Orientation

Hey yall!

Wow, I dont even know where to start! I am sitting in my hotel in Rotarua, NZ and its 12:20am. I decided to set this up because I figured it would be much easier than emailing and I can post photos! So my flight from LAX to Auckland was wonderful! They gave us awesome food, then hot chocolate to put us to sleep...they even brought around hot towels! It was by FAR my best flight experience ever! I got to NZ at 7:30am and met up with the rest of the group. We then were taken to our hotel-the Kiwi International....lets just say it was a hostel/hotel-not nice AT all. But im in NZ cant really complain. They then took us through the down and we had lunch. Then we drove to North Head and hiked up a small hill that overlooked Auckland, I took some amazing pictures(youll see:)) Then we went to the skytower which looks like a needle in the sky and went all the way to the top. It was an awesome view and it was crazy to see people doing a zipline down, it was SO high. Then we all went out to a pizza place for dinner and we had a shot of jack daniels to celebrate the 4th of July:) After we went back to the hotel and I just went to sleep at 7 because we were so tired and jet lagged. This morning we woke up at 7:30 and had to be downstairs for breakfast at 8:30 with all of our luggage packed. We all got on the bus and headed toward Rotarua, it was beautiful to just stare out the window at the countryside. It is always raining(or "pissing" as they say) on and off and so I saw a rainbow about 3 different times! We stopped in Hobbiton where they filmed Lord of the Rings and had lunch.(not so good ha) and I took a picture in a hobbit hole:) We then drove about 45 more minutes to Rotarua and once we got here went to a farm show. The farm show was really interesting, they showed off all the different types of sheep and even sheared one. I got to pet and hold a baby sheep (i know we always used to say Roxi looked like a lamb, but i swear she looked exactly like these baby black sheep:)) They also brought up their hearding dogs and demonstrated how they heard the sheep it was so cool! Really made me miss all my puppies already though:( Next we went to Rainbow Springs, a Kiwi Wildlife Park and were given a tour of all the animals and birds of NZ. it was beautiful, but I was SO cold the whole time.......im starting to rethink what I packed! Afterwards we went back to the hotel and had free time to walk around and have dinner. Then we went to the Polynesian Spa which was the town's hot springs and sat in the hot water with all the other students. It was nice after being so cold all day and had a beautiful view over the city's lake. So far my experience has been wonderful and everyone in my program is really nice and easy to talk to....except I am the only one from Texas and they are all from up north and make fun of my accent(i dont even have a very bad one!) It really is the most beautiful place I have ever seen and I am SO excited to be here for the semester, everyone is so easygoing and laid back, a lot slower than what were used to its a really nice change. 

Well I'm going to bed now, I have to be up and ready for 8am breakfast!

I love all yall and miss you tons already!

Love, mantha:)