Gidday Everyone!

After a day and a half of travel I arrived safely in Wellington Tuesday morning. I flew from Miami to LA to Auckland and then finally to Wellington. I’ve since spent the time adjusting to the time zone difference (16 hours ahead) and discovering the city of Wellington. For those of you who have not been to Wellington before (most except my good friend KB), Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, located on the southern tip of the North Island with a population just over 400,000.

Yesterday, the university I am attending, Victoria University of Wellington (VIC) had an international student orientation for the some 300 students doing a semester here. Although the majority of the students that are here are from the United States, there were several other countries represented, even Finland. The day was spent learning more about the city, Kiwi (New Zealander) culture, and the educational experience I’ll be having at VIC. We finished the day by registering for classes, although I need to still work out a few kinks in my schedule I think I’ll be taking Political Philosophy, Politics and the Media in New Zealand, and Popular Media Culture.

I’m hoping to take a trip next week to the northern part of the South Island. There is a ferry that goes from Wellington to Picton, which takes about three hours. After landing in Picton we will be able to drive, or take the train to Christchurch and see most of the country between the two spots. While I would like to get down to Queenstown and Milford Sound in the earlier part of my trip, it is the height of tourist season there now so it’s pretty difficult to find any cheap and convenient way to travel down there for next week.

Just a few immediate differences I've noticed since arriving here in

NZ, obviously there is a strong accent that takes some getting used to. For the letter Z, Kiwis say "zed" and for the letter W, they say "dub". Corner stores are called dairies, while a pharmacy is called a chemist. They pretty much abbreviate everything they can!
So far the weather has been pretty moderate. Mid-60s to low 70s, but windy as can be. Wellington certainly is the windy city. And I'll be sure to add more as my trip continues!