Orientation

Hey Everyone!
Well I am now settled in New Zealand. I have what we would call a suite at Davidson, except minus a real common room. My suite mate is Fran, a kiwi! She is great! There is a huge common kitchen area for the whole building. Each roommate pair gets two cabinets, one has a fridge and the other is to store the pots they gave us to use. Then there are tons of sinks, microwaves and ovens for us to cook our food and socialize. It sounds weird but I love it!

Arcadia took the 8 of us in the program to Rotorua for the weekend. It was our New Zealand orientation. On the way we stopped at Matamata, or more recently known as Hobbiton because it is where they filmed the shire (no explanation necessary I'm sure). Rotorua is a touristy town with a lot of geothermal activity. It smells like sulfur or rotten eggs. Once you get over the stench, it is beautiful! We went to the Agradome for a farm show. They showed us the 19 different kinds of sheep, two kinds of NZ sheep dogs, how to milk a cow and sheer a sheep. It was pretty hokey and fun. Then we went to Rainbow Springs. A nature preserve with fish (trout and salmon) and birds (keas and kiwi). The Kea is a mountain parrot that attacks cars and shiny objects. They are extremely intelligent and known to beat monkeys at some intelligence tests. The kiwi is the beloved endangered species of NZ. That night we went to the Polynesian Spa, where you sit in natural hot mineral water pools. It is ranked in the top ten in the world.

I forgot to tell you about Kate and Jane. They are our coordinators! I love them. Kate is like our adopted Kiwi Mum because she looks after the Auckland students. They were both so funny. Everything they said was warning us about NZ, so we titled their speeches at the top 100 ways to die in NZ. No worries though, because most of them were really stupid things people did (drinking accidents, random sex, ditsy sky diving incidents, etc. not anything that really would happen to me). Anyway, they are great!

So on Saturday we went to Waiotapu te geothermal park. We saw the Lady Knox geyser which erupts when you put soap in it at exactly 10:15. Rotorua is one of the last remaining 4 geyser areas in the world. The fifth one was in Russia and it collapsed a few years back. We also saw Lake Champagne, the Devil's Layer, and The Devil's Pool. These are all things where sulfur, arsenic, and iron have created beautiful green and orange colors in the water or on the stone. It is really cool. Then we went zorbing. I can't explain it. You get in a plastic blow up ball and roll down a hill. Fun and weird. That night we went to the Tamaki Maori Village where we participated in a ceremonial welcome, saw some different native games, songs and dances, plus the well known Haka. We had a dinner they fixed for us in the customary style. I found out I don't like muscles.

On Sunday we returned to Railway Campus and I am too tired to write much more.

A few quick things
Food:
Kumara- a type of sweet potato
Bangers and Kumara Mash Kiwi Style- my dinner one night, it is sausage in a circle with the mashed sweet potato in the center, canalized onions on top and lots of gravy. Too much gravy. It was good, but I mostly liked the onions and potato.
Fish- much like your West Virginia fish, fried
Chips- french fries
Fritters- fried whatever, pineapple fritters with sugar are very good

Sayings-
I'll shout you a drink- buy you a drink
Right on
Our toaster looks dodgy- it looks like it caught on fire