{"id":11771,"date":"2018-10-26T22:36:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T02:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=11771"},"modified":"2019-07-09T14:53:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T14:53:13","slug":"reflecting-on-my-first-month-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2018\/10\/26\/reflecting-on-my-first-month-in-new-zealand\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on my First Month in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
My First Views from Queenstown!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Note that this post was written a while ago, and I’m unfortunately only just<\/p>\n

August 1st<\/sup>, 2018<\/p>\n

Experiences from my First Month abroad.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s truly amazing how time flies! I really can\u2019t believe that I\u2019ve already been here in New Zealand for a month. It has most definitely been a whirlwind, from my first few days spent in my abroad program\u2019s orientation in Queenstown, to the first weeks getting acquainted with Dunedin, to the many different trips and experiences I\u2019ve already been on, I haven\u2019t really had time to look back on it all until now.<\/p>\n

I suppose the best place to start is my arrival. After about 30 hours of travel from Orlando to LA to Auckland, I got to spend the next 3 hours going through customs and biosecurity after disembarking. This was one of the most thorough inspection I\u2019ve gone through in my travels. Since I was bringing in hiking boots and camping gear, I was moved from line to line to eventually end up with a biosecurity agent inspecting all of this gear before I was allowed to enter the country. All told, this took up about 2 hours and 45 minutes of my 3-hour layover in Auckland. This led to a rather ungraceful mad dash to make my connection to Queenstown. Thankfully, this was the closest to anything really going wrong on my whole trip thus far.<\/p>\n

Queenstown itself was absolutely beautiful. It is a smaller ski town located in the center of the South Island of New Zealand that\u2019s been growing in popularity year after year. I\u2019ve included a couple of pictures from that first day in this post. This day was spent recovering and resting, as well as meeting the 40 or so other students who were part of this TEAN (The Education Abroad Network) orientation.<\/p>\n

The next morning, we were off very early for a bus tour of Fiordland National Park, a couple hours\u2019 drive north of Queenstown, as well as a cruise through Milford Sound, which was one of the most beautiful parts of the country I\u2019ve seen so far. Once again, I\u2019ve included a few pictures from this part of orientation as well.<\/p>\n

The next few days were spent in Queenstown as well, where we had a mixture of various seminars and activities to get us used to the differences in New Zealand\u2019s culture, as well as to prepare us for the academic differences to expect at the various universities we were all headed to, with 25 of the 40 of us headed to the University of Otago, and the rest split pretty evenly amongst schools in Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington.<\/p>\n

Once this orientation week was over, those of us headed to the University of Otago took a bus to Dunedin and began our move-in process. The next week was spent in orientations and getting to know the people around us, partially through hikes and activities put on by TEAN, including a group hike to a place on the Otago peninsula known as Sand Fly Point, which was beautiful but a very intense hike up and down sandy hills. Here is where I became good friends with the 6-person group that I have spent much of my time here in Dunedin so far with. We have been to a bunch of different events with each other, including a Rugby Game, a Kendrick Lamar Concert, as well as a couple other hikes, with my favorite being a hike to Tunnel Beach. I\u2019ve included several photos from these events as well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s crazy how much I\u2019ve done already and can\u2019t wait to do more. We\u2019ve been staying pretty local since we\u2019ve got here, but have plans to explore more of the South Island as a whole in the coming weeks and months. I look forward to reporting back again soon on all the new things I\u2019ve seen and done!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
More of Fiordland National Park!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Incredible Views in Fiordland and Milford Sound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Incredible views from Sand Fly Point!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Watching a rugby match from the student section!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Kendrick Lamar concert in Dunedin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Tunnel Beach views<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note that this post was written a while ago, and I’m unfortunately only just August 1st, 2018 Experiences from my First Month abroad. It\u2019s truly amazing how time flies! I really can\u2019t believe that I\u2019ve already been here in New Zealand for a month. It has most definitely been a whirlwind, from my first few…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-otago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13650,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771\/revisions\/13650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}