Done-Eden

This weekend I went to Dunedin and I had a blast!

After a six hour bus ride, I arrived in Dunedin and dropped my bag at the hostel I had arranged to stay in, Manor House Backpackers. It was a lovely old building on a hill and I quickly met some of the other guests, but I had places to be! The Cadbury chocolate factory in Dunedin has tours, which includes samples! I thought I knew a lot about chocolate, but there was plenty that I didn't know. The most interesting thing was how different chocolates are sold in different countries. Cadbury does a lot more than creme eggs. Fun fact: the same recipe of chocolate can taste different depending on the milk used. NZ chocolates taste different than others because the milk is from grass-fed cows. I don't know if I could tell, but the chocolate sure was good, so I'll take their word for it.

Dunedin is full of gorgeous old churches made of stone and stained-glass windows. I spent the  rest of the day walking around town and talking to the other guests at the Manor House.

On Saturday I went to the railway station, which claims to be the most photographed building in Dunedin, New Zealand, or the southern hemisphere, depending on who you ask. Right outside was the farmer's market which was large and brought to life by the exceptionally warm weather and shining sun. I decided to buy lunch there and had a little picnic in the sun on a hill overlooking the city. Inside the railway station is the NZ Sports Hall of Fame so I gave it a visit. It wasn't the best museum I've been too, but it was good to learn a little about sports here. 

After the disappointment of the sports hall of fame, the Otago museum was exceptional. There were some fairly standard culture around the world sections and they were done very well, but my favorite parts were about the Maori culture and the wildlife native to NZ. The architecture and sculptures that are part of Maori culture are similar to cliché tiki Hawaiian ones, but Maori ones are unique to themselves and so much more beautiful than the fake luau stuff. In the nature section was a bunch of Moa skeletons and some recreations. The moa are birds that were once found only in NZ but were hunted to extinction a few hundred years ago. The tallest is around 12 feet tall, covered in feathers, and has no wings. Moa don't even have vestigial wing bones. I think the recreations look like Big Bird's pre-historic cousin. 

At that point I headed back to the hostel to go with some of the people there to the midwinter carnival downtown.  Although it had been sunny that whole day, it was pouring buckets now. Since the carnival was all outdoors and included paper lanterns, the carnival was cancelled and I ended up hanging out with my new acquaintances. By the end of the night I had met an American, a Dutch-Canadian, two French people, a Spaniard, and a handful of Kiwis. At times it is awkward with a group of people that have just met, but it's always fun to talk to people from around the world. 

On Sunday I didn't have much time before I needed to be back on the bus to Christchurch so I headed off across town to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. It was actually pretty far away so I had already had quite a walk before I got there. I thought about turning around at the bottom to head back and maybe go the art gallery, but I thought if I had made it that far, I had better walk to the top. It sure was steep though. They were not lying. On the way back I walked through the botanic garden and stopped at a cafe to get a cup of Earl Grey and tasty muffin. Possibly chocolate chip and rhubarb - they have some weird muffins here. 

The bus ride back was crowded and the bus was so full it could barely make it up some of the hills. From that bus stop I had to take the city bus back to my flat, and by that point I was glad to be home. On my way there I realized how nice it was to be able to consider my little room in my little apartment a home. It's only temporary and on the other side of the planet than usual, but it's a home nonetheless. 

I hope you had as good a weekend as me! 

Choo Choo!

This weekend I went on the Tranzscenic railway through the Southern Alps with two of my intern friends, Ali and Jordan. The scenery was breathtaking. The water was clear and blue, the mountains were snow-capped and the sheep and cows were frolicking. Absolutely stunning. In the lower altitude parts east and west of the mountains, everything was still green, but in the middle it was snow covered. It reminded us of Christmas, even though it's the middle of June.

Greymouth was a nice place, but there wasn't a whole lot to do there so I'm glad I only stayed there for an hour. I took the train back the same day and I sat on the other side so I got a slightly different view.

I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing with and talking to my flatmates, friends, and family. Earlier this afternoon (Sunday, for me) I showed my Pakistani friend how to make pancakes! She is going to show me how to make something soon, so I'm excited for that. Then I went to the Restart mall in the city center and walked around a bit. There weren't very many people around because today was a little colder.

