I've just got back from the Victoria International Quiz night which my team of French, Americans, a kiwi and I won (a vast improvement on last trimester), meaning we now each have $15 movie vouchers to spend.
The nights are drawing in down here in New Zealand and the temperature got down to 4C here in Wellington last night; I'm beginning to wish I'd brought a few more jumpers with me.
The benefit of the shorter days is the spectacular sun rises I've been experiencing on my morning runs; I don't have to get up until 7am to be able to watch the first light spill across the harbour. My runs became quite disjointed as I was constantly stopping to take more pictures on my ipod (hence the bad quality of the photos this week).
Another event put on by Victoria this week was a pizza and milkshake night on Friday in the university bar/cafe. Hundreds of internationals turned up for the free food; it was so nice to catch up with many people I hadn't seen in ages whilst munching on piping hot pizza.
This Sunday was exactly 6 months away from Thanks Giving in the US; given that I live surrounded by Americans this date had to be celebrated, so I experienced my very first thanks giving meal. Next door cooked the 'turkey' (chickens), sweet potatoes, mash, honey-mustard green beans and salad and our house made the stuffing and I made the pumpkin bread (pictured below) and apple crumbles. In keeping with the American traditions we each had to say something we were thankful for, the none americans were made to where 'Pilgrim hats' and the football was on the TV. It was a fantastic night with delectable, American sized portions of food.
I'm now heading into exam period so will have to spend less time cooking and drinking coffee and actually do some study. The scary thing is, once these exams are over I only have 3 days left in Wellington then it's Australia, Singapore and home! How time flies.
Today I finally handed in my macropaleontology (fossil) assignment so I'm now free...until tomorrow when I start again, looking at microfossils this time, using a microscope.
Since last week I've been rather cultured, with a trip to a French play and the restoration of Timor Leste independence celebrations.
The French play was on Wednesday evening; the French society, including Claire, were putting on 'The Marriage of Figaro' for free. Luckily they had subtitles as I don't think my year eight French would have coped. It was a lovely evening with good music and it was nice to meet up with all my French friends.
On Friday we moved on to an Italian theme as our flat hand made pizzas. It was great fun and gave my arms a good work out as the kneading took quite some time. I think the pumpkin and blue cheese was my favourite.
On Saturday it Maria, my international buddy, and her fellow Timor Leste friends had organised a large party to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the restoration of Timor Leste independence. There were around 150 people there, including the East Timor ambassador who made a speech and sprayed champagne everywhere before cutting the gigantic cake. As well as the cake we enjoyed Timor Leste dishes cooked by Maria and her friends, including huge, whole BBQed fish, spicy salsas, a sweet pumpkin and kumara soup and many other delicious dishes.
We were introduced to the Timor Leste culture as we both watched and took part in some traditional dances and heard and sung some Timorese songs. There was a lovely, joyful atmosphere and everyone was so welcoming; I had a great time learning about a country which is relatively unknown.
It was back to class this week as the trimester started again last Monday meaning lectures and practicals and more study. I've spent yet another week looking at fossils and creating extensive spread sheets of their Latin names and when they appear in the fossil record. I've also attended a few seminars on climate change, Chinese politics and chocolate as part of the VILP (Victoria's International Leadership Program); as you probably guesses the chocolate one was my favourite as we were given Fair Trade chocolate samples.
After munching my way through some chocolate delights I joined a group of around 20 to celebrate Mealiny's birthday at Strawberry Fare; this is the place with the enormous, but pretty, desserts. It was a great, fun evening and so nice to catch up with many people who I hadn't seen since they returned from the South Island.
Two months sounds like such a short time after having been here for 10 months already, I'm excited to come home now but also for the travelling I've got before then.
My flat mates and the rest of the internationals have finally returned from their travels on the south island. It's been very quiet around Wellington this past week as all the new internationals took the Easter break as an opportunity to visit the beautiful landscapes down south. Meanwhile, here in Wellington, it's been pretty cold and wet so I've spent most of my week getting ahead on work, meeting up with the few people that are still in Wellington and baking. Included in this baking was my first bread; I made a red onion and rosemary focaccia; I was so amazed that this worked that yesterday I decided to have a go again, this time with pita breads and, after Dad's suggestion, some home made hummus to go with them.
My study had me sat in the lab for hours, identifying and drawing fossils; not my favourite type of geology.
During the past week my exam timetable came out, meaning I now know when I'm free to travel. Turns out my exams are annoyingly spaced but I have got time to fit in a 5 day trip to Sydney at the end of June, just before flying home.
