Kia Ora :)

Wednesday 19, 2011 (New Zealand time)

Kia Ora to Aotearoa

That’s Maori for welcome to the Land of the Long White Cloud. J There is a lot of Maori culture here! It’s really cool. We landed here around one our time(8PM yesterday for you) and the Associate Dean of Students, Mick, came up to Michelle and I and said asked if we were Americans, we said yes, he said from Iowa?, we said yes, and he says that he is here to pick us up J so he picked us up in the van that we are going to have, and drove use around Queenstown, showed us some country side, took us to the bridge that we are going to go bungy jump off of later JJJJ, took us out for lunch (oh my word, so good food!), and then to Alexandra where we will live. He showed us our school, and took us home J. The proprietor Denise meet us at our house (she will be our ‘house mom’ as you will), and showed us around! It’s suuuper cute! I love it. I haven’t taken pictures yet, but I will J

They are SOO welcoming of us here. They had a welcome basket with bread, kiwis (haha), marmit, chocolate, honey, banana muffins, and like four different types of jam! I’d say we’re set! But wait there’s more, she opens the fridge and there’s a 12-pack of beer, bottle of wine, a bubbly water drink, and some butter. At this point I’m overwhelmed at how generous these people. I just kept thinking, wow… wow…. Wow…  over and over again.

So we made a list of things that we may need and headed off to our first adventure into town, and I was the first one to drive, and remember, they drive on the left side….. Just take a moment to imagine what that was like. The shifter is on the left, the blinkers are on the right, and the WIPERS are on the left. Ugh, Every time I turned, I blinkered. It was hilarious. I think I have a decent handle on it but every time we got on to a highway and a car came down the right side of the road my heart would stop temporarily because in Iowa that’s MY lane, and I would think, “What is that lunatic doing?!?” haha then I would remember that I am on the LEFT side and that’s how it’s supposed to be. It was a fun experience. We have a video of my first experience, and I will post it eventually. J

When we heard that the cost of living is more here, I guess I didn’t believe them. Everything is EXPENSIVE. We got a case of 15 bottles of beer = $30!! Small pizzas = $6. Ground beef = $8. CHEESE = $8!! WWHAATT. So we settled on some beer, pizza, and some paper products. I think total it was around $50 kiwi dollars. Well we are going to drink some Kiwi beer and eat some pizza and go to bed!

Ciao,

Krystal