After five weeks, the joyride finally ended. Last week I had my first serious assignment due, a 2500-word essay for my Maori language class. Naturally, I started it at the last possible minute and then spent the vast majority of Tuesday through Thursday nights writing it. After my weekend backpacking trip (which deserves its own post) I finished it up Monday afternoon, three hours before the due date.
After over a month of never having to worry about school, constant new experiences, and mainly just hanging out and doing fun things, it was something of a shock to transition to a regular school schedule. I didn't see the Arcadia kids not in my flat all week -- the first weeks here, we'd hang out about every night, if not more. I didn't go do things in the city in the afternoons and evenings, I didn't cook. It had been over three months since I'd needed that school focused mindset.
This week isn't as busy, though I do have two more papers I need to write before Easter break, which is the last week of April. The semester seems to be flying by -- we're already about a third of the way through classes, which is hard to believe. Of course, I can't complain too much about my work. I'm still free the entirety of every weekend, necessary to satisfy my travel bug. And the lack of other extracurriculars has allowed me to branch out and try some different things: I'm currently enrolled in hour-a-week singing and dancing lessons through the recreation center here, which are quite fun and, I'd say, definitely helpful. The singing is just super basic "Singing for Absolute Beginners;" the dancing is Ceroc, which is done to popular music and apparently quite popular in Britain. Both are fun, low-intensity, and only meet five times, so it's really easy to do. After spring break I'm already signed up for three more: Basic Bar Skills, Beginning Guitar, and salsa dancing. I'm considering Swedish massage as well. It's one of the great things of being abroad: with no other commitments, I'm able to do things that I would always like to do at Yale but tend to get pushed to the back of the queue.
Life has definitely settled down, though maybe too much. In the beginning of this whole experience, I had gotten used to never knowing what the next day would bring (a trip to the beach? exploring downtown? a group dinner? an earthquake?), going places and doing things on impulse, and generally always having some novelty to keep me entertained. Having a set schedule -- though not as set as at Yale, for sure -- and a routine has made life less exciting, and I'm into the ups and downs of a typical semester. On the other hand, I'm can only say I'm incredibly spoiled when I going on backpacking or adventure trips every weekend, strolling around Dunedin a few times a week, cooking at home, and taking singing and dancing classes make life seems less interesting. It's just less novel -- the high, extended as it was by the goings-on in Christchurch, has finally started to wear off. Reality has begun to set in, but it is my goal to make sure it doesn't move in permanently.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Another Week in Dunedin, Another Adventure
This post will be shorter than the previous one, and hopefully will be followed by more at relatively regular intervals throughout the semester. My computer is still at the repair shop, but I'm hoping it'll finally be ready in the next day or two. I've talked to them, and they're working on it. I realized today I haven't had reliable, personal computer/Internet access since before the earthquake. It's slowed down my usual pace of emails, skypes, and everything else. Anyway. We're supposed to have internet of our own in our flats on the 22nd too, which will be great (we're piggybacking off the neighbors right now).
Speaking of earthquakes, the Japanese quake makes ours look like child's play. My thoughts go out to anyone affected by it, and if any of you readers have friends or family there, I hope they made it through all right. It only makes me feel even luckier.
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, my flatmates and I bought a car last week. Not wanting to waste any time, we took it out last weekend for a trip to the southern coast of the south island. We didn't go backpacking this time, but instead did a two-night car camp between Dunedin and Invercargill, about 250 kilometers away. It was the great kind of road trip: slow, numerous stops, lots of little hikes, great views, small coastal highways, and dirt roads.
The area we visited is called the Catlins and has a human population of about 1200 (and a sheep population of many more). Over two days, we took about half a dozen short walks, from as short as 20 minutes to a few hours, including exploration. The coast was incredible. Think half CA highway 1, half Caribbean beaches. Half was tall, rocky headlands, perfect for lighthouses and shipwrecks, but the other half was half-moon bays with gently rolling turquoise waves and wide white-sand beaches. The vegetation was equally confused: half was windswept scrub, half miniature rainforest. I'll put up some pictures once my computer is in service. The weather was by and large beautiful, and Saturday was hot.
Highlights included the barely two-lane dirt roads that crisscrossed the area and gave our car (who is named Neil Patrick Harris, by the way) a little belly massage. Our first campground (at Purakanui Bay) we found rather blindly, following signs down such roads to a bay with the same name (it was there!). The campsite was on grass, overlooking one of those half-moon bays, with tall white-rock cliffs on the other side. The best hike of the second day was down to a set of caves on the beach, which we explored as thoroughly as we could given that our light sources were very sad "torches" on our phones and the flashes from our camera. Some were slot caverns that we didn't reach the end of -- a return trip is definitely called for. They are also only accessible at low tide, adding to the intrigue.
