Category: Country

I’ve gotten a couple of emails from people worried about me – however, while I know I felt shaking last night and was probably woken by slight tremors this morning, I’m completely okay. Here in Wellington it really was no big deal. The earthquake was most felt in Gisborne, which is several hundred kilometres away. But thank you for thinking of me!

Edit: But isn’t it amazing that I heard about it from someone in Germany first? Globalization in action! 🙂

I had my exam for the HR course yesterday. Not sure how it went – I have a not-so-good feeling, but I often have problems evaluating how well I’ve done, so I try not to worry. Also, there’s nothing I can do about it now, is there? So instead I’m writing the final assignment, 1500 words using the previous one-page assignments as template. I’m at about 1000 words now and think I’ll take a break and eat something before starting on the last bit.

Once that’s done I’ll be free. There’s a couple of things I want to do before Christmas, like make reservations at ‘Southern Cross’, a bar/restaurant that Kathrin recommended to me for my birthday, but mostly I’ll just hang out until the Big Christmas Orphan Beach Barbecue of 2007 on the 25th. I want to meet up with some friends (heh, that sounds as if I have so many of them, but it’s barely a handful) and enjoy the summer (if it stops raining, that is *g*). In other news, hopefully they’ll finish construction soon – tomorrow we won’t have power on this floor during the whole day and no one seems able to tell me when the hole in my ceiling will be gone. But I’ll be gone for 10 days after Christmas, luckily, so I just hope there won’t be many more disruptions until then.

When I came home after the last lecture (next week we “only” have to do a final exam and a 1500 word essay), there were still construction workers in my room. So I decided to head for friendlier shores and went to the youth hostel to finally get my Christmas break organized. Because it’s the main tourist season (I’m not the only one who has time off then), I had to make a couple of compromises (mainly I’m not going to Queenstown/Milford Sound because it was completely booked), but after a good 2 hours, David, the friendly YHA guy, and I had a 9-day-vacation on the South Island all planned out. Whee!

I’m leaving on the day after Christmas (Dec 26) and will return on January 4. In between I’ll go whale watching in Kaikoura, see NZ’s highest mountain, Mt. Cook, go skydiving in Wanaka (the alternative to Queenstown) and then head up the west coast, from Franz Joseph to Nelson (same trip I did last time I was on the South Island, but it’s a stunning stretch, so I don’t mind). It’s going to be 9 days of awesome scenery and a couple of exciting highlights!

Other than that things have been mostly quiet. On Saturday I went to the famous Chocolate Fish Café with Kathrin and Masumi. It’s a really cool place, right at the beach, but unfortunately they’re closing at the end of the month. On Sunday there was the earthquake that I posted about, and the main highlight of the week (other than the fact that I was drawn into the beginning Christmas shopping madness and ended up buying jeans, t-shirts and shoes – for myself, as all my holiday mail was sent two weeks ago) is Swiss politics: Federal councillor Christoph Blocher (who I like to call ‘our George W’) was unexpectedly not re-elected by parliament (Swissinfo). Even if nothing comes of it (or if Blocher’s party really decides to go ahead and destroy our whole political system by going into opposition), this just makes me feel so much better about the political situation back home…

Annoyance of the week: The construction that will not end. They started last week and it’ll last at least another week. Not only do they at times work in my room (the hole in my wall is gone, but the one in my ceiling is still there), there’s also power outages, loud hammering at 7am and other unpleasantness. Seriously, I think we should get a discount on our rent or something – not only is there construction, but there’s not much information. Plus, because it’s summer we don’t have access to the gym and there are no RAs (Resident Advisors), so that we have to go to reception (in a different building) for everything. But at least I met my next-door neighbour Helen, a girl from China, who got kicked out of bed this morning by the construction crew and then discovered that she didn’t have electricity to make breakfast or turn on the light in the shower. Nice, hm?

The ground just shook ever so slightly. I mean, I knew that New Zealand is earthquake territory (I can’t seem to get away from those these days – Basel, then California, now Wellington), but it’s still kind of disconcerting when everything starts to tremble. It really was nothing, but it did last for a good 30 seconds, I’d say.

It’s not on GeoNet yet, but I think I’ll bookmark the website for future reference…

Edit: Still no report on the site, but it seems to have been captured by seismographs all over the country.

Edit 2: Now it was captured – a 7.6 several hundred kilometres away, in the ocean.

I opened the first door on my little Christmas calendar this morning. I also plan on switching on the lights I hung in my window this evening – Wellington still doesn’t feel very Christmassy, but I’m trying my best. Tomorrow Kathrin, Silva, Masumi and I will be baking cookies, and I sent off the last of my Christmas mail today.

The fact that I had ice cream at the harbour today probably doesn’t help the mood, but I’m enjoying it all in a ‘wow, that’s different!’ kind of way. I’m supposed to write my second assignment (and I will, just as soon as I finish this post here), but I couldn’t resist the sunshine (also, I had cards to post) and went to the bay, where there’s a political thingie/concert going on. Loads of hippies, punks and other alternative types as well as families with kids, all enjoying the sunshine and the music – was fun, and I sat there for a while, reading and drinking a fruit slushie. However, my conscience is too well-developed, and so, after queuing for gelati from kaffeeeis, I’m back here in the shade of my room (as much as I like it, I don’t really get any sun in here, only wind).