It is freezing outside, but there are still palm trees and flowers

Good Morning! I just woke up to another beautiful morning in Dunedin. The sun is out, in a cloudless blue sky, and I can see some birds flying outside my dew and frost covered windows. It is about 9:10 in the morning here on July 3rd and I think i'm totally kicking jetlag in the butt. I managed to stay up until midnight yesterday, which makes me not want to count the number of hours I had been up since Thursday morning, and slept until this 8:45AM. Score. 


Here is an update about my travels and my first day, both of which were quite exciting. After arriving in San Francisco, I met up with Julia and Gaia for our flight to Auckland. We boarded a very large plane and found our seats right by the wing. The three of us were able to change our boarding passes so that we sat next to each other. We then watched an incredible safety video of Kiwis (people of New Zealand) in 80's sportswear teaching us about airplane safety and how to buckle our seat belts and such. It was quite impressive, there were choreographed dances, music, and costumes in the video, much more exciting than the generic US one, I think. Shortly after takeoff we met the incredibly nice cabin crew who were all dressed in bright purple floral shirts and wore black pin striped aprons. They came by serving us dinner, and get ready for this, because I was very shocked by dinner. Dinner was served in really nice plastic plates and bowls and came with nice utensils. As I looked at my tray I saw the typical main dish, with a small salad, desert, piece of bread and butter and an empty coffee cup. Then I saw an extra shiny thing on the tray and realized it was a wine glass, that was not plastic, but was in fact, glass. After this discovery, the cabin crew came around with their wine cart and offered us a glass of New Zealand wine. He showed us a bottle of white wine and Julia and I said we would try some. When pouring it into Julia's glass, the wine was purple, which made me think that white wine in New Zealand was purple, but it was just a sticker mistake on the bottle, so he poured us another one that was the typical white wine color. But we got to keep the extra cup of red wine too, which added more excitement to the whole "i'm legally being served wine" deal. Also, just a side note, they did not charge us for wine, it comes with dinner so everyone 18 or over could have a glass. After dinner all three of us took a nap until we were woken up for breakfast, which was equally as impressive as dinner. We arrived in Auckland at about 5:20AM where it was still dark outside so I did not see much. Customs went very smoothly as did security. They had to search my bag because I had brought my pencil case, but all was well after that. At their bag search station, there was a measuring tap that was labeled, "Maximum Boomerang Length" which I thought was funny. We boarded our smaller plane that was to take us to Dunedin, and we met another girl from Wisconsin who was going to be studying at Otago too. Together we boarded the plane and took off into the sunrise. New Zealand from above was absolutely beautiful. The entire country is filled with mountains, some that are high and rocky and covered with snow and others that have soft edges and are covered with trees. I could see some rivers running through the mountains and the water was a bluish green, but more green than blue. We arrived in Dunedin early, so we had to take the stairs to leave the plane, and I had not had time to take my winter jacket out and had to face the -3 degrees Celsius that was outside. It was cold. Anyways, we were met by a super nice taxi driver that took us to get our keys and then to our designated flats. 


My flat is a large green building, which is actually many buildings linked together. There was a nice little kitchen with a dining area and living room. There were two floors above that and I live on the second floor (the middle floor). When I entered my room, I was surprise to find that the previous resident had left much of his stuff and quite the mess in the room, which made me rather annoyed, but it's okay, because messes can be cleaned up. I will probably clean a bit more today, even though the University Flats office told me they would do something about it on Monday. Anyways, more about the good parts of my room! The room is very spacious with a double bed (All students have double beds here). I have a desk, bookshelf, a closet type thing, and a dresser. I also have two large windows and a balcony that I share with my flatmate who has not arrived yet. I will post pictures once I've cleaned up and unpacked a bit. 


After I put my things in my room, I left to go meet up with Julia, John, and Cece. We met John and Cece on our taxi ride from the airport. John is from Colorado and Cece is the one from Wisconsin. Together, we went looking for food, since we were all quite hungry at this point and we had no idea what time it. We found a little underground cafe where we ate yummy food and made total fools out of ourselves. We walked in and the first thing John asked was "Is it still morning here?" and I followed with "What time of day is it?" and the waitress was entirely bewildered by our questions until we mentioned that we had just arrived from the US. We then ordered our food by the counter only to realize it was self serve, but they served us anyways. We then walked around town only to realize that things are really expensive, but probably because we had not found the places with cheaper things. We walked around campus taking pictures, which I will post later. The campus is beautiful, with a river running through it. There are some modern looking buildings but there were also building that look like the Pems at Bryn Mawr. There is an arch way that looks just like Pem Arch and there is a bridge crossing the river with a lantern above it. We came back to the flat where I hung out with Julia for a while before going back to my own flat to pick up my bedding package. Later that night I met my kiwihost who took us to another flat where we had drinks and met other people. Julia and I managed to be social until about 10PM and we started to fall asleep so we went back to our flats. I came back to check my e-mail and go on Facebook for a bit (or like 2 hours) and finally went to bed a little after midnight. 


It was a great first day and I'm ready for another day of exploring, though I should probably shower first, but there is no heat in the house (none of the houses are heated) and it is freezing in the bathroom. On the note of no heating, last night I slept with two blankets and my sleeping bag, while wearing wool socks, thermal pants, and my white fuzzy winter coat. I woke up this morning with a cold nose, but everything else was warm. And yes, it is that cold and there are still palm trees and flowers growing outside. I think I will go find myself some breakfast now so ta-ta for now.