Tidbits, take iv

(1) We’ve eaten the last of the world’s most heart-meltingly delicious cookies. I may have to fly back and get more.

Followed by a whole lot more slices. Oh, how I wish I had brought back a tan slice. It would have gotten squashed in the suitcase, but it would have been worth it.

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(2) Speaking of food, I didn’t think I was eating very well, but every single woman I’ve reconnected with since getting back in the country has remarked that I’ve lost weight. Apparently having to buy your own food makes a difference, even if you end up eating a ton of microwave dinners

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(3) Photos! I’ve come to the conclusion that NZ has much cooler playgrounds than we do.

This one was a short walk from the flat, and the place I went whenever I needed a swing:

The view from the top of the Cashmere Hills, looking out on the huge flat plain containing Christchurch and the university:

And the playground up there:

View from the top floor of the (all the way up to eleven!) library:

You can see Ilam Village in this one. (It’s the block of grey buildings in the middle of the background.)

And some stuff from the playground I went to with the family down the street (er, the family was down the street; the playground was a half-hour drive away):


A Flying Fox (zip-line). We used to have one of these in our back yard when I was really young, but it was never this big (or this fun).

And I wish I knew what this one was called:

Here’s that last item in action. The angle is a serious factor – you learn to push when the weight (i.e., the rider) is going uphill, and let gravity do the work on the way down. (You can hear, in the beginning of the video, someone urging me to take a photo. I’m doing them one better.)

Next: stars, and final videos.

Tidbits

(1) Oranges.

This picture has an NZ orange on the left, a California orange on the right. It’s a bit hard to see, but the slices of the NZ orange don’t come apart as cleanly.

And then there’s this one. No prizes for guessing which of those is from California.

(The California oranges are sweeter, too. And they cost about twice as much.)

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(2) Map of New Zealand, in the style of the classic Middle-earth maps.

I would like to smack whoever is responsible for deciding that this poster was not for sale.

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(3) Now that I’m back on a reasonble connection (!), I can start uploading actual high-quality photos. (Click for the large versions.)

First sight of NZ, from the trip in:

Various trees and streams and buildings from around campus:

Ilam Fields:

Next up: the city, and the Botanic Gardens.

Movin’ Out

The final form of the plant. Rather than coming and probably getting tossed out at Customs, it’s staying behind, bequeathed to the family down the street.

I was aiming for green…

Wellington, day 1

Air travel in this country is spoiling me. On the flight up to Wellington for the weekend, there was no security. None. We literally walked from the bag check across the room to the gate, and sat down.

There was only one PA announcement during the wait. Instead of “do not leave your bags unattended” or “please report suspicious behavior”, all it said was “please do not let children play on the escalators.”

At last we walked right across the tarmac to the aircraft. It was all very VIP. And look at this adorable tiny plane.

That’s from when we were disembarking. It was too late to do anything interesting, so Sam and I caught a taxi to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening flailing over the room. (Gorgeous decorations! Complimentary lavender pillows! Dozens of breakfast options! Classiest Holiday Inn I’ve ever been in.)

The next morning we picked up a map at the front desk. The museum was in walking distance, so we set out on foot. The streets of Wellington are just slightly different than Christchurch. See if you can spot the change.

I am a master procrastinator. Master.

So far today, I have…

…moved my books, notes, laptop, and power cord to the living room
…typed up several pages of notes
…stared blankly at an empty Word document
…checked my friendslist
…coughed a lot (although significantly less than yesterday, and I can drink again without choking, which is one of those skills that really goes underappreciated until you lose it)
…walked to the corner dairy for cough drops
…moved my books, notes, laptop, and power cord back to my bedroom
…checked my Livejournal inbox
…checked to see of the latest Daily Show and Colbert Report were available for download
…grated cheese over chips, stuck them in the microwave, and eaten them
…watched an episode of Boston Legal
…checked my email
…poured water over frozen vegetables, stuck them in the microwave, and eaten them
…watched an episode of 30 Rock
…while waiting for the end of the Daily Show and Colbert Report downloads
…stared blankly at a Word document with 400 words in it, including bibliography
…checked my DeviantArt inbox
…watched an episode of The Daily Show
…and The Colbert Report
…twice
…checked my email again
…walked to the new village pizza place for pizza and garlic bread
…walked to the store for an energy drink (consisting of, I believe, about 50% caffeine)
…discovered that the pizza was decidedly underwhelming, and eaten it anyway
…checked the And Shine Heaven Now forum
…written a blog post

