Day I have no freakin' idea. I've been away for a while...

Hello from Dunedin!

It's been a while since I've actually sat down to write anything, which is a bit of a bummer. A post regarding the remainder of my adventures in Fiji is currently in the works, but, as you can imagine, it's quite long so it might be a little while until it's up. In the mean time, though, I've been having a great time in Dunedin, attempting to acclimate to my new home.

I'm all moved in to my flat on Castle St, which is supposedly the party center of the University of Otago since pretty much the whole street is lined with student flats. It's been pretty quite since I've arrived, however, as most of the students wont get here until next week. That's not to say that there hasn't been anything to do. There certainly have been a few house parties and such. People here LOVE to drink, and to drink copious amounts at that. Unfortunately, alcohol (especially beer) is quite expensive. There's a lot more wine drinking among students here than back home as that's the cheapest option for the most part. I've gotten pretty well acquainted with Southern Gold (aka So Go) though, which, despite everyone's general distaste for it, is not that bad. I'd put it on par with PBR, and at a little less than a dollar a can you can't go wrong.

Anyway, I know the majority of people reading this (aka my parents) don't particularly want to hear all about my inebriated escapades (although you inevitably will. Sorry mom). I've also been up to some fairly constructive things in these past weeks. Reid, Rachel and I have done a fair amount of wondering around the city. We made it to the farmers market, which was pretty awesome. They have a lot of very delicious dairy products here, as well as lots of fresh produce, thanks to the prominence of agriculture throughout New Zealand. It's impossible to drive anywhere for long without seeing paddocks full of sheep. I'm gonna need to get some sweet merino wool stuff while I'm here I think. We also went to the Thieve's Market, which is a big arts and crafts market in the Octagon (city center) which was also pretty cool. Other than that we've been exploring the botanic gardens right next door and hanging out with the various people that we've met since being here.

I've also already had a field trip for my structural geology class, which was crazy intense. It was literally like geology boot camp; I was not prepared for what I'd gotten myself into at all. Every morning our prof awoke us promptly at 7 am by banging pots and pans together. I didn't think it possible to sleep through that until I managed to do so the last day after spending 16 straight hours constructing a geological map and stereonets FML. Other than the crazy amount of work, though, the trip was pretty awesome. It was cool to interact with the kiwis, and my New Zealand vocab is certainly growing. There are many subtle differences from American english, some of which are quite funny. The accent is pretty boss as well. It's kinda like a bastardized British accent meets a subtle Boston accent. All the vowels are very short, if not omitted.

New Zealand Dictionary:
sweet as = cool, awesome
eh = added to the end of every sentence, especially rhetorical questions
rubber = eraser (kinda awkward the first time someone asked me if they could borrow my rubber...)
jersey = sweater
jam = jelly
jelly = jello
zed = the letter z
port of call = thing to do
cheers = thank you
paper = class
tramping = hiking
chemist = pharmacy
paddock = pasture

Another one of my flatmates arrived yesterday. His name is also Andrew, and coincidentally he's also quite tall and skinny. He goes to St. Lawrence and is originally from Boston, and it seems like he enjoys the outdoors, which is pretty cool. I think we should get along just fine. The rest of my flatmates should arrive within the week, all of are American girls saving one girl from Hong Kong and, of course, my Kiwi host, Josh. I met Josh the other day for a couple minutes while he dropped some of his food off before heading up to Christchurch, which is where he's from. He said he wont be back until the 27th, so it could be interesting here with now Kiwi host at first.

It seems that a good portion of the international students are American, which should be interesting. I've (inevitably) run into a fair amount of American stereotypes since leaving the country, and I'm doing my best to perpetuate them whenever I can ;-). It is really interesting to hear what people around the world think of us as a nation, and you also realize that many criticisms are merited. For instance, the whole imperial units thing is pretty silly if you think about it. A base ten system of measurement makes a lot more sense. There's also the whole political and consumerism aspect, but I've talked enough about politics for now and I don't particularly feel like ruining my mood by discussing it further.
Anyway, I know people only really want to see pictures, so I'll shut up. Here they are:

The clock tower on campus. Just about every day a bus full of asian tourists pull up and they pile out with their cameras to pose in front of the clock tour. They all make sure to get a picture in front of it, though none of them ever smile. Ever. 

The string band at the farmers market from Vanuatu. The had fashioned this crazy string base out of a large wooden box, a broom handle and a string. They sounded really awesome, but if you listened to 'em for more than 10 minutes you began to realize that all the songs consisted of pretty much the same chord progression...

Scrumpy! Don't let the appearance fool you. Although this looks like soda, it is in fact strongly fermented sparkling cider. A liter and a half equates to roughly 8 standard drinks, and it's impossible to drink it with out someone taping the bottles to your hands. Fortunately for me and Reid (that's right, I did scrumpy hands with Reid Usedom. Never did I think I'd live to see the day...), as we were unaware of the rules to begin with, we got away with only drinking one each.

One of the many spectacular ocean views seen on the geology field trip in the Catlins. Unfortunately we spent the whole time measuring strikes, dips, trends and plunges and so were not able to fully explore the landscape other than geologically. It was still cool to be there, though.

Another field trip photo.

Yet another 

Grumpy Rachel recording strikes and dips. She was so grumpy....

This sea lion was straight posted. He was even grumpier than Rachel (I know, hard to believe right?) and refused to let anyone pass, especially this spanish couple. To top it off, he ripped the loudest fart that I have ever heard right before I took this photo. They're not exactly the most polite animals. They do spend all their time chillin out on the beach though. Talk about living the dream....

So that's about everything up to this point. I do miss everyone back home, though I can't say I miss home quite yet. I'm very much enjoying being here and looking forward to the start of the school year, especially since I'll only have class three days a week (suckas!).

Cheers!