The Road to the South

Ok, so my last post ended with our first evening in Picton two nights ago. This post will bring you guys up to speed on everything that has happened since then.

So our morning in Picton was really quite eventful. We woke up early and trekked to the city center where we rented a two person sea kayak for the morning. We took the kayak out along the edge of the harbour and then crossed the sound into an adjacent inlet. During our expedition we saw starfish, jelly fish, sea urchins, lost of birds and dolphins. The dolphins were the coolest part I have to say. What happened was a pod of these dolphins was coming out of the inlet and a whale watching boat was playing calls for them. If you haven't, check out my Facebook page for a video. You can hear the noises in the background. So anyway these dolphins swam probably 20m from our kayak and were jumping out of the water and stuff. Super cool.

Here is a dolphin.

After we turned in our kayak we ate lunch on the beach front and then went over to the ferry terminal to grab our bus to Christchurch. Sadly the ferry coming in had some technical difficulties and our bus left about an hour later than expected.

Lunch on the ocean front.

It was about a 4 hour ride to Christchurch and we got in around 7:00. About 2 years ago Christchurch had a huge earthquake that devastated the central city. Even while we were there they were still tearing down buildings and stuff. Construction is everywhere and empty lots are very common. It was cool to see how the businesses had made temporary malls out of shipping containers but other than that it was kind of a hole.

A demolished building site and 2 other condemned buildings.

Anyway, we caught our bus to Dunedin at 7:45 yesterday and got into Dunedin about 1:00. Dunedin is exactly what I hoped it would be from what I was told. My apartment is about 4 minutes from campus by foot and about a 10 minute walk from the ocean. The campus buildings are old and intelligent looking and everything feels like a college town should.

My apartment is actually very nice. It almost feels like a skiing cabin that someone plopped down on a university campus. It has wood paneling, a timbered ceiling, lots of windows and a deck that looks out across the "complex" which are the other 5 apartments in 378.

The living room and kitchen

My room, it's got north facing windows for warmth!

In my apartment right now we have Ben, one of my Kiwi hosts, Lia, an American from Brooklyn, Claire, a Scot, and me. Eventually we will have another American and another Kiwi but both of them have not arrived yet. I've met people from so many different places in one day alone. Last night I met about 5 Scots, a Canadian, a Chilean, an Italian, a bunch of Kiwis, a spattering of Americans from Oregon, Vermont, Michigan, Kansas and there are more to come! Everyone here is very nice and inviting and I feel right at home.