Oops It's October

Can't be bothered to waste any of our precious internet by uploading pictures, but hopefully will put some up soon.

August:
Round two of the south island was pretty spectacular. We (Eric my flat mate from Mass and I) flew into Christchuch (before the massive earthquake) and spent the first day wandering around, driving for the first time in seven months, and basking in the complete absence of tests and papers. After picking up Taryn and Beenie (two neighbors, from Atlanta and Montreal, respectively) from the airport, the four of us proceeded onward to Akaroa, a quaint seaside town. All was splendid until our not-so-lovely ace rental car that we gave a less than endearing name to decided to smoke up. Turned out the brake pads were VERY worn down. After walking along one of the finger-like projections, Le Bon Bay if my memory serves correctly, we headed back to ChCh to join up with Garrett and Jack, two of our neighbors both from NorCal.

Our travels through the next few days included driving through Arthur's Pass (sans snow/ice, thank goodness, and plus a LOT of rain and ausgezeichnet rainbows!) Greymouth had a very nice hostel that we spent two nights at. Around Greymouth are some amazing "pancake rocks", very unique, not quite explained geologically, and a creepy dark cavern! This was the day we were finally able to play ipods in the car, which was an added perk. Franz Josef glacier was AMAZING! Glaciers are so cool! Possibly the greatest natural phenomenon I've ever seen (although I'm confident the Amazon would one-up it for me). One of the only real problems with New Zealand is a severe lack of native animals. Sure they've got some birds, plants, and fish, but as far as mammals go, it's just native bats and introduced farm animals + the loathed possums. From the glacier we went on an hour drive that ended up being closer to three and a half hours to Wanaka, a calm city outside of Queenstown. We unfortunately just missed meeting up with yet another neighbor, Jools from Scotland, as we arrived in town late and quite exhausted.

Wanaka felt VERY vacation-y. The boys hiked Roy's Peak, a pretty considerable feat with quite a bit of altitude, while Taryn and I explored the countryside. The cows along the road were bizarre and the sheep were antisocial. Next stop in the adventure wagon = QUEENSTOWN, the most fun city in the world! If you're into adventure, that is. After driving down some ridiculously steep switch backs, we arrived in one of my favorite cities in the world, and she was just as great as I had originally reckoned. Cold weather was quite fun for me and I even played in the snow (which is a cultural experience for a so cal gal). Perhaps the most amusing of our many days in Queenstown was the one I dub 'passively participating' watched other people bungy jump, jet boat, ski, and just about everything else. We drove up to the ski resort (hence the opportunity to play in the snow) then drove back down. Learned many an entertaining card game in the hostel. Milford Sound = still amazing. Also, can't forget meeting up with Nelson and Kelsey (NY and Kiwi) a few times in town. The eight of us went ice skating and it was AWESOME! I only fell once and it wasn't too bad, all things considered.

Haven't yet mentioned the actual hostel experience: it's bizarre and fabulous at the same time. Staying by myself at a hostel in Melbourne was not nearly so fun as staying with friends. The community aspect works out quite well and it's a relief to have a safe, warm place to sleep for around 20$ NZ a night. That being said, a lot of people in the hostels are really interesting, if a bit odd, but most of all friendly. Towards the beginning of the trip I had a rather violent cold and couldn't sleep much, which was a bummer, but that took care of itself by Queenstown. Luging in Queenstown (think driving a mario kart style go kart down a reasonably inclined slope) was fun, but I was definitely the scaredy cat in the group (even though I'm the only one who did any of the jumps while in NZ! weird eh?) We wrapped things up in Queenstown and I headed to Lake Tekapo with Eric, Jack, and Garrett for a little hike then onward to the earthquake devastated ChCh. The damage was as bad as the news media had made it seem, but it will still be a bit of a disaster to finance and they're STILL getting aftershocks, which must be frustrating and tiring for all the folks down there. My friend Sarah graciously let us stay the night and even treated the four of us to a delicious breakfast. Kiwi hospitality at its best! Garrett and Jack dropped us off at the airport, as they stayed a day longer. After shuffling to and from the airport, flying to Auckland, bus to Uni, finally home, I happily did my laundry.

A few weeks later I went up north to Cape Reinga with Taryn, Eric, and Jon (another American, from Pennsylvania). After very tentative (ie non existent) planning, we scrambled to get a car the afternoon we left. All was well on the road, until I got ridiculously nauseous and we realized all the hostels closed at 9 (we wouldn't be anywhere near them until at least 10 PM.) We made some plans for sleeping in the car, still too cold to sleep outside, but thankfully found somewhere open as we rolled through Kaitaia. This place was a relief, but it was also kind of filthy. The whole place smelled like cigarettes, the staff was drinking and smoking when we arrived, and we were quite pleased to get out of there bright & early. We checked out some awesome wood work and a staircase made from a tree trunk (much cooler than it sounds) and then stumbled upon a beach with THE most awesome sea shells. Glorious! Unfortunately, a bunch of whales had recently beached so we also witnessed their burial. Checked out the massive sand dunes: amazing! SO COOL! The pictures look like real desert, maybe the Sahara. Cape Reinga was nice, not too busy.

Since then I haven't done much traveling. Been watching a lot of movies recently and hanging out with friends and neighbors while I'm still on the same side of the world as them. Of course huge amounts of studying. Wrote a reasonably decent paper on Camus's views on the absurd and revolt in the last couple of days. Writing essays seems so foreign to me after all these lab reports and problem sets. Psychology was moderately interesting, but one of the lecturers was VERY antimedicine and seemingly anti science which definitely irritated me. My pharmacy class has proven to be quite interesting, although complementary and alternative medicines not-so-much. The lecture on tobacco was VERY well done. After all that information I'm so relieved to not be a smoker, nicotine does some pretty gnarly things to the brain. German has been going very well. I really like foreign language, but am not confident that I'll ever be fluent in anything besides English. Hopefully I can continue taking it at SB. My study load next semester is going to be very demanding: p chem, materials, ChE stats, heat transfer, and German.

After lectures tomorrow, I'm heading to Whakatane with my friend Nicole. Should be a great time. She's one of my best friends here and I will be sad to leave her in NZ :( After this mini vacation, it's nose to the grind stone for me (I'm sure I just butchered that) to prepare for final exams. Then it's to the tropics...hello Tonga!! With Eric and Carmen. Then some more shuffling around in New Zealand and CALIFORNIA in December!!! Leaving summer for winter doesn't sound too appealing, but I am so overwhelmingly excited to see my family, friends, and of course, Frodo. Also very pleased to be meeting my niece, Isabella, who's nearly three weeks old and an amazing crying machine, from what I'm told. I'm not happy about leaving the South Pacific and all the friends I've made over the year, but I don't have any complaints or regrets about returning to California, which I think is definitely a job well done for an abroad student.