We also visited the southernmost point on mainland New Zealand, Slope Point (46 degrees, 40 minutes south, by far the farthest I've ever been and a full 113 degrees south of Kotzebue). Andrew and I clambered down the giant boulders below the high point and walked out as far as we could go without getting sprayed by the crashing rollers. Our second campsite was in Curio Bay, with a great view over Porpoise Bay. At night, Andrew did some fire-spinning, which involves spinning burning balls on the end of chains held in each hand, we practiced walking in straight lines with our eyes closed, and we laid out to look at the amazing stars, though the only constellations I could identify were Orion (I didn't know he would be visible down here) and the Southern Cross.
Our last day we drove the last bit to Invercargill, making a side trip to the port town of Bluff. Halfway between Bluff and Invercargill, however, the fan in Neil started clicking, then the display started flickering, then the speedometer starting jumping and died, followed by the tachometer, the power steering, and the gas (over the course of about five minutes). Taylor had plenty of time to get the car to the side of the road, but there we were, two days into our first trip, with a broken down car (my first time!). As I told Andrew, our trip hadn't been nearly adventuresome enough.
Our first (and correct) guess was a dead alternator: it had been having issues before we bought the car, and we had just had the battery replaced. Still, we weren't going anywhere with a dead battery and no alternator. After thinking for a few minutes, laughing at the whole situation (including the fact that we had no food except half a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of syrup, no water, and there were weird deer-like animals making constant, loud noise in a field bordering the road), we realized Taylor had a AAA card from back home, and we believed they had a deal with the AA in New Zealand (no, that stands for Automobile Association). So she called AAA in the states to get the NZ number, then called them. While she was working on it, we had one guy stop and offer a ride (it was a busy highway, so a lot more were passing by), and another lady stopped by after we had a guy from AA on his way (AAA did have a deal with them). We hung out on the grass in the sun for about half an hour before the guy showed up, only 40 minutes after we had broken down. He pulled out a few instruments and agreed that the alternator was shot. He gave our battery a boost and we started down the road in front of him. We only died once more on the 10 km drive into Invercargill, where we parked in the AA lot, where Brian put our battery on a charger for two hours while we ate lunch. At 3 o'clock, we returned, replaced the battery, and bought a new one from him, which we would stick in the car if the other died. Then it was straight to Dunedin. To our surprise, the battery made it the entire way, the charge light on the dash turning on just as we pulled up to our flat. Neil was in the garage the last day getting a new alternator (total cost of about $200), and we managed to return the unused spare battery to AA for a full refund. So not a bad deal, and hopefully NPH will be up and running the rest of the semester.
As Yale enters its second week of spring break, we're entering our third week of classes. I'll have a separate post about them soon, when I have room and time to expand a little. So far, they haven't been too difficult, though, and even rather fun. This weekend I'm actually staying in Dunedin, as Arcadia has both a rugby game and a surf lesson planned for us. The next weekend? Backcountry time.
Speaking of earthquakes, the Japanese quake makes ours look like child's play. My thoughts go out to anyone affected by it, and if any of you readers have friends or family there, I hope they made it through all right. It only makes me feel even luckier.
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, my flatmates and I bought a car last week. Not wanting to waste any time, we took it out last weekend for a trip to the southern coast of the south island. We didn't go backpacking this time, but instead did a two-night car camp between Dunedin and Invercargill, about 250 kilometers away. It was the great kind of road trip: slow, numerous stops, lots of little hikes, great views, small coastal highways, and dirt roads.
The area we visited is called the Catlins and has a human population of about 1200 (and a sheep population of many more). Over two days, we took about half a dozen short walks, from as short as 20 minutes to a few hours, including exploration. The coast was incredible. Think half CA highway 1, half Caribbean beaches. Half was tall, rocky headlands, perfect for lighthouses and shipwrecks, but the other half was half-moon bays with gently rolling turquoise waves and wide white-sand beaches. The vegetation was equally confused: half was windswept scrub, half miniature rainforest. I'll put up some pictures once my computer is in service. The weather was by and large beautiful, and Saturday was hot.
