Weekend Number 2

Friday night (the 17th) I went to Operation Friendship which was a good time. The program is for international students who are looking for a home-away-from-home experience. It is made up of families from churches in the area who are looking to help students feel more at home and give them a more authentic Kiwi experience. I was in a group with a bunch of students I knew which was nice but I did make a few other friends. The families were really nice and all of them pretty much offered us to come over and hang out with them whenever we felt like it. We had a home made Kiwi dinner which was delicious. It consisted of lemon chicken, mince pie, home made bread, regular potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnip, roasted pumpkin, salad, lamb, and chowder. I really enjoyed the roasted pumpkin and the lamb. Then we had hokey pokey ice cream, which has honeycomb in ice cream and a traditional New Zealand desert called Pavlova, which is basically meringue and marshmallow. All the Kiwis there made sure we knew that it was a New Zealand dessert and not a Austrailian dessert. It was pretty funny. After that we had tea and coffee, and just talked. It was a really relaxing evening. I have been invited to dinner this Friday by one of the families. After that I came home to a party and had a good night.

Saturday morning Tom, Sarah, Mary, and I went to the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve for a day of New Zealand animals and Maori cultural lesson. It was a lot of fun to see the traditional Maori songs and greetings. Tom became our faithful chief that accepted the peace offering, which was a piece of greenery. Once he accepted that we were allowed into the village and greeted. Kia Ora means welcome, thank you, and many other things. Ka pai means excellent, awesome, we like what we see, all that type of thing. After that we got to explore the "zoo" area where all the animals were. I made friends with a wallaby and it licked my hand for like 2 minutes but I don't know why I didn't have anything in it. Haha. But it was cute and I really wanted to take it home with me. I also saw 3 Kiwi birds! They are nocturnal so most people don't get to see them, but they have an exhibit for the Kiwis. You have be really quiet because they startle real easy and become stressed out. They are odd looking birds that are rolly polly. One fell down and just kind of rolled down the hill they had. They had a lot of birds there, and some American animals. The pigs there were pretty ugly, they were faces only a mother could love. Haha. I was also attacked by two Kea birds. They look vicious but are just curious little birds. They tried to eat Mary's purse, and we learned that they will eat the rubber off your car! So don't park anywhere near and area with Kea birds.







Saturday night was fun cause we went to the Holy Grail sports bar to watch the All Blacks take on the Wallabies and then went club hopping so I got to see what they were like. The game was really good, the All Blacks won like they were supposed to. Rugby is a brutal sport and makes American football players look like pansies with all the padding and helmets. There isn't any of that in rugby and they guys are really rough, that actually doesn't describe the intensity of what goes on. Anyways after the game we went to Fat Eddies, then the Base, then the Concrete Club and finally ended up at Boogie Nights. They played 80's and early 90's music there. It was a lot of fun and then we were off again. 4 of the guys I was with and me ended up at Treehouse, where Chris took on the mechanical bull. He was pretty good but complained about how the rope was all wrong. It was a good time though. We headed back to Fat Eddie's where we saw two fire trucks and a place get evacuated.

Sunday was a pretty relaxing day. I went shopping and got some more pairs of jeans, some workout clothes, and some necessities. After that I met up with Tom and Rachel and we went to the Art Gallery. That was an adventure. A couple of the exhibits were distrubing. One of them was a video of this guy throwing himself against a wall with a flashing green light and a strobe light in the exhibit room. I was like I could do the same thing but add a few more colored lights and then I'll become a famous artist. Once we got into the historical art section it was a lot better. Then I made dinner with Heather and Ben. It was so good that I even had it for lunch today it was crazy that there was enough for leftovers. After that we hung around the flat, watched tv and had milk and cookies. Then we went and joined the rest of the group for a night of charades, which I didn't part take in because I'm not a big fan but it was still fun to watch everyone act. There were some really hard words.



Today (the 20th) I had my first exercise and health lab, but that was no big deal they handed me a pedometer (that doesn't work now) and told me to record my steps and my food intake for two days and do a write up. Not so bad. All the other classes were class but I'm starting to really like my Principles of Animal behavior class. It's amazing how much we know about why animals do what they do and how they do it. Tomorrow (tuesday) I get to dissect a toad in my Vertebrate lab, which should be exciting but boring too. I've done a couple of frog dissections before I'm sure it'll be similar.

This coming weekend there is trip planned to go see Springfield, New Zealand. They have a beautiful place to tramp. I was also told that they have a replica of the giant doughnut from the Simpsons movie. So that will be photographed and sent out. Then on Sunday we're going to go Hanmer where there are hot mineral springs that you can sit in. I'm going to have find a bathing suit, dang. I should have brought one with me. It should be a good time.

That's all I have for now. More words to know later.