Our First Day

Aaaaaaaalright, well I got those two tests out of the way and it couldn't have ended soon enough. So this next post I would like to tackle is about our first few days of getting settled into this land of New Zealand. To start off we landed in Auckland on a rather rainy day. The cool thing was that the plane runway juts out into the ocean so when you land it looks like your about to land on the ocean water and then out of nowhere there is land, so that was pretty cool. We got off the plane (after a 13 hour ride) and began our way into the great land of NZed. At first everyone was kind of freaking out because your not supposed to bring food into the country and a couple of us had some snacks so we were trying to figure out what to do. We decided to toss some of the stuff and hold onto things that weren't open.
Next we walked through the Duty Free store and of course we bought some booze. I didn't even get carded when I bought a bottle of Tanqueray and Jim Beam, which made me feel like a boss (not gunna lie). Then it was off to customs we went. Unfortunately I got a woman that looked like a man and the two asians  in front of me could not speak english (I swear they took ten minutes each, they had no clue what she was saying they would just nod every time she asked a question, I wanted to kick them in their head, no offense) so when my turn came the woMAN was in a pretty bad mood and me being not used to her accent did not help matters. But I made it through and we went and grabbed our luggage.
Next we had to find the man that would be bringing us to J's Backpackers (the place we were set up to stay). We found him and then loaded our luggage into a fan and headed towards Hamilton. The man's name was Terry and he was incredibly friendly and he really made a great first impression of NZed. I really can't see having anyone else introduce me to this country other than Terry.

Hey Terry!

Our luggage.

Loading the van

Terry consulting with a fellow Kiwi

So after about an hour and a half drive to Hamilton we made to J's Backpackers (a hostel) and were greeted by the owners. I can't remember the names of the owners but I remember how they showed us to our rooms and then gave us a tour of the entire place,  gave us maps around Hamilton and then pointed us in the direction of the University. 

Arriving at J's Backpackers

View from my room

I was on the top bunk

After we settled our luggage into our assigned rooms we decided to shower quick and then head up to the school and check out the city of Hamilton. We visited the school and checked out the library and used the internet they had available. We also checked out the campus trying to find a place to eat as we had no food at all . That is the one crazy part about arriving into a country like this. You not only don't have a place to live but you also have no food available. Anyways we checked out the campus, which is absolutely beautiful. I still need to get some decent photos of the campus that I can post on here, still workin on it. After the school we decided to go and find a place to eat (nothing was open on campus since it was still summer break).

Dog we saw on the way to the school.

House that has a tennis court in its front yard.

Walking around in a new country in which you are going to live in for a period of time (especially one as beautiful as New Zealand) is a such a crazy feeling. You see similarities to your home but at the same time its so different because its NZed style. It began to sink in as we walked around the town trying to find a place to eat. I especially wanted to find a place where I could order a beer with my meal since I was finally at the legal age to drink. It's a little embarrassing telling people from other countries that this is the first time I can drink legal. They laugh at the stupidity of American law and find it rather pathetic that American pigs hand out minors to people under the age of 21. But that's as far as I'll take my rant on the drinking age (for now). But we found a liquor store and grabbed a couple beers anyways (this is when we found out its about 30 bucks for a case of cheap beer). 

Expensive as! (thats the bird my tattoo is, although now I would like to get an endemic and nearly extinct Kokako which are amazing and beautiful birds,  learned about them in my comparative physiology class) 

This would be my first beer 

After aimlessly strolling around Hamilton for a couple hours we finally came to a bar where we could order a beer and grab a cheap meal (I think it was fish and chips (french fries)). We got weird looks as we walked around the bar scene at the city center because when you go out to town it is expected that you be well dressed. We had heard about this but we found out it was true the hard way. But after we ate we decided to head back the J's and crack open the Jim Beam and talked with some of the other backpackers. We all decided to head down to a little Gazebo they had for people staying and we all played some drinking games and talked to each other learning about where everyone came from and why they were here. If I remember right there were two kiwis, someone from Britain, a guy from India and two guys from Saudi Arabia. We also met Michelle here for the first time and she is from Arizona but we still continue to hang out with her now. 

Well that was our very first day in New Zealand. I'm boring myself so I'm gunna call it quits for now plus were going to go and watch an All Blacks game at a pub that is pretty close to my house. Oh and today we went horseback riding which was absolutely gorgeous and I will have a blog entry about that too a lil later I think. Right now we've started our study break for finals and in the blog about studying at the biology program here I'll explain how finals work then.

The next entry I think I'll talk about moving into our flat.

Cheers