Highlights included the barely two-lane dirt roads that crisscrossed the area and gave our car (who is named Neil Patrick Harris, by the way) a little belly massage. Our first campground (at Purakanui Bay) we found rather blindly, following signs down such roads to a bay with the same name (it was there!). The campsite was on grass, overlooking one of those half-moon bays, with tall white-rock cliffs on the other side. The best hike of the second day was down to a set of caves on the beach, which we explored as thoroughly as we could given that our light sources were very sad "torches" on our phones and the flashes from our camera. Some were slot caverns that we didn't reach the end of -- a return trip is definitely called for. They are also only accessible at low tide, adding to the intrigue.
We also visited the southernmost point on mainland New Zealand, Slope Point (46 degrees, 40 minutes south, by far the farthest I've ever been and a full 113 degrees south of Kotzebue). Andrew and I clambered down the giant boulders below the high point and walked out as far as we could go without getting sprayed by the crashing rollers. Our second campsite was in Curio Bay, with a great view over Porpoise Bay. At night, Andrew did some fire-spinning, which involves spinning burning balls on the end of chains held in each hand, we practiced walking in straight lines with our eyes closed, and we laid out to look at the amazing stars, though the only constellations I could identify were Orion (I didn't know he would be visible down here) and the Southern Cross.
Our last day we drove the last bit to Invercargill, making a side trip to the port town of Bluff. Halfway between Bluff and Invercargill, however, the fan in Neil started clicking, then the display started flickering, then the speedometer starting jumping and died, followed by the tachometer, the power steering, and the gas (over the course of about five minutes). Taylor had plenty of time to get the car to the side of the road, but there we were, two days into our first trip, with a broken down car (my first time!). As I told Andrew, our trip hadn't been nearly adventuresome enough.
Our first (and correct) guess was a dead alternator: it had been having issues before we bought the car, and we had just had the battery replaced. Still, we weren't going anywhere with a dead battery and no alternator. After thinking for a few minutes, laughing at the whole situation (including the fact that we had no food except half a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of syrup, no water, and there were weird deer-like animals making constant, loud noise in a field bordering the road), we realized Taylor had a AAA card from back home, and we believed they had a deal with the AA in New Zealand (no, that stands for Automobile Association). So she called AAA in the states to get the NZ number, then called them. While she was working on it, we had one guy stop and offer a ride (it was a busy highway, so a lot more were passing by), and another lady stopped by after we had a guy from AA on his way (AAA did have a deal with them). We hung out on the grass in the sun for about half an hour before the guy showed up, only 40 minutes after we had broken down. He pulled out a few instruments and agreed that the alternator was shot. He gave our battery a boost and we started down the road in front of him. We only died once more on the 10 km drive into Invercargill, where we parked in the AA lot, where Brian put our battery on a charger for two hours while we ate lunch. At 3 o'clock, we returned, replaced the battery, and bought a new one from him, which we would stick in the car if the other died. Then it was straight to Dunedin. To our surprise, the battery made it the entire way, the charge light on the dash turning on just as we pulled up to our flat. Neil was in the garage the last day getting a new alternator (total cost of about $200), and we managed to return the unused spare battery to AA for a full refund. So not a bad deal, and hopefully NPH will be up and running the rest of the semester.
As Yale enters its second week of spring break, we're entering our third week of classes. I'll have a separate post about them soon, when I have room and time to expand a little. So far, they haven't been too difficult, though, and even rather fun. This weekend I'm actually staying in Dunedin, as Arcadia has both a rugby game and a surf lesson planned for us. The next weekend? Backcountry time.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Learning to Live in the Moment
I know it has been a while, and for those of you I haven't talked to in the last week, a lot has gone on. To start with the end, I am typing this in the library of the University of Otago in Dunedin, about 400 km south of Christchurch. After the damage inflicted by the earthquake, it was unclear when the University of Canterbury was going to reopen. Worried that our credits would not transfer back to the states if opening was significantly delayed, Arcadia (my study abroad program) decided to transfer all 14 Canterbury students down here to Otago, where we could enroll and complete a regular semester. So we are all here now, four days into classes we did not expect to take, doing our best to soak up the southern New Zealand sun. For those of you who want more than a paragraph, the story follows, one of ups and downs, plans made, forgotten, and re-made and, most of all, of learning once again the importance of taking life as it comes.
