Ladies and Gents I have survived the 25 hour flight. A little worse for wear but I’m pretty sure I’ll be alright. Nevertheless, let it be known that I’m not at all looking forward to heading back to the U.S and having to do that all over again.

Starting at Dullas International airport I was set up with problems right away when one of my bags was grossly over the weight limit of 50lbs (which by the way is way too low an allowed weight considering how far I had to go in the end.) So some shuffling around of clothes had to take place while my brother and I had to intermittedly run back to the parked car that was not allowed to be parked where it was to avoid getting a ticket. After that was solved and I was all checked in he was not allowed to go past a designation point and I was forced to say my goodbyes and begin my journey on my own.

The 5 hours to San Francisco was relatively uneventful and I was treated to an awful Justin Timberlake movie to which I can’t recall the name and read a bit. The immediate problem in this leg of the journey being that my carry on was too large to fit in the overhead compartment, most likely because more things had to be put into it so I wouldn’t be charged $200 for an overweight bag.

Once in San Francisco I had about 4 hours to kill until my next flight and had planned on storing my bags and walking around in the fresh air until I was told that it would cost me $60 for both bags to be stored so I decided to enjoy the free wifi instead and sat around for a while surfing the net before it was announced that any ticket given not my Air New Zealand was no longer valid and it was required that I got another. This ended up being a good thing though because I ran into another girl who had been on my last flight from Washington D.C and we started to talk only to find out that we as well as about 5 others in line were all studying in New Zealand though in different places. A majority were doing a program called Australearn and were going to be in the Hamilton area. But I did chance upon a boy by the name of Brandon that was coming here so we spent a good amount of time talking and walking around the Auckland airport trying to find our gate. I really didn’t expect to meet so many people who were coming to study here.

The 13hour flight was not as painful as I thought it would be but it also wasn’t great either. It was nearly impossible to sleep comfortably and I often felt the need to walk around to stretch out my legs. But each seat did have its own television stocked with recent movies, games and music.  I ended up watching “Warrior,” “Drive,” and “(500) Days of Summer. But most of the flight was dedicated to trying to sleep. I must also mention that the flight attendants were really nice.

In country, after the short flight from Auckland to Christchurch (I did take some shots of the beautiful landscape while in the air but they are on my itouch and can’t be sent without wifi so that will come later) , I was picked up with some others by a shuttle and brought to campus  (ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD) and have spent the last several hours sleeping, getting unpacked, meeting my mates in my pod (there is only one guy on the floor so far but there should be another soon along with 3 girls not including me) and walking around campus.

(Recreation center/ dining hall, Library and Rugby Pitch)

Only complaints so far are that the internet in the dorms is VERY limited. We only get 5 gigs for every 2 months! The RA warned against Skyping in the dorms because it drains the gigs really fast so I will end up doing that on “hot sports” near the Library and Dining area.

(Small side note: since the last earthquake the dining area had to be moved into a gym off the recreation center. Besides that there isn’t too much damage to campus.)

Hope you enjoyed the long update. Much love to my friends and family back home <3

Until we meet again stay beautiful.

Location: Christchurch, New Zealand