Arcadia Orientation

Thursday morning, the morning after arriving in Auckland, I went downstairs to the lobby with my luggage and met up with one of the Arcadia leaders, Olivia. Arcadia is a college in Pennsylvania that coordinates my study abroad program. More students started to show up and we began orientation with nine students although we were supposed to have more than twice that number. Many would be coming later due to delayed flights.

They started by giving us New Zealand SIM cards for our phones and then we did a name learning game. Jane, the orientation head, then gave us some background on New Zealand history. The main purpose of this first day of orientation was just to keep those that had just arrived awake to help them get adjusted to the new time zone. Of course, for me it had only been a two hour time change and it wasn’t hard to adjust.

We walked into the city to get lunch and this was a nice opportunity to talk to the other students on the trip. Two of them are from Massachusetts and one of those grew up in Belmont! They didn’t know any of my friends though.

In the afternoon, we took a little walk to a gorgeous overlook and went swimming in the ocean in our togs (swim suits).

We had a quick pizza dinner and then headed back to the hotel.

The following day, we got up early and headed out in a van to Rotorua, stopping on the way in Mata Mata for lunch. This is a hub for Lord of the Rings Tours so the visitor center was shaped like a hobbit hole.

We stopped at a sheep farm to watch a sheep shearing demonstration and got to see a dog herd some sheep (and ducks!) It was a blast!

Our next stop was a Kiwi bird hatchery where we got to see a day old Kiwi bird and an older bird getting its daily weight check. No photos of the real birds were allowed unfortunately but here’s a picture of one they had on display.

We checked into our hotel (an upgrade over the previous night) and we (the students on the trip) went exploring for dinner. We ended up going to a delicious Indian restaurant.

The night ended with a soak in a spa pool heated by the hot springs.

Our third day of orientation was also action packed. First we had a hotel breakfast and a quick lesson on New Zealand politics. There was also a New Zealand quiz with a stuffed animal sheep prize but my team didn’t win. We drove to the hot springs park where we saw some incredible sights such as a pool with so much sulphur that it had a PH of 2.

We also watched a geyser go off which was amazing!

For lunch, a few of us got some food from a local grocery store and had a little picnic outside. Next on the agenda was Zorbing. The purpose of the orientation is to give us a taste of different things that are special about New Zealand and one thing they are known for is extreme sports. Zorbing is a mild option where you roll down a steep hill in a big squishy ball. I started out running in the ball but quickly fell and ended up backwards. It was SO fun though!!

In the evening we went to a Māori village and learned about their culture and ate delicious food that they cooked outside.

It was a fun filled orientation and now it is time to head off to Wellington to get adjusted to my new home.