I wrote my last update mere minutes before leaving Ilam Apartments in Christchurch to get our newly rented car. As I said, our flight to Dunedin last Thursday had been canceled, so instead of taking the later rebookings, Andrew, Taylor, two others (Carla and Sabine) and I rented a car from an airport rental spot with plans to drive to Dunedin then take a tour of the southern end of the island, as we knew Canterbury was closed for the next week. It was surprisingly cheap, about $75 a day for a spacious "family wagon" that easily fit the five of us. This was with under-25 drivers and 0-deductible insurance (I'll talk more about that happens in NZ later on). We had it for 8 days.
It didn't take long for us to adjust our plans the first time. Hoping the city buses were running at least reduced routes, we went to the regular bus stop and quickly came to the decision they weren't. Calling back to the flats, we got the number for the Super Shuttle to the airport. About an hour later (4 o'clock or so) the five of us and our backpacks were at Omega rentals, signing the papers and looking at maps when Andrew noticed that a town called Timaru was halfway between Christchurch and Dunedin. Exclaiming that he just remembered that he knew someone who lived there (her daughter was cousins with a friend of a friend of Andrew's brother or something like that) and had offered to take him in if he ever passed through. Given that Timaru was about two hours away and we didn't want to drive forever, we decided that stopping there for the night might not be such a bad idea.
We loaded into our vehicle and were soon on the road out of Christchurch, driver Andrew doing his best to stay on the left side of the road (it's only the turns that take some thinking). And out we rode, away from Canterbury, away from the earthquake and the destruction, away from the cooped up uncertainty and into the wide-open uncertainty. We got a hold of Andrew's friends in Timaru, a middle-aged couple with grown children, and they said they would be delighted to host the five of us. With a little guidance, we made our way to their house, large, modern, and set atop a green hill of fields, overlooking the ocean a mile or two to the east and the mountains of the Southern Alps farther off in the west. They were extremely friendly, feeding us, washing us (well, letting us taking showers) and housing us. Another family was staying there whose house had been badly damaged in the quake, so we talked with them as well about our story and our plans.
We got some advice on where to go after Dunedin, but the next morning we woke up to news that changed our plans for the first time. The update from Canterbury said that the school would not be open until at least the 14th of March, which meant we had not one, but two entire weeks to travel the South Island. We began tracing large loops around the south island, planning visits to the southern coast, Fiordland, Queenstown, and Mt Cook. We were all in a delightful mood: we had just had a great place to stay and we were completely free to travel and explore for over two weeks (our only requirement was to be in Queenstown on March 4 for the Arcadia adventure weekend).
We drove out on a dreary Friday morning for Dunedin, but our mood was such that the two hour drive took us nearly five. We stopped in a Pak'n'Save in Timaru (a grocery store) and got some snacks, which we proceeded to half-finish in the parking lot (Andrew had to eat too). Then we decided to take a spin around the town itself instead of breezing through on the highway, and at the first sign of the water Taylor jumped out of the car and ran down to the beach to touch the ocean for the first time. After getting back into the car (and eating more of the snacks) we made it nearly 200 yards before we found a playground with all those awesome games you can't ever find at home anymore, including a rope jungle gym and a wooden hamster wheel (pictures may follow in a later post). We played on these and explored the rest of the little park for a good while before finally puttering out of Timaru after about two hours, having gone about 5 miles.
We didn't stop on the way to Oamaru, the next sizeable town on the route. Following up on notes on our map that promised penguins, we stopped and found the visitor's center, where we learned that the penguins only came on land at dusk. Still, we shopped there, adding some New Zealand shot glasses, a beanie, and a guide to Southland tramping to our car. Our previous day and a half of driving had been completely lacking in music, something Andrew promised not to leave Oamaru without rectifying, so a trip to the Warehouse (think Walmart) got us a copy of NOW 34 and Beer Drinking Songs for Girls. We were set for the two hours to Dunedin.
With our music, everyone was loving life. To make things even better, drinking beer in the car is legal in New Zealand (the driver has to be dry, of course). We were going to crash with an Arcadia student in Dunedin for the night, check out the famed Otago peninsula, and then head out on our adventure across the south island. Halfway to Dunedin, however, Jane (the Arcadia in NZ coordinator) sent us all a text message that would change our plans for more than just the week.
Saying that she was currently in Dunedin, she asked if we could meet her at 5 o'clock at Otago as she had urgent news for us. I had about one guess: they were going to pull us out of Christchurch, as my flatmate had been a few days earlier. The elated mood disappeared, and a call to Jane once cell service returned (the highway had turned hilly) confirmed my fears: she had just gotten a message from a senior member of the Canterbury team that said they were strongly encouraging all study abroad students to transfer out of Canterbury due to their worries about reopening times. I told Jane we would be in Dunedin in an hour and would rather talk about it in person.
