The flight was pretty tolerable. They didn't fill the whole plane, so as soon as we were up in the air, the flight attendants told us we could move around and get new seats.
My assigned seat was next to an elderly Mexican couple, but then I moved farther back and got a whole row of three seats all to myself. Later, I realized I should've gone for the four-seat rows... that way I would have been able to stretch out my legs across all four seats. Oh, well, I'll know better next time!
We got some dinner, and then the flight attendants turned off the lights - "sleep people, sleep."
Lucky me, I had gotten a sleeping mask and some ear plugs for horrendous amounts of money in the duty free shop earlier, because they don't seem to be handing those out to passengers anymore! So I plugged my own gear in and went to sleep.
I don't really remember how much I slept, but I did get to watch two movies at some point :D
12 hours and 20 minutes later, we landed in Auckland!
Everything went well, until I went to retrieve my luggage. My candy almost got me into trouble, because a police dog smelled it! I had to open my bag, and the police officer drew strange marks on my arrival card... When the next airport official saw the marks on my card, I needed to explain the whole story over again, and open my bag once more. Oh, boy, if I had known this, I would've eaten all the candy on the plane!
I did make it through customs in the end - just to realize, that I had no clue whatsoever, what this girl "Jess" looked like, or if she had remembered to pick me up today! (I meant to write her a reminder email, but I forgot, because I had such an unstable internet situation over the past few days)
Luckily I didn't need to wait long. After a few minutes, I saw a random girl that didn't have any luggage and seemed to look for someone. Bingo - that was Jess! *sigh of relief*
Jess took me to her car and she drove me to her place first, so that I could take a hot shower (thank you - I needed that!).
Jess lives in a cute little apartment, and she usually walks the 25 minutes to the Uni (say: "you-nee", not "college"!).
Even though 1.3 million people (of the 4.1 million total in NZ) live in Auckland, it didn't seem like there were a lot of people when we were driving through. Maybe they were all hiding in the office buildings, or they hadn't woken up yet (quite possible, it was just 6:30, 7ish in the morning).
Driving on the "other" side of the road confuses me, though. It started with me trying to get into the wrong side of the car, and I keep on looking on the wrong side of the road first, when trying to cross the street... ouch, that could end up badly!
Also, New Zealanders have special words, that I now need to learn.
"Uni" instead of "college" was one of them. Also, I don't want to look for "trash cans;" instead, I need to look out for "rubbish bins." Finally, I won't be going "hiking" on the weekend. I will go "tramping" instead.
In general, though, the New Zealanders are easy to understand, if they don't talk too fast.
After I took my shower, Jess drove us to the Bioinformatics Centre (notice the spelling there!) of the university. The university is made up of several campuses, but the Thomas Building that houses the Bioinformatics Centre is on the "City Campus." (The name "City Campus" probably comes from the fact that it is about 5 minutes on foot from downtown Auckland.)
Once inside, I got to meet some of the other Bioinformatics students working in the labs. A few of the girls go and get coffee in the morning first (Jess needed it... by now, she was yawning loudly as we walked along!). When I told them that I drink more tea than coffee, they all seemed rather startled. Apparently, not drinking coffee in the morning to wake up counts as a mild felony in NZ *haha*
Either way, we went to a little coffee shop to get coffee/tea.
Back at the lab, more and more people seemed to stop by randomly. I don't remember all their names, especially since most seem to have more or less arbitrary nicknames, but I think I'll get the hang of it soon.
I also got the chance to meet with one of my mentors, Prof. Paul Rainey. He is really nice, and listening to him, you can tell that he is passionate about his research. Prof. Allen Rodrigo, my other mentor, is not back from his sabbatical yet. But we want to try to organize a video conference meeting to talk about things to get me started.
I also got a computer. It's new and still very shiny, and it runs both Linux and Windows.
The sad, sad, sad part about the computer is that internet is not free. No, I need to pay for every megabyte of data I load (although I might get lucky and get subsidized internet, since I will be working in the lab).
This is the point where I realize how much I rely on internet... I think, I need to google some free wi-fi hotspots in Auckland for my laptop... as soon as I have access again...!
Another student in the lab, Steven, showed me around downtown Auckland a little bit. I found the WestPac Bank, which works together with my American Bank, so I don't have to pay fees if I use my debit card with their ATM to withdraw cash - good to know!
Then I got some Indian food (yay for chicken biryani and naan!) for lunch.
Later that day, Jess drove my luggage and me to the Railway Campus, where I had reserved a room.
The room is gigantic and huge! I have a king size bed, a couch, a chair, and a coffee table, a desk with another chair, a book shelf, a wardrobe, a kitchenette with a fridge, electric kettle (yay!!), and a toaster, and a bathroom with shower, sink, towel heater (nice!), and a toilet. To top it all off: there is a housekeeping service that comes once a week to clean everything and replace the linens.
What on earth am I supposed to do with this room? It is really big, and I was totally prepared to live with less. And I really know how to clean my own bathroom... Maybe I can "downgrade" and save some money.
After I threw all my stuff in my room (that's right, I didn't unpack anything!), I went off to explore downtown Auckland a little bit.
I needed to look for some food and kitchen items, and an adapter to convert my American plugs to New Zealand format.
Luckily, I found this place called "The Warehouse." It's like the Christmas Tree Store, just without the christmas decoration stuff. But it has everything else, including Kinder Schokolade! (which I didn't buy... yet)
I did find an adapter, and some other stuff. Then, I explored the little mall that is attached to the store. There were some clothing stores, food and jewlery places, and a souvenir shop with expensive little gadgets. Not too useful, overall (besides The Warehouse), but nice to look at.
Then I continued towards the "Foodtown" supermarket. This one seems to be a little expensive but I did need to get some food, and it is really close to the Railway Campus.
There is also an Asian food market! They had nice looking fruit, so I think I need to go back there again, as well.
Finally, I realized that my cell phone does seem to work here. But don't call me yet, I need to figure out, if I can even afford these international rates!
So, it's 8 pm, and I am finally a little tired. People expected me to be tired all day, but somehow, I was too excited to be thinking about snoozing!
Oh, well, off to bed :)
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