Outings in Otago

            Made a brief visit to Dunedin this weekend.  I was a little apprehensive about the trip since my friends’ university had set them up with a Maori-immersion adventure on Saturday, and I was going to be left to my own devices for a day and a night. 

            I took the bus on Friday morning and got into Otago University around 2 and met up with my friends that had travelled down a few days earlier.  It was rainy and cold, and I already had a bad attitude about how the rest of the weekend would go.   Luckily, we didn’t have to pay for a place to stay thanks to Danica’s friend from her university having a flat where we could crash.  Even more fortunate, one of the flatmate’s girlfriend’s birthday was Friday.  In all of her enthusiasm for turning 20, she planned a whole night of shenanigans beginning with jello shots, skittle vodka, and cake batter shots and proceeding to an incredible pizza place.  The restaurant was B.Y.O. so we all brought a bottle of wine to enjoy with our pie.

            After supper we proceeded back to homebase for a mini dance party and then migrated to another flat.  Being the southern lady that I am, I proceeded to teach every guy at the party how to swing dance and by the end most of them had managed the basics of “the pretzel”.  True to form, I found a W&L connection with a guy from Chicago. He claimed he has a friend (at one point of the night she was his cousin but then he changed his story to “family friend”) at W&L, which has “all those white buildings”.  Nice try.  I was a little skeptical because I didn’t know the name he gave me, but some simple facebook stalking revealed he was telling the truth.  I also encountered a Canadian in a camouflage hat that was convinced that “the North”, i.e. Canada, equated to “the South”. I’ve never heard a worse lie in my entire life.  He thought he could solidify his argument by claiming that being a deer hunter made him a southern gentleman.  Oh, Canada! To his credit, he did take care of my jacket when we went downtown to the bars and he walked me home, insisting that he walk on the street side of the sidewalk. Well played, sir, well played.

Thank goodness I decided to borrow a sleeping bag for the weekend because I would have died of hypothermia without it.  Dunedin is insanely cold! Even sitting in the flat we could see our breath.  When I went to put my glasses on in the morning, the lenses were frosted.

My friends left for their Maori trip early on Saturday morning so I had all day to tour around by myself.  I wasn’t sure how much fun I could have alone but it didn’t take me very long to realize how much I like being around me.  I like to explore places and don’t necessarily have to have a destination in mind when I set out.  I walked through the Otago campus to the main street in downtown Dunedin. First stop: shopping! Duh.  After some fastidious sale shopping, it was lunchtime and I sat in The Octagon and read while I snacked on tuna and crackers.  Afterwards I hiked by happy tail up a steep street to Cadbury World…only to realize that the museum was on the other end (the downhill end) of the street.  Take two: Cadbury World! I got some free chocolate including a few servings of liquid chocolate during my tour and walked away with a special addition Cadbury milk chocolate bar with cookie bites.  Cheese and rice I wish I had had the wherewithal to stock up on it. 

 

 I tried to go to the National Sports Museum after Cadbury but it was already closed so I just perused the back streets of Dunedin and made my way back to the flat.  What was left of us at the flat were still feeling exhausted from the night before so we opted for a casual night of massive ice creams and a beautiful view of Dunedin from the top of a nearby hill/mountain. 

After back-to-back 3 AM bedtimes, I woke up on Sunday with a man voice and a hankering for a big breakfast.  First things first though, I walked down to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world.  It's not paved with asphalt because their first few tries it all just slid to the bottom.  I walked halfway up and got hungry so I snapped some pictures and booked it to some brunch.  After some delicious French toast and fruit salad, I sat in a park and read/creeped on all of the families having Mother’s Day picnics.  Kiwis have such cute children! Think about a Kiwi accent and then imagine that same accent hyped up on helium and you’ve got how a Kiwi child sounds.  I want one for Christmas.  Santa?

By this point, I headed back to the flat, packed up my stuff, caught the last period of the Rangers-Caps Game 7 (I'm thinking there will be a little competitive tension in the Barton-Schmidt relationship over that one), and trekked toward the bus stop to meet up with my friends and head back to ChCh.  Our bus driver must have been quite concerned with our ability to maintain normal body heat and had us sitting in a sauna.  I distracted myself by reading My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler and alienating the guy sitting next to me by laughing hysterically. Despite the bus ride, I’m going to file this trip under my top five adventures abroad.  If only I had bought more chocolate.

Cheers,

Bess

Vocabulary

·      Precious-overly dramatic

·      Maths-math

·      Unco-uncoordinated

·      Keen-interested

·      Bach-vacation home

·      Stroppy-bratty

·      Zed-the letter Z