Down a bit

Note: I have been in New Zealand for about a day and a half at the time of writing this. Since I did not have the blog up during my day of travel or my first day here at Massey, I will be posting my experiences from those days in chronological order. The events of this post took place on July 6th.


The 6th was my first day here in New Zealand, and I guess it’s not all sunshine and magical adventures*. Especially the sunshine part, it’s been cloudy and drizzly ever since I got here.

Anyway, as my title says, I was feeling down a bit (I can’t wait until I get caught up on blog entries and can stop using the past tense). The weeks before my departure and then my travel and my arrival in New Zealand have been an emotional rollercoaster. My friend Holly, who is also studying abroad next semester, had a great blog post about the rollercoaster feeling of it all. You can find her blog by clicking on my profile, and checking under blogs I follow.

My arrival in New Zealand read a bit like one of those fortunately/unfortunately children’s stories:

Fortunately I was going to New Zealand. Unfortunately I was travelling alone. Fortunately I met someone to travel with on the way there. Unfortunately after Auckland I never saw her again. Fortunately I met another girl on the flight from Auckland to Palmerston North who was also student from the US also going to Massey. Unfortunately I was not sure if anyone would be waiting at the airport to pick us up. Fortunately there was a woman there, and she took us back to campus, gave us our IDs, and took us to the accommodation office. Unfortunately Massey did not have my room ready because they did not realize I was going to be arriving that day. Fortunately they would be able to have my room ready by the afternoon. Unfortunately, I had nothing to do until then. Fortunately they could keep my stuff at their office and then when the woman who had given me a ride to campus from the airport was free in later on she would be able to drive my stuff up to my house. Unfortunately I still had nothing to until the afternoon and I was jet lagged. Fortunately that jet lag was manageable and I still had my book. I was able to find a café in the library to read in until I could get into my room. Unfortunately, when I got to my room none of my stuff was with me so I could not take a shower or even change my clothes. Fortunately one of my roommates was already there. Unfortunately he had a very strong Chinese accent and was very hard to understand, and after greeting me he seemed not at all interested in talking to me. He quickly retreated to his room and it sounded like his girlfriend was there with him.

So there I was sitting in my bare room, in need of a shower and new clothes, without anyone to talk to or even a working phone to contact all of my zero contacts here, and with gray skies and rainy weather outside, I was definitely at the low point of the roller coaster

This is the point in the blog where the credits scroll and it says “to be continued.”


*: The magical adventures may or may not be real, I haven’t been able to tell yet.