Christchurch and Uni

Our roadtrip adventure came to an end as we hit Christchurch. We dropped Matt off at University of Canterbury and the group began to split. Team mazda, per usual went to find a field to sleep in, while us Lincoln girls stayed at a hostel. The following morning, we caught a bus to our official home for the next semester. Upon arrival we unpacked and began exploring our university. It's fairly small with about 4,000 students and is a strong land school (ag, viticulture, envs). The library is adorable; on the outside it looks like an old european building, but inside, its modern with a garden in the middle and mod red couches everywhere.

My room is in a self catered hall (meaning I don't have a meal plan) and is pretty much your typical dorm room. The good thing is, the closet is really big and therefore had lots of room for my suitcases to be stored away as well as all of my clothes. It even leaves some room for me to go shopping ;) Everyone else is in a semi catered (meaning they get dinner at the dining hall) and I have been trying desperately to switch to that. Its not like the food is much better, its just that I like to eat a lot, and the price of food is high and theres only one small grocery store in the small town of Lincoln.

So we arrived here on the 15th, and orientation began on the 17th. It was kinda silly to go to all the intro lectures because we had already experienced that at EAP orientation. We've met a lot of non EAP people, but so far, most are Americans. All the kiwis we've met are freshmen because they are the ones living on campus. We were all excited to have classes start to meet more people our age.

Classes started on the 22 and I'm taking four classes this semester which is normal for Lincoln. First, I'm taking an ENVS class called Environmental Resource Management. We get to go to some rivers and take samples to study in the lab. It's the first field class I've had so I'm looking forward to it. Also in the ENVS major, is a GIS class. This teaches you how to create maps and find the best location for a well, vineyard, farm, etc. It's a great tool to have as an ENVS major but unfortunately is not that exciting. I'm also taking a Maori studies class about the Treaty of Waitangi. So far, I've only learned some Maori words and a bit about the treaty but it should be a cool culture class. Lastly, I'm taking Resource Law which I was concerned about at first, but will most likely be fine. Thankfully NZ is on the common law system similar to the US and so the structure is fairly similar.

I've had a week of classes but its also been orientation week. We've gone to a Salmonella dub concert which is kinda like reggae style of music. They were pretty chill and it was a lot of fun. Also, the local rugby team, the Canterbury Crusaders came to practice at our University. It was pretty awesome watching them train; they are surprisingly better athletes than I expected. And not bad to look at either ;) I'm still trying to understand the game but I got a real chance to put it to use when I went to a rugby game this weekend.