It's been a while...

Hey guys!!

Everything has been great since the last time I posted! My trip to the south island was absolutely incredible! As soon as I finish writing about it in detail in my journal I will post an abbreviated version on my blog :) There are so many amazing things to share!

We arrived back in Auckland on Monday night. Sooo great to get back "home"! It's so interesting...when we were coming down to the end of our trip I was thinking about how great it was going to feel to be home again and get settled, and when I was thinking of home I was thinking of Auckland, not Los Angeles. I guess that's a really good thing considering I'm going to be here for a while :)

This week has been "O" week, or Orientation Week, so we have spent a lot of time in meetings about uni (what they call the university here in New Zealand), living in Auckland, travel, jobs, as well as a lot of time meeting people.

Tuesday was amazing because it was the day that I saw my best friend Erin for the first time since we have moved to the other side of the world! Turns out she is living a stones throw away from my flat! I walked up to the main street to meet her to go to the gym, and when I saw her waiting for me I literally darted across traffic because I couldn't wait any longer to hug her! It is the most incredible feeling knowing I have my best friend here with me to experience this life adventure! She is a piece of home and a piece of family that I have with me :) I can't wait for our adventures!

We went to the gym and lunch (great Green Tea Latte!!), and then cruised around uni picking up all of the free things we could find from all of the booths. We went to Quiz Night where I met her friends from field camp as well as a few people from Finland and Norway. Later that night I went to another quiz night with my flats where I was able to meet a lot of the people I will be living near for the semester!

On Wednesday Anni and I went to a session on living in Auckland (which we promptly left because it was all repeat information from our EAP orientation). We made a MUCH needed trip to the grocery store so that I could actually have food in my apartment, and then I snuck into International House with Anni and had a free dinner in the dining hall. Shhhh :) That night we went out to Tahaki Reserve in the Mt. Eden Domain for Movies in the Park. We watched a Kiwi documentary titled "Rain of the Children". Super interesting movie...not sure if it's something I would watch again, but definitely a good film.

Thursday morning was our make-up orientation because we missed the original one on Monday. It absolutely downpoured during that session, then cleared up with sunny skies as soon as we left. We attended two more sessions on Wednesday; one from the Career Services Center and one about travel in New Zealand. They gave out some killer prizes in the travel session, but every time Anni or I knew an answer we would always whisper them to each other instead of raise our hands. Oops! :) That night I went over to Erin's flat to eat pizza and celebrate her friends 21st birthday. I wasn't so sure about going out later that night. The university sponsored a party at a club downtown called the Globe Bar, but the theme of the party was "In Bad Taste". I was tight on space when I was packing to come here...would I really bring something that was in bad taste?! But Anni came up with a brilliant idea, therefore convincing me to go out. If only you could have seen us...walking through downtown Auckland in leggings, rain boots, underwear over the leggings, a tank top, bathing suit top over the tank top, and each of us wearing a rainbow sleeve on one arm. O ya...and you can't forget the pigtails. I looked like a rainbow child with my multi colored rain boots and tie dyed bathing suit and arms! It was so much fun! We met up with Nate, Jef, Joann, Angel and some of our other friends from EAP as well as Erin and her group of friends! We danced and danced and danced some more. We left the Globe Bar and Nate took us over to another bar called Cassette which has all of these really old music players covering all of the walls! Totally awesome! After we hung out there for a little while we decided to head home, and I finally went to sleep around 3:30 am!!

Friday I went to a picnic in the Auckland Domain with a bunch of people from my flat. It's been really great getting to know them! I walked home early though because I really needed to get things straightened out with my classes. I went to the Psychology Department where they signed off on one of my classes, no problem! Yes!! I then dropped by the Maori Studies dept. and finally went and saw my advisor so that he could switch around my classes and add me to the ones I needed to take. Friday afternoon was pretty low key. Anni and I decided to go out for a little while on Friday night to the bar that everyone from my flats had gone to, but we ended up sitting at a booth drinking water and people watching. Haha! I guess we were a little exhausted from the whole week. We left after about a half hour and walked home.

Saturday was a blast! Erin and I woke up early and went to the farmers market down by the wharf. I bought some great fresh food and was able to spend some quality time with Erin. This was as close as I'm going to get to the Calabasas Farmer's Market for quite a while...

We then went to the Warehouse where we bought school supplies. Erin and I were SOOOOO excited to go school supply shopping (it is something I have loved to do since I was really little...I know...weird. What can I say? :) Too bad all we ended up buying were pens and notebooks. Not quite as exciting as we had hoped, but still fun! We met up with Anni and walked back to our flats. I took a much needed nap and then just laid low for the rest of the afternoon. I made dinner (the first time I have had salad since I left home!!! I was craving salad more than I could ever explain!) and then a huge group of us left to go to the Lantern Festival in Albert Park which is commemorating Chinese New Year. It was so beautiful! Lanterns everywhere of all different shapes and sizes. There were lanterns of animals, plants, lanterns in trees, you name it! We walked up and down the rows of booths for a while, laughed at the crazy number of people around us, bought padthai and boba, and then sat on the grass and watched the musical performances for a while. The weather has been so beautiful here lately that this was a perfect event for a Saturday night :)

Today was a great last day of vacation before school starts. I slept in and then made brownies for our pot luck we had tonight. The whole flat smelled like brownies and everyone kept making comments about it! My roommates and I all ate lunch together today which was nice because we all finally got to know each other a little bit better. :) I took another nap, watched an episode of The Bachelor (don't judge) and then headed down to the pot luck. The food everyone made was so tasty! The carrot cake that Elodie (one of my flatmates) made was wonderful! We were all able to hang out and talk and enjoy each others company. After the pot luck a smaller group of us went down to the Lantern Festival again because they were launching off fireworks tonight for the last night of the festival. It was a great firework show! I walked around the festival after the fireworks and saw a lot more of the lanterns than I saw last night. What a great event! :)

Now it's almost 1 am here and school starts tomorrow! I have been in New Zealand just about a month and the time is FLYING by. I have a feeling things will only go fast now that school is starting. Each day is something new and exciting. I am so grateful for this amazing opportunity!

Sorry about the long post, but it was a busy week! I hope everything is wonderful with everyone back in the states!

Lots of love,

Amanda

O ya...the final roommate arrived in my flat finally! His name is Sam...he's from France, but he goes to school in Montreal. Super nice guy! So excited that our flat is finally complete! :)