Kia Ora!

Kia Ora! (Meaning welcome or hello in Maori) 

It has been a very busy past couple of days. I’ll try to give a brief overview of everything I did without going into too much detail and boring everyone. 

Tuesday: I had to go enroll for all of my classes. I’m actually really excited about the classes I signed up for this semester. I did not need to take any classes for my majors at Mac, so I was allowed to chose classes from a range of subjects that sounded interesting to me. I ended up signing up for a class called “Rebuilding Christchurch”, which, in my understand, the students learn about how the earthquake affected Christchurch and then we go out into the city and volunteer. I signed up for a class on the Maori culture and a Personality Psych class. I also signed up for a class on Children’s literature & film(I heard we read the Hunger Games and then watch the movie, it should be a great class). I also signed up for a 5th class that will teach me how to Rock climb. Although I won’t get credit for it back at Mac, I decided if I want to learn to rock climb, why not learn in New Zealand?? I’ll have this class once a week for 3 hours, but then be expected to climb on my own outside of class. We’ll also have field trips so we can put our rockclimbing skills to use! 

Wednesday: This day started out looking like it was going to be a really nice day, so a bunch of us decided to go on a hike near by in the Port Hills. My roommate heard that if you hike up these hills, you get an amazing overlooking view of Christchurch. Unfortunately, as soon as we set out, the weather quickly changed from sunny to overcast and raining sporadically. One thing I have learned about New Zealand weather is that it can change very quickly. It was still a great hike, but I wish we would have gone on a clearer day so we would have had a better view of the city. 

Pictures from the top of Port Hills

Thursday: Happy Valentines Day(I think that’s today in the US?)! Daniel and I both woke up early and decided that it looked like it would be a great day to head to the beach. We took the bus down to Sumner, which is a beach town about 20 minutes from Christchurch, and spent the morning walking up and down the shorelines. Unfortunately, I had to be back to Uni by 3 or else we would have rented a surf board and surfed for a few hours! That evening, I had a field-trip to the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve with my study abroad program. At the reserve, we saw many types of endangered animals, many of which were birds. We also got to see kiwis, which are very difficult to actually see in the wild in New Zealand because they are nocturnal animals. Then, we were given a traditional Maori welcome, which consited of Maori song and dance. This experience made me more interested in learning about the Maori culture, and I am excited to be taking the Maori Culture class this semester. Finally, we were given a tradition Maori meal called a hangi, which consisted of delicious soup(you should try to make this soup, mom), mussels, tons and tons of meat, potatoes, and then pavlova for desert. 

Pictures from Sumner

I decided to stay close to Christchurch this weekend. With classes starting on Monday, I want to take the next 3 days to explore what Christchurch has to offer before I spend the rest of the semester escaping the city on the weekends to travel the rest of the weekend. That’s it for now! 

Erin