Hey guys! Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this blog started! Here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to for the past
week two weeks… three weeks, haha, since I left for New Zealand! (:
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| Campus! |
I arrived and got settled into my dorm during the break between semesters… and campus was really quiet! But good for getting acclimated.
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| The pond and our ducks (: |
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| Swan family! Adorable babies and slightly deranged parents! |
I spent some time wandering about trying to take/taking pictures of birds so I could figure out what they all were… some luck.
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| Australian Magpie |
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| Fantail |
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Not actually sure what this is... haha.
Edit: It's a Chaffinch! |
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| Blackbird |
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| Silvereye |
I made a few friends in my dorm (Walter Dyer, affectionately called Wally D) who had been here for the previous semester too, and they showed me around town (Palmerston North, affectionately called Palmy. They’re all about the nicknames here) and campus.
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| Stairs up to the dorms... |
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| Wally D! |
During the first week or so it rained… A LOT.
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| Cats and dogs! |
But soon things cleared up and the weather got much nicer. Still a bit chilly, but it is winter here.
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| Sunset from my window... |
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| ... and in someone else's window! |
More international students started moving onto campus and the dorm, and orientation started up! Mostly a lot of really boring administrative stuff… but we did get to go on a farm tour on one of the days which was neat!
We got to see a sheep farm (sheep dogs, sheep shearing) and a dairy farm.
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| Crazy cow buttons on the milking machine |
In general, lots of fluffiness. (:
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| Wisco with wool! |
Did some more exploring… towards the downtown area and on some trails around campus.
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| Manawatu river, what our campus is named after! |
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| Can you spot the ninja? |
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| Cool moss on a cool tree |
Then classes started up! I’m taking three courses here – Applied Ecology and Resource Management, Communication in the Sciences, and Vertebrate Zoology. So far so good!
And now some random pictures of ferns!
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| Incredible..! |
During the first week of classes, we celebrated a birthday for Abby, another exchange student from the States!
Of course, there was cake… we made a (vegan, yeahh!) carrot cake, with orange zest buttercream frosting and New Zealand inspired decorations… recipe coming to a
blarg near you soon. (;
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| Digging in... |
Nom.
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| Going, going... gone. (: |
On the subject of fooooood… food here is pretty good! Dining hall food took a little getting used to… a vegan was a pretty big culture shock to the Massey cafeteria, but they’ve been very accommodating and great about making sure that I never go hungry. (:
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| YES VEGGIES! |
Other food! Kiwi fruit is really cheap to buy here (surprise surprise!) so I picked a bag up at the grocery store here (Pak ‘n Save, yay!) for $1.49/kilo! Neato!
I ate as many of them as I could… and the rest went into decorating yet another birthday dessert… a kiwi tart for Svenja, an international student from Germany!
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| Tada! Mmmm, now I want more kiwis... |
Also, after some discussion of the deliciousness of pumpkins over dinner, I picked up a pumpkin at the grocery story (THEY’RE GREEN. The pumpkins, that is.) and last night, we had a pumpkin cooking fest in Wally D!
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| Crazy pumpkin! |
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| Verdict: Tough to eat raw. |
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| Beautiful pumpkin seeds! |
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| Mmmmm! Plenty of pumpkin for pie, fritters... and lunch for a week! (: |
First we sliced open and roasted the pumpkin, and made roasted pumpkin seeds (which were deeelicious!), pumpkin pie, and pumpkin fritters (similar to pancakes. yummmmy!).
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| Sooooo. Darn. Good. |
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| Pie time! |
Silliness ensued! Here are some gratuitous embarrassing photos of some friends! :D
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| Oh boys. |
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| We were attacked by pirates! |
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| Hi Meg! :D |
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| Oh hey, it's me! |
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| Lil' bro eating pie... |
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| A rare photo of Abby... haha sorry don't kill me! |
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| Amazing faces. (: |
Outside of the kitchen, for my Applied Ecology & Resource Management class, I had a field trip!
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| Wanganui bound! |
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| Took about 200 random window shots... haha. |
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| SHEEEP! Of course. |
We went as a group to Bushy Park, a bird reserve an hour or two drive north of Palmerston North near the western coast.
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| Snow! It was pretty neat, and fun because everyone was so excited to see it! |
The weather here is generally pretty moderate (the coldest it usually gets is around 30 at night and 40 during the day, and snow is pretty rare), but when we arrived at the park there was a few inches of snow coating the ground!
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| Yeaaaaah, doing science! |
We split up into groups of three and walked along transects of the park, identifying and counting birds in order to estimate population sizes.
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| :D |
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| Snowy ferns! Ahh. (: |
I made two new Kiwi friends, and it ended up being a pretty exciting hike through what looked like a snowy jungle to me… beautiful and breathtaking… and slippery!
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| Denise and Tui! :D |
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| Cold and soggy, but having a blast. (: |
There wasn’t much of a trail to speak of, so we were mostly hiking up and down steep slopes, climbing over fallen branches, and trying not to fall on our butts. Overall, a success! (:
This was an enormous and super awesome tree called a Northern Rata. They start out like epiphytes growing down a host tree until it's completely covered. It's crazy to think that something that started out so small could turn into this magnificent tree!
I’ll try to post regularly from now on! Should be much easier now that I got the ball rolling.
That’s all for now! Everything’s going well, people are nice, having fun!
Oh, and drinking legally! Haha, cheers!