To sum: I am very, very good at this procrastinating thing.

This is the essay I only started researching a week and a half ago, so it isn’t coming nearly as easily as the last one. But I’ve ground out 1000 words in the last twelve hours, and by golly I will crunch through 1500 more in the next eighteen.

(Besides, WordPress tells me this post is just over 300 words long, and it’s only taken twenty minutes. See? I can totally do this.)

(*cough*)

The Golden Hall

The Lord of the Rings tour! (Was it really a month and a half ago? Time is flying.)

The shuttle actually left the pickup place (at Cathedral Square, the general pickup spot for just about every touristy thing the city does) before I arrived. I asked a standby attendant for help; he pointed me to the info center, where I spent a couple of anxious minutes waiting in line before he jogged in: “It came back!”

As we pulled away to make a couple of other hotel pickups, one of the guys up front asked his companion, “Has there been just the one movie?” So much for my dream of being surrounded by ubergeeks.

On the other hand, the scenery was pretty awesome.

Roots and stems and plants and words

1) Four essays to write. One for New Zealand Politics, which is a first-year course, for which I keep trying to write a third-year essay. One for Political Psychology, for which I will probably end up writing on one of my pet topics (PTSD as related to veterans, or the 2005 Danish Mohammad cartoon controversy). Two for Hindu Goddesses, both twice as long as the polisci ones, both of which I am rather lost on.

2) Have been sleeping a lot. Nine hours last night, and was still drifting a bit by the end of my last class. It’s not the sinking, heavy exhaustion of mono, just general tiredness, but this is still not a great time for it. (See point #1.)

3) I got a plant! It’s a tiny zebra plant, and it was only about US$1:

It’s grown noticeably since I brought it home, too. Look closely, and you’ll see the next pair of leaves starting to sprout from the top:

They’re even larger now – I swear I can see this thing growing by the day.

(I have no idea whether Customs will confiscate it. I sure hope not. Should probably sort that out in the next few weeks, or at least before I get to the airport.)

The Canterbury Grand Tour

So apparently I’ve been so busy vacationing, I haven’t had time to blog about it. Eheh.

Here’s that first tour. Executive summary: Huge gardens; random umbrellas; themed cocktails; left behind; stupid clouds; Obama is everywhere; beach!

More random notes from NZ

1) The corner dairy (i.e., convenience store) has random Japanese snack foods. (Not just pocky, either.)

2) The cashier there will give you $1 coins if you ask, but not many, because everyone else asks for them too. (The washing machine is $2 a load, but only takes $1 coins.)

3) Right next to the dairy is an Indian place that does takeout. There’s a little fridge right in the entryway with ready-to-go mango lassis. And this is literally right around the corner from my flat. I may be in trouble.

4) I met this cute girl there, too~ She’s from New Mexico, she also lives in Ilam Villages, she’s studying anthropology, she writes in her spare time…and the odds are good I’ll never run into her again. Sigh.

5) I also met a cat. Walking home one day, spotted it sitting on a fence, said hello.

6) Did I mention that skateboards are all the rage here? There are tons of people who just board around campus, natural as walking.

7) The Canterbury library is huge. I missed the tours at the beginning of the term, but one of the librarians gave me some quick pointers. Religion textbooks are on the fourth floor; political science is up on the ninth. (The elevators go – say it with me now – all the way up to eleven.)