For the next four days I will be working, then on Friday I will go to Dunedin! I don't have much of anything planned yet, but I will be visiting the Cadbury chocolate factory!

General Update

I thought I'd let you know what I've been up to since I've been here.

I work Monday through Thursday, and I must admit, I could get used to a schedule like this. My internship hasn't been super exciting yet and I haven't really started what I think will be my main project this summer (winter? I don't know what to call it). Also it's chemistry stuff that I don't think most of you care about, but I will tell you all about it eventually, don't worry. For now I will say that sometimes it is frustrating, but it is a learning experience so I am trying to think of it that way. Adjusting to a brand new workplace isn't easy, but the people there make it a lot better. Joe and Kelly are the two guys I work with and they have taught me a lot about New Zealand. Both of them are Kiwis so they are my main source for local info.

Now let me tell you about where I am staying. I am living in student apartments at the University of Canterbury. The flat is actually pretty nice, so most of the people living here are international and/or graduate students. I'm staying in a building used primarily for temporary housing (i.e. not for a semester of school) so it's hard to gauge the rest of the apartments. I have a bedroom to myself and I share a kitchen common area and bathroom with four other people. Between the five of us we make a very interesting group. (I might not spell their names correctly but I think you get the idea)

• Uzma is from Pakistan. She is here for the next two years getting her second Ph.D. From what she has said I think she is a practicing doctor back in Pakistan as well. The food she cooks always smells wonderfully, and she is nice enough to share! While we eat we tell each other about Pakistan and America and laugh about the funny Kiwi things. 
• Wei is from Malaysia and she is here getting a Ph.D. in chemical engineering. She is closest to my age I think and we have had some fun together! We went to the Antarctic Center on Sunday and we got to see penguins! and stand in an artificial antarctic storm! and see penguins!
• Simona is from Italy. Simona is here for a couple months doing post doctoral research with civil engineering. She just moved in a few days ago, but she has already had me try Italian coffee. I think I will stick with tea. She also said she would make me Italian pasta so I am looking forward to that. She was a little shocked when she saw the instant noodles I was eating.
• Simona (yes, another Simona) is from Germany. She is also here doing post doc research, but I forget in what exactly. She has been here for some time already so she is the resident expert on New Zealand. 

All of them are quite good at speaking English, but I have had fun explaining some things to them, like s'mores!

I am getting to know Christchurch pretty well and some friends that are interns in other cities are coming to visit this weekend so I will have plenty of adventures to tell you about!

I have a hard time remembering what I've already posted here and what I have told other people so if you are wondering something, ask! With the time difference I have gotten into the habit of checking things online when I wake up and having notifications make waking up at 7 a.m. a little bit easier. =]

Before I forget, I felt an earthquake last night! It was a 4.2 but it was enough to barely wake me up. I didn't notice much but people today said that it shook things quite a bit. So, yeah, I've officially felt an earthquake in Christchurch.

Differences

As far as countries go, New Zealand and America are pretty similar but I have noticed several differences:

Differences

• Peanut Butter - The texture of pb is just the same as the American stuff, but the taste is slightly different. American pb is sweeter and almost rich, whereas the NZ stuff is basically just peanuts (there is some oil and preservatives in there too)
• Turkey - is not a thing here. I think in the whole sliced meat section there was only one of turkey and there was no turkey at a different store. Ham and chicken are the only lunchmeat options usually. Lamb is also significantly more common, if not cheaper than in America. 
• Stores have less options in general. Imagine your average grocery store. Imagine the cereal aisle. It stretches for miles, doesn't it? There are only a couple of shelves of cereal here! It's a similar story with the soap/shampoo aisle.
• Conservation and the environment are such a part of daily life here that you don't have to think about it.
• 70% of NZ's energy comes from renewable sources. Wind farms and geothermal are the main providers.
• Every outlet here has a switch right next to it, which is a really good idea. You can leave things plugged in, but they only draw energy when the switch is flipped. I have been wanting this for ages and I didn't think it existed, but NZ is the land where dreams come true!
• Toilets here have two buttons. One button is for a small flush, one is for a big flush. The button you push depends on how much flushage power you think you need. The toilets are low flow and the way they flush means that I haven't been able to tell if water spins the opposite direction!
• Central heating is quite rare. This one I'm not so stoked about. Luckily, my apartment does have heating, but this is fairly uncommon. It tends to not get super cold here so it's not a big deal, but it's winter right now so it can get quite chilly during the night. The heating that is in my apartment is either heated ceiling or heated floor. It's a bit odd to me, but each room has its own thermostat and mine keeps plenty warm.
• Riding the bus is common means of transportation here. There are no school buses so I see a great deal of school kids on my way to work. There are also business people and families and of course a few people that are quite strange. Maybe this would not be a big difference for other places with public transport, but it is certainly new to me. Also, most people say "Thank you" to the bus driver as they exit the bus, even if they go out the back door. It's quite nice, but I don't think people do that very often in America?
• Billboards - I don't think I have seen a single one since I've been here. I'm so used to them that I don't know if I would notice one, but I can't think of seeing any either in Wellington or Christchurch.  Edit: So the other day I did notice a couple of billboards, but I could probably count the total I've seen on my fingers.