When we reached Dunedin, Jane clarified our options, or more appropriately, lack of them. Basically, she told us it would be totally foolish to stay in Christchurch. She said her contact would not be encouraging her to move her students unless he thought the university wouldn't be opened for some time to come -- basically, it would be a miracle if it opened on the 14th of March. If we moved to Dunedin, we would be able to start classes on time Monday and would be living either in flats or apartments, most likely with each other, though this wasn't completely clear. I was pretty calm, as I knew I wouldn't have any problems with credits if I transferred and wasn't taking any classes at Canterbury that I needed to graduate. Other Arcadia kids were having a much harder time, however, because they were taking required classes at Canterbury that Otago did not offer, and the three girls who had driven with Andrew and I were also concerned, as they weren't with Arcadia.
Even though I knew that things would work out for me, I was still feeling deflated and a little lost. I didn't want to leave Christchurch -- mere days earlier I had finally unpacked all my bags after a month, I had a great place to live and was getting to know people who lived there, I had started to find my way around the city, I had ideas for places to visit near the city, the weather had been beautiful, I was excited for my classes, and my first impression of Dunedin was not necessarily a good one. As we all knew, Dunedin was a huge college party town, and the piles of bottles on curbs, omnipresent broken glass on sidewalks and belligerently drunk boys dressed in rugby uniforms at 4 pm confirmed it (there was a game that night). It was also a cool night, much colder than Christchurch. All in all, I didn't want to leave the place I knew for somewhere that seemed less comfortable and less of what I wanted -- I had chosen Christchurch because I wanted that cosmopolitan city experience and did not want to spend the semester living on frat row. I also felt I was running away from the quake. Though I had only been in the city for a week, I had been there, and I felt a part of it. I wanted to stick it out with the city, live with the other people who had been affected, help rebuild, instead of run off to the south. At the same time, the quake finally sunk in for me: we had been affected so little at the university that the damage elsewhere seemed almost unreal. But now we had been touched by it too, though still not nearly as much as many less fortunate people.
I went with some Arcadia people to a sushi restaurant where we sat down to get our minds together again before deciding what we wanted to do. We all agreed that we would rather stay in Christchurch, but as I mentioned, it wasn't looking like an option. More Arcadia students were driving down that night (the plan had been to all meet in Dunedin), and we were waiting for them as well. When the next car of five arrived, we still had to find a place to stay, it being about 9 pm. We had the numbers of some Arcadia students who had originally come to Otago, so we called numbers until someone picked up and said nine of us could crash on her floor. Hilariously for our addled minds, we had parked our car that afternoon right in front of her house. It made moving in easy, though, and we talked with Cleo for a while about life in Dunedin, then went to bed with plans to call home to the states early the next morning to figure out our options from that end (the workday was over by the time we learned of the move). By now we had decided, or maybe defaulted, to the transfer option, so we also were planning to drive back to Christchurch the next day, Saturday, to pack up our apartments.
In the morning, I called Yale and confirmed that transferring to Otago wouldn't be a problem (it wouldn't). Andrew got further news from his study abroad advisor: Jane's boss in the US had said Arcadia was pulling its students out of Canterbury, regardless of our wishes. Even though it wasn't really what we wanted to do, it was a blessing, as the decision was made. Our lives had been turned every which way so many times in the last week that we were just grateful to have something to fix our minds on. About 8:30 five of us hopped back in the family wagon and made the four hour trip back to Christchurch.
It was very strange being back on campus: Ilam Village was almost deserted, as was the entire campus area (the campus itself was blocked off). On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, hot and sunny, nobody was outside tanning, kicking a ball, or tossing a frisbee. My flat had one person left, who was headed off to Queenstown the next day. We still couldn't drink the water, and downtown was still cordoned off. We made dinner together in Andrew's flat, and it was good to go the grocery store, which was buzzing as if life were normal. The campus was almost eerie in its silence, a reminder of everything that had gone on. We spent the night at Ilam after packing up rooms, checking mail (my 18+ card had thankfully arrived the day before the quake, meaning I didn't have to carry my passport to get into bars or buy beer anymore), and watching the Little Mermaid.
Sunday we drove straight back to Dunedin, another five hours, with just a single break at a great roadside spot with a cafe and fresh strawberries. Over the past day and a half, Jane had been sending us constant text messages with updates on our situation, so we knew a little more about housing. We were going to be moved into university flats together (as in Arcadia people would all be flatmates), but the flats had to first be found and set up, as it was much later than usual, so we had temporary housing at City College, which is a residential complex somewhat analagous to Yale's residential colleges. Word was the flats would be ready around the end of the week.
