Spring in London

I'm afraid this will be a rather disjointed entry, as I'm waiting for my friend Evan to come over and then we're going to decide on Something To Do. I'll tell you what I want to do- the weather today, and the lighting feels exactly like coming home to London after spring break two years ago. I want to grab a soccer ball and a few beers and Alex and Georgia and walk around London for hours in the early dark and then play soccer with the foxes. That is exactly what I'd like to do. Maybe I'll eat a Cadbury bar in honor of the glory days. If not in England, then it definitely feels like spring, and Alex and I should be eating Mint-Oreo Blizzards. Well, I should be eating one. Alex would prefer a Reese's Blizzard.
I started research earlier this week, and now I'm reading Katherine Mansfield's personal letters. Not only do I feel like a big voyeur, but she's such a dramatic letter writer and her style is infectious. You'll have to excuse me if I get a little carried away. She also drinks hot milk a lot before bed, which makes me think of my grandmother. A little weird, because nothing about Mansfield's carpe diem lifestyle makes me think of Gram, save the hot milk.
I'm back from hanging out with Evan. I think he really just wanted to chat for a bit, so we took a walk to the flat he'll be moving into, which is right down the street from my house. I was really hoping for more walking, but he hadn't eaten dinner, and if I stayed out I would've ended up buying french fries or something instead of eating my leftover ratatouille like a good vegetarian, so here am I, staring at a bowl of leftover reds and greens and white rice. It's like a smushed-up Christmas tree.
I was thinking today about Wellington as I sat in the library (One day I'll post a picture from my favorite seat, which has a view of the whole city and coast line- how could you sit there and not think of Wellington?) and I thought: it still doesn't feel like I'm in another country. I mean, I know that I'm not home, I just feel like I'm in some weird part of California or something. Or maybe Oregon. The accents and convenient stores are really the only signifiers that I'm on the other half of the world. Maybe I need to get out of Wellington. I think I might meet Alex in Auckland when his plane lands next month and we'll take a train back here together. I can't get too comfortable, you know. Maybe it's just that I was sick all last weekend, so I haven't really been anywhere except to school and the apartment all week. Oh, and the grocery store.
It's funny, at college I used to HATE the kids above me for playing loud music, but since I know this kid, it really doesn't bother me. Maybe I should've made friends with those weirdos upstairs. Probably would've saved me some trauma. Although I'm pretty sure the one was a furry. Positive, actually.
Across the street from me is a yoga studio in a big brick building with apartments on top. In the apartment directly across from mine live a little retired couple with an herb garden on their balcony. Their kitchen opens up directly onto the little space, and they take turns walking back and forth and cutting fresh herbs for their dinner. When it's nice out, they sit by their herbs and eat and drink wine. One day I'd like to be a retired couple living above a yoga studio, with an herb garden on my balcony.
But for now, I'm eating leftover ratatouille on a late summer night that feels like early spring, in a noisy apartment, with metal in the background.

