How to beat a bad case of the Mondays

It's been a while since anything exciting happened. Last week, I received two packages and some letters. The first package was from my amazing friend Andrea, of whom I am so proud. For those who don't know her, she's pretty much a rock star and I am so lucky to have her in my life. She totally brightened up my day (which was grey and rainy, a la Oregon; I was not amused) with her gift of silly things, chocolate, baked goods, Toy Story stickers, and much more. The other package was from my beautiful Pi Phi sisters, who sent me some magazines, American candy, Easy Mac (which came in very handy this weekend), and most importantly, tons of kind letters that made me feel so loved and missed that I nearly cried. I miss them all so much and it was such a nice reminder that sisterhood knows no limits. I am so thankful for the awesome people in my life, and I don't know where I'd be without them.

All the things one needs to cheer them up :)

My sisters have really nice things to say and really nice handwriting :)

On Friday night, Marijke decided to heat things up in the flat and have a giant game of Lava Floor. From 5-8 pm, we lit lots of candles, turned all the heaters up, had red and orange balloons flying around all over the place, and very strict rules about where we could and couldn't step. We played loud music and danced all over the place, and had a blast reliving our childhood in a much more grown-up manner.

After last week's fun, this week was seeming pretty dismal. I didn't get much sleep Saturday night, and this week is crazy busy with midterm tests and papers. Monday rolled around and I was just not feeling good. We were supposed to get Indian food on Sunday for lunch but the three places we went were closed, so we settled for some mediocre Thai food instead. On Monday I asked Sarah if she wanted to go get Indian for lunch and she said yes, as did Marijke and Aman. We ended up having a great spontaneous flat outing. We got Indian food for lunch, then walked to the mall where we went to a fun little chocolate shop, where Aman and Sarah split the chocolate fondue and I got a warmed brownie with molten chocolate on it. Mmmmm. So tasty. As we were leaving the mall, we decided to stop by and see what movies were playing and it turned out that we were just in time for "21 Jump Street." I have to admit, I was quite skeptical at first but it ended up being extremely funny and I think we all had a great time. So, moral of the story: when life gets you down, go have spontaneous adventures to cheer you up.

And now off to my first midterm... wish me luck... 

Wild Weekend at Wildfoods

I've been getting sort of antsy staying in Christchurch when I know that there are so many adventures to have in Kiwi-land. I am pleased to say, though, that I've now had my first adventure, and man, what an experience it was. We went to Hokitika on the west coast to go to the Wildfoods Festival, an annual event that draws crowds of people from all over. Each year people dress up in costumes, and there are prizes for the best ones. It's like Halloween, but not in October and a little bit more fun. Our group dressed up at Batman & Robin and the villains. I was Harley Quinn, Sarah was Catwoman, and Shevelle was Poison Ivy, and our heroes were Zoe as Robin and Glyn as Batman; I'd say we looked pretty great.

 I had my first experience driving here, in a manual transmission car, on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car. It didn't take me too long to get the hang of it, though my left hand is not so great at shifting. I hit the curb once, but once I learned to align myself with the center line rather than what I'm used to, I alleviated that problem. The other difficult part of the drive was all the one lane bridges. I've never seen or heard of a one way bridge, but again, I got the hang of those pretty quickly after lots of coaching from Glyn. The drive there was beautiful. Since Christchurch is on the east coast, and Hokitika is on the west coast, we got to drive through the mountains which was a gorgeous experience. We drove through Arthur's Pass which I would love to go back to, and saw many other breathtaking sights. We had a great time on the drive listening to music, talking, and drinking (not me-- I was driving). We left early Saturday morning, stopped along the way for some pictures, and arrived in Hokitika around 12:30, just in time for the festival, stayed overnight at a friend's house, and came back on Sunday afternoon.


Once we arrived in Hokitika, we got some food and water, and made our way to the festival where they had all sorts of crazy foods. It was fun to see everyone's costumes, people got pretty creative.

The first things we tried were crocodile (a little too chewy for my taste) and kangaroo (absolutely delicious).

