Orientation Weekend

Kia Ora again!

I was able to secure some internet here in my apartment pretty quickly today! There is a pizza place located in our building that offers students access to their wireless connection that is cheaper than our building offers! Hopefully it will work out well for us!

This might be the longest I will ever post, but orientation was FULL of activities! I will just start at the beginning and hope I don’t bore you too much. We landed in Auckland at 6:30am Thursday morning. We were greeted by Kate and Jane ( our fabulous Arcadia University program directors) who took us straight to Kiwi International Hotel where we showered, had coffee and muffins, and headed out for an exciting day getting to know the city. There are 14 people from all over the USA in our group ( and when I say “our” I’m referring to Mariel and myself…She is the friend from Geneva who came with me and who I’m also living with!) We spent the day walking around the city, getting our bearings, and fought off the urge to go to sleep. We hiked up North Head after walking down Cheltenham beach. Then we went up the Sky Tower for a view of the city from above. We went out for a nice “pizza” (not by Chicago’s standards) dinner and fell fast asleep by 730pm! I slept a good 12 hours!

Day 2- Friday consisted of traveling to Rotarua- a tourist town 3 hours south of Auckland. Along the way we stopped in Hobbiton where the Shire portions of the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed. We only stopped through for lunch, so we weren’t able to tour anything, but were able to pose for a picture in the “hobbit hole.” We continued on and arrived at the Agrodome where we watched a farm show followed by a tour of Rainbow Springs where we saw rainbow trout, kiwi a tuatara – all unique to New Zealand. Following this we checked into the Sudima Hotel. We toured the town and ate dinner at a fantastic little Italian place. At night we went to the Polynesian Spa located next to our hotel and soaked under the stars in a hot mineral water pools. It was a great way to unwind. Now, I know what you’re all thinking. “WOW, that sounds awesome!” right? WRONG. Let me explain.. the town of Rotarua smells of nothing but sulfur.. to me it smells like rotting eggs/farts. The hot mineral pools were very relaxing, however, we looked down towards the end of our soak and realized how much floating dead skin we were sitting in and were thoroughly disgusted! It’s winter here, did I mention that? So it did feel good to soak in the pools, but it was hard to get over the smell.

Day 3- Saturday consisted of visiting a Waiotapu a geothermal park where were watched lady Knox geyser erupt . We had a 2 hour lunch break after this where we went to the local grocery store to buy something cheap to hold us over until dinner. We then went back to the hotel to gear up for our afternoon of ZORBING! Zorbing is an athletic event here in NZ. We changed into our bathing suits (remember it’s winter- so I wore t-shirt and shorts over mine ) and driven to the top of a hill where we paired off and waited in line. Two by Two we dove headfirst into a rather large plastic ball partially filled with water. We were then hurled down a hill. The whole thing lasts for about 35 seconds, but it was thrilling all the same! After calming down and catching our breath from laughing so much, Mariel and I climbed out and raced to change out of our wet clothes!

Following our showers and a bit of downtime we were picked up on a bus and headed out the Tamaki Maori Village where we experienced an traditional Maori welcome , concert of song and dance, and a hangi Maori Dinner prepared in underground ovens. (very delicious) Completely exhausted, we returned to the hotel for a well deserved night’s sleep.

Day 4- Sunday we made the 3 hour trip back to Auckland where we settled into our apartments! 3 hours in a small coach bus going over hills and around corners doesn’t do well for my motion sickness- needless to say I had a pretty bad headache and was pretty crabby by the end of the trip! One thing we’re trying to get used to is driving on the left hand side of the road.. we’re being extra careful crossing streets and always looking to the right first, not the left!

That’s enough for now, Thanks for reading (if you made it this far)