transportation towards our final destination. It is not nearly as sunny here as Auckland was -- it's currently 50's and rainy, which is depressing, given that it's supposed to be the middle of their summer. That being said, our flats are actually extremely nice, and I was super excited just to be able to sit and not be orientated for awhile. Once I got unpacked, we headed over to the apartment complex's common room and immediately made some Kiwi friends that have been extremely useful in navigating the pitfalls that is the regionalized differences of the English language. Their sayings are weird as. But I am one step further towards my goal of being able to imitate a Kiwi accent before I leave in June, so that's good.


Yesterday, I bought groceries. Today was the international orientation, and tomorrow is registration. I would expound on these three days, but nothing else significant comes to mind. I'm just looking forwards to getting into a routine finally after all this anticipation, but that will have to wait til Monday. For now, I have a school-sponsored toga party to look forward to on Friday, and who-knows-what in between.


And finally, I am officially in love with the All Blacks rugby team here so if anyone wants to buy me a jersey/send me the $150 for my birthday that would be great okay thanks bye.

Maori phrase of the day: 

Kei te nui te ahua o taku nono i roto i tenei? (Does my bum look big in this?)