Auckland Stuff

Wow, I was being so good with this thing and then I moved to a place with no internet. Guess that's what happens!

I'm more than halfway done my 6 week block in Auckland. 2.5 weeks left to go. Missing Australia Day today which is a bit sad. Luckily this weekend is a long weekend in Auckland, so that knid of makes up for it. I'm going to Paihia, Bay of Islands. Booked my bus yesterday. At some point, will take a ferry from there to Russell, which is supposed to be lovely.

What else? Oh yeah! Last weekend I spent some time on the west coast of Auckland with one of the Massey students, Janet. She is a mature student and has a husband living in California at the moment for work (but hoping to switch jobs and come back to NZ), an 18 year old son, a 14 year old daughter, 3 cats, 1 dog, and 2 horses. She lives in a big rambling old house in the countryside which is just gorgeous. Sadly it rained all weekend, but she still took me out to some west coast beaches. I saw my first gannet colony!! We had a delicious roast chicken dinner, fed her horses in the rain, and watched "Educating Rita". I slept over and we had yummy homemade waffles in the morning with bacon. She has an 11 week old kitten (not sure if her name is Allie or Ellie - hard to tell with the accent) and she slept with me in my bed and OMG IS THE CUTEST THING EVER, I LOVE HER. It was a thoroughly pleasant weekend and she did her best to show me how a real kiwi family lives!

On Sunday, our new roommate moved in. Her name is Jess and she's from Hamilton. She is Maori and is really involved in that community. She does Kapa Haka dancing and will be in a competition in a few weeks (sadly, just after I leave to go back to Brisbane). She also works for Maori TV, at a type of reunion show where people are searching for biological parents, family they've gotten out of touch with, etc. Her dream is to become a news anchor, on Maori TV or elsewhere. She's great - I've really enjoyed having her around this week. Jo, the British girl, is also cool. So things are going well with my housemates! Yay!

Flood news- govt is offering some compensation so we are getting what we can. Jeremy is in the house and running the dehumidifier as much as possible!! The condition of my clothes is...questionable. Stupid mildew. Waiting to find out what the owner will say re: us staying in that place. Annette and Mike, our neighbours, are gone and won't be back for months. They had to gut the bottom part of their house (which they had JUST done, honestly within the last 3 months).