“To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before.” –Robyn Davidson, “Tracks”

         We finally made it to Dunedin!  We arrived by bus at around 9:30 p.m. and had to lug all of our stuff several blocks to a hostel in the center of town.  My keen sense of direction took us the long and less charming way to the hostel, which was at the top of a flight of stairs.  Super.  The room was cold and ugly but we didn’t care much because we were so tired.  And that began a night of peaceful slumber… so I thought.  I was having a dream about drinking a Coke with my mom in the Caribbean was suddenly I sat on a large thorn and woke up.  I ran my hand across the sheets to get the thorn out of my bed, but instead found a hornet that had just stung my thigh.  I woke Brad up and he fearlessly defeated the beast with my pink Nike.  If you want a funnier telling of the story, check out Brad’s blog.  I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the world who’s been stung by a bee who crawled several feet into bed with her in the middle of winter. 

Brad: 1, Bee: 1, Liz: 0

         Needless to say, the next day we were out of there and once again lugged our stuff (this time up a hill!) to my new favorite hostel, Hogwartz.  It’s a huge old house where the Catholic bishop used to stay when he came to Dunedin (see pic of the Cathedral next door below), and it couldn’t be run by nicer people.  Bonus: they have 2 adorable jack russells that run around scavenging in everything they can find: trash cans, kitchen crumbs, my purse… 

Bella and Asterix, the Hogwartz dogs

Brad and Asterix

Lobby

Cathedral view from lobby

         However most of the time you’ll find us at the wifi connection, wildly searching for job and flats:

         I’ve thrown my resume out a few places and have a few opportunities I’m waiting to contact including: muffin seller (how good would I be at this?), newspaper delivery person, florist assistant (although this may lead to more bee stings), retail worker, and café barista.  Thanks for spending all those thousands of dollars on my college degree, mom and dad; I’m off to sell muffins!!

         The apartment search has been our other big task.  We really want to live in the neighborhood of St. Clair, which is by the beach and has a few restaurants, bars, and shops and a nice safe community feel.  The bus ride into the city where we would most likely work is about 15 minutes- sweet as! 

Serious surfer- it's about 40 degress here.

We really want to do a house share so we can live with kiwis and get connected to the area, so we were really pumped to see a place in St. Clair on Thursday.  The house was beautiful, but had only one roommate who was older, not exactly what we had in mind.  Next we checked out a place in the city that included the stunning feature of having to walk outside to get to the toilet and shower.  A toilet and shower that anyone could walk off of the street and use.  For those of you that know me, I have a minor phobia of a bum sneaking into my apartment and this only fed my fear.  I think it stems from when a certain homeless man screamed at me to, “BURN!” when I was 10 years old and my NYC cop uncle proceeded to laugh hysterically while I tried to physically crawl back into my mother’s womb.  Anyways, back to Dunedin…

         The city is super cool and the more time I spend here, the more I love it.  “Dunedin” is Gaelic for “Edinburgh,” and the city is actually modeled after it.  You can see from pics below that the city has sort of a European feel by the buildings.  Maybe I should apply to be an architect; I’m clearly such an expert :-)

Cathedral in the city center

New Zealand you just don't understand coffee.  I have yet to find the perfect cup.

View of The Otago Harbor from our room

Clock Tower

Brad prancing around the city

The train station

         We woke up this morning to a few teeny snowflakes, and for the rest of the day it has proceeded to go from snow, to hail, to wind with hail that is trying to blind me.  We were supposed to see a house in St. Clair but the buses stopped running, so that’s been postponed until tomorrow.  I talked to a girl in one of the cafes we hid in to get warm (few places have good heating here- it’s cold all the time) and she said she hasn’t seen snow like this in Dunedin for 4 years, so everyone- kids and adults alike- is really excited and running amuck in the snow.  The city has pretty much shut down- banks, shops, buses.  I just found out that Wellington has snow for the first time since 1995 and even Auckland has snow, which hasn’t happened since 1930.  So it’s pretty fun to be here in “The Great [2 inch] Blizzard of 2011!” 

Passenger pushing his stuck campervan before running to catch up and jumping back in...

It’s really surreal so see weather like this in July, but since we got here I’ve pretty much lost all sense of date, time, and season so I’m just going with the snowy flow.  However, I’d take bundling up in this polka dotted fleece blanket over hugging an AC and sweating to death!  Stay cool, Northern hemisphere!