Kia Ora!

Kia Ora and welcome to my blog! Whether you’ve ended up here by choice or force, or even just stumbled upon it by shear dumb luck (and let me tell you, lucky you are) you are certainly in for a treat as I bestow to you all of my great adventures of being abroad. Alright, alright, maybe it is more so that I am the one being treated by getting to live my next four months in paradise, and all this blog might make you do is just rage with jealousy. Anyways, as you may have already noticed from the introduction to my blog, I’m certainly not in the U.S. anymore. To the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand Kia Ora is an informal way of saying hello. It is in their home country that I will be residing for the next four months, more specifically, in Auckland, New Zealand.

I’ve been here now for about three weeks, all of which have certainly flown by. As my days have been packed to the fullest, full of fun and excitement, and just lots of new things to do, keeping me busy, I’ve barely been able to sit down and catch my breathe. With things finally falling into routine now, I suppose it’s finally time to catch everyone up to speed on my life (even if I do keep asking myself ‘is this really real life?’). As all things go I guess it is best to start from the beginning.

February 14^th, 2012 was the day that it all began. Perhaps it being Valentine’s Day was significant in foreshadowing that soon my absolute love for the city of Auckland would begin. Early on the 14^th I woke up, departed my house at around 8a.m., and finally flew out of JFK airport at 11:15a.m. Upon arriving in San Francisco, CA we faced a five hour layover, finally heading to our final destination at 7p.m. local time. After a long and exhausting flight, full of much restless sleep, our group arrived an hour early in New Zealand at 4a.m. local time. Getting through customs super-fast we had an hour and a half to kill before our bus arrived at 7a.m. to take us to the dorm where I would be spending the next four months, Huia Residence. A few friends and I took this opportunity to go toss around a Frisbee outside the airport in the dark. Even at 5:30a.m. the temperature outside was perfect shorts weather. Just before 7a.m. I saw my first New Zealand sunrise.

This is the view from my floor (3rd) in my dorm, its even more
amazing from the 11th floor! Right across the bay you can see
 Davenport, and right past that is the Volcano Rangitoto. 

Arriving at Huia I took very little time to get myself settled in. Despite being extremely tired from jetlag and nearly a whole day of traveling, it was a beautiful day and the new city I was in was calling my name to come explore it. Our whole group, all very eager, decided to go roam a bit, find some lunch, and see some new sights. After our own mini self-tour, our great guide Hester gave us the grandiose tour of the whole entire city. After much walking (and let it be known that Auckland is not the flattest of cities) bed time was very overdue.

Early the next morning our group departed for the weekend for the Bay of Islands (more on this later in another post). No sooner did we get back on Sunday were we thrown into orientation activities and a hike to Mount Eden. We had a whole week of these orientation activities, undergoing both regular orientation from our dorm and the international orientation. The first week of classes was a busy one too, between trying to find (and make it to) my classes and bustling activities fairs among other events. As one can see I’ve certainly been a busy bee. The second week of classes is over and things are finally starting to slow down and become more routine.

Myers Park. A beautiful park I stumbled upon in the
 middle of the city during that first day exploring.

Already in such a short time I’ve adapted to living here and I absolutely love Auckland so much. I now instinctively look right before crossing a street as they drive on the other side of the road. My leg muscles have gotten used to the treacherous hikes up Queen Street and back and forth to class. The only city I’ve ever really lived in in my life is Baltimore, and Auckland is certainly no Baltimore. Perhaps what I love best about Auckland is how accessible it is. I can (and do) walk about nearly anywhere, both near and far. Auckland is after all on the top 10 list of the most livable cities in the world.

Our entire group in front of the sign of the University Of
Auckland.

One of the weirdest concepts to me about living here is the fact that I’m a foreigner. For the first time ever in my life I’M the international student. I’ve met a bunch of people in my dorm form places like Europe and such and I think to myself ‘oh cool they’re international students’, and then it dawns on me that I’m actually one of them too. I don’t necessarily feel like a foreigner here, but at the same time I’m definitely not from here, being the international one for once is a difficult concept to actually grasp. I guess all the pictures I’ve been taking doesn’t help my case in not sticking out like a tourist. But I don’t mind, I’ve having a great time and need to capture all these great sights I’m seeing while I can!

Anyways, it’s about time to go to class! Stay tuned for more pictures and blogs about all my adventures as that foreign international tourist. Cheers!