I arrived in Dunedin on July 5th, in the morning. I had no idea what time it was supposed to be considered I had just travelled for a full 24 hours. Almost (yes, I do say almost) all of the flights went well throughout the trip and I had a nice break from travelling when my friend picked Case and I up at LAX to get some In N Out burgers. The reason I say almost all of the flights went well is because we had to take one extra plane than we planned. On our way from Auckland (north island, NZ) to Dunedin (south island, NZ), the last flight of my journey, the pilot said that a warning light had come on in the plane and we needed to land in Christchurch. After an hour and a half of getting our bags, following poorly given directions, and checking into a new flight, we were back on a new plane.
We arrived in Dunedin at around 12:30 pm on July 5th, about three hours later than our scheduled arrival. I was dissapointed my snowboard bag had gotten on a later flight without me, but it was delivered to my doorstep later that day. I got settled in and met my flatmates, a girl from Detroit, a guy from Germany, and my kiwihost, who is from Auckland on the North Island. Everything is going well and all my flatmates are very nice and compatible.
On the left is a picture overlooking Dunedin from a hill. On the right is a picture of the outside of the flats that I live in.
Since moving in, I went to orientation, registered for classes, and many other things. I am taking a class about the New Zealand Maori culture, a class called Understanding Contemporary Media and a fiilm history class. As I write this, I am now in the 2nd week of classes already. And its July 21st!
Another reason why the date amazes me is because it is 48 degrees here as well. It is truly winter in the southern hemisphere, and with no indoor heating in my flat, I have to stay warm all the time. But besides heat, the coolest part about winter is I am snowboarding in July. This weekend I went to Queenstown with some friends and went to two New Zealand resorts, Cardrona and The Remarkables. It was extremely windy and the snow was not that great, but overall it was aweosme being able to ride in July. Here is a picture of the view from a balcony of the place I stayed at in Queenstown. And below is a picture of The Remarks resort from the parking lot and a picture of my friend Pete on the mountain.
Snowboarding was fun, but something even crazier that I've done since I've been here is surfing! For the first time in my life, I surfed and snowboarded back to back days. Last Friday, some friends and I rented wetsuits and booties from the Uni recreation center and headed to the beach. The water was 48 degrees F or 9 degrees C!! I got up on a wave or two but only after about 5 minutes each time I had to get out to take a break. Without a hood or gloves my hands were so frozen I couldn't take it for very long.
Getting out was another experience in itself. Going back to the car, we took our wetsuits off trying to get warm. Standing there in our boardshorts, in 50 degree weather, we felt extremely warm compared to the cold water. It was funny being outside in our bathing suits when there were people on the beach/pier in winter jackets shivering.
Cold!
Well, that is all for now. That was an extremely long post just to catch up with the things I have been doing so far in Dunedin. I will try to update this somewhat regularly as my trip progresses here. There are so many cool beaches, mountain ranges, cliffs, and plenty of other things to see!
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