One month left?!

I can't believe that I only have a month left in New Zealand. I haven't been out of Dunedin since mid semester break, but it's been really nice to be around here. The weather has been amazing recently, and although it's starting to get noticeably chillier, we've had a lot of clear sunny days. I've been taking a class on wine tasting called Discover Wine through the uni. There are 7 of us in the class, and we show up every Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. for a 2-hour tasting/information session on different types of wine. We sit at a long table with big candles and 6 bottles of wine per class, with a little tray of bread and grapes in the middle. Quite enjoyable. I usually consider myself to be a white wine person over red, but through taking this class I've started to change that idea. The sickly sweet dessert wines don't appeal to me as much as they used to (not that I consume much wine...) and it's been interesting to learn about the different types of grapes and regions of wine making. The instructor, Geoff Weston, is the owner of a winery near Dunedin that is (I believe) the southernmost winery in the world. For our final class this week we each have to buy a bottle of wine and we're going to take them out to his winery to enjoy.

Went to another rugby game last night - Highlanders vs. Lions. It was a fun game to go to, and much more mellow than the previous one, since there weren't as many students there. Got a free pint at The Baa afterward, too!

This week is the final week of classes, and then exams begin. Apparently exams here are a big deal, because they're typically worth about 50% of your grade, which is a little different than what I'm used to at Whitman. I've got exams on June 9th, 18th, and then two on the 21st. With the nice break between my first and second exam slots my flatmate Rina and I decided to book tickets to Australia for six days. Good timing! Looking forward to the trip though - maybe I can get a bit of color before heading back home and being the ghostly New Zealander that I have been as of late!