After over 16 hours of airtime, I have finally made it to Tanzania!  I am so excited to spend the next 6 weeks here. For the next 3 nights we will be staying at our school, MS-TCDC for orientation. When we arrived in Tanzania we boarded off of the plane down stairs right onto the runway (like you see in the movies). We then drove 30 minutes to MS-TCDC.  I didn’t get to see much of the school tonight because it was dark by the time we got here. We had [...]

So many people (including myself before this trip) from home have no idea that there is a “Rugby World Cup” (RWC) and that even the U.S. has a team! Well it just so happens that the entire RWC was held in New Zealand this year and there were numerous games played all around the country including in Dunedin. I had seen an All Blacks game in the beginning of the year (remember when I forgot my camera?) and wasn’t keen on seeing anymore rugby at first, but that was before [...]

One adventure I went on about a month ago was me and other 3 girls (Anna, Tor and Steph) all hopping into Dan’s car (after particular packing by Anna) and headed down to Purakaunui Bay where we would spend the weekend camping. We got to the camp ground just an hour or so before sunset so we had plenty of time to set up camp before the sun went down. Us girls left it up to the men to find out when of the spots on the campground was going to be [...]

WARNING: THIS POST IS VERY LONG. GET A SNACK BEFORE READING. Our “spring break” (if you said that out loud around other kiwi students they would laugh, it’s just “school break” or “holiday”) was from August 26- September 5. Two of my roommates and I decided that instead of heading off to a tropical island that we would stay and try and explore as much of the South Island as we could. On Sunday the 28th we got on a bus at 1:30p and headed to Te Anau for the night and stayed at [...]

Today I learned how to surf in 45 degree (F) water and it was AHHHHHMAZZZINNGGG. We set up our surfing trip with our new friend Dan (who was our guide from the ski trip I talked about last weekend) and we rented some wetsuits from the Unipol recreation centre on campus and Dan hooked us up with some free surfboards. I woke up at 7:45 (after pressing the snooze a few times of course) and ate some breakfast before Victoria got here and we struggled to pick what clothes to [...]

I’ve already made it to the one-month mark, which seriously blows my mind. The days here are flying by faster than I ever thought they would. I’ve already done SO many amazing things, and I haven’t even done the coolest things on my list of things to do!  I had to do an assignment for a class I’m taking through the U that is all about reflecting on your experience and talking about the ups and downs that come along with “culture shock.” Culture shock is defined as having a [...]

Another week (and a half!) of classes has flown by and I’m starting to really get in the groove of everything. It’s nice because here you have options besides buying the textbook because you can use them at the library for an hour and a half at a time, it’s great! So far I haven’t had any problems with going to the library (except for motivation to leave the house..). I decided to participate in a paying research study to get some extra moola (paying research studies are rare!) On [...]

So what people keep telling me is that I came down here to study (they obviously haven’t seen these gorgeous landscapes!) and so I guess between all my adventures I have to take some classes!  Yesterday (11 July) was my first day of classes in New Zealand and I had only 2 classes and was done by noon. My first class was Movement Analysis and Control (essentially biomechanics). I soon found another student I had met during course approval, so I sat by him and the professor seemed very personable [...]

First couple of days in Dunedin: Leaving the warmth of the KiwiPaka is something I would later miss very very much but at the time we were all very excited to finally get to our home university town! There were two different flight times and I was put on the later flight time so we were all getting ready to go through security, getting rid of our food and pouring out our water (others were either pouring out their wine or drinking it…). We get to the airport and we [...]