First day of orientation.

Today was the first day of International Student Orientation. Woke up in time to catch the bus at 8:30 this morning and it was a nice 45 minute commute to the Uni by bus (it's fairly expensive so I have to get a student discounted bus pass soon). A girl from South Africa got on the bus shortly after me and we became quick friends; her name is Ashley. We were welcomed by the Vice Chancellor and then Maori students from a local grammar school did a haka variation...the coolest thing I have seen here in New Zealand so far, and it will be hard to top! There were so many students; a mixture of International and Post-Grads. We moved into a building for "tea," which was just a variation of orange juice and some pastries. Lisa and I mingled with the students and met a Chinese girl and a guy from Greece.



We then were instructed to proceed into a huge lecture hall..much larger than the halls at GVSU. There was a brief introduction and then the lady leading the orientation took a tally of the number of countries represented. At first the majority seemed to be from Germany but then she asked the Americans to raise their hands and we gave the Germans a run for their money! In 3rd place was Malaysia and then little groups from other countries such as: UK, Ireland, Russia, China, Japan, India, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, etc.



Around noon Lisa, Ashley, and I went to find some lunch and then decided to explore Queen Street, which is the main street downtown for shopping and eating. We found a bar around 2:30 and celebrated my birthday with a birthday beer. It was pretty good. A locally brewed New Zealand summer ale. The whole Auckland area is actually pretty hilly so walking up and down streets downtown tired us out quick! We caught the 4:15 bus out of Auckland to Birkdale and Lisa went to her homestay. For dinner my hosts made chili and some vegetables...they said they're having trouble figuring out how to serve for four people rather than just the usual two. They got up to make tea and brought over a chocolate cake for my birthday with 20 candles on it! I was pleasantly surprised and had a wonderful 20th birthday despite not being with family and friends.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Smalahove

Image
Many Norwegian traditions are distinctly regional. Even recipes are variable by region to go along with dialects that can be different by town separated by just 50 kilometers. This tradition, that both Marius and I were new to trying, was from a town just about an hour and a half east of Bergen called Voss....smalahove, or half of a sheep's head that is cooked in a broth for several hours. Smalahove comes from two Norwegian words: smale = sheep, and hove = head. It is served before Christmas with potatoes, mashed rutabaga, and red cabbage. Many of my friends were telling me that the cheek is supposed to be the best part, and others were saying that they wouldn't dare eat it. So I can now say that I have done something that many other Norwegians haven't dared try. I actually really enjoyed it! It had a texture like corned beef and had a very nice flavor. Marius went as far as to try the tongue, and thought that eating the eye was a normal thing, so tried that as well...bu...
Read more

In case you missed it, I moved back to Bergen

Image
But only temporarily, as of yet. In the beginning of the month I took the train from Oslo to Bergen. It was a beautiful trip cross-country ascending to over 1000m above sea level and back down again. My friend Knut said that I could stay at his place until an apartment was available to rent. I picked up the key from his mom, dropped off my things, and went back downtown to go to my Norwegian course. He was out of town for the week for work, and my first day of work was not until the following Monday. So I used the next five days reacquainting myself with Bergen....mainly by running around my old neighborhood. On Monday (Nov 10) I started my new (tempoary) part time job at UniResarch Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology...UniSars for short. Technically I am called a "research technician", but I'm more like a glorified dishwasher at the moment. I made sure to tell the researchers that I am more than capable to help them if they need an extra pa...
Read more

FIFA 2010 South Africa

Image
FIFA 2010 kicked off on June 11 and today, New Zealand will today make a return to the world’s greatest football stage exactly 28 years to the day since their FIFA World Cup debut. The All Whites will take on Slovakia at 11PM (New Zealand time). It is hard to say whether it will be a good game or not; however, the fact that NZ is in the world cup for the first time in so long is enough of a reason to stay up so late. Saturday morning was the big USA vs. England match. The Americans are so happy with a tie that the New York Post had this as its front page: The time difference makes it a bit hard to keep up with seeing the games, but it's always fun to rub in the fact that the British tied the US in their first World Cup game this year to some British friends. Next exam is Saturday for Invertebrate Diversity. And only 20 days to go til Thailand!!
Read more