New f***ing Zealand.I am in New Middle Earth, New Narnia, New....home (Narnia is on their postcard stamps!)... now that that is over with, I can get on with it.Okay, so my last entry was not exactly what I had imagined, though I claimed not to be crazy, I kind of still was.After 22 hours of travel, then mountain biking, trekking, getting up early, walking more, seeing a museum, not sleeping, getting a new flat and needing to food shop so I can stop eating Thai food I was still a little bit...off.Now I just have a new feeling coursing through my veins.That feeling you get when you stand too close to the edge of the platform and the train goes whooshing past, or when think you see someone you know, but aren't sure and your stomach does that little back flip—you know...that feeling.After arriving at my flat and getting some sheets (in my half awake daze I ALMOST bought a Hannah Montana comforter with matching pillows), some much needed tea, some soap and a new bottle of shampoo—my old one so pleasantly exploded in my suitcase—I was feeling a bit better. I got a few hours of sleep....oh who am I kidding, I slept for about 14 hours.Thaaaaat's right, 14 hours.It felt good.Like I had just gotten off one of those crazy spin rides at the fair.So, the past couple of days have spent just adjusting to the 9 hour time difference, and attempting to get around Auckland without stupidly asking for directions every 5 minutes or staring at a map.Auckland is....a city.True to it being in New Zealand it does have a wow factor.There is a beautiful harbour where the yachts and sailboats go for miles and miles, you could probably walk across them all and never have to tough the water.It is a beautiful sight that made me think of my dad, I know he would have stopped there for a least an hour and taken a million photos (I'll put them up soon).Apparently 1 in every 3 people have their own yacht (sailboat) in Auckland.It is known as "The City of Sails" because of how many boats there are in its harbour. Aside from being the country that has invented countless sports and crazy outdoors activities they all like to sail, which thanks to my summers on the Cape, I know how to do....unlike parasailing. Last week was the first day of international orientation and the day that my life really started to get moving.I was sitting around all day, buying food, sheets, necessary stuff, but not really do anything fun or interesting, unless you count going to see Mamma Mia!...Quick note about the movie theatres here; they have allocated seating, meaning, if you and your friends buy your tickets separately, you are not sitting together.It is the strangest thing, they have someone at the door of each cinema to lead you to your seat and make sure you stay there.I tried to move to sit with people and I got yelled at by the seat....person, I don't know what to call them.ANYWAY, orientation went pretty well, met a lot of people from around the world and got a lot of information sessions about how to live in New Zealand and go to school.For example, do not call your teachers "professor", that is the HIGHEST honour—after PhD work, countless published articles and decades of work, very few people are actual professors.Instead, they are "lecturers" and they don't teach a class, they teach a "paper".SO when you want to ask what courses someone is taking, you ask "what papers are you taking?"...In other news, I had two roommates, now I have one, Lindsay, from the States.Nain, was the third but to make a very very long story short, she was not used to doing things herself and was very homesick and very unhappy so she went back to India.She didn't even stay for the start of classes, which is a shame, because the first day of a class is always the best, the lecturer spends half the class telling you about the class.It's a fabulous waste of time. My papers (see what I did there, I used the NEW ZEALAND term...I'm going native!) include: Introduction to Spanish (because it is time for me to learn this language and hey, why not learn it in New Zealand?), Statistics (unavoidable GCR), Pacific Archaeology (I am very excited for this one), and Biochemistry (umm...yeah). I had my first week of classes this week prior and it was glorious, except for the biochem lab, which I might add I had to buy a 40 dollar lab coat for that I fully believe I DO NOT need in any way shape or form.And if I do, they should have some there for people to wear.Anyway, the first lab (scheduled from 10:00AM-1:00PM) was not so bad until the tech started to tell us what we were doing.I have not taken chemistry since Sophomore year of high school...and this is pretty much chemistry in disguise.I sat there on my little stool, looking at the vials of riboflavin and haemoglobin (yeah...they spell that differently too) listening to the instructions for 30 minutes just holding on to the edge of the table thinking "oh s***, oh s***, oh s***...I am going to cause the death of all these people when I mix these chemicals, it's gonna be bad, so bad.Oh s***, oh s***. My damn $40 lab coat better protect me...(for 40 bucks it should freaking do the labs FOR me)".Alas, it all worked out in the end and I just took a deep breath, arranged my face in to what I hope was a confident I-know-what-I-am-doing look and completed the 3 hour lab with my partner Luke (a kiwi majoring in Bio-Medical Science)...with 20 minutes to spare! Victory! Huzzah! So, after almost a month here, settling in, doing a little bit of touring with the IFSA Butler group (to Devonport—a little historical suburb by Auckland that has the hardest Pub Quiz in Auckland, really good food, and a cute beach) I found that I have still not met that many Kiwis, well, I have MET them, but I haven't really got to know them.In order to fix that I joined the University of Auckland Tramping Club. Now calm now, its HIKING...you all have dirty minds.This weekend we are going to be hiking around Waharau National Park in Hunua.Hopefully I will find Sam and Frodo there, but at the very least, I will meet some pretty cool Kiwis J.