I'm so excited for my coming travels to both Sydney and Singapore and can't believe that in 2 months time all this travelling will be done and I'll be arriving back in England; hopefully to a lovely summer.
I've just returned from one of the longest weeks of my life. As part of my geology course I spent 8 days in Golden Bay at the North of the South Island; a beautiful area which we were lucky enough to see in mostly beautiful weather.
Before heading south I celebrated good Friday with a couple of feasts. In the morning Aurelio, Gabby and Katherine came round for Eater brunch which Liam and I made bread, hot cross buns, milkshakes and poached eggs for and the others brought home made crumpets, salad and amazing chocolate crepes.
The feast continued in the evening when Liam and I went to Aurelio's so that I could try his famous pasta; it surpassed my expectations. I was taught how to make ravioli, tortellini and pappardella which Aurelio had made spinach and cottage cheese and pumpkin and sage fillings and a delicious tomato sauce for. It was probably the best pasta I've ever eaten. This was followed by the pears Liam and I had scrumped and poached in spiced red wine. Safe to say I didn't need to eat again until I arrived in Picton the next day.
Twenty geologists caught the ferry on Saturday morning across to Picton then we piled in the two vans and drove across to the field base at Onekaka, where one of many delicious meals was waiting for us, after stopping off at a number of outcrops. We spent the week in the university owned lodge in eight person bunk rooms (pictured at the bottom). In the dining room there was a roaring open fire which was very welcome, after a long day in the field, to sit round whilst doing our work.
The days were very long; we had to get up anywhere between 7 and 5am in order to eat our fully cooked breakfast and get out in the field and collect our data before the tide came in and we got wet feet. We tended to return to the lodge around 5-6pm where we were greeted by a delicious home made meal, cooked by Charlotte, the wonderful chef. These ranged from lamb tagine to pork in cider and were followed by home made lemon and coconut cake or apple crumble; my favourite had to be chocolate brownies, straight from the oven.
Once dinner was over we started on the dreaded mapping assignments, cross sections which messed with your head and detailed stratigraphic columns. Most nights these would keep us busy until around midnight, getting gradually later throughout the week. By Thursday night many people were pulling all nighters; I was the first to go to bed at 3am and had to get up again at 7am in order to finish it all by the midday deadline. After this it was back out in the field to take more notes; I doubt many coherent notes would have been written that afternoon.
The final evening was by far my favourite; despite barely being able to keep our eyes open we donned our high vis. jackets and walked down to the Mussel Inn; a rural pub famous among Vic geologists. The evening certainly exceeded my expectations. I was half way through my feijoa cider when a cry went up and the group of 60+ year old hippies started a newspaper battle with the climbing group across the tables; apparently they used to do this back in the 70's and decided to try it out again while we were there. After a surreal 5 minutes of watching people prancing around the pub from our spot outside we had newspaper thrust into our hands and were told to prepare our weapons ready for the next battle. It was great fun running along the tables in the pub, acting out dramatic deaths as people jabbed and swiped at me with newspaper 'swords' and certainly provided a very memorable end to a great week.
Despite the hard work I really enjoyed field trip as I became much closer with everyone in the group and it was such a beautiful area to study. The geology was amazing as there was such a variety of rocks and minerals and so many different processes had taken place in the area leading to faulting, folding, metamorphism and igneous intrusions. Although being shown a huge number of rocky outcrops and told to identify them, work out how they got there and map them three dimensionally was a daunting task I definitely learnt a lot from the trip and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process.
I can't quite believe that I've now been in New Zealand for over 9 months, meaning that in 3 months time I will have been back in the UK for nearly a week. The phrase 'Time flies when you're having fun' most certainly applies to pretty much the whole of my stay here in New Zealand so far. I'm really looking forward to coming home and seeing everyone again and revelling in everything British, but at the same time I'll definitely miss this beautiful country and will always look back on this year with a big smile.
On Wednesday I had the last of my tests for this half of the trimester so I can now return to making the most of Wellington, despite the wet and windy weather which has finally returned. I'm hoping the rain will ease for the first week of Easter break as I'll be spending it in the Abel Tasman national park, mapping rocks as part of my course.
I was very excited today to receive an Easter package from home (pictured to the left); this definitely made up for the fact I'm going to be working over Easter.
The pictures above are of the sunrise from the balcony behind my accommodation; I took it before the clocks went back as I was setting off for a run.
As you can probably see I've thoroughly enjoyed the first three quarters of my year abroad and just hope this last quarter lives up to the rest.