On the drive down, Andrew commented that it had been a week since he, Taylor and I had been waiting for our bus to Christchurch in Arthur's Pass. Usually those observations are fillers for long pauses in conversation, but this time it sunk in. While most weeks at school seem to disappear, this one seemed impossibly long. Arthur's Pass felt a lifetime removed: since then we had started classes at Canterbury, been through an earthquake, lived in a destroyed city for three days, had replanned our coming weeks more times than we could count, had slept in just as many different places, had driven five hours three times, and were about to move into yet another accomodation before registering, enrolling, and going to the first day of classes the second time on Monday.
To avoid this story from getting any longer, and to save my fingers, I will leave the rest for a post soon to come, with a few points adding what has happened since last Thursday, when I wrote the first half of this post.
Cheers!
I wrote my last update mere minutes before leaving Ilam Apartments in Christchurch to get our newly rented car. As I said, our flight to Dunedin last Thursday had been canceled, so instead of taking the later rebookings, Andrew, Taylor, two others (Carla and Sabine) and I rented a car from an airport rental spot with plans to drive to Dunedin then take a tour of the southern end of the island, as we knew Canterbury was closed for the next week. It was surprisingly cheap, about $75 a day for a spacious "family wagon" that easily fit the five of us. This was with under-25 drivers and 0-deductible insurance (I'll talk more about that happens in NZ later on). We had it for 8 days.
It didn't take long for us to adjust our plans the first time. Hoping the city buses were running at least reduced routes, we went to the regular bus stop and quickly came to the decision they weren't. Calling back to the flats, we got the number for the Super Shuttle to the airport. About an hour later (4 o'clock or so) the five of us and our backpacks were at Omega rentals, signing the papers and looking at maps when Andrew noticed that a town called Timaru was halfway between Christchurch and Dunedin. Exclaiming that he just remembered that he knew someone who lived there (her daughter was cousins with a friend of a friend of Andrew's brother or something like that) and had offered to take him in if he ever passed through. Given that Timaru was about two hours away and we didn't want to drive forever, we decided that stopping there for the night might not be such a bad idea.
We loaded into our vehicle and were soon on the road out of Christchurch, driver Andrew doing his best to stay on the left side of the road (it's only the turns that take some thinking). And out we rode, away from Canterbury, away from the earthquake and the destruction, away from the cooped up uncertainty and into the wide-open uncertainty. We got a hold of Andrew's friends in Timaru, a middle-aged couple with grown children, and they said they would be delighted to host the five of us. With a little guidance, we made our way to their house, large, modern, and set atop a green hill of fields, overlooking the ocean a mile or two to the east and the mountains of the Southern Alps farther off in the west. They were extremely friendly, feeding us, washing us (well, letting us taking showers) and housing us. Another family was staying there whose house had been badly damaged in the quake, so we talked with them as well about our story and our plans.
We got some advice on where to go after Dunedin, but the next morning we woke up to news that changed our plans for the first time. The update from Canterbury said that the school would not be open until at least the 14th of March, which meant we had not one, but two entire weeks to travel the South Island. We began tracing large loops around the south island, planning visits to the southern coast, Fiordland, Queenstown, and Mt Cook. We were all in a delightful mood: we had just had a great place to stay and we were completely free to travel and explore for over two weeks (our only requirement was to be in Queenstown on March 4 for the Arcadia adventure weekend).
We drove out on a dreary Friday morning for Dunedin, but our mood was such that the two hour drive took us nearly five. We stopped in a Pak'n'Save in Timaru (a grocery store) and got some snacks, which we proceeded to half-finish in the parking lot (Andrew had to eat too). Then we decided to take a spin around the town itself instead of breezing through on the highway, and at the first sign of the water Taylor jumped out of the car and ran down to the beach to touch the ocean for the first time. After getting back into the car (and eating more of the snacks) we made it nearly 200 yards before we found a playground with all those awesome games you can't ever find at home anymore, including a rope jungle gym and a wooden hamster wheel (pictures may follow in a later post). We played on these and explored the rest of the little park for a good while before finally puttering out of Timaru after about two hours, having gone about 5 miles.
