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
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