all quiet in lincoln…

Brace yourself for a long entry. In the short 36 hours (or so) since I last posted I have a lot to update you all on.

Thankfully the campus has begun to come alive. I have met more people in the last 12 hours than I have the entire time I’ve been in New Zealand. It’s a great feeling knowing there are other living beings on campus. I mean, it makes sense that they aren’t here. It’s vacation for them. I wouldn’t want to be in Corvallis during spring break for example if I could be out with my friends doing something fun. But it is awfully lonely for the international students who arrive in the middle of the weekend and during vacation. Double whammy. One of my friends who I met the first day I arrived, Astrid, has become one of my good friends. She is studying here for the semester and is from Austria. We’ve really hit it off which is great.

Oh. I also moved flats. My first assignment was in a flat with one male student who had already been here for a semester. As soon as I saw the box of condoms pinned to the living room bulletin board I was out. Accommodations was able to move me, and although my flat isn’t quite as new (it’s a bit rustic actually. Wood paneling on the walls, space heaters in the bedroom and an old wood stove in the living room) I feel much better being here. I wish I still had the Wi-Fi connection like I did at my old place but I would take this over my old place any day. So yeah, that was adventure one of the day.

Astrid and I also managed to find our way into Riccarton today to go buy cell phones at the Westfield Mall. Yes. They have Westfield malls here. Pretty cool huh? We survived our first bus ride and even bought metro cards. I have a feeling the metro bus is going to become my best friend. The whole driving on the opposite side of the road is super weird. Apparently it’s pretty popular for international students to buy cars while they are here. I think I’ll stick with the bus and befriend people with cars. Sounds safer for all of the Kiwis and the pedestrians. I would probably kill someone.

So we managed to get cell phones from Vodaphone and if anyone reading my blog would like to talk, I can call a landline for $2 every hour calling. Not too shabby considering that calling from my Windows phone back home would be $3 a min. No thank you. Now if only my stupid Viber application would work. That would be the icing on the cake.

After Astrid and I got back from the mall, I relaxed a bit and started unpacking my stuff. My room is still a complete disaster but I suppose that is to be expected while moving to a foreign country for six or so months. I am going to go into town today to get some thumbs tacks to hang a few things up that I brought with me and then am gonna print some pictures and stuff to decorate as well. I figure over the next week or two I will make my little room a bit homier.

But I think the highlight of my trip so far was dinner last night. About 12 international students all got together and we had a huge dinner. It was great! There a students here from Arizona, Chicago, Arkansas, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Vienna. We also met a local Kiwi student who joined us as well. It was great to just be in a loud room with a bunch of people all eating great food. I tried Danish tuna “meatballs” and some cole slaw as well. Apparently they make theirs with sour cream. It was pretty good actually. And then we also had roasted potatoes and onions and spaghetti with meat sauce. We taught each other new words, talked about how awful American television is (let’s put it this way, even students from Denmark know about Honey Boo Boo child) and laughed at each other’s accents. After a few days of relative quiet, it was nice to be in a loud flat with a group of good people.

Despite rough first day here, I am feeling much more settled and at ease here. I still miss home and can’t imagine being gone for as long as I will be gone. But I know this experience is going to encourage me to grow and change in a good way. Don’t worry everybody, I will still be your crazy country girl when I come home. Who knows…maybe I’ll even get some of the kids here to get interested in NASCAR? Wishful thinking? Nah. Challenge accepted!