School Continues

Luckily the first day of school was a Thursday (Jan 5) and so we just had Friday and then the weekend! The thing that's interesting with school is that there are 4 of us (me and my roommates) that haven't had a management class when all the other girls have. So we work on this packet thing in the other room while they have an assessment class which, technically we have already had. It's kind of weird and we feel like the loners of the group but it works. I play music during class and then after lunch we are all back together for literacy.

Our little fake class :)

After school we walked to the Pak n Save grocery store to get a few things.

ok we didn't need diapers lol just thought it was funny that they are called nappies

Can you believe they allow you to have squid out in the open? Disgusting.

We walked around a few different shops and then went home to find a surprise waiting for us on our door.

it's a weta bug. apparently it's harmless, just creepy

We haven't really seen that many bugs. But there was a huge spider under Margo's bed. I was standing on my bed waiting for her to kill it but she left the room to find a tissue to try and set the spider free. Crazy. We had Brooke kill the spider dead.

This picture is amazing. It makes me laugh. This is Margo sleeping/snoring! 

*Back to School*

So I kinda forgot that the whole point of going to New Zealand was to go to school, that realization was a bummer. Thursday was the first day of school. We met at the chapel right by the house I was staying at. It's way nice because we only have to walk about 10 minutes to get there. I have a management and a literacy class today. We meet from 8 to 3:30, such a long day.

Got my Toms :)

Cheese!

Kia Ora is their greeting

This is their national anthem

We found some missionaries to take our picture

Adia was washing the car when we got home

First Real Day in NZ (part 2)

This day was so long that I had to divide it into parts. Plus the blog thing was being dumb and wasn't adding pictures where I wanted them to...

My host family is the Skeens. They are great and set us up in a nice place. We are in their basement and it's like our own little apartment. 

Oh, so to flush the toilet here you push a button. And there are two different buttons. It took us awhile to figure out when to push what. But depending on what you do is what you flush!

 This is my bed while unpacking. I got the flowers :)

Our room of beds

So the weather is really bipolar here and it will go from sunny to down pour of rain. We went to the store to get a few things, I needed a bathing suit.

Can you believe that mascara is that much! Crazy.

This has taken some getting used to. It's toilets not the bathroom or restroom.

The day continues, we've done all of this and it's still only like 2 in the afternoon. I wanted to nap so bad but i knew I wasn't suppose to because of jet lag and blah blah... So we went to the grocery store next to get the basic needs, which sadly did not include Dr. Pepper.

Christmas is in the summer so Santa needed different transportation and outfit 

Their magazines come with little black dresses, thankfully one size fits most!

A shopping cart is called a trolley here. Also, you have to pay for each individual bag you use to put your groceries in AND you have to bag it yourself. Everything is so expensive here. You get your fruit from fruit stands that have the best deal, chicken from the chicken shop. 

So the day still had not ended and it cleared up a little bit so we drove through the city to a beach. It's about half an hour away from where we live.

This is the famous Sky Tower, it's like the Space Needle in Seattle. Really not sure of it's purpose besides being tall...

This is the host family's daughter Adia (2). The water was cold and it was windy so we just put our feet in. We only stayed like 10 minutes and then went to get fish and chips for dinner. Which chips are french fries, not potato chips.

So I ate the french fries and that's about it. I just wasn't feeling the fish too much. But ketchup is tomato sauce here. People stare at you weird if you ask for ketchup.
After dinner we did the dishes and then talked with our host family and then I went to bed at 9:00 pm. Longest day ever but great!!

First Real Day in NZ (part 1)

Best Welcoming Committee

I finally arrived in Auckland, New Zealand at 4 in the morning on Wednesday January 4th. I didn't have a January 3rd. Traveling to New Zealand is like traveling into the future. Pretty neat.

I'm still not sure why there was a big plane hanging from the ceiling.. I never got to go upstairs...

Auckland Airport @ 5:00 am

new roommates. Mandy ~ Margo ~ Brooke

No I'm not driving here, it's kinda confusing to remember to go to the right side of the car (left)

After the airport we went to the bakery. Our host dad (Phil) loves the bakery and will use any excuse to go there (us). When he moved back to New Zealand from the states he gained about 20 pounds from going to the bakery all the time. 

These are like pies full of different kinds of meats and cheese. Pretty popular here. I ordered steak and cheese

Cookies are called biscuits here. I thought these were cute.

 

The good people of New Zealand believe in Coke

So Long USA!

I'm trying to figure out this whole blog thing. But I'm just going to do the basics here..

So I left good old America to do a study abroad in New Zealand for about 3 months. I'll be gone January 2 through April 12. (The last six days I'll be in Australia)

Day 1

I flew out of Denver to San Francisco and got there about 1:30. I met up with the other girls to wait for our flight to New Zealand, it didn't leave until 7pm. We just hung out at the airport. I attempted to work on homework but that didn't really happen. I figured I would have a 13 hour flight to get some things done. This is the awesome plane. I think that the top story was for first class people. 

Our fancy double-decker plane! (didn't get to go on top though)

Okay, so the way the window was tinted was with little black dots so these pics took a while to get just right so it didn't look like we had polka dots everywhere. 

 

Mandy and Me

So you would think that the big poles we were lying on would be comfortable, but they were not. I moved to this little desk thing that I could be on my laptop at. 

Had a long, long, wait before they let us on the plane

They finally let us on the plane, and just in time for Margo (my new roommate) to get to the gate. Her connecting flight was late so she ran across the airport after security checkpoint with no shoes on. Oh Margo... I got on the plane and waited until the absolutely last minute to turn off my phone. The safety video that they showed was the most entertaining video. Richard Simmons was on it exercising while telling us what to do in case of an emergency. Each seat had their own screen to look at. 

Here's the dinner they served on the plane. I loved the little glass they gave so I put my Coke in it just so I could use it.