Half the time, double the fun

Wow, I am almost halfway my internship period. And it has been such a busy time at work, building measurement rigs and gathering data. And there is even more work to come.

In response to some earlier comments: I have not yet gotten a car yet but I do not plan te paint it. I do however have some fitting blue-orange stickers with me that will fit the car well.

Meeting my relative Mirjam (she is the daughter of my grandmothers cousin) was very nice. She is a lovely person and we had a very nice talk over coffee. I will probably be meeting some other familymembers of hers later on.

Early thursdaymorning I got a message from my friend from university in Eindhoven. They were having a birthday party for Wallie and they invited me to have a skype conversation. It was very nice to hear all those voices agian and being able to congratulate the birthday boy ofcourse.

Since I am a real steak-lover I have been very happy with new zealand meat prices. Opposite from the Netherlands steak is one of the cheapest meats and chicken is one of the most expensive ones. So it was only natural that even though I have been eating steak regularly, the idea of having a marinated steak competition originated during a BBQ. It ended up being a great idea with great marinades. And although I'm not a great chef my steak in ketchup and steak on acid weren't too bad. The competition was really good so my steak didn't win. I think I'm one of the winners anyway because I had a really good time eating all that steak.

Because of labour day we had monday off so we went for a long weekend trip to Dunedin in the south of NZ. After a nice busride along the coastal area Arne, Sonja, Michael and me arrived at Dunedin railway station which is apparently the 2nd most photographed building in the southern hemisphere (after the oparehouse in Sydney). Yes, I took pictures as well;p. We went for a long walk around the city to visit the city centre, the museum (which is very nice), the Otage university campus, the botanical gardens (where we found that there is aviary hidden with some awesome birds on the top of the hill), and Baldwin street, the worlds steepest street. Ofcourse we had to have a race to the top. Unfortunately my stamina let me down and I think I almost died halfway up. But after a nice rest at the top we went back to the hostel to have some delicious home-made hamburgers.
On Sunday we went to the Cadbury chocolate factory for a tasting and we got to see the huge chocolate waterfall. After a visit to the art gallery, we met up with some friends of Sonja's. Together we drove onto the peninsula and to the beach. There were a lot of lazy sealions on the beach and you could just walk between them. A great experience.
After trying to see albatross (no succes) we got back to the beach to wait for the arrival of the penguins. Unfortunately, after waiting for 3 hours in a spotting cabin we had only seen 1 lazy penguin that wasn't doing anything. After walking back we found out that the sneaky bastards had gotten onto the rocks on the other side of the beach, so we had missed them. It was a very nice day though finishing it with a McDonalds lambburger. Monday there was only the bustrip back home.

Last weekend was very good as well. On saterday we went to Willowbank wildlife reserve where I finally got to see a reallife Kiwi bird. It was in a room where it is dark during the day, since the birds are creatures of the night, so I dont have any good pictures so you'll have to take my word for it. Also the spit-fighting lama's gave us a good laugh.
After coming back home I heard from my flatmate that there was a big rugbygame on in Christchurch that night. Canterbury vs Auckland for the ITM Cup final. Sitting right behind the try-line we watched from up closed the lead that Canterbury took in the first half. In the second half we even joined up with the guy behind us who was shouting Can-ter-bry every 2 minutes. I caught an inflatable hammer that the mascot was trowing into the crowd and Canterbury won the game so it was a good day!

The marinated steak competition set in motion a competition streak. Jessica came up with a baking competition. So this sunday I ate more cake in one day than I have ever had, and it felt good:) But no more cake in a while.

Yesterday was halloween, unfortunately I do not have a costume yet, but there will be a party at our flat next week. But that didn't stop us from having a party anyway, because Jan and Michael had their birthday, so we had to celebrate. There was even a mummy.

Next weekend a big trip to Mt Cook/Aoraki, the tallest mountain in NZ, is coming up. So that should be nice since there is a big group of people coming.

Being almost halfway my internship makes me realise I want to do so much stuff more and there is so little time. I gues I'll just have te have fun while it lasts.

Apparently I am not good at small updates, but I hope you enjoy the stories!