A Rainy Day in Auckland...

At the top of Mt. Eden

The city of Sails as you can see here... some people say the city of sales too (as in shopping haha)

do you see the RAINBOW?? my camera did a terrible job of capturing it but it was beautiful!

Our not-embarrassing-at-all tour bus :)

Just a pretty view of the island Rangitoto- you can see it from a lot of places in Auckland.

For those of you who do not know, July is the middle of winter in New Zealand.  However, this winter is nothing like a Chicago winter- or even a Virginia winter- but often very rainy! Every single day I have been here... it has rained. However weather here changes in an instant. So the rain won't last very long. Although it is currently pouring- and decided to begin just as I was walking home from class. Yep that's right, I said class. I am no longer on "holiday" but officially back into school mode. How strange because I haven't even had my birthday yet! (coming up though on the 17th). So right now it is 12 degrees... Celsius that is. so that's like in the low 50s in Fahrenheit.

So a little bit about school... they do things differently here. At home, we do nursing classes twice a week and then clinical twice a week- sticking with that schedule the whole semester. but here at Auckland Uni (they call college "uni" here) we have "theory," which is more classroom/ lab based, for the first 4 weeks, followed by a 6 week clinical placement. Then I'll have a 3 week spring break to travel the south island (i can't wait!!) followed by 2 weeks of theory and another 4 week clinical placement. Then exams of course. So I am in my first week of theory and the people here are super friendly and welcoming! I guess that is one of the great things about nursing school: it is pretty small class so they all notice I am new and are quick to introduce themselves and invite me to do things. Last night, one of my new nursing friends Rebecca picked me up and we went to her friend's house to hang out/ watch a movie. Turns out her friends were a group of three small groups based out of her church here. What an answer to prayers for me. I have been praying for community and a church to try. So that was a lot of fun last night. Also some other students told me to save Saturday night since they want to celebrate my birthday, how sweet! Some other nursing students were telling me about a half marathon they are going to be doing and invited me to join them... I've been wanting to do a half marathon... though not feeling in the best running shape so i have to decide soon if I want to sign up.  So I have LOTS of new names to learn, but I'm feeling very welcome which I'm grateful for!

Even though we have class this whole week, they let us exchange students go to the international orientation on Tuesday (the first of 4 days for international students), which was great so we could get a little more oriented with the city and what the uni has to offer international students. It's funny to me to be called the exchange student or the international one. Growing up with so many international students (my family often hosts students in our home), it is interesting to be on the other side. 

So courses (which they call "papers" here) have started for nursing, medical and pharmacy students, but the rest of the Uni is still on holiday. So my dorm has been doing a two day marathon of disney movies... they began this morning at 9am and will continue through tomorrow midnight or whenever they finish their list of twenty-some Disney movies so I think I'm going to go join them for Hercules! But first, here are some photos from the orientation for international students day, which included a free tour of the city (which is what the pics at the top of this post are from too)...

Locals performing the Maori haka for the international student orientation.

More haka

A girl doing a base jump off the sky tower (the tallest structure in Auckland as you can see in many pictures)

Here she is again... on our tour we played a HEADS or TAILS game and the winner got to jump off. Jealous. She fell at something like 84 km/h. This they consider the "baby step to bungy jumping." yikes.

The next stop on our tour: Mt Eden. AKA: an old volcano. The tallest non man made point in Auckland. Beautiful views of the city from here- but it was REALLY windy!

You can actually see the crater of Mt Eden in the above pic. This sign explains how they consider caters here sacred and therefore we are not allowed in. Only for Maori ceremonies do people enter the crater.