4th post! Miscellaneous!

Well, it’s a slow day without having to register for classes, welcome dinners and trying to recuperate from long travel days! So today I decided to organize my room, get a grip on my future plans for this week/weekend, and cook with my newly acquired slow cooker!

I picked up the slow cooker off of trademe.co.nz, New Zealand’s “ebay” website. So I placed a bid a little too high but got this used slow cooker in pristine condition for $50NZD (or $35USD). Well, my first meal with this cooker is going to be beef pot roast! Simple, cheap, flavorful. All I did was beef, vegetables, onion soup mix, and two bottles of my new favorite draught in NZ, Canterbury Draught! Brown the meat, then add to the slow cooker with the rest of the ingredients. The worst part, wait 8-10 hours. Well, in the meantime it smells delicious.

For those wondering my course load this semester I will be taking ALL PHYSICS COURSES! Not the brightest idea Luke while you’re supposed to be taking in all of New Zealand.

So here they are:

-Quantum Physics

-Electricity and Magnetism

-Experimental Physics

-Classical Mechanics and Symmetry Principles

But I have to take physics courses while I’m here, this is the alma mater of famous physicist Ernest Rutherford! In fact, he’s on the $100NZD bill!

Well for upcoming events, this weekend im hitting up the slopes with the ski club for this weekend, with accommodations in University of Canterbury’s own ski lodge on the mountain! Should be a great way to meet some future classmates in the white-caped southern alps in July. Hoping to take some great shots while trying to stay on the snowboard.

Sweet as! (awesome/cool in NZ

Into the City!

Off to the City!

Christchurch is a beautiful city, the City Center is gorgeous at night. I can't wait to see the town during the day adn even more, during the summer! The trees are amazing and the River Avon winds through the center of town! Known as the Garden City, Christchurch is home to the botanical gardens and the upcoming International Flower Show (that's for you master gardeners back home!). On the hokey side, there's the Floral clock, one of the main attractions.






So my first night out in Christchurch we went to a restaurant and I had fish and chips and a Canterbury Draught, which was delicious!














We then headed over to Sol Square, which was a nice group of bars/clubs in which we enjoyed a couple "Tall boys" of Speights "Pride of the South" beer, near the fire where we discussed our must-do and bucket lists of things to do in New Zealand, with seeing an All Blacks rugby game as a top priority. The All Blacks are going against big rival Australia in August! The other international students consist mainly of Americans from various states. We all seem to share a common interest of trying new things, spur of the moment adventures, which is great to finally share that in common!

An another note, I stumbled across a sign with Ian Mckellen's name on it which caught my interest. He's acting in a show called "Waiting For Godot" in Christchurch next week! Of course i'm going to go andddd i found 48$ tickets in an exclusive deal rather than the original $120! I'm getting the hang of this!

Well off to shop for dinner supplies, I'm getting a slow-cooker for easy big volume meals!

My first couple days in Christchurch!

Well, its the morning again, and I am watching the world cup (Netherlands vs. Uruguay) while enjoying a nice cup o' tea, a breakfast sausage/egg sandwich with kiwifruit and habanero hot sauce! Surprisingly good!

So where should I begin, how about my apartment!

On the outskirts of the University of Canterbury is a small cluster of apartments called Ilam Apartments, where students from numerous universities around Christchurch can stay. I am living in a 5 bedroom apartment with two full baths, one kitchen, living room and balcony! I was lucky enough to get the room on the end with a nice view of the campus, and the setting sun! I have finally met my 4 other flatmates JJ from Korea, Shihab from... im not sure yet, Partik from India and Thomas from New Zealand! I'm going to take advantage of this fact and try to learn some new international dishes.

My room is fairly spacious for myself, in fact it may be just as big as my last apartment in New Paltz (which had in the same space a shower, bathroom, half-kitchen) for the same price!

I was itching already to find a motorcycle my second day here so i tried searching online and found out although fairly cheap its cheaper to buy a car instead! Not to mention the selection of classic cars are pretty cool! like a 1962 morris minor, 1964 mg 1100, 1970 land rover, all for around 1200-1600 US $!

After visiting the international welcome dinner, there are a lot of American students who have come here to study. All international students here are very friendly and want to try anything new. Tom, from philly has one major goal for New Zealand: Chase a herd of sheep. Interesting, but why not? So we celebrated as I bought my first alcoholic beverage! Some new zealand draft beer, which was rather good! I'm going to have to get used to beer, because liquor is terribly expensive (cheapest liquor was a 1 liter bottle of smirnoff vodka: about 30 US). But good news as New Zealand has a wide range of Beer from the island and excellent wines from Canterbury! (guess whose going on some wine tours!).

Well off to orientation for school, then off to see the city of Christchurch tonight! Will keep you posted. If theres anything youd like to know about New Zealand and Canterbury shoot! (It'll give me ideas for posting)

Here's my mailing address!

Luke Stover
H74 Room 5
Ilam Apartments
Homestead Lane
PO BOX 6362
Christchurch 8442
NEW ZEALAND

First Post, Travel!

Welcome to the blog! It's 6:30am on July 6th, 2010 in Christchurch, New Zealand! I believe it is the afternoon of the 5th in New York. 95 degrees? Today is a high of 45 degrees! Well, I'll start writing about my travels getting here, before I forget.




Well, After bidding a farewell to my parents, It started to hit me that I was going away for a year. My parents understood it, but i was still like, big deal, see you in...6 months? No it'll be fine i'll just drive...nevermind. Ironically, My last meal in the states was a hamburger. When I boarded Air New Zealand in Los Angeles International I was offered wine with my dinner! I quickly shook my head because at the time I forgot I'm legal to drink in New Zealand! The 13 hour flight went by suprisingly fast, due to the personal TV which we could pick form 80 movies, 300 TV shows, 300 albums, audiobooks etc. I decided to check out Air New Zealand's music collection. Suprisingly good! I'm looking forward to New Zealand's overall music taste. So as I'm enjoying my breakfast meal with tea (They love tea here! Thank you!) I was blasting AC/DC's Back to Black album. At the same hour were flying over New Zealand the sun starts to rise to give us: Rainy, Cloudy New Zealand. O well. But there was a rainbow to greet us!

I finally arrived to my apartment around 2:00pm, I have been traveling for over 30 hours with about 6 half hour naps scattered. (not to mention I got 3 hours of sleep from my going away party). I am tired! But I dont have sheets for sleeping or more importantly, a towel for taking a shower! So I try to do a couple errands picking up linens, towels, making a 3 minute $16.00 phone call andddd EATING SUSHI! love it! (although i didnt have ginger with my meal and the soy sauce was sweet?)

So here are the few things that I had trouble finding hard to get used during my first few hours in Christchurch with very little sleep:

-The otherside of the road: I saw a dog in the left side of the car and thought he was driving.
-By=Buy
-Adding U's to words like "Colour"
-The accents here are thicker than I imagined
-I have an accent to these people!
-The money has a plastic region which you can see right through
-The road signs, Like a orange triangle with a black exclamation point in the middle, for....?
-The electrical outlets someone took our plug, and with a plier bent the prongs 45 degrees.


Well, thats it for now. next up, setting up my new apartment and trying to figure out this city