Our Spastic Weather

I'm not totally sure if I've ever really conveyed how ridiculous the weather can be here, but man, it can be really crazy - especially in the spring, like it is now. Take last Wednesday as a pretty good example.

The morning starts off chilly and gray, and soon enough, it's raining as I head off for my 8 a.m. class. Lovely, really. The weather clears up while I'm in class, and by the time I'm out of geography just before 10 a.m., it's only cloudy. No less than 45 minutes later, we hear the sound of banging on the roof, but much louder than rain, and it turns out it's hailing out - a lot. Incredibly, I leave for my 12 noon class, and it's sunny and beautiful out, almost as sunny as you'll see in Dunedin. Of course, I got too excited about this, and once I got back to my flat in between class and lab at 2 p.m., we got even more hail. Top it off later that evening with rain, and you'll have a complete day of weather in Dunedin. Nice.

Also, I've gotten some feedback about my post, 'Geology Escapades,' about my field trip down to Nugget Point, and apparently the geo may have been a little much. No worries, though! This isn't a geology blog - I just wanted to give a little taste of what I was learning, particularly for those who have a geo background. I have given a lot of thought to maybe writing a geology blog next semester, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Anyway, back to hoping for the wretched high winds that've moved in to blow away to sea.

This is why we conserve...

A $357 power bill.

Okay, here's the situation. We live in a flat that's about 80 years old, but was probably renovated in the last 15-20 years (or so it appears). It's winter here, with lows in the 30s and highs in the 40s. Given that, does a $357 bill seem reasonable?

I really don't know. This isn't a cry for help either - Butler gives us money for our share of power bills, and it should be fine. In fact, it's a $387 bill, but we get 10% off if we pay by a certain date. That equates to $282 US, by the way, or $70.50 US per person for the month. I guess I never really realized how much power costs? Maybe 14.664 cents per kWh (10.7 cents US) is normal...I can't say (and my appreciation for my parents paying the bills has certainly grown).

Anyway, I've already looked into more energy conservation strategies. By changing all of the 100 bulbs in the flat to their CFL equivalents, we would save about $30 a month alone. There are possibly other things we could do, but the weather is a real bitch as far as energy-saving alternatives go. Line drying would be a big help, but it's too cold and damp at times for that to be efficient (I've succeeded once with it). With more sunlight, of course, we wouldn't need to use the heater as much either - despite the fact that it's pretty efficient (6 kW of heat per 1 kW of power) which we set at about 64 degrees when we're in the living room, something that could be lowered I suppose. We already wash our clothes with cold water, which is good. Besides these things, there's not much else we, as temporary flatters, can do. Efficient, quality insulation and good seals around doors would do wonders, but we have little control over such things.

I know this may have turned into a disjointed rant, but in short, I suppose I don't understand why people won't try to conserve energy, if not for the environment, then at least for their wallets.

Shuffleboard on Ice

You'd think that means I think curling is lame, no? Well it definitely isn't. More on that later, though.

First things first, we took the Taieri Gorge Railway from the Dunedin Railway Station (gingerbread house, remember?) to Pukerangi. Basically, the railway is a tourist line that runs on the original railway that went into Central Otago back when its economy was driven by gold mining. It's quite popular, especially during the summer, although even today there were quite a few people on the train. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the Green Mountain Railroad, and the White River Flyer, in particular. And both are equally outrageously expensive (US$34 one way on the Taieri, $17 on the WRJ - and that's at least half the distance). Anyway, it was a nice ride, complete with commentary on the history of the railway and the gorge, and a snack car with nice mince pies...mmmm.

At Pukerangi, we got off the train and hopped on a minibus, which took us to the small town (permanent pop. of 100) of Naseby, which also happens to be home to the 'only dedicated indoor curling rink in the Southern Hemisphere.' That may sound surprising, but up on what is called the Maniototo (yes, this was Rohan - I was excited), curling has been popular here ever since it was settled by Scottish gold prospectors in the 1870s. In fact, the Olympic-regulation rink showed us an into to curling video taught by the skipper of the New Zealand Olympic curling team, based not far from Naseby.