Our next item was not quite so tasty; for $1 we could have a live huhu grub. They searched for them in their pile of wood, so at least we know they were fresh live huhu grubs. They were pretty small, but Sarah and I took different approaches of eating them; I swallowed mine whole (and now it's probably breeding in my stomach... ew) and Sarah bit the head off of hers and chewed it well. Judging by her face, it wasn't too good. On the bright side, now I can cross that one off my bucket list. The last crazy thing we tried was the Stallion Shot. If you really want to know what's in it, I'll gladly tell you, but you'll have to ask about it.

 We finished off the day dancing to live music, and then we went to get fish and chips. We didn't do much the rest of the night, though a lot of people went to the bars or to the after-party of the festival. Later that night, Sarah and I decided to cross another thing off the bucket list: skinny dipping in the sea. We could hear the ocean from where we were staying, so we decided to go find it and take a little swim. All in all, we had a wonderfully wild weekend full of great life experiences. 

On deep fried Moro bars, cooking, and classes

On Saturday night, I had a deep fried Moro bar. For those who don't know what a Moro bar is, it is the New Zealand version of a Mars bar. Deep fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar. My first weekend here we went to the beach, and then stopped to get fish and chips, where I had my first encounter with a deep fried Moro bar. My friend had ordered one and I tried a bite of it and was blown away. About a week ago, I began ruminating over a deep fried Moro bar. I don't even like deep fried things; I don't really even like candy bars. But, man, I just really, really, really wanted one. On Thursday night, I went to Bingo Night put on by the Gentleman's Club, a student social organization that hosts various events throughout the year. After Bingo, we went over to someone's house and hung out there for a while, and on our way home we stopped at Big Gary's Fish and Chips, the location at which I first experienced deep fried Moro bars. I resisted the urge, but I knew that we would be at the same house last night, so I decided that on our way home, I would treat myself to one of the delicious, sugary, artery-clogging, chocolatey goodness. It was so worth it. I really believe that deep fried Moro bars could solve all the world's problems; you really can't be unhappy while eating one.

I've been enjoying cooking a lot, although sometimes it just seems to take so much effort and I just want something fast and easy. I take after my father in his grocery shopping habits; I tend to buy an absurd amount of fresh produce. What can I say? I just really like fruit and veggies. Last I made the most delicious dinner. I sauteed some orange and green bell peppers (here they are called capsicums), mushrooms, and tomatoes and served it on top of spaghetti. It was really tasty, and quite simple. Last week I bought some Indian butter chicken and chicken tikka masala simmer sauces that you just cook with chicken and veggies. I tried the butter chicken one first and I was incredibly disappointed in it's overpowering spiciness and lack of flavour. I added a bunch of stuff to make it better but it just didn't work. The next day, I had the brilliant idea to add some mango yoghurt to see if that would take care of my disappointing meal and it did. All in all, cooking is going well. I just really wish we had an oven; I just want to make some blueberry muffins. Oh well, for now I'll settle with deep fried Moro bars.

My classes are going well, though I feel like I don't have as much class time here as I do back at WU. I'm not really used to having free time; at school, if I'm not in class I am most likely at work. I have almost no free time to sit around and watch tv, or do my homework before 9 pm, and here I have so much time to spare. I have no problem filling it up, but I fill it up by hanging out with people or going to Thursday night bingo. It's a nice break though, I suppose, and I am going to enjoy this semester while I can. It's nice having time to exercise regularly, although I haven't been able to run much. My calves have been hurting and I've got shin splints, which is super disappointing. I've been working out with a few friends regularly, though, and that's been a lot of fun. I'm starting to miss home a little, but I skyped with one of my friends back home yesterday and she carried me all around Pi Phi so I could say hi to some of my other friends. It was so wonderful to see all of their lovely faces. A few friends have sent me the most wonderful letters and as soon as I buy stamps they will be getting letters in return. All in all, things here are going well, though I haven't adventured much yet. Don't worry, that will change, as I've got my first adventure coming up this weekend. More on that next time!