The majority of the past week has either been spent up on campus studying or in the kitchen baking. On Saturday I went a bit further a field when I caught the train, for the first time in New Zealand, to Petone for a field trip. In Petone we studied the formations created by the waves and tides by measuring ripples in the sand and wave heights; such fun!
Last Wednesday; after updating my blog, I went to an international exchange event where I met many kiwis looking to study abroad next trimester and then I went to a free screening of Mood Indigo in Waitangi park. It was lovely sat out under the stars, eating Liam's home made brownies whilst watching the quirky French film.
As mentioned Liam and I have been doing a great deal of baking this week: 2 apple crumbles, 1 apple cake, chocolate chip cookies, ginger spiced cookies, cupcakes, brownies and finally today Liam made a chocolate cake with banana ice cream. The reason for all the apple desserts is that there is a tree in the Waiteata garden which is absolutely laden in cooking apples at the moment. We collected many of these on Sunday along with some potatoes, lemons, chillis and tomatoes.
The two batches of cookies were for the coffee afternoon that our flat hosted on Sunday; instead of going to a cafe we had a group round to eat, drink and play games.
It's been a lovely week filled with fun and food; I think it's safe to say living with Liam is going to make me into a whale by the time I come home! Looking forward to another field trip this weekend up in Wanganui.
I'm finally back into the routine of university life; this mostly comprises of studying, meeting up with friends, cleaning, cooking and running.
I've finished my literature essay, so that's a good weight off my shoulders, meaning I just have the work for this university to do now. One of my courses is quite challenging but I've made some friends on it so we can help each other out; other than that it's mostly about the reading.
In the evenings and at the weekends I've been meeting up with a range of friends, mostly international, for card games, baking and a spot of partying. This weekend a tropical cyclone was meant to hit but by the time it reached Wellington we just got our usual amount of wind and rain accompanied by high humidity.
On Friday we had the university hall BBQ where I was able to meet all the people who live in the same group of accommodation as me; this is where the pictures to the right were taken.
On Wednesday we had another Mexican flat meal with self saucing chocolate pudding for dessert, followed by some of the Percy Pigs Mum had sent me :)
All in all it was a fun and yet relaxing week; I look forward to getting out of Wellington, for a change, over the next two weekends as I go on field trips.
I'm now just about back into the swing of studying; initially a shock to the system after my four month break. I've been to a range of lectures on rock deformation, the weather and fluid flows and in between I've been working on my literature essay for my dissertation back home. The encyclopedia of volcanoes has become my bed time reading.
In between study I've been for a couple of coffees and on Friday I took my buddy and some other internationals to the night market where I got some slightly underwhelming paella; the atmosphere made up for the food though.
Tuesday was pancake day so as a flat we had European pancakes for main course, with ham and cheese, followed by American pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Yum yum.
On Saturday, after a rather hot run, Liam and I made scones to take to the picnic in the botanical gardens. It was a really sunny afternoon so about 15 of us had a lovely time playing games and munching our way through a range of home baked goods, including crepes from the French.
That evening Gabby,Liam, Klaas and I joined some others at a house warming before heading into town for a fun night attempting to dance.
Aside from studying and eating I
also went to a buddy event which around 200 kiwis and internationals attended and where I had to chat to the vice chancellor of the university and earlier in the day I saw John Key, the Prime Minister, as he visited the university.
It's been a very busy and enjoyable week; I've met yet more new people and tried yet more new, exciting foods. Hopefully I'll get my literature essay finished soon so I can spend less time in the library; I can't really complain though as the view from the sixth floor is phenomenal.
It feels like months since my last blog post; I've met so many new people been to so many cafes!
Everyone has now arrived and today I had my first lecture in exactly four months; I have been doing some work this past week as I started the research and literature essay for my dissertation, ready for going back to Lancaster.
Most of the week however has been spent meeting up with various groups for coffees, cooking and baking or free food.
Whilst eating the free food I met many new people from across the world at the international orientation, the international buddy meet up and the exchange breakfast. I invited some of these people along to a picnic in the botanical gardens; there ended up being around 25 people, most of which are pictured above, meaning there was loads of food as everybody brought a dish. I've discovered that my new cleaning job is right next to Moore Wilson's, a really nice supermarket which sells food from around the world; so after running out of time, I bought a pizza base and toppings from here to take along to the picnic. I had to wait until the next day to make my cheese scones.
We also had a few welcome events in the evenings so I saw some more of the night life in Wellington. On Friday night, after moving Maxence to his new house, a group of us went to the night market where there's a range of food stalls; I had dumplings in miso soup.
Most of these stalls, plus about 30 others and loads of craft ones were then out in the sun at the Newtown festival on Sunday where our friend was playing the guitar. Newtown is about 20 mins from Wellington on the bus and once a year holds this big festival with music and food. There was a lovely atmosphere but it was very busy, I had the potato twist shown to the left.
That evening Liam kindly invited me to a Spanish opera with him. Someone at the Spanish embassy, where he works, had given him the tickets to thank him for his work. When we got there we found ourselves sat two seats along from the Spanish ambassador and behind the Argentinian ambassador in pretty much the best seats in the house; I barely dared to move throughout the entire performance! It was a wonderful evening; I really enjoyed the opera, despite not being entirely sure what was going on some of the time and the music was incredible, if very short at just one and a half hours.
I can't quite believe that all the new internationals have just arrived when I now have under a third of my time left here. I'll have to make sure I make the most of it and grab any experiences I can.
