October, Presidents, and Food

Greetings from the island across from down under!  I am in denial that it is October already. One day it was September 20, and the next day it was October 1.  No joke, I sat at my computer staring at the date in disbelief for about 10 minutes thinking it was tricking me!  Ahhh so much to do, so little time! Actually, I only have 2 more things to complete on my mini bucket list here and 40+ days to do so! I am done with classes in less than two weeks, then have about 12 days to explore the island aka road trip, then I come back to Dunedin for 4 final exams, then fly home the day after my last exam :( :( :( Speaking of, I have not booked my flight from LAX to MSP yet because I am going to see how much money I have left to maybe travel California for a bit.

Today, I just found out that one of my classmates who I sit next to in my Understanding Contemporary Media paper is running for president of the student association at Uni. He never spoke of it all this time, then I see his ad in the student magazine here...so random and cool! I feel kind of terrible that I just found out about it, but he is really modest so maybe I didn't talk about myself too much?!!!! I hope that is the case at least! In conclusion, I kinda know a 'famous' person here, and they were telling the truth when they said you never know who you will meet!  Here are more spring fever pictures! 

Found this while exploring with my friend Morgan

On my walk to school. Lucky right?!

Oversized flowers...never seen these before!

Oh and more good news. Surprising news.  I filled out a rugby bracket a while back for the Rugby World Cup, and currently am the leader. Who would have ever thought?!  Kind of, may have made my day :)

 And I am really proud of my slightly improved cooking skills.  I made a stir fry with some chicken, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, and sweet chilli lime sauce for dinner!  AND I cooked rice for the first time.  

My mum would be so proud!

Since food is on the mind, there are some differences in what Kiwis call certain foods.  Raisins are sultanas, Rice Krispies are Rice Bubbles, kumara are sweet potatoes, muesli is granola, prawns are shrimp, biscuits are cookies, jelly is Jell-O (ALWAYS), golden syrup is molasses (I bought it thinking it was maple syrup, and was sadly mistaken),  and mince is beef (ALWAYS)!!!  Also, they don't have any sugar cereals.  And potato chip flavors are chicken, salt and vinegar, and chive...in other words I have not bought them here.  Now that I made you all hungry, go eat and I hope you enjoyed Kiwi Food Culture 101. 

By the way, I DO realize (in NZ it would be realise) the randomness of my blog posts...someone pointed out how sporadic my posts can be...I guess my mind is always spinning haha!