Catching Up..

So, I clearly epically failed on the blogging thing for the first month. But here's a recap of what I've been doing:

I slept the majority of my flight here, of course. Is anyone surprised?! I waited until the plane ride to read my AWESOME letter from Brooke. (Thanks for that Brooke, I loved it!).

I met all of the people in my IES program and we went on a scavenger hunt through the campus and then on one through the city. It was great because it gave us a chance to see the place that we were going to be spending the next couple months.

That weekend we went to Springfield and stayed at Smiley's which was a really great youth hostel. We spent the day in Castle Hill and it was BEAUTIFUL.
It is this place amidst the Southern Alps. Apparently it's really great for climbing because they have all of these crazy huge boulders everywhere. The ride up there alone was stunning. It was a great introduction to New Zealand. I was speechless and kind of giddy with excitement. Yes, I am aware how stupid that phrase just sounded, but I have no other way to describe it. Oh, and where we were was close to where Narnia was filmed, no big deal.

The next day we toured a sheep farm and the whole time I just kept thinking about Simone and her obsession with sheep. We got to feed them and I sheered a sheep. Some people chased them. It was pretty legit, but really really cold. Also, the views were stunning, as always. We also went on a jet boat ride while at this sheep farm. Which I wasn't too excited about, but wow. It was awesome. And not as cold as expected. We went through all these massive canyons and all of this crazy stuff. I'm telling you, my descriptions and pictures don't even come close to how beautiful everything is.

The next day, I accidentally got on the wrong bus because I'm an idiot. But it ended up being great because I ended up at New Brighton Beach and had a really great 'me' day. I read on the beach and just walked around. It was once again, really pretty. It has this awesome pier with great views of the mountains.


Then began the first week of classes. I, of course, missed my only class on the first day because I am a moron. But, I made it to all my other classes that week. I ended up dropping a class because I was taking far too many credits and, let's be honest, I'm here to travel not to learn. They also had a clubs day the first week so I signed up for some clubs such as the Kayaking Club (yes, I'm learning to Kayak) and the Tramping Club (which is what they call Hiking). So that was pretty cool. Oh, we also went to this pretty sweet Kiwi Habitat on one of the nights of the first week. It was legit.

The weekend after that was pretty sweet. We saw more of the town, went to the beach, I learned that I can play harmonica with the best of them, I had many weird encounters with Xun, etc. etc. I can't really remember that far back so I'm sorry for my lack of details. For those of you who don't know, Xun is a Chinese foreign exchange student who also lives at my home stay. He's not the best at speaking English and he always tries to talk to me about movies. He also always sings very loudly from his room and I can hear him and it is HILARIOUS.

The second week of school began and I realized that I should probably buy my books. Yes, I hadn't yet bought my books. So I bought like two of them. Hopefully that will suffice for the semester. We'll see. We also checked out this place that had an open mic night. It had some great vibes. My friend Lindsay may be playing there in the near future. I started my ritual of getting out of classes and then picking a bus and getting on it and seeing where it goes. I always pass something that looks legit and I get off and check the area out. It's been a great way to see lots of things and kind of be a part of the culture.

The next weekend was EPIC. On Friday, we got up and went to the beach and went surfing. Yes, my friends, it is the middle of winter here but we still did it. The whole way there we were like "wait, what are we doing?"
because it was seriously one of the worst days we could have picked. It was raining and the waves were completely ridiculous. But, nevertheless, we pressed on and I'm so glad. Of course we had wet suits and stuff, but those didn't help as much as you'd think. Either way, it was awesome and I got up on the board a couple times and we're totally going back because it was only $25. Probably because nobody is stupid enough to surf in the winter.

The next day we got up super early and went snowboarding. Surfing and snowboarding one day apart? Why yes, of course.
New Zealand is just awesome like that. It was my first time snowboarding so it took me a while to get up, but by the end of the day I was shredding. Okay, that's a lie. But I did VASTLY improve and I am REALLY excited to go again. Oh, and once again, the Southern Alps were STUNNING. Pictures can't capture the beauty.

Then the next day we spent the day in Diamond Harbour. It was such a cute little town and had the cutest little coffee place. And it was beautiful, once again. Anyone who tells you that New Zealand is one of the prettiest places in the world isn't lying. I am constantly amazed by it all.

The next week was pretty awesome. By now I had settled into the fact that this place is my home for the next couple months and this isn't just a vacation or something. I found some really awesome spots on campus to read and chill out. We watched Inception and OH MY WORD my mind was blown. We literally sat in the theater for a while after just trying to figure it out. Crazy movie. Loved it. There was a whole lot of hanging out and impromptu shopping trips amidst everyday life.

This brings me up to last weekend, Finally! It was great, we went to Sumner Beach for the first time and it was awesome. I climbed some of the rocks and felt pretty legit. I decided to start refusing to use stairs. Just kidding. But seriously. It was a great day. The next day we spent the day in town and went to the art gallery. I really really liked one of the exhibits in particular.
There was this other one that was just super weird and the whole time me and Courtney were really confused.

The next day we went to Hanmer Springs - this was my favorite day this weekend. The bus ride up there was incredible - tons of rolling hills and snowcapped mountains. Once again, stunning. Once we got there we decided to hike around, we thought we were going to be doing an easy hike but you never know what's really going to happen and we ended up doing this pretty legit hike and ended up on this awesome mound where we could see everything!! Once again, beautiful.
Then we went back down and found this really pretty stream where we had a great view of the mountains when we looked up. Oh, and there was this rainbow that popped out of nowhere. Oh my word, just a surreal experience all around. Then we went back and got in the hot springs. This was great because it had started raining and was freezing cold outside. The hot springs were so so relaxing. I never wanted to get out. But of course, we had to.

So this week I realized I've been here for a month already! It flew by so quickly! I can't even believe it. In some ways I feel like I've been here forever and in some ways I feel like I just got here. The whole experience is honestly surreal. But I'm loving it!

Okay, if you have endured all of that you deserve an award of some sort.