History aside, the curling was actually pretty fun - it's a lot like either shuffleboard or bocce ball on ice. Shuffleboard because of the court layout, bocce because only the team with the closest stone to the target gets points. Of course, it's vastly different because you're sliding 42-pound pieces of granite (YES) across the ice (the 'curl' comes from when you release the stone with a little rotation, so its path will curl left or right). Then there are two sweepers, who'll sweep to either straiten your stone's path, or to speed it up; the ice melts slightly when it's swept. Each team has 4 people - one thrower, two sweepers and a skipper who directs the sweepers - and everyone on each team gets two throws per round, for 11 rounds. That's pretty much it. There's actually quite a bit of strategy and skill involved, since you have to be able to throw the stone the right distance without it going out of play, and be able to either hit or avoid other stones, depending on the situation. It's good stuff. Normally, as I'm pretty 'link-happy,' I'd include a link to the Wikipedia article on curling, but I'm pretty sure that no one would ever click it. I wonder if anyone will even read this paragraph I wrote about it...

Naturally, I ended up playing pretty decently in a sport that I may never play again. It's a shame, it could have been my true calling.

Dunedin, finally

That's not at all to say I just got to Dunedin. I've been here for nearly a week, in fact. No, I'm just getting my act together and (hopefully) accurately summing up my time here so far.

Right here, just so you know, is the Dunedin Railway Station. For some reason I left this picture out of the last post, so here it is. I told you, gingerbread house. And in case you didn't know, Dunedin is the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh.

We got into Dunedin last Tuesday, and surprise surprise, it was raining! This tends to be a common theme here. That, and the cold. Now historically, the cold and I don't disagree. I, of course, grew up in a cold place - I would wear a sweatshirt to school in 20 degree weather. This wasn't merely because I wasn't outside much then, it was because when I was inside, I could expect to be reasonably warm.

This isn't how things work in New Zealand. No, this must be the only country in the world that doesn't have central heating in its homes, but also experiences cold winters. It's not often in the States that you walk into your house wearing your winter clothes and don't immediately take them off once you step foot inside. I can't say I'm surprised that the first person to climb Mt. Everest was a Kiwi.

At this point, I probably sound like I'm complaining, but I'm not really. I'm just trying to convey a feeling - that while it's cold outside, inside you feel colder, to the bone. That's all. You kinda get used to it. It's why space heaters were invented. That, electric blankets and polypropylene. It's amazing stuff, and they have it in the States too, but it's become something of a fashion statement here. It's not surprising, either, because stepping foot outside without long underwear and a polypro top is crazy. For an idea of the weather around here, it's usually been sunny and in the low 40s during the day, and in the mid 20s at night. I'm actually quite cozy in bed, but getting up in the morning is hell.

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea though - my warmth indoors is a small sacrifice to pay for the awesomeness of being here. My Kiwi host, Simon, is totally cool and definitely has the Kiwi sense of humor that I had been told about before coming here. Not only is he funny, but he also happens to have this place wired for high-speed internet, along with a tv and stereo - quite a luxury in student flats. The flat itself has four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a big common room/kitchen area. The big room heats up nicely with the heater we have, so we spend most of our time in there. Pictures to come later.

My other flatmates are Ingrid and KC. Ingrid is from the Czech Republic, from a little town called Mikulov, which is in the southeast of the country, near Austria. She actually brought us some brochures (in English, thankfully) showing her town, which is really pretty. She goes to university in Prague.

KC, amazingly, is actually from Hanover, NH. Who would have thought that one of the people I'd flat with would live 15 minutes from me at home? She goes to Davidson, in North Carolina. She didn't come here through my study abroad program (Butler) but though Arcadia instead. Anyway, pretty awesome coincidence. We all share food and cooking duties when we can, and the other day we even had a group dinner at our flat with 10 or so friends from our study abroad programs. Tacos = great for group feeding.

So as I had figured out before from the map of Dunedin, our flat is right next to campus, and I'm no more than a 3 minute walk to any of my classes. The library (and therefore complete warmth) is a minute away. I'm a minute from the Otago Museum, 3 minutes from the nearest ATM, the post office and Poppa's Pizza, and 3 minutes from the nearest bar, The Captain Cook Tavern (or 'the Cook' as students call it). It's great for rugby matches. I'm in a pretty excellent location, since I know other kids who would have to tack on at least 10 minutes to all of those times from where they're living. The supermarket is about 4 blocks away, and the Octagon is a 10 minute walk. The best part of the city, though, is George St., which is full of shops, cafes, takeaways (takeout) and other cool student-oriented things. In case you're really bored (clearly I was) you can check this out. You can walk everywhere in the city really easily (as long as you're appropriately dressed, I suppose). Completely unrelated above, that's another picture of the harbor (from my walk in the last post - ironically not a place you would want to walk to).