We didn't stop on the way to Oamaru, the next sizeable town on the route. Following up on notes on our map that promised penguins, we stopped and found the visitor's center, where we learned that the penguins only came on land at dusk. Still, we shopped there, adding some New Zealand shot glasses, a beanie, and a guide to Southland tramping to our car. Our previous day and a half of driving had been completely lacking in music, something Andrew promised not to leave Oamaru without rectifying, so a trip to the Warehouse (think Walmart) got us a copy of NOW 34 and Beer Drinking Songs for Girls. We were set for the two hours to Dunedin.
With our music, everyone was loving life. To make things even better, drinking beer in the car is legal in New Zealand (the driver has to be dry, of course). We were going to crash with an Arcadia student in Dunedin for the night, check out the famed Otago peninsula, and then head out on our adventure across the south island. Halfway to Dunedin, however, Jane (the Arcadia in NZ coordinator) sent us all a text message that would change our plans for more than just the week.
Saying that she was currently in Dunedin, she asked if we could meet her at 5 o'clock at Otago as she had urgent news for us. I had about one guess: they were going to pull us out of Christchurch, as my flatmate had been a few days earlier. The elated mood disappeared, and a call to Jane once cell service returned (the highway had turned hilly) confirmed my fears: she had just gotten a message from a senior member of the Canterbury team that said they were strongly encouraging all study abroad students to transfer out of Canterbury due to their worries about reopening times. I told Jane we would be in Dunedin in an hour and would rather talk about it in person.
When we reached Dunedin, Jane clarified our options, or more appropriately, lack of them. Basically, she told us it would be totally foolish to stay in Christchurch. She said her contact would not be encouraging her to move her students unless he thought the university wouldn't be opened for some time to come -- basically, it would be a miracle if it opened on the 14th of March. If we moved to Dunedin, we would be able to start classes on time Monday and would be living either in flats or apartments, most likely with each other, though this wasn't completely clear. I was pretty calm, as I knew I wouldn't have any problems with credits if I transferred and wasn't taking any classes at Canterbury that I needed to graduate. Other Arcadia kids were having a much harder time, however, because they were taking required classes at Canterbury that Otago did not offer, and the three girls who had driven with Andrew and I were also concerned, as they weren't with Arcadia.
Even though I knew that things would work out for me, I was still feeling deflated and a little lost. I didn't want to leave Christchurch -- mere days earlier I had finally unpacked all my bags after a month, I had a great place to live and was getting to know people who lived there, I had started to find my way around the city, I had ideas for places to visit near the city, the weather had been beautiful, I was excited for my classes, and my first impression of Dunedin was not necessarily a good one. As we all knew, Dunedin was a huge college party town, and the piles of bottles on curbs, omnipresent broken glass on sidewalks and belligerently drunk boys dressed in rugby uniforms at 4 pm confirmed it (there was a game that night). It was also a cool night, much colder than Christchurch. All in all, I didn't want to leave the place I knew for somewhere that seemed less comfortable and less of what I wanted -- I had chosen Christchurch because I wanted that cosmopolitan city experience and did not want to spend the semester living on frat row. I also felt I was running away from the quake. Though I had only been in the city for a week, I had been there, and I felt a part of it. I wanted to stick it out with the city, live with the other people who had been affected, help rebuild, instead of run off to the south. At the same time, the quake finally sunk in for me: we had been affected so little at the university that the damage elsewhere seemed almost unreal. But now we had been touched by it too, though still not nearly as much as many less fortunate people.
I went with some Arcadia people to a sushi restaurant where we sat down to get our minds together again before deciding what we wanted to do. We all agreed that we would rather stay in Christchurch, but as I mentioned, it wasn't looking like an option. More Arcadia students were driving down that night (the plan had been to all meet in Dunedin), and we were waiting for them as well. When the next car of five arrived, we still had to find a place to stay, it being about 9 pm. We had the numbers of some Arcadia students who had originally come to Otago, so we called numbers until someone picked up and said nine of us could crash on her floor. Hilariously for our addled minds, we had parked our car that afternoon right in front of her house. It made moving in easy, though, and we talked with Cleo for a while about life in Dunedin, then went to bed with plans to call home to the states early the next morning to figure out our options from that end (the workday was over by the time we learned of the move). By now we had decided, or maybe defaulted, to the transfer option, so we also were planning to drive back to Christchurch the next day, Saturday, to pack up our apartments.