Those are most of the differences I've noticed so far. There are other differences as far as words, accents, clothing, and that sort of thing, but they are harder to describe with words on the internet.

Are there any rumors you've heard (or experienced) about differences in New Zealand? Ask me in the comments!

Walking in Chch

I arrived in Christchurch (Chch), unpacked, and then slept for 12 hours. It might not have been the most social option, but I did enjoy it. When I woke up the next day I set off with my back pack and laptop hoping to find some wifi. My flat (flat = apartment) has internet that you have to pay for, but at the time I didn't have a cord to connect with and I was hoping for a cheaper option. Say what you want, but I am helpless without the internet. I didn't have any way to get information about buses, shops, maps, nothing! I had nothing to do but start walking.

I read in my guidebook about about a coffee shop with free wifi so I set out in that direction, ready for a walk. Well, I didn't realize quite how far that was from where I live. After walking almost an hour I found a McDonalds with free wifi so I bought a fruit smoothie and sat online, trying to look up everything I could think of. After a while I had reached my data limit and finished my smoothie so I walked across the parking lot to the mall, hoping to find another hot spot. A store with wifi was next to a food place so I had lunch and an internet connection until I timed out again. While online I looked up info about the metro and and I found a library not too far away that sold metro cards so I headed in that direction. I walked for an hour, only to find it closed. I walked back to my apartment to meet my flatmates and ask them about the closest supermarket. I walked a couple blocks and finally got some food. In all that walking, I never got lost once, I'm just  a bad judge of scale so what looked like a spot around the corner was in reality, much farther away.

Monday was a public holiday so I used that day to get some stuff done. I had just enough change (3.20) for a metro ticket.  I got on my bus, dumped the change in my hand and the driver picked up a two dollar coin and handed me change and a ticket. I  might be 20, but I still look like a child so the bus driver charged me half price and gave me a child's ticket. Now that I've got a metro card that won't happen again, but the card is cheaper than paying with change so I'll take it. 

The central bus station is right next to the reStart mall so I went there for a while and looked around. After the earthquake last february, most of downtown is unusable. Either the buildings collapsed or have enough structural damage that it is too dangerous. For quite some time now, in the place of buildings they are using shipping containers for stores. The containers are painted bright colors and stacked together  so it's just like an ultra-modern outdoor mall. I didn't go much past the reStart area, but the shops beyond that section did look pretty dismal. I didn't see any collapsed buildings, but the walls were boarded up and construction cranes were working on the high-rises.

I wanted to have some more fun with my metro card so I took the bus to a different part of town and walked around for a bit. Eventually I rode back to my apartment and started planning for the next week. I had to figure out the metro times and transfers to get to work the next morning and I found some things to do this weekend. I had an early night so I could wake up bright and early for my commute to work on Tuesday. I'll tell you all about Bio-Mer soon!

Snow!

It's snowing here in Christchurch!
According to the guys at work this much is unusual for this part of town. It's not too cold out and it rained last night so there's a layer of slush under the snow. So far there is maybe two inches, if that, but they were surprised when I showed up to work this morning! It wasn't exactly a walk in the park to get here, but I've got a good coat and I'm used to much worse. My supervisor keeps saying he'll send me up on a bus to ski or snowboard in the mountains. I certainly won't turn that down. He's also offered to drive me home from work today and I won't turn that down either.

