First Week at Uni

Against all odds, Luke is still alive.

Hey world!

I have now been at the University of Canterbury for a week, and time is starting to fly. I touched down at the Christchurch airport on February 14th, and after a quick bus ride, arrived at the Ilam Apartments, my home for the next five months. Promptly an hour after I arrived on campus, the city welcomed all the international students with an earthquake, which had a magnitude of 5.7. It was a wicked cool experience. The ground looked like it was rolling, which was weird because it was pavement, and it was all over after about 10 seconds. No one was hurt, and there was not much damage at all. Apparently the epicenter was off the coast 10km away and 15km deep; if it had been closer to the surface, the damage would have been much more severe. Regardless, campus was shut down for a couple hours while structural engineers looked through the buildings to check for cracks.
Since no one could go inside, we were all forced to befriend one another out of boredom. I met a bunch of people from California, Great Britain, New England, and some Kiwis who had nothing better to do but be at school a week early.

The next couple days had a lot of optional orientation lectures, tours and events. I decided to make better use of my time, and did some exploring. It is so weird having the city so accessible because anything I need is in walking distance or a quick bus ride away. The city of Christchurch has a rad bus system, and my bus pass has a $5 cap per day, so after two rides, I can go anywhere for free. On one of my city adventures with some friends, we found the best store in the world, called the Eco Shop. It is like a Goodwill on steroids. They have used kitchen appliances, furniture, tools, sports stuff, literally anything you could need, for wicked cheap. They are my go-to stop for a couple projects that I am working on; a post to come later about those.

I hit up the beach twice this week, and it was absolutely gorgeous. The first day was just to get my tanning game on, but yesterday, I tried out surfing for the first time. IT WAS AMAZING. Now, I don't do too many board sports. I can snowboard and get from point A to point B on a longboard, but after surfing for four hours, I was immediately hooked... to the point where I am now looking to buy a wetsuit and a cheap board. Here are some pictures below.

If I ever do come back to the States, it may be off to Cali in a VW bus for me.

To jump topics a bit, I have also found a bunch of soccer peeps. We played for about three hours on Thursday, which was a blast, and some of us are going to start a team for a competitive futsal league. There is also a soccer club that meets on Monday afternoons, so I will definitely be checking that out.

I haven't done any tramping (hiking) yet, but next weekend I am going with a group up into the Southern Alps to a place called Avalanche Peak. I am excited to meet other tramping enthusiasts, and hopefully will be able to get out most weekends, when I am not surfing that is.

Finally, I am not starving! On my way over to New Zealand, I figured that I would either come home a 5 star chef, or a pro ramen cooker. Turns out, I could not find any ramen, so I have been forced to get in touch with my inner Ratatouille. My standby dinner is chicken, grilled peppers and onions over rice. Chicken drumsticks are mad cheap at the market right now, and I glaze them with a different marinade each night. I probably mix the menu next week. I'm thinking chicken, grilled peppers and onions over pasta....

If you have any great dinner ideas for Luke, let me know, and I'll get a picture of my creation once it is photogenic enough!

That's all for now,
Cheers,
Luke

Pictures of the Arcadia Orientation

So Much Legroom!

View coming into Auckland

The Barren Wasteland that is Houston

 Exploring the City of Auckland

WWII Defenses

Cafe for Lunch

The Sheep Farm

The Fam

Cow Milking 101

Haircut time

Geothermal Park

Devil's Pool

Champagne Pool 

Maori Welcome

First Adventures

Hello again!
Welcome back to the best use of your time!

The answer is, yes, Luke is still alive.

I have now been in New Zealand for three days, but it has felt like a week! We have managed to cram a ton of adventure into each day. But first, I will back up and recount my flight to Auckland a bit.
The flight was about 15 hours long, but the time passed by more quickly than I had anticipated. This may have been due to the fact that I slept for quite awhile. We were chasing the sun, but since we departed from Houston in the evening, it was actually dark out for the entirety of the trip. I also made some friends, both in the airport and on the plane. A couple from Nashua, NH recognized my Pawtuckaway State Park lanyard, which was cool because they had climbed there before. Another guy I talked to lived out at the end of Cape Cod, where he owns a restaurant and surfs... Kinda made me wonder what the heck I was doing with my life. Finally, I learned about how cool the life of an international flight attendant was, when I stuck up a conversation with one of them during take-off and landing. And that is just about as exciting as a 15 hour flight gets.

Now on the to fun stuff. Once the rest of my group had arrived at the airport and we had found our head honchos, we made our way to our first accommodation, the Kiwi International Hotel. There we had a crash course on learning each others' names and what to expect from the program. After some quick formalities, we set out to explore the city if Auckland, which is wicked cool. It was clean and energetic, and a cool mix of  cultures.

The next morning, we loaded up the van and set out for Rotorua, a more inland town. On the way, we saw a sheep shearing demonstration, which was absolutely hilarious, and I learned that sheep dogs will actually run across the backs of sheep to get to the leaders to motivate the whole herd. Cause nobody has time to run around the outside of a pack of 10,000 sheep, lets be real here. I'll put the video somewhere on the blog.
Then, we went to an animal conservatory for native endangered species, which pretty much includes every native bird in New Zealand. Endangered either because they cannot put up a fight to predators or because they aren't too bright. For example, the greatest enemy of the New Zealand pigeon is itself. This is because it loves to eat a particular fruit, which has an alcohol content far beyond what the bird can handle. Essentially, the bird would get itself wasted, fall out of a tree, and become fast food. Definitely not a great habit to pick up if you want to survive.
When we finally arrived in Rotorua, we had some time to explore this city too. The city is know for its natural hotsprings, but unfortunately can smell very strong of sulfer in some locations. We were able to go to a local geothermal park, home to one of the few remaining gsyer locations in the world.
I sit here writing, having just returned from zorbing. Now the process of zorbing is pretty scientific so bear with me. You hop in a giant plastic ball with some water and roll down a giant hill. Yup, that's about it. It was so fun, I would have kept riding it all day!
To close off the day, and my orientation. We will be attending a Maori welcome ritual. They are the native people of New Zealand, and they are honored to share their culure with guests. They are also going to prepare us a native meal, so I am looking forward to that.

Sorry this has been a long one. I haven't had much of a chance to sit down over the last couple days, but I'm sure once school starts, the posts will be a bit briefer.

I'll toss some pictures on a separate post.

Cheers!
Luke

Airport Hoboing

Kia Ora, beloved readers!

The answer is yes, I am still alive, which is reassuring, considering I have not yet been outside any airport.

I left from snowy Boston Logan airport at about 1pm on February 9th. and touched down in the sunny, barren wasteland that is Houston, Texas some hours later. During the flight I had quite an interesting conversation with a man named Steven, a once-Catholic/current atheist. We talked about pretty much everything, including engineering, travel, politics, literature, and religion. The conversation lasted from when I sat down next to him on the plane right up until I got out of my seat 4 hours later. It was interesting talking with a man with a worldview that was such a polar opposite of mine, but that I believe that is what was most rewarding. I was able to share with the man my faith, of which he was already quite educated. Based on our conversation, he had probably delved into the Bible more than the average Christian. I am already scrambling to remember everything we talked about, especially concerning Christianity, but when I have organized my thoughts, I will share what the modern church looks like through the eyes of the "observing intellectual."

My Arcadia University contacts have just found me at the Auckland airport so I have to go for now, but I will recount my international flight later in the day.

Cheers,

Luke

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