Scarfie Life

It's been a bit since I last posted, but as the title suggests, I haven't been up to too much...just living life as a scarfie, which is a university student. Basically all that means is I've been saving money as best I can - especially on food, poorly on alcohol, going to classes, studying and checking out on-campus clubs. I've actually joined the Otago University Tramping Club and gone to several of their meetings.

It's a pretty well-organised bunch - fairly similar to OTL (if you're lucky, or unlucky as the case may be, you can see me on the front page 'jumping off a cliff' at Big Sur during Spring Break 2006) - who run trips every weekend, have a good gear room and a lot of good outdoorsy-type leaders. I get a ton of emails from the mailing list (like OTL), too. There are differences though. First, I think OTL is fortunate to be either way more subsidised than OUTC, or costs are just much higher here. I'm not sure which one it is, but I do know it cost me $30 to join the club, and trips here run for a lot more than at Claremont. At the same time, it seems like there are a lot more club meetings - two per week, plus Happy Hour at The Cook on Tuesdays, Jazz Night at The Robbie Burns on Thursdays, and a weekly walk every Wednesday night.

Anyway, I'm going to be going on my first tramping trip this weekend, to Mt. Aspiring National Park, in the Southern Alps. I picked quite a good first one, albeit an unorthodox 'tramp.' It's called Bushball 2007, and it's part of a 30 year tradition of going to the beautiful views of Aspiring Hut for what is basically a formal party out in the bush. I won't waste any more space on the particulars, but suffice it to say it should be spectacular; expect a post recapping it next week.
On Saturday we finally had our long-delayed bus trip to the Otago Peninsula, put on for the international students at the uni. It's ironic that the last trip was canceled due to poor weather - it had snowed the night before it was scheduled - because the weather couldn't have been much better this time. At times it was quite nice - temperatures in the mid-40s and calm, but when we were at the beach, searching out seals and yellow-eyed penguins, the rain, and wind especially, could really kick up. We did find some nice moments though; you can see me at the albatross colony with Annie, Laura and KC, from left to right. They had some pretty cool exposures of basalt flows down the cliff too, and since I can't help myself, I might as well throw in a picture in hopes that some budding geologist will find it as cool as Andrew and I did. We also went to the Glenfalloch Woodland Garden; above is a panorama taken from there. Looking across the Otago Harbour, you can see Dunedin off in the distance on the left.

In other news, I lined up early, before going on the peninsula trip, to buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. KC and I were really surprised to trek into The Warehouse, where we had reserved our copies, and find that at 9:30 am - 1.5 hours before release - we were 7th in line for the book! We'd thought we'd be lucky to be close enough to get the book and run off to catch our buses for the trip, but we actually were able to grab our books and get out of the store by 11:08 am. Of course, we proceeded to hurry back to our flat and do a mini-photo shoot of us with our books. Why? Well I guess a simultaneous, worldwide release isn't really worldwide. As bookstores in Britain opened at 12:01 am, 21 July, at 11:01 am New Zealand stores did the same. In the New York, though, it was only 7 pm on the 20th. Naturally, KC had to take advantage. Anyway, I really enjoyed the book, and without spoiling it for those who haven't read it yet, I think that it did a really good job wrapping things up.


Also, for those wanting more pictures of my exploits here in NZ, I haven't really decided if I'll open up my Facebook albums for the public to view, or if I'll throw up an album or two on Picasa web albums or something like that. Obviously I have a lot more pictures than the ones I've put up on this blog, and as you can see from how many cameras Andrew here has (I hope no one thinks they're all his), everyone has a ton, so I may try to get some of my friends' pics too, just so they might see the light of day. Until next time, I can only recommend you to my new favorite website of the moment...I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? Be sure to hit 'random.' Brilliant.