Son of a b****. It has been a LONG couple of days. I do not think I have been this tired, or this confused in all my life. I don't even know where to begin, or if I even should begin at the beginning. Well, lets work backwards. I am sitting in a supermarket, making use of the only free WiFi for miles in this tiny little cafe off shoot. Its not bad, but there seem to be no outlets anywhere, if you come to use the internet, apparently you don't come for very long. That is where I will begin I guess. In New Zealand, there are only 4 million people...total, so Auckland, it's biggest city, which is over 1/3 of the entire population it seems does not merit having many servers or WiFi spots. New Zealanders, or Kiwis as the locals call themselves, do not spend that much time at all on the internet and thus it is pretty hard to get any good connection. In fact, I have NO internet in my flat, and have to pay 100 NZD deposit plus a 60 NZD installation fee, and then 30 bucks a month to have a 5 GB connection. Internet is billed in terms of GB, so if you go on YouTube or CNN.com where there are lots of banners and flash files, you use up lots of your internet. I could get 50 dollar a month connection for 30 GB, but...thats a lot of my hard earned money.... So, I was thinking, oh, well, that's not too bad, I'll just use the school internet....wrong, you have to buy a wireless card to get the school internet as well...so I will have to buy one of these two. I don't know, I could keep coming to this little cafe where you get an hour of internet (or 60 MG) with purchase. I do like caffeine A LOT. Anyway, long story short, Kiwis go tramping (hiking) instead of sitting on their computers and writing emails. I never would have thought that internet would be easier to find in the Middle East than in New Zealand. My free WiFi adventures seem to have ended.

ANYWAY, lets keep moving backward. So today I woke up at 1pm. After cursing the fact that I lost the whole day I wondered why I was not waking up at the early 7am that my new roommate Lindsey was...Well, I am used to waking up at 4am Israeli time...which roughly translated means 1pm New Zealand time. Damn. Well, today was better because I finally went food shopping and have food to live off of rather than going to the little Thai place right by my flat (I will get to that later). That is another expense I did not account for...food. Not having a food plan kind of sucks a lot. I mean I bought food in DC all the time, but it was included in the food plan thingy that I had there. Here I just have to pay out of pocket to get food and lovely things like bananas and bread (mom, make sure you get that money back). Yesterday I pretty much woke up again at 1pm to my new roommate Lindsey coming in to find me all bleary eyed and jet lagged, not unpacked at all, sleeping in my sleeping bag, smelling of Thai food. I went shopping for sheets and necessary things like a toothbrush and a comforter and a pillow. After doing more damage to my meager bank account which I am ignoring for the moment out of fear (don't worry, I am not late on anything Carrie/Mom), I made my bed and organized my new stuff. After I got all unpacked it doesn't seem that bad, in fact I have quite a nice view out of my room (that Lindsey didn't want! So she switched) and my computer makes it look all homey and normal. The day before that....um....I remember waking up in a Maori house and being shuttled off to the Auckland Museum and then to the UniLodge, and then literally collapsing into my new bed. I don't really know how long I slept, but I slept A LONG TIME. I had not had a proper sleep since Wednesday. I stepped off the plane in Auckland and went mountain biking, followed closely by some tramping, then a lecture on the Maori, then watching the All Blacks play the Springboks (rugby) and then being really cold in my sleeping bag at this weird lodge that I SWEAR was in Hobbiton, but no one else seemed as amused as I was that we were in freaking HOBBITON! I mean, where is Frodo? and I kept wanting to ask someone if they knew which direction Mordor was? No, really, I know that is not kosher here in New Zealand so I kept my mouth shut. But seriously....it was Hobbiton. And to add insult to injury (or something like that), they eat here as much as Hobbits. Kai (food) is about every hour. There is afternoon tea, late afternoon tea, lunch, breakfast, dinner, supper, snack...it never ends. Again, no one else seemed as amused by this.....oh well, my private little joke with myself that I can laugh about when I want to look like a crazy bag lady. So, after a day filled with too much activity for someone who has just gotten off two 11 hour plane rides (oh, did I mention that somewhere in there they taught us rugby and we played for an hour, it was really fun, but again....JUST got off the plane)...

SO, this takes me back up to the shuttle from the airport with good ole Neale Stevens. Neale was sweet, he waited over an hour for me because I had to go and declare my dirty tramping boots and they had to go through all my luggage (getting into New Zealand is almost as bad as getting out of Israel) to make sure I wasn't bringing in any nasty spores or seeds or food. Neale was a great shuttle driver, he had comments on everything and within 2 minutes had asked me about EVERYTHING, where I was from, my family, where my sisters went to school, where I went to school, why I was in New Zealand, where I was studying...and had given me his life story about his wife and his two sons, one of which had just had his clef pallet fixed....ANYWAY, Neale dropped me off...and then I started the mountain biking.

Oh, the Thai food. So I was so dazed and confused because I have managed to ruin my body clock so expertly I did not bother to really get any food or necessaties until today so I was faced every night with getting dinner...which ended being the Thai place that is right next to my flat....two nights in a row. it is good Thai food, but really I could do with some real food, and I think they are getting kind of worried about be there, seeing as I have eaten there a couple nights in a row (well, gotten take out), but thankfully, I went to Foodtown, the local supermarket and got some real food, and fruit, and nutrition. Hopefully tomorrow I can get a phone..maybe splurge for the internet and actually connect with the outside world. Or maybe I can go mountain biking again.