Days 3 and 4, a trip to the harbor, classes, the botanic garden, my room, and some horrible selfies

I have 224 page views. Interesting as I only gave the link to this out to less than 10 people. But oh well, I will consider them all supremely random.

Good news! I got an ethernet cord finally, which makes everything so much easier.

As for yesterday's adventures...well they were memorable and I found the quick route to the harbor.
I also visited Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand. It is truly an impressive museum. It is 6 stories with elaborate exhibits. It's as nice was walking around the Georgia Aquarium except that nothing is alive. Because it took me more time than expected to get there though, I had a mere 20 minutes to look around. I did hit every exhibit and made it to the top.

                          An interesting water thing on Cuba St. that I passed on my way to the harbor.

                                                     View from the sixth floor of Te Papa

                                 Super Derp selfie atop Te Papa as I was alone (everyone was in class)

 There's that bridge in Paris with love locks all over it. There's one in Wellington too. I was pretty excited.

                                                   Harbor. It was really windy that day.

As the pictures show, I made it to the harbor. Te Papa is on it. Then I headed back and it really wasn't interesting after that. However, on the harbor there is a thing built by the city that are platforms to dive into this hole in the harbor. Like so illegal in Santa Barbara. I so want to do it. It's closed off due to pollution. A few people were jumping off. But its existence was fascinating. There was even a sign showing different dives one could do. Yeah...but is the risk of disease from polluted water worth it...

Yesterday was my first day of classes. Dr. Garton is like a drill seargent. When we toured campus he had us line up in formation and it was exactly like marching band. And I thought those days were behind me. Anyways, he scares me a tad. But he is very friendly in the classroom, quite strange. Dr. Barke is great and I think I'm going to sit with him at breakfast tomorrow.

Wednesday

However, as I learned today, I do not like discussion classes. I just have nothing to say and by the time I've fully formulated what I want to say the conversation has moved on. This makes me feel highly inadequate and concerned that I'm dumb. However, it has been shown that this is how introverts work. Extroverts may just speak but introverts take their time coming up with ideas. I could go on about this, but I just don't like discussion based classes. Goal for tomorrow: speak once.

Lab for bio is weird. Everything is so nebulous. I don't know what I'm to do in lab. There's no right answers in philosophy. Give me some engineering please.

There are pop quizzes in lab. Totally lame. Also after being in lab for 3 hours while everyone else was having fun (also totally lame), it was pouring when we came out. It was hot when I went in so I had no jacket and my laptop in my backpack. Though the university is close, it was not that close. And when I say pouring I mean POURING. If anyone heard my fascination with how it rains in Atlanta, well now I have a new place. It was way worse than anything I've seen at Tech. And of course I was heading downhill so all the water was flowing with me. At times it was like walking through rapids.

Surprisingly, with the two hours before lab I went out to the Botanic Gardens. It is so close. It might be a five minute walk but more like 2 or 3. I checked out some sculptures then took a wrong turn and went down druid hill. Then I came out the the Herb Garden and finally made it to where I'd wanted to go: Lady Norwood's Rose Garden. Lady Norwood was the wife of a mayor of Wellington who donated this flower garden. Her family still cares for it and has added to it ever since. There's a cool greenhouse with flowers from all over the world. There's also a peace pond with a waterfall. It was a fire from the fires left behind from Hiroshima burning in the center. Reading the plaques made me feel ashamed to be an American at that moment. On a lighter note, here are some pictures. I will be studying at the Rose Garden in the future.

 The botanic garden here is like a forest with a main paved road and hiking trails leading off of it. There are also sculptures and signs.

 This funnel thing sways in the wind. Supposedly you can hear the sounds of the city inside.

 I really don't think that I did.

 At the Herb Garden overlooking the Rose Garden.

 Another derpy selfie but less so. Look at all that sun protection.

 A sun dial in the herb garden. Can you tell when I was there?

 Odd wire trees on the way from the herb garden down to the rose garden. I did not really understand them.

 Rose Garden--There was a rose in every color imaginable. I took pictures of my favorites (the pink and purple ones)

 Here's a duck in the pond at the center for Summer. I really quite like this picture.

 Ducks amongst the roses

 Camo Duck

 That pigeon that is white. It is the only one I've seen like it. Also, lots of birds make little sitting holes there.

 I decided that these roses are the me roses. Others may disagree, but they are how I feel about myself.

 The peace pond, complete with ducks and a waterfall

 This duck was rather large.

 I went into the greenhouse. I like lotus flowers.

 This is from Brazil.

 There were orchids in the greenhouse. I thought of Mom.

Saying goodbye to the Rose Garden and off to class.

I met a new girl to hang out with today. That was good. I've been a bit down recently. I was told that they are the symptoms of culture shock, but this really isn't that different of a culture. It's obvious I'm on an island and that there is a British influence. They also have my favorite accent I have ever heard. It may just be more frustrating and a bit difficult considering my friends on this trip are people I met Friday whereas most people here already had their travel group from the first orientation. Anyways, I have lab again tomorrow and have two write-ups to do tonight and must memorize the prelab since there are pop quizzes.

Oh wait to procrastinate more, on Tuesday I woke up early so I decided to clean my room so I could take pictures of it. It's large and I greatly enjoy the sink. Now if the food were just better (though the pumpkin gnocchi tonight made me happy). It would also be nice if I didn't live on the hottest floor and have no wifi in my room. But I'll take it since in a few weeks I'll be in a room with eight people.

 For Tim: Note Totter. For others, this is like twice the size of my room in Maulding.