Those crazy kiwis...

Hey!
Sorry I haven't updated in a few days...I have been running around doing orientation with my program IES Abroad. They have had us busy! It's been great but I'm ready to get into the groove a little bit! I'll just fill you in on what we did yesterday and today, even though we had another day in there as well...it's not too exciting though :)
Yesterday we left at around 9 o'clock and headed towards the town of Springfield, a little town where we will be staying at a Youth Hostel with the whole group (22 of us). It is a really cute place called "Smylies" and they cooked a TON of food for us. Keiko, the wife of the owner, is a chef so she made tons of food for us while we were there. First we went to see a "farm show" at a local sheep farmers place. We got to see some sheep, watch how the sheep dogs are trained to herd the sheep, take pictures with Alpacas and sheer a sheep. I got to sheer part of a sheep! We didn't use the electrical razor but I did use the huge scissor like sheers. It was really cool! We then went jet boating on the river near the farm. It wasn't as exciting as the "Shotover Jet" that I did in Queenstown but this scenery was beautiful and it was still a blast. Some people went swimming in the water afterwards but it was so cold by that point I didn't want to! The weather changes SO FAST here. It started off cloudy and a little chilly, then go really really sunny and burning hot, then got really windy and the clouds rolled back in and it stormed. I was changing clothes like crazy. Then we had dinner and went to the pub to watch the Canterbury Crusaders play in a rugby match which a few of my friends from my apartment building were actually at (I was really jealous I wasn't able to go). It was supposed to be a quiet bar ith just some locals but it ended up that there was a bachelor party going on and all of these guys from all over the country were there drinking like crazy haha A lot of them were like late 20's, early 30's who played on a semi-pro rugby team together! They were INSANE. I've never seen people so crazy! It's true when they say Kiwi's like to party. They were very friendly and outgoing and I talked with a lot of them for the 3 hours we were there. It was definitely a great way to talk to some locals and get a sense of the Kiwi life which is why I'm here! They were pretty funny. I doubt half of them will remember me though haha So we got back at around 11 o'clock and watched a New Zealand movie "Second-hand Wedding", which is Eunice's (my IES director/leader) favorite New Zealand movie. I love this woman, she is so adorable! She is the nicest lady ever. So we watched that and then went to sleep since we had to get up at 7:30am. Ugh. I have not been able to sleep in at all since I've been here! I've had to wake up by at least 8 am everyday for orientation...not the most fun.
We got woken up by a cow bell this morning, had some breakfast and headed out to Castle Hill, a place where huge limestone rocks are on the sides of hills where we could explore. They were really pretty neat and the mountains were surrounding us. We then randomly cut down some pine trees and were not supposed to be there but the seedlings got blown onto this man's land so we were helping him out by cutting them down (they'll probably just grow back so I'm not sure how that helped but oh well...Eunice says pine trees are growing where they aren't supposed to so we're helping out New Zealand she said..who knows?) We then saw were some of Narnia was filmed! The rocks where they run down after the big battle scene and where Edmund almost dies or whatever haha The huge field where the battle scene was filmed was just over the hill but we didn't have time to hike up there since we did the pine tree thing (I was very upset about that haha).
I got back, went to the store to get some stuff (Groceries and everything else is SO EXPENSIVE HERE, it is craziness) and then went to speed meeting, which is like speed friending. I met a lot of people but we had only like 30 seconds to talk so I don't think I even remember anyone's name. We left early and went to get some groceries ( but this time I was with my flat mates) and came back and just hung out in my flat for the rest of the night. I am so so tired though...meeting people and traveling around is really exhausting but I have to get up tomorrow morning pretty early for international student orientation for the actual university...ugh. I feel like a freshman again...not fun! Oh well, it'll be done soon. Hope all is well! More to come later :)