Wonderful conversations with:
A UND alumni who now lives in California.
2 nurses from New Zealand that work in the United States.
An extremely nice lady who lives in Christchurch now but is originally from Taiwan.
A lovely couple who live in Dunedin and gave me their contact info for emergencies or if I want some company.
Even though it's been almost 40 hours since I was sitting in Billings, I honestly had a really easygoing travel experience. All of my flights were on time, my luggage was always at the carousal before me, and everyone was really friendly. Once I got to the Dunedin airport, I had to take a shuttle into town which was about 10 miles away or so.
There's so many places it reminds me of in such a short distance. The first mile or two reminded me of the drive back into Red Lodge, Montana from the bottom of the mountain. There were places on the drive into Dunedin, where I would look across a valley with the sun setting to the west that reminded of being in Tuscany. When I started seeing more houses, it looked just like Lead, South Dakota expanded into 100,000 people. The landscaping, houses, and the many fields of sheep remind me of Ireland except not quite as green. Also, Ireland has rolling hills where Dunedin is more rugged like Montana. The places where there weren't as many houses, it reminded me of driving through the rural, south of France with Ben and Victoria. New Zealand is a place all to itself. I've made it from the Dunedin airport to Dunedin and already I know that I will love exploring this new place (to be honest, I knew that before I got here). When I look to the east, there's a never ending ocean of water that meets my eye. I might even have to train myself to wake up early to watch the sun rise up from the water. There are some familiar trees, but then there's some trees that not even my dad has in his cooler. There are stone walls strewn out over the city. And the weather...I'm not sure if it is just the day but it's perfect. I'm going to have to learn to walk again since I don't have the wind holding up one side of my body at all times. I honestly think it's a negative wind half the time here. It was about 45 degrees when I arrived...a dream after leaving 95+ degrees in billings. There aren't very many roundabouts that I've noticed, but they do drive on the left side of the road. I never thought motion bothered me but after riding in a 12 seat shuttle on these roads...I might have to rethink my semester at sea(ha! As if) but seriously...remember how I said it isn't rolling hills? Well Dunedin is built in between and on several non rolling and rather steep hills. Also, their streets are not set up like most American cities with avenues going east/west and streets going north/south in usually a straight line. One road in Dunedin might go all 8 directions in a mere half mile. Dunedin has the steepest street in the world, Baldwin street, but I'm pretty sure any one of these streets could tell me they're Baldwin street and I'd believe it. I got dropped off somewhere by the office to uplift my key and got a ride to my flat. One of my kiwi hosts, Karla, greeted me and showed me around. Our flat is three stories high with the living room, kitchen and laundry room on the ground floor, 3 rooms with a bathroom on the second floor, and 3 rooms with a bathroom on the third floor. My room is on the third floor and is actually bigger than I expected it to be. I talked to Karla for a while until another one of flatmates, Jardon, showed up. Jardon is from Oregon and we ended up having the same flight from San Francisco to Auckland so I had briefly met him already. The three of us walked to get some groceries and made a little supper. We talked a bit more and then decided it was time to go to bed. I unpacked and am now writing this. The other kiwi host won't be arriving until next Sunday, the Italian flatmate already jumped ship yesterday and will be living elsewhere, and the other flatmate from the United States hasn't arrived yet. Tomorrow, we plan to go into the center to get some SIM cards for our phones and maybe a couple other things before orientation at 2. I don't start class until next week so this week is all about exploring! That will be all for the night as I am ready for bed. Hopefully I'll get some pictures on the next one.
I hope everyone is having fun back home at the Rotering Reunion!
Thinking of you all!
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