Moving In

At last, after a few weeks traveling around Australia and a couple days of orientation in Auckland, I was off to Wellington, where I will be living and going to school for the rest of the semester.

Our Arcadia group woke up early on Sunday, drove from Rotorua to Auckland and those of us going to Wellington headed into the airport. The landing in Wellington was very turbulent but apparently that’s normal for “Windy Welly.”

A group from the international student department were waiting for us and gave us each a little goodie bag. A shuttle picked us up and we were off to our accommodations.

I’m staying in the Everton House in a flat with four other guys. I have a lovely room!

After unpacking, I went to an Everton Hall Welcome Dinner that was being held outside our flat.

I went around trying to meet people throughout the event. I met some more US students (even one from Andover) and I continued to get to know my flatmates by sitting with them at dinner.

After the event, I walked with my Arcadia friend Ari to the super market Countdown. We ran into some other Arcadia students and we all had a laugh because many of us have never had to cook for ourselves and were so out of our element!

I then went with Ari to a house supply store called “The Warehouse” to get some essentials like hangers and garbage bins. It was a busy first day!

Monday was the beginning of Orientation Week. I went to a session in the morning for international students and then got lunch with Arcadia students. I will be meeting more domestic students (kiwis) but having the Arcadia group has been so nice since we are all going through this adjustment together. We navigated campus to get our ID cards, went back to “The Warehouse” and we bought Snapper cards (to pay for public transport).

I also had a helpful talk with my mom to try and figure out what to cook since I am very new to cooking for myself. I’m going to make a batch of rice and beans that will last me many days so I went back to Countdown and bought some groceries. I also did my laundry. There is really a lot of responsibility at this school and I haven’t even started classes yet.

I got Fish and Chips for dinner with two Arcadia students I ran into on the walk back from the grocery store and then chilled in the evening. It was a long day!

I feel like I am slowly learning my way around but there is SO much more to learn and explore. Good thing I’m here for a few months.