Here are some goodies about Kiwis and Dunedin life; hopefully I can remember most of them:

• 'sweet as' = awesome
• everyone says 'no worries' and 'mate,' 'righto' is also popular
  
• not only do cars drive on the left (which I'm sure will get me killed as a pedestrian), but people walk on the left side of sidewalks (footpaths, they call them) and stairs - I've gotten some funny looks going on the 'wrong' side
• everyone seems to use ATMs here (they're everywhere, as are banks) but no one ever pays with cash - they use their EFTPOS (Electronic Fund Transfer - Point Of Sale) cards for everything, even at bars
• you'd think that not having pennies would eliminate change, but of course they have dollar and two dollar coins, and they're no Sacagawea's - these things are used everywhere because there aren't dollar bills either
  
• almost all of the SUVs here have an extra side view mirror near the front corner of the hood (they don't call it a hood, it's a bonnet) - apparently they tow a lot of things here

I'm sure I'll come up with more quirks and differences as time goes on, so be on the lookout. Anyway, look for pictures of my flat, as well as some cool stuff from the amazing Cadbury Chocolate Carnival - tomorrow they roll candy down the steepest street in the world.

So I Lied.

I didn't actually go to the Otago Peninsula on Friday. Sad, I know. I hope you can all forgive me. My flatmate, KC, and I made the easy one block walk (compared to the 10-15 minutes other students had to make from their flats) to the middle of campus where we were supposed to meet to catch the buses, and it turned out the trip was canceled. Why, you might ask? I think that the picture below may explain some things...So yeah, it's goddamn cold here, you may have guessed. I know that most of you are probably in the dark about what the weather is like down here, so briefly I'll let you know that it's about 28 degrees right now (1 a.m.), which is -2 for all you Kiwis out there. I'll get around to a post about my moving into my flat and Dunedin soon-ish, hopefully by Monday, but for now I think a description of my day is sufficient. Hopefully my infamous storytelling will improve.

Anyway, lacking a plan of what to do or a place to go or food to eat (we all thought we would be gone from noon to 7, and get a free BBQ somewhere in between - only a few of us brought sandwiches), some of my friends decided to go on a trek and find their way to the water anyway. Forget the buses, we have feet, right? Well off we went, and before we knew it our group of international students was at least 20 strong, and I'm sure most of them didn't even know us or where we were leading them. Just for the glamor of it, here's the Clocktower Building; it's probably the most iconic part of the Uni. Don't be fooled, though. Luckily there are some cars in this picture for scale, but in almost everything published by Otago, the tower is made out to be 100 feet tall or something, which it clearly is not.

So our little jaunt obviously wasn't planned, meaning we didn't have much of an idea of where to go other than generally southeast. In fact, we went due south, and as you can see if you head south of the campus (basically from the green arrow on the map in a post down below) you'll end up in the lovely industrial section of Dunedin. At one point, a couple of us stopped at a corner store in the shipping yards to ask for directions on how to get to the water, and the woman replied, 'Well it's a good thing you have them long legs, you're sure as hell gonna need them!' There were some other clever Kiwi comments about the apparent busload-size of our group, too.

After about a half-hour of walking from campus (and several a cappella renditions of such classics as 'The Final Countdown,' 'Juke Box Hero' and 'Come Sail Away') we finally saw the water, and my was it beautiful. Of course in the civilized world, you can't just have waterfront that isn't being exploited for tourist dollars, and we found a little walkway with benches and a pub along the waterfront.

We whittled our numbers down to about 7 after hobos and fishermen killed and/or ate the others) and we weren't even that cold since it was the middle of the day and we had been walking so much. It's a great way to keep warm. Anyway, it was actually pretty nice there. Seeing the snow on the surrounding hills was great (bizarre in July though).

On the way back to the campus, we walked by another landmark in Dunedin, the Dunedin Railway Station. It looks like a gingerbread house, of sorts (I'll admit I stole that characterization from the Wikipedia article) and has some great gardens outside. Maybe I'll go in one day...

So I'll probably be checking back in by Monday about my move in and the Kiwi life in general. Definitely some interesting quirks here. And since I can't get the song (or what I associate with the song) out of my head, I have to do this...sweet as, mate.