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.