First month already

Hey all!

Wow, already a month away from home right now. And only one week to go till the midsemester break and seeing my parents again! Really excited for that!

Last week was a bit boring, because there were not many things in the evenings, what meant I should have spend them on homework. My head did not want that so I need to find other times to do that again. The days were interesting, because I had two field trip days. I also spent a lot of time in the gym because I wanted to try more group lessons.

On monday I had school and went to rpm and bodybalance afterwards. Rpm was way more tough than last time so that was good! Bodybalance was also quite hard, it was sort of poweryoga, so good for the stretching and balance. The rest of the afternoon I was planning the next weekend trip. In the evening there was a beertasting again which was a lot of fun :D
On tuesday I had a full day field trip day, which took us to a farm near the Rakaia river. This was reallydifiicult, beacuse we have to make an farm environment plan for this farm. Normally experts spend months on making a good one and now we just got all information in one day and we need to make one. So by the time we were back home my brain was fried and could not function properly anymore. So I went to zumba, which was today given by a woman and normally on friday it is a really cute guy. So it was way less fun ;P Afterwards I did bodycombat again, which is good to get rid of frustration (because of the different zumba teacher)
On wednesday I went to a company that distributes vegetables and fruit and potatoes over New Zealand, so I learned a lot about the transport and import. It was really interesting and we got free bananas and I got to take a tamarillo, because I never tried it before. I thought it was quite good! After that I had a field trip to Hart's creek where we measured the water quality. It was really windy and cold so I did pretty much freeze. But it was interesting and fun too! Next I went to the gym for Chiseled, which is a half hour core training. Quite intensive but really short so I stayed and trained a bit myself and did yoga afterwards. This was really relaxed (so I thought it was a bit boring..)
On thursday I had school all day. In the evening I made cupcakes with my housemate which was a lot of fun! I love baking :) On friday I had water lab first, which was nice, because they had a water basin in which we could measure flow and stuff. After that I wanted to go for a hike, but my car did not work properly again. So I decided it would be better to bring it to the garage, since I got a trip planned for the next two days. So I just went for a walk in the park of Lincoln, which was really small. So, longing for the mountains, I just walked down the road for a bit and then went home again. Then I got a text that my car was rady so I went to pick it up. Unfortunately they could not fix it, because the carburetor was broken and they did not have enough knowledge on that. So I need to take him to a specialist. Since everything was closing soon I thought I would just do that monday. In the evening we went to a bar with live jazz music. The girl of the band played two saxophones at the same time!

My weekend trip this week went to the Rakaia Gorge and Lake Coleridge. And it was amazing! We left saturday morning to the Gorge. We did the Rakaia Gorge Walkway there in about five hours and it was absolutely stunning. We had beautiful weather and although it had been snowing the day before and the tracks were covered in snow we did it! After the walk we went to a supermarket to get dinner and to our accommodation. This week it was a lodge and the eight of us were the only ones there. The owner already made fire in the log burner so it was nice and warm. All tired from the walk we snuggled around the fire with hot cocoa. It was perfect! We cooked dinner and then moved all the matrasses to the living room so we could sleep next to the fire. Outside it was about -10, so it was nice and cosy inside. Because it was the birthday of one of the girls, we made her a birthday breakfast with fruit salad, pancakes, ice cream, omelet and potatoes. A very good start of the day! Than we went to Lake Coleridge to do the Peak Hill Walk. I was really difficult because it was a very steap track to the summit and there was snow everywhere. With a snowstorm on our heels we climbed up and the view was amazing. It was abit foggy but still it looked so beautiful. Half sliding and half walking we went back down and drove back home. One more succesful weekend to add to the list!

Overall I am enjoying it here! It is so beautiful, we have been lucky with the weather and the hikes are amazing! Just too bad that I got to go to school too.. But just one more week ;)

Love you!