Look for a longer update tonight - or more likely for you, tomorrow morning.

Wellington

Now that I have spent some time here, let me tell you about New Zealand! 

For the full affect of this and future posts, I suggest you follow along with pictures, found HERE

I flew in to Wellington Wednesday morning and met up with the other interns. We took shuttles to the hostel, dropped our stuff off, and started walking around Wellington. The director of the orientation, Richard, is a Wellington native and had answers to most of our questions no matter how ridiculous. We saw some pretty neat places - the parliament building, the theater that the Lord of the Rings premiered at, even the street that the hipster hang out on! What really struck me that first day is the appearance of Wellington. The city itself looks pretty standard, but the mountains around it cannot be found in Indiana!

My three favorite parts of nature are:

1. water

2. mountains

3. greenery

and NZ is all three at once! No matter where you go you are not very far from the coast of the ocean and as soon as the water stops, the mountains start. New Zealand is right on a fault line, so the land as we know it is a result of earthquakes and volcanoes pushing solid ground above the ocean. Below freezing weather is rare on most of the islands so plants are in bloom year round. The few deciduous trees here have let their leaves go, but those are few and far between. 

For dinner that night we went to a Japanese restaurant, which was good enough. The noteworthy part is that I had sushi! Real, honest to goodness, fishy, sushi. I'm not sure what the first one was, but it reminded me of tuna salad. I also had salmon and avocado rolls, and another one with salmon. The fish was really mild and I could hardly taste it, but the texture was a little strange.

The next day in Wellington we went to Zealandia, a nature reserve right outside the city. The park was surrounded by 2 meter fence to keep the predators out. Cats, possums, rodents, and other hungry mammals were introduced to the islands by humans and the flightless birds that NZ is famous for can't handle them. (If you are into birds I can tell you more about them later.) Even though we had quite the walk in Zealandia, most of us took a shuttle to the top of Mount Victoria and then walked back to the hostel. Mt Vic is only 190 meters tall so not technically a mountain, but still pretty sweet if you ask me. A scene for the Lord of the rings was shot there, so that's cool too! Dinner that night was Indian and the evening consisted of buying chocolate and playing cards with the other interns. 

Day 3 in Wellington was the Seal Coast Safari! We loaded into a couple of 4 wheel drive SUVs and set off over the mountains to the coast. Along the way we saw some very nice houses, an ostrich, a wild goat that looked like a dog, wild horses, and plenty of wind turbines. We saw a couple of seals as soon as we got to the beach and we saw some funny birds too. On the way one of the tour guides stopped to pick some tree leaves and we stopped on the beach to have some tree leaf tea and muffins. I don't remember the tree, but it went well with banana rhubarb muffins.

Back in town for lunch I had a lamb burger and it was better than I could have imagined. Lamb meat is quite common here, which makes sense with so many sheep. One different thing about burgers here is that they are topped with pickled beets as well as the usual condiments. I might have to bring that back with me. We spent the afternoon in Te Papa, the national museum, had Malaysian food for dinner, and played more cards after that. 

The next day, Saturday for those keeping track at home, most people left to their accommodations early in the morning, but my flight to Christchurch (Chch) didn't leave till the afternoon. I spent the morning walking around the waterfront and business district before Te Papa opened and I spent the rest of my time in there. There are some really cool exhibits in Te Papa! There was a giant squid and more about the natural history of NZ. There was quite a bit about the Maori, which was completely new to me. There was really cool stuff too about the recent history of NZ.  The top 2 floors out of 6 were art, but I didn't get very far in the gallery before I had to leave to catch my airport shuttle. 

This is already quite long so look for another post soon about Christchurch and my internship!

G'Day Everybody!

I am loving it here in Wellington! Probably because the program is paying for most of what we've done!
Tomorrow I move to my sight in Christchurch. It will be nice to settle in and unpack my suitcase.
Monday is a public holiday, so work starts Tuesday.
I'll try and put pictures up soon, too.