First of all, Here are some more pictures from the seal coast safari that I got put together. 

So a couple days in and I would say the biggest adjustment is still not having access to the internet all the time. #westernproblems. Mostly from a time perspective, this weekend has been very boring without internet, tv, friends, and with lots of rain. *sigh*

Moving into my new place, it’s a hotel that I guess someone bought and has turned into student housing. So I’m basically living in a hotel room, but without the cleaning (so far as I can see). There was a ton of hair all over my room and mattress when I moved in (so gross) so I pilfered an old hotel blanket I found in a closet and put that over my mattress. I then bought a queen sized flat sheet and put that on top of the blanket and have been sleeping on that in my sleeping bag. The sleeping bag is in competition with the rain jacket as the most valuable item I’ve brought. This room does have heat, but its an on/off kinda thing; its either steaming or freezing. Bathroom seems pretty clean, but that hasn’t stopped me from buying a whole mess of soap to clean things. The once commercial hotel kitchen is absolutely disgusting; no one cleans up after themselves. I did see the cleaning ladies down there this morning but have not been down since, so I have only hope that the exploded chicken curry mess was resolved…

All complaining aside, I forced myself to watch Cinderella man last night before bed to remember that I still have it pretty good here, it’s just not what I’m used to. Oh well, I hope to be out and spending as little time here as I can anyways.

Sunday seemed to go by pretty fast, got out with a couple friends for fs, it rained most of the day though so that made my walk to the library and grocery store less than pleasant. I picked up a random assortment of vegetables and sauces as well as some instant rice and American mustard at the grocery store, we’ll see what I can make of that…

Dad, i know you'll be really proud of this picture. 

My New Zealand Style, headband and scarf.

First Day of Work

My first day of work was pretty cool. It was pouring this morning though, so I arrived quite soaked, but was greeted with smiles and hot tea! Went around to meet everybody and toured the campus, I saw one of the automotive projects i'll be working on and i'm pretty excited. Its designing a body for a steel-tube frame car - similar to what I work on with Formula so I think i'll be able to offer a lot of good advice. After that they didn't have much else for me to do for the day so they just let me leave. Ah, the joys of not getting paid. So with my free time today I've started my epic trip planning for my remaining time here. Right now it looks like i'll have two main trip, a smaller 2 day to Rotorua and my Big South island trip. Still working out the details for that, but I'm throwing around the idea of flying into Queenstown, working my way up through Franz Joseph and Greymouth, then coming back through the trans alpine train to Christchurch and flying home. Should be maybe 5 days... still working on the details though - but I am excited! Especially with plane tickets running as cheap as $45 NZD. Seriously? With fares that cheap I may get down to Christchurch to visit again! 

Since the bus ride to work this morning was rainy, here are some pictures from the way home this afternoon