International orientation day

Today was a beautiful day: blue skies, crisp air, and slightly warmer. At 9:00 am here all the international students had an orientation. I think it was interesting to be treated as an international student... Anyway, I then was able to obtain the course that I am currently enrolled in. Tomorrow, however, I will need to have the courses approved. Apparently, this will require most of the day, as some of the 22,000 students will all be trying to have courses approved tomorrow. It will be especially frustrating because I do not want all of my classes and I do want others -- I have no idea how it all works here. To say the least, tomorrow will be hectic. Also, tomorrow is supposed to have awful winter weather. I like winter but here that means really really cold rain. Oh well.

After the orientation stuff, I decided to go for a walk. There is the this mountain behind the flat that seems to overlook the ocean and city, so I thought it might be cool to go up there. Of course, I did not know how to get up there. I ended up somewhere completely different. There are many trails all around me, which is good to know because it seems I will have plenty of time to explore. Today I found a graveyard, which then turned into a rugby field on top of a massive hill, which is linked the botanic gardens that runs all the way to uni. cool!

I then texted James, a climber I met here, and I went slacklining for a bit and then met three other guys from new jersey, who seemed to share my sense of humor. We went to a coffee shop while James went to get something to eat and I was laughing away with these guys talking about random experiences so far in New Zealand. We met back up with James and went buildering. We tried to do some problems on a building on campus, and they were actually really really good problems. We were caught once by the campus watch (which really have no power) and then by the police (who didn't do anything). Getting noticed two times in one night seemed good enough, so we called it quits. I had a really good time and it was encouraging to be around people and share some laughs!

Now, I am looking at timetables for classes, seeing what I can do to be ready for tomorrow, and I am going to bed soon so I can get up and watch the germany/ spain game at 6:30 am.