Mt. Eden

Yesterday, Kelli (housemate from Wisconsin) and I walked down Queen St. (reallllllly long walk), found The Warehouse (NZ version of Wal Mart) and bought kid size sleeping bags because they were the cheapest ones. They had no more tents left so we walked  to Khatmandu, half way between The Warehouse and Campus. They were having a sale so we bought a tent for $100 and sleeping bags for $15 (human sized). We returned to The Warehouse to return the kiddie sleeping bags. On the weekends we don’t have free transportation through our Abroad Programs so we went to Britomart, the train station to buy tickets. We got in one line, but when we got to the front, the Asian teller started talking to us a million miles a second and pointed to a different line. We had to jump back and forth a few times before they understood that we were students trying to buy a 10 ticket pass from Akoranga Dr. to the city. “Oh, we don’t do that, you have to buy Richie bus passes at your campus.” Good to know. I think that going to school in a big city will help me in the long run when I’m traveling and need to find my way around. At the moment it is entirely overwhelming and exhilarating.

This has been a crazy week!! I have probably walked at least 5 miles a day just finding my way around the city. Everyday I do so much, but its just little things that you wouldn’t need in a small town. Plus it takes longer to get everywhere because the campus is so huge. For one tutorial I left an hour and a half early so that I could find it. It took me about 30 minutes walking around the campus, finding the building, looking lost, being lead in the right direction, to finally find the hidden room. It’s like the closet in Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Even the teacher had a hard time finding it… so its not just meJ Today I wrote down my schedule wrong, was on my way to the right building, but thought I was taking a different tutorial so left, went to the Engineering building across campus, a teacher and then a student helped me find a class, I sat next to a girl who was in an art history class, apparently the class had moved, walked back across campus to the Law Forum (where I was headed in the first place), sat in the class for 25 minutes before realizing it was the wrong art history class, found my way to the tutorial I was suppose to be in, jumped right in and started talking about the dockumentary (perhaps mockumentary), Exit Through the Gift Shop, went to the Audio Visual Library to watchForgotten Silver, a film about the hidden legend of filmmaker, Colin McKenzie, I am now in a computer lab that I found when I was searching for a tutorial. The main one on campus is extremely busy, you have to book a space beforehand. I’m finally starting to know my way around and little secrets of campus. This morning I ran into two Canadians who live in Akoranga as well, they were headed to iSpace (international lounge) for free coffee and breakfast. I love free food, especially here because I want to save my money for traveling every weekend. I have been eating grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta, muesli and Weet Bix among other things, but these are my main staples. I think I will buy some eggs today to mix it up ha! The closest grocery store to Akoranga is about 30 minutes walking distance so I try to stock up and go only when necessary. I posted a hotlist on the WWOOF website:

I am a study abroad student who just transferred from Canterbury to University of Auckland after the earthquake. I don’t particularly love being in a city and would like to meet people/ help out on farms. I have experience as I WWOOFed for a month before school started. I only have the weekends open so it would be a very short stay. I love meeting new people, cooking, fishing, boating snorkeling, and volleyball. I just learned how to surf and would love to learn how to wind or kite surf:) Feel free to email me setjette@mac.com or call me: 022 089 6549 p.s. I have a lot of international students who would be interested in helping out so if you need any big projects done I could rally the troops!!