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 the July 6th through July 7th.
When we last left off our gallant hero was all alone in an unknown world, and pretty down and out about it. But he, that is I, picked myself up and walked into town. My Massey ID also functions as a bus pass, but I did not have the bus schedule because it was locked up with the rest of my stuff. Buses only run about every 40 minutes so instead I just started walking down the road. It took about 45 minutes to walk to downtown Palmy and all the while I was trying to reorient my mind to believe the cars were on the correct side of the road and that I should pass pedestrians coming at me on the sidewalk on the left.
I finally got to the grocery store where I bought some very basic food, because I had forgotten to check if we had a microwave or toaster, and I did not know if the pots in the house were for anyone’s use, or just for whoever owned them. So I bought a loaf of bread, butter, a few cup-o-noodles, and some soda. It was a bargain too, all for under $7 American ($10 NZD). Pak-n-Save seems to be the place to go for food.
I caught a bus home and dropped the food off. By that time the rest of my luggage had arrived at my house. That night, armed with one fresh bus schedule, I made my way into town again so that I could eat dinner at the Burger King there. I deserved it. Over the afternoon and evening I began feeling a lot better.
I accepted that I have no friends here yet. There’s no need for that to bring me down. I have a warm room to myself, food, beautiful forests around me, and nothing pressing that needs to be done at the moment. Campus orientation doesn’t begin until Thursday and so before that it is extremely difficult to find anyone to even talk to. And that doesn’t bother me anymore. Really.
Over the next day I was able to get a NZ bank account set up, get my blog set up, and get into town again to buy some more essentials and a little more food. There is in fact both a microwave and toaster in my house, but I am still unsure on whose pots are here.
Well, now I am all caught up on my blog. Orientation begins tomorrow and then I’m sure activities will pick up. For the rest of the night I have simple, sweet free-time and I will use it to read my book. Will Dresdin be able to find out who killed Tommy Tomm before the White council catches up with him? I just don’t know.
Finally, since I know I have such a rabid fanbase, here’s a preview of just a few things which I will be making blog entries about in the days to come:
-My house (looks a bit like a log cabin from the inside)
-My commute (a walk through the forest and up a big hill)
-The weather (just the kind of wind and rain I like)
-And much, much more!
Count me as one of your "rabid fanhouse," Cuz. :)
ReplyDeleteAs am I. This sounds kind of like my first little bit in Switzerland. Except shortly after I arrived, I went to sleep for 14 hours and never had problems with jet lag. New Zealand is a mite farther than Western Europe, however.
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