Week One

First week of classes is almost over, which for us means the weekend starts this afternoon! Gotta love 4 days weeks! Our schedule stays the same for two weeks and starts really early.

7am - breakfast

8am - Biogeography of New Zealand

9:30-1pm - break!

1pm - lunch

2pm - Biology 2 (alternate lab every other day)

6pm - dinner

It's crazy for me to think that I've been waking up for an 8am since I haven't done that since high school. Every two weeks the schedule switches around so that everyone has an equal chance at their 8am, so after these two weeks my class will be later! Whoo!! 

During my morning break, I've been able to explore Wellington. On Monday I went in town with Brian (BK) and we found the information center and bank, which surprisingly was much more of an achievement than we had anticipated! Needless to say, I think I have now walked on every street downtown and can give directions. Brian had to head to class so I wandered down by the pier and was able to see Wellington in action! I came across this quote that really sums up the city and makes it such an amazing place.

part of the pier area

Tuesday was an overcast day, so I decided to head down to the National History Museum called Te Papa. One of our Biology projects is to go through the museum and write a journal with what we saw. The teacher warned us that the museum was large, but after an hour and a half, I had only covered 2/3 of the first floor!! There are four floors. The exhibits are pretty small and set up in a random order from what I can tell - ariel NZ, earth's inner core, fossils, volcano, earthquakes, etc. There's a gigantic squid in there somewhere that I definitely want to go back and find since several other trips are in the picture.

Yesterday, the time difference hit me hard and I ended up sleeping for 3 hours, almost missing lunch! But I think after that nap, I will be good to go from now on. Kate, Kara, Diandra and I went downtown after dinner to walk around and find gelato. We sat and talked for what seemed forever and got to watch the sunset.

Today, BK and I wandered up to the Botanical Gardens aka the Botans. Absolutely gorgeous! The upkeep is fantastic and the views are simply breathtaking. Whether you are at the mountain or the sea, this place never stops impressing us! Days here are really long since the sun doesn't set until 9:30pm and rises really early, but it's nice because more daylight to explore. This upcoming weekend a group of us are taking an unplanned road-trip in the North Island, so we'll see where we end up!

walk to the gardens

native flower that grows like weeds everywhere

the red roof behind me is Weir House