O-Week!

Orientation week is here! It is called o-week and it is a big welcome back celebration (remember everyone just returned from summer break to start their first semester). Campus is finally alive! All day long students are hanging outside their flats and at night the streets are full of people, loud music, and parties. All of my flatmates are here as well! Nikita is our kiwihost, she is from the North Island. Mariah is from Michigan, Jay is from New York, and Jeremiah is from Minnesota. They are awesome! It is going to be one crazy semester!

O week is full of concerts, events, specials, and parties. All week there are tents around campus from local organizations. On Tuesday, we attended the annual Toga parade, which is a Dunedin tradition. All the freshman “freshers” dress up in togas and parade downtown. It is tradition for the upper classmen to egg them. I found myself hiding behind bushes, dodging the crazy egg throwing and running to the next street to watch the chaos all over again. The police had no control, it was insane!

Wednesday was the annual cook-a-thon. I convinced Lynsey, Mariah, and Nina to go with me instead of going to international orientation. We woke up at 8 am and dressed up as 80 workout girls to walk to the bar at 9 am. The bar opens at 10 am and serves breakfast and lunch for $10. Everyone dresses up in crazy outfits and stands in line. We were at the bar until 5. It was a blast! The kiwis really know how to party.

On Thursday, I attended the clubs fair. I joined the tramping club here, which is a hiking club that takes trips every weekend. I also signed up for a wine tasting class on Wednesdays in May, which will be fun to actually be knowledgeable about what I am drinking.

On Friday we took a train trip though central otago with the International program. It was a cute, old fashioned train, and they gave us a free barbeque dinner at the end. After that we went to the Blackseeds Concert on campus. We danced to sweet reggae music. We stayed for a little while and then went out to the bars.

Today I went to the farmers market, which is every Saturday morning in town. It has plenty of fresh fruit, veggies, organic food, and homemade goodies. It is worth the early wake up call. O-week continues until next Saturday (March 7^th) and classes start on Monday… well Tuesday for me! I’ll write again soon!