Behest

Today at a pub quiz I learned what "behest" means, and it means command. So, at Georgia's behest, I'm publishing a new post and admitting that I am a shitty blogger. I haven't posted in so long, I bet most of you forgot I made this blog to keep you all up to date on my actions. How up to date do you feel? Probably not very. Well, my life has settled down a bit now, so I can kind of make a routine to it. The main reason I haven't posted in weeks is that so many exciting things have been happening I've been too busy. Sounds stupid and contrived, but sometimes exciting things happen. Not just fun things, exciting things, which involve both fun and un-fun.
The week of my birthday we had orientation for the scholarship that is sponsoring me, so I met a ton of other Americans roughly the same age and me and into some of the same things. We stayed in a hotel together and had eight hour days full of classes about New Zealand culture and nonsense. We also stayed at a Marae, which I can only describe as a traditional Maori public meeting/living house. It was pretty cool. Well, a ton of twenty somethings in a foreign city left to their own devices every night...let's just say we went out. A lot. Annnnd it was great. Educational, too! Some of the other students are even living in Wellington and we're getting to be pretty good friends by now.
I also moved into my flat on Valentine's day (aw). I was, of course, hungover from the last day of scholarship orientation, so I took a nap on my bedroom floor, first thing. Then I kind of unpacked, but not so well. One of my flatmates lent me an air mattress so I wouldn't have to sleep on the floor, but I bought a bed a few days in, so now I'm sleeping on a queen, which is actually the biggest bed I've ever owned. Also the only one I've ever paid for myself, not out of tuition or mom and dad's wallet. And I got a desk. See? Exciting things are happening in Wellington!
All was going extremely well with me, my bed and my desk, until last Thursday when I noticed I had a slight cough. Friday hit and I was definitely feeling sick. Wellington felt my pain. It rained; I had a runny nose. It was windy; I was coughing. And neither of our temperatures could stay fixed all day. Friday night I had chills so bad I couldn't stop shaking. My flatmates felt bad and showered me with warm things, but to no avail. After a fitful night's rest, I got worse. On Saturday I couldn't raise my stupid head without considerable effort, and even my toenails hurt. I think I got out of bed twice. I felt slightly better on Sunday, Monday I made it to campus to finish enrollment at my school, and today I'm nearly perfect. I even walked to the grocery store.
So that brings you up to date on my life so far. I have friends, flatmates, the flu, and now I'm enrolled and even starting official research for my project!
A lot of little stupid mundane things happened along the way, like thinking both my computer and cell phone were broken and taking them to get repaired, shopping, cooking, and my hotel roomates breaking wine glasses and lighting electric kettles on fire. Maybe I'll get into those things later, but the way things are going, I think I'll always have too much material and not enough discipline to make time to write about it all. I'll try harder, though. Promise.

Sevens, Success!

Jet lag has finally set in. Now I get tired at six at night, and can't go to sleep after I make myself stay awake until eleven. Then I sleep for ten hours. Also, I'm sunburnt- but I'm not complaining about that. The weather has been so cooperative for most of this week. It's fabulous.
Well, the last few days have been very eventful in Wellington. I was really bummed out on Wednesday because it was raining and shopping for an apartment turned out to be way harder than I expected. When I say raining, I mean like torrential downpour, rain hammering along the sidewalk and roof. Nobody else seemed to notice- people didn't even use umbrellas. I guess that's something I'll have to get used to.
But then Thursday rolled around with bright sunny skies and mid-seventies temps. I went to see two apartments that day- the first turned out to be a disgusting, shady-looking hostel setting that I didn't even go inside, and the second was a fabulous one-story house in a suburb that's still close to center city, with lots of space and skylights. I loved the house immediately- big porches, backyard with a swing, huge kitchen. But then I met my potential roommate. She was, well, let's just say she really liked science fiction and wore a lot of leather. A totally nice girl, but I could already imagine talks about medieval literature forming in her head... So I left there running. On the way home, I took the wrong bus. Now, I had already gotten lost about three times that day, despite the map I obtained from stumbling across the Wellington Tourist station. I didn't mind- like I said, it was sunny and beautiful, and I was feeling okay about life, even though I kept freaking out about not having a home. But this getting lost was way different than the others. I never realized that when someone says they live in Mount Victoria (a suburb outside Wellington) that it's not the same thing as climbing Mount Victoria (a huge ass mountain outside Wellington), so I took the bus to Mount Victoria, annnnd got dropped off on top of a mountain. When I asked the bus driver how to get back to where I was staying, he directed me down a hiking trail, through the mountain, and over the other side. It was a great trail, and they filmed some of Lord of the Rings there (I saw a sign, but had to pee so bad, I didn't stop- I'll go back, I'm sure, a thousand times with all you guests.) but I really wasn't dressed for it and definitely wasn't in the mood. Once I got through the wilderness and to the street my bus driver directed me to, I realized it was the wrong street. Called my advisor, and he didn't know where I was. Stopped in a convenience store, and had to take a different bus all the way home. I think I fell asleep at about nine that night.
On my way to the first apartment that day, I noticed a ton of people lining one of the more active streets in Wellington. Of course, I had no idea what was going on, so I asked a woman standing in the line. She turned out to be the sweetest little English lady you could ever meet, and we stood together to watch what turned out to be the parade for the International Rugby Sevens Tournament. Talk about timing. Pictures will be posted once I'm sure how to do it. I bet it's easy.
Friday- I went to see two apartments again. The first was disheartening- about twelve people showed up for one room, and the roommates were late teens and definitely not what I was looking for. I was so bummed out I almost didn't go into the next one, but it was only a few streets away, so I figured why not? Thank god I did. Within minutes, my drunk future flatmate told me she was "keen" on me moving in, which roughly translates to "thank god you're not crazy," we hung out, and I'm moving in next week! Afterward, I met up with another American student at Victoria and we walked around all the Waitangi Day and Sevens nonsense.
Good day for Ivy.

