so much, so long, hello.

Well it seems that keeping a journal was at the tip top of my mind from the beginning, thoughts, experiences, tastes, smells, flora, fauna, all kept neatly tied and leather bound. As days passed and timetables established and friends made the attempts at keeping thoughts on paper were left at the 'do tomorrow' priority as there was so much to do today! Such that it's been over a month and I have but a bit of it written and so much kept inside, lingering and churning throughout my mind day on and out and it is time that dissolves the details and that mustn't happen, cannot happen, and certainly will if this procrastination continues. Soo, where to begin?

Yesterday it was St. Patrick’s day, which turned into a celebration of Irish along with my birthday. Technically it was still my twenty-first in the states, so it worked. The culmination of life at twenty-one years and a customary drinking day made for quite a night. This past weekend I attended a wild foods festival on the west coast in Hokitiki. Pickled hulu, sheep testical, deep fried cow tit, worm truffle, osterige, kangaroo, haggish, whitebait, kava fiji water, were all consumed, along with some late night fish n chips to top it off. Whew. They put beets on chicken sandwiches here, why not right? Before that was my second week of lectures of this semesters papers (classes). I just had to look at the calendar to map out days and events in my head and realized I’ve been here for thirty-six days and how that flew by! So much has happened; it feels like I’ve been here for so long. So the weekend before I last left off (march 6 thru 8) I hired (rented) a bike with a few friends and rode along the otago harbor and visited the larnach gardens and castle. The trip was forty kilometers, which is roughly twenty-five miles. The week before that was the first proper week of lectures, which gave me excitement of all the knowledge to come this semester. The week before that was orientation week, which included heaps of concerts and events for the incoming students. I had my first opening to the buzzing college life that makes Dunedin. The population is a hundred thousand and there are twenty thousand students, and that twenty percent makes quite a stir for the city. The week prior was an amazing road trip to the fiordlands, down around the southern coast, and the Catlins. I accompanied a friend from Kalamazoo, Chanterelle, who has been studying in Napier and woofing on an organic farm since November. That trip started three days after arrival in New Zealand. Still jet lagged and tingling with the new world buzz, off we went to venture this beautiful land. Plane ride here went exceptionally well, but what a long flight it was. If it wasn't for wine and great conversation from the single serving friend from LA to Auckland, I might have gone crazy. It was on the shuttle bus from international to domestic terminals in Auckland that I one of those unexplainable coincidence, meant to be, presumably fate, occurrences where I met a man named Lawrence who works for national geographic along with the natural history filmmaking grad program here at Otago. I had to interrupt his conversation with two other people but I couldn't help myself after hearing is film topic conversation alongside a glance at his nat geo hat. He was happy to hear of my travels and study topics and gave me his card to get into contact sometime. Hello New Zealand!

There is much more than the brief snippets of details from trips said above, but for now this will due. Along with proactive journey updates I must also manage some time better and sleep is necessary at this moment. say, goodnight.