Upon Arrival

We made it! After some 30 hours of travel time we made it to Auckland, New Zealand. We also noticed the difference in security here when going through customs and security, because it is so much easier than in the states. We didn’t even have to take our shoes off. A few hours later, we arrived in Queenstown New Zealand and were greeted by the vice principal from our school, Mick. He immediately picked us out of the people getting off the plane. I am unsure if this is because we stick out that much or because a few of us did happen to have Iowa State sweatshirts on, but he was very friendly and worked really hard to remember our names right away. It was sprinkling a little when we got off the plane, but by the time we finished having a little lunch it had already cleared up. Riding in the van to Alexandra gave us our first experience of driving on the opposite side of the car and road, something that we were all a little nervous about attempting ourselves. Mick’s only words of advice: “Keep left!” The scenery really is beautiful-there are mountains everywhere, and it is so nice to see green grass already. We were shocked by the color of the water in the rivers. It is a bluish-green color, unlike the murky brown water in Iowa rivers. Mick also let us stop at the bungy bridge and watch one girl take the jump. It didn’t look as high as we were expecting, but it was still pretty terrifying watching her jump and seeing how close she got to the water. We decided that this definitely needs to be on our list of things to do.

We then got to drop our stuff off at our house and visit the school. Both our landlady, Denise, and the school provided us with some food and drinks to get us started off. Some of it we aren’t really sure what to do with, such as the vegemite and marmite, but it was still very generous of them. Our house is much better than we even expected and it is very “homey.”

We were able to wander around Alex today and get to know the town a little. We did some grocery shopping and also visited a few of the shops in town. It was still strange to see many children and some adults walking around without shoes, and we decided we might need to try grocery shopping barefoot at some point. We are going to try to hike a little later and possibly go see the clock on the hill, which is one of the things the town is known for. The weather was beautiful today, so we took advantage of this and spent some time by our pool. It was very relaxing to just chill outside and read, but we all did get a little burnt.