Dunedin

What a sweet city. When we arrived last Thursday, it was a bit dreary and cool. Each day since has been infinitely better. The mornings are always cool (50F) and sunny. Around noon it heats up to around 70F and gets windy. At around 3 or 4pm we get a short stint of rain, and then a nice cool, clear evening. My days have been spent touring the city as much as possible. The botanical gardens are out of this world. I should have pictures of them on my next post. The gardens surround the entire north end of the city. They engulf about three small mountains. I spent about 4hrs hiking through the closest portion the other evening, and still haven't seen a fraction of the entire garden. I'm going to leave the pictures to do the explaining...worth a 1000 words right? Yesterday we took the bus to St. Claire Beach...the primary beach in Dunedin. No houses along the shore, just a large sand dune with a park behind it. The water is fairly cold, but still swimmable. The breaks were amazing. Apparently yesterday was a small day, but the waves were about 8ft from trough to crest. The body surfing was awsome.

This week is orientation week, and is designed to get freshman and internationals accustomed to the campus. It is also the #1 party week in all of New Zealand. People actually come in from out of town to join in the festivities. The town goes a bit nuts from what I can tell. Don't worry mom and dad. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon to do a night or two of hiking north of town.

We American students still tend to cling together a bit. We tend to go out in groups at night, although we've befriended a few kiwis that seem to enjoy taking us around. I have been branching out a bit, but it's been a bit tough...last night I went with my French roommate and her three friends to the bars...I don't know how I do it. The nights previous were primarily spent at a big Chinese festival that was going on about 20min walk from my flat. For about three nights they had live bands (mostly NZ rock...) and cheap food without admission fees...couldn't pass it up.

That's about it so far...hopefully these pictures work.

This is of lake Roturua (mentioned in first blog). I hope I can find a faster computer. The pictures take about 4min each to upload.

the next two are of a group of us at the pub (first night) and Lake Roturua respectively.

Assuming the last two uploaded correctly...the next two are of of Dunedin. The first is the view from my flat. The second is of Dunedin from the far side of the bay.