Hiking and stuff

Sunday was kind of a lazy day. I went to swim laps though with my kiwi host Nick. The pool is insane. There is a lappool, a water polo pool, a diving well, a kids pool, channels that move you along, hottubs, and a waterslide! Steve told me that Nick used to be a swimmer but...I'm skeptical. He swam about four laps but was hilarious about it. I taught him how to flip turn and what streamline was.

At night I went to dinner at Andee's flat and had stir fry with her and her Canadian flatmate Janine who introduced me to sweet chili sauce...delicious! Then I went to church with Andrew, and we both fist pumped with pride when a sevenish-year-old boy walked by us with USA flag bandana on. Later a few people from my program got together to watch "Liar Liar" and I went to bed early since Andee and I planned a 6:30 am hike to Mt. Cargill (a mountain within walking distance of campus).

....but at 6:30 Andee texted me saying that her bed was really comfortable. So we ended up going at 4:30 pm! with a bunch of other people from our program. The hike was awesome. Round-trip was about 5 hours. It was really different from hiking (I should say "tramping") in New England. The plant life near the bottom and middle of the mountain was almost like a rain forest! It was really peaceful being out of our crazy college town. There are pretty much no animals in NZ besides birds, but we heard some really bizarre bird calls. And the view from the top was insane! It is sureal how beautiful New Zealand is.

Today I had my first day of classes. I started off with The Body in Asian Religions, which seems like it's going to be really interesting. Andee is in my class as well and texted me, "Our professor is beautiful!" before I got there. He's like thirty and british. Then I had Plant Ecology. That professor is also British, and sounds like those old man british voices that narrate movies you watch in science classes. Then I had Maori Society, which seems like it might be a little bit boring, followed by Plant Ecology lab. I realized how bizarre that professor is (he sang us the instructions on what to do in case of fire), but I'm really excited because we have seven field trips where we'll sample and do intense botany stuff that I have no idea how to do.

After a long day of class...it's time for dinner! Ann is making corn on the cob...so obviously it's gonna be a good one!