O-Week

Every walk down the street and wonder to yourself, "How did I get here?! What is going on?!" If not, visit Dunedin, New Zealand during O-Week. O-Week is the week before classes start at Univ. of Otago (aka orientation week). It is the most out of control week anyone will ever experience. For the first time in my life I felt as though I was in a dream land for 6 days straight. *For all of you parents out there, this is a warning you might not want to continue this entry*

O-Week consists of Kiwis drinking and partying pretty much around the clock. Bars and clubs around town put on promotions to encourage this drinking, and police officers don't really do too much stop this either (as you will soon read about...). People are always dressed in costumes for one reason or another, so it is not strange to see a penguin stumbling down the street at 1 in the afternoon. You will most likely also notice students (mostly males) climbing on rooftops and smashing glass bottles anywhere and everywhere. This is O-Week. You can hear techno versions of ANY song (including the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song- one of my personal favorites) blasting throughout the entire night into the next morning, afternoon, and following evening.

One story from my week: *and yes for all those parents reading, don't worry about my health and safety there was NO way I could keep up with a Kiwi during O-Week, so I didn't even come close to trying...don't worry* But one fun story...

My 2nd or 3rd night here my complex had a party, we have this huge courtyard so we're known for...hosting get togethers over here at 480 Leith...well some boys drank a few too many and decided it would be fun to add to the glass that already covered half of Dunedin and started to smash more bottles. Pretty soon 4 or so police officers come strolling into our yard accompanied by a man with a big TV camera. Every American's first reaction: SHIT THE COPS! RUN!" Every Kiwis first reaction: Oh, the police, anyway...can I have another beer? So us Americans slowly calmed down and realized the cops were just standing around talking to some of the people. Turns out, they really didn't care about anything. They just had to make sure we weren't too out of control. The glass bottle throwing had stopped so they just hung out and talked to us for 15 minutes. We had all momentarily forgotten that the drinking age here is 18, so all the 20 year old American's slowly pulled their beer back out and continued to socialize. It was the weirdest experience of our lives. We were then told to watch the channel 9 the next day and we could maybe see ourselves on a Cops type show if they liked the footage. But we didn't have a TV and by witnessing what other parties around us looked like, I'm assuming we didn't make the cut. 

With all that said, O-Week is over and classes have officially begun. I'm really enjoying it here. I've learned to accept the fact that is will almost always be raining here, so enjoy the sun when you can and don't mind always damp clothes. Hopefully my classes this week turn out to be great and my weekend tramping (hiking) adventures begin soon!!

p.s. I am starting to pick up the slang so I'm sorry if I accidentally throw it around a little in these blogs...yikes! I'll add a word a blog as a glossary. 

This weeks word: Kia Ora- (pronounced Key Or-a) A Maori greeting. Used to say Hello, Welcome, Greetings, etc.