Catching Up

Life in New Zealand is going by pretty quickly and it seems like I've been here for a long time, but I still have two and a half months left. Crazy!

A big thing for Otago students in general and my flat in particular is "Red Cards" which basically means that every person in my flat gets to "pull a Red Card" that everybody else in the flat has to participate in. This usually entails doing ridiculous competitions around the neighborhood. I decided to pull my Red Card last week, and it was The Amazing Race themed. Everyone had to bring a partner to compete with them, and then they were required to compete in various challenges. The first was a scavenger hunt, where they had to find items such as potato and a straw before advancing to the next challenge. The next was an eating competition, where one team member had to choose an item to eat from under a bucket. The options were Spam, sardines, and a spicy pepper. The third challenge was an obstacle course at a local field, which everyone ended up cheating at anyway. The final was a round of trivia. It was a silly night to say the least, but good fun. I already have plans to bring Red Cards back to Whitman next year!

 Mid-semester break begins on Friday, and my flatmate Sam and I are going to be renting a car and driving all over the South Island. We've mapped it out, and she and I have both made several CDs to keep us occupied in the car. We're going to be doing several day hikes, including one near Mt. Cook, as well as a half-day glacier walk on the Franz Josef Glacier. Sam initially wanted to do the full-day walk, but when I read that it involved "squeezing through tight blue crevasses," "sliding through ice caves" and "shuffling down near vertical walls of ice" I decided that I'd rather not spend the day crying on a glacier and convinced her that the half-day walk will be equally thrilling.

Other than that, life in New Zealand is cruising right along. I was thrilled when I had two missed calls and messages from Karen and Josh, and it was worth every cent of the $7.00 I paid to talk to Karen for 12 minutes. Looking forward to break!

Netball & Puppies

Although I've gotten into a pretty regular routine here, there are little opportunities that I have been taking advantage of that keep life in Dunedin interesting. For instance, Abby plays on a coed, social netball team, and has games once a weekend. Netball is similar to basketball in that the objective is to throw a ball into a hoop, but it's different in that you can't run with or dribble the ball. Instead you have to throw it to your teammates and move it down the court that way. It's played inside a netted area, and gets to be quite fast-paced as people use the nets to their advantage. Anyway, the social teams require 3 girls to be on the court at a time, and Abby's team was short one girl, so I volunteered. It was quite an experience, and I didn't ever quite get the hang of the rules. Regardless, it was fun to run around and participate in a traditional New Zealand sport.

The other day, Kelsey stopped by my house at around 11 am and asked if I wanted to go walk dogs at the local animal shelter. Obviously the answer was yes, so we headed off through the Botanic Garden toward the kennels. We got there and were told that there were only two puppies left to walk. What a shame, who likes to walk and play with puppies for an hour?! WE DO. They were soooo cute, and we walked them all over a nearby trail, and had a nice long chat. It was the perfect beginning to my day, and I fully intend to return to walk dogs again soon. My dream is to get a puppy and walk it down to my flat and play with it there for an hour. Oooh puppies. It's nice to know that there are people and things other than college students in Dunedin!

This last Friday night I headed to the Catlins on the southern coast with Sam, Abby, and Abby's friends Gen and Rachel. We had rented a "batch" or small vacation home, and after figuring out how to turn on the power and killing a few spiders, we settled down and hung out for the night. We dragged a few mattresses into the biggest room, and all slept in their, which was a nice girls night. On Saturday we headed out to explore the surrounding area, and ended up seeing a few sights, including a waterfall and a sketchy little garden called "Teapot Land" which housed about a thousand creepy dolls and figurines. Yikes.

After turning in two essays last week, I have a little break this week with only a small assignment due. I'm looking forward to mid-semester break in a few weeks and further exploration of the South Island!