Landed

Well, I can see that posting all the time didn't work out at home. Maybe I'll be better about it in NZ since I don't have any friends here yet. My flights were awful. Actually, the flights themselves weren't terrible, (I slept almost the whole flight, every flight.) just the time in between. I kept crying in big rooms full of strangers. It's pretty sad to leave everyone you know to start a thesis you're not excited about yet. I will be, I just have to get working and remind myself why I like Katherine Mansfield. Also I've noticed my typing skills have gone down the drain since college. This is taking me forever. Hmm.
Like my usual self, I forgot to bring my camera with me during my first jaunt in Wellington, and it looks like yesterday was the first beautiful, sunny day in a while. The internet says that tomorrow it may be partly sunny. I'll upload pictures as I remember to take them. To make up for no pictures, I've compiled a list of things I noticed during my trip to the office, the school, the bank and cell phone store:

1. It's goddamn windy in Wellington! It just about knocked me over.
2. The city has more trees than any I've seen in America. It's like an urban scape inside a park. They're everywhere, and really weird. Some of them look like huge bonzai plants and some look like those fake trees that are used as cell phone towers.
3. New Zealanders seem a little more friendly than Pennsylvanians, which isn't really saying much. Still nice, though.
4. Picture Boston, looking more like a Californian beach town, but with all the businesses in buildings the size of the Ramada in Wilkes-Barre. That's Wellington. It feels like Boston, but has none of the New England colonial look- it has a different, but still colonial, charm.
5. The toilets have buttons on top of the tank instead of levers, like England.
6. New Zealand dollar and two dollar pieces are coin, and their paper money feels like it's coated in plastic. Maybe because it's so wet here.
7. They have good smoothies, and lots of vegetarian and vegan dishes in grocery stores.
8. Lots of young people work in the city.
9. IP addresses need to be added manually, and the router is called something sillier.
10. Apparently my hair is curly in New Zealand.
11. Dress seems pretty laid back, I even saw people in running shorts just hanging out in the city. New Zealand boys remind me a little of English boys, like wearing Hollister shirts the wrong way- like frat boys when I was a freshman in college. I think I even saw some popped collars. The girls seem just like English girls- straightened hair, sleekish shirts, but also a lot in tee shirts and jeans or other less sleek attire.


My professor and his wife are so sweet and cute and really accomplished. They kept forgetting that I was really jetlagged yesterday and would try to talk about Katherine Mansfield, then apologize. They also cooked me ratatouille for dinner, the extent of my professor's vegetarian knowledge, he said. They ate wild pork. The dinnertime habits seem very British- we even had tea and a snack about an hour afterwards while we watched Coronation Street. It was kind of surreal.
I'm a little worried about going apartment shopping today, mainly because I'm not sure how to get to anywhere and don't have a city map. I'm not shy about asking people for directions, but I always forget them, and half the time people are bullshitting anyway. I guess I should make that a priority. I'm sure I can look one up online, but I have no way of printing it now, and there's no way I'm hauling my macbook around with me all day.
I guess I'm going to eat some mueseli and get cracking on this. I feel weird as a house guest, and I'm a little excited to find somewhere I can decorate. Wish me luck!
Also I bought a cell phone here, but I have no idea what the number is and can't find it anywhere in the phone. It's a pay-as-you-go one anyway, so just skype or im me when you want to talk.