In the morning, I called Yale and confirmed that transferring to Otago wouldn't be a problem (it wouldn't). Andrew got further news from his study abroad advisor: Jane's boss in the US had said Arcadia was pulling its students out of Canterbury, regardless of our wishes. Even though it wasn't really what we wanted to do, it was a blessing, as the decision was made. Our lives had been turned every which way so many times in the last week that we were just grateful to have something to fix our minds on. About 8:30 five of us hopped back in the family wagon and made the four hour trip back to Christchurch.
It was very strange being back on campus: Ilam Village was almost deserted, as was the entire campus area (the campus itself was blocked off). On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, hot and sunny, nobody was outside tanning, kicking a ball, or tossing a frisbee. My flat had one person left, who was headed off to Queenstown the next day. We still couldn't drink the water, and downtown was still cordoned off. We made dinner together in Andrew's flat, and it was good to go the grocery store, which was buzzing as if life were normal. The campus was almost eerie in its silence, a reminder of everything that had gone on. We spent the night at Ilam after packing up rooms, checking mail (my 18+ card had thankfully arrived the day before the quake, meaning I didn't have to carry my passport to get into bars or buy beer anymore), and watching the Little Mermaid.
Sunday we drove straight back to Dunedin, another five hours, with just a single break at a great roadside spot with a cafe and fresh strawberries. Over the past day and a half, Jane had been sending us constant text messages with updates on our situation, so we knew a little more about housing. We were going to be moved into university flats together (as in Arcadia people would all be flatmates), but the flats had to first be found and set up, as it was much later than usual, so we had temporary housing at City College, which is a residential complex somewhat analagous to Yale's residential colleges. Word was the flats would be ready around the end of the week.
On the drive down, Andrew commented that it had been a week since he, Taylor and I had been waiting for our bus to Christchurch in Arthur's Pass. Usually those observations are fillers for long pauses in conversation, but this time it sunk in. While most weeks at school seem to disappear, this one seemed impossibly long. Arthur's Pass felt a lifetime removed: since then we had started classes at Canterbury, been through an earthquake, lived in a destroyed city for three days, had replanned our coming weeks more times than we could count, had slept in just as many different places, had driven five hours three times, and were about to move into yet another accomodation before registering, enrolling, and going to the first day of classes the second time on Monday.
To avoid this story from getting any longer, and to save my fingers, I will leave the rest for a post soon to come, with a few points adding what has happened since last Thursday, when I wrote the first half of this post.
- We did indeed move into our flats Thursday afternoon, so I finally have a place to stay permanently, though I don't trust plans any more. It's quite a nice place, right on the central student party street. I'm living with three Arcadia students, Andrew, Olivia, and Katie, as well as Taylor. To all of our (but Andrew's in particular) delight, we have a full service kitchen and have been cooking delicious meals all week.
- We went to the adventure capital of the world, Queenstown, this weekend for our long-planned Arcadia adventure weekend. It was a great time and included going to bed at 10:30 both nights (all 50 of us college students!), a 17-mile hike on one of New Zealand's Great Walks tracks, a jet-boat and gondola ride, luging on a cement track, some great pizza, and the world's fourth highest bungee jump, at 134 meters.
- My computer fried. The tech guy says hard drive, so it is currently at the laptop repair shop and hopefully will be back in my hands by the end of this week. Really the last thing I needed to deal with right now, but that's how these last 10 days have been. So I'm still stuck using university computers and my iPhone for my internet needs. Just as I was about to catch up on everything, too. I haven't had reliable internet/computer access for weeks now, so I apologize if I haven't responded to something you've sent. I try to get the stuff requiring immediate response, but Horde is just so bad (you Yalies know what I mean)
- We (my flat) bought a car! As of about an hour ago (at least I assume so). It's a 94 Mazda Lantis, and it cost us $500 (about $380 US). It cost 500 because the maintenance guy says it needs serious work, so we're giving him $800 to fix it up to reliable, if not smooth, working condition. Still, we plan to have reliable transportation for about $1000 US, and it'll be resellable come June. Lots of hikes to do!
- Classes have not gotten very intense yet, so besides sorting through everything else (like the computer, car, lack of wireless or heat) life hasn't been so bad. I watched a movie after practising some water pong last night. That'd be Monday, for those of you keeping track. More details on this later too.
- The transfer to Dunedin was definitely the right thing to do. It was hard the first few days, but now that I have a house and am figuring things out I am getting to like it more (though I still would prefer undamaged Christchurch). Canterbury is doing a progressive restart of classes, with a few starting the 14th and most of the rest either the 21st or 28th. That wouldn't have been good for us. And downtown Christchruch is still blocked off, and won't even be pretending to be functional by June.
Cheers!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)