Life of an Exchange Student.

I have 6 classes a week. I have no classes on Tuesday, One on Wednesday at 3:30pm (which is just as well cause Tuesday is student night here and drinks are super cheap) and my "Class" on friday, involves trips into NYC to the United Nations. Shit is tough. My room-mate is a bit of a d-bag, for want of a better adjective, he is the lightest sleeper ever (he even one ups you Caithlin Jones) the sound of opening my drinkbottle in the middle of the night wakes him. So i'm moving out, just waiting on a room in another a hall to clear out so me and one of the aussies can move into it.
There isn't a lot to do in New Paltz, so people drink. A lot. Tuesday night was student night, so after "pre-match" (the american version of pre-drinking) we hit one of the local bars P & G's. The deal of the night, $2.50 for any kind of spirit + mixer. Uh Oh. And when I say spirit + mixer, it's not the shitty NZ bar tenders version of a pour, whereby they stop pouring before their magic pourer stops it exactly on 30ml, just to jip you out of 5mls worth of alchy, oh no, here they free pour. So essentially depending on how generously you tip, you can end up with a 50-50 of Vodka and Redbull. Recipe for disaster.
This was only made worse by my slightly inebreated self offering up a $5 tip to Jake the Bartender, who in exchange for my genorousity, shouted me, the british girl I was with at the bar and himself a shot of Jager. GC. However, my illustrious night out was cut short (at 4am) by some asshole who spiked my drink. One would assume it was instead intended for the British girl next to me, but apparently the 'frat pledgers' often have to do shit like that to prove themselves to the upperclassmen. Not an ideal way to end the night, was walked home (rather slowly) by two of the other exchangies (chur) and was probably the single scariest experience i've ever had on a night out (even scarier than the time I fought off two fire-breathing, racist dragons with my bare hands, true story).

But, back onto cheerier topics. I will describe for you my day today, and the three that are to follow. Today, my first class began at the leisurely hour of 10:30. I was done by 12 so went and sat in the dining hall for 3 hours will I slowly consumed my lunch. Then I had to return to class from 3-4:30. I then quickly returned to my dorm, chucked some shit in a bag, and jumped on a bus headed for NYC at 5pm, which is where I right to you from now. Upon arriving in the city, I will be greeted by Benny Bruno and Dad, we will have an exquisite and enormous steak somewhere, before heading to the Lincoln Centre for a Jazz Concert. The Lincoln Centre bar sits on the 30th floor, with floor to ceiling windows looking out over central park, it could be worse. Heading back out to uni tomorrow at 830am, but not because I have class, oh no, i'm going snowboarding for the day. Then I have a house party to attend tomorrow night (chore) and then on Saturday, I have to go snowboarding again, because on Saturday night i've been invited (along with another exchangie) to a huge party on the mountain, with legit DJ's and everything. FML. Sunday will either contain more snowboarding, or a rest. Then on Monday, i'll probably have to go to A Day to Remember, who are touring with Rise Against and are playing 20mins away from my Uni. But only because the techie one of the Brits met at the bar on Tuesday night, has offered us free entry and possible backstage passes.

This exchange business is truly dull, I hope you're well NZ.

Peace
x

State University of New York at New Paltz

I've arrived. My uni / college (trying to sound all american and shit) has the acronym SUNY, remember this as I really cbf writing out the full title all the time. It's pretty mint, i'm in a new hall which has its own gym and is pretty fly. I neglected to bring a duvet or pillows so have fashioned a quilt out of NZ flags and a pillow out of scarves and hoodies. Choice. I think I may have tipped my taxi driver 50 bucks by accident, fml. What kind of backward-ass country makes all its notes the same colour then makes you tip people in the dark!!!!! Rawr! Only international students here all week, haven't seen many and i'm the only person in my entire hall so it's pretty quiet! Have 3 aussie friends though which is nice! At least i'll have people to sit with at breakfast tomorrow (they were keen to be fashionably late too and rock up to breakfast 10min before it closes, my kind of people - breakfast is the most over-rated meal, and that's how Andrew sees it.) A meal that is not over-rated however, is dinner. Unbeknown to me, they were not providing a meal tonight, so the 2 tiny slices of pizza I had while I registered was supposed to be it, having not eaten lunch, this causes some problems. Stoked to have the emergency chocolate in my bag, chur to Georgie Brown for putting that in there.

Empire State of Mind

Holy Shit I love this city. That pretty much sums it up, but in case that doesn't satisfy you yearnings for a lengthy blog post, I'll elaborate. We started off from Benny Bruno's flash apartment in Lower Manhattan (it looks out over the new World Trade Centre / Ground Zero, pretty cool) and did a little lower city tour, saw the Wall St Bull, what's left of the occupy protesters (now resembles occupy wellington, Lol,) went down to the touthern tip of the island and saw the Statue of Liberty at sunset, she is a saucy minx. Then we went to Ground Zero which was pretty harrowing, before grabbing a burger and a shake (pre dinner snack) and heading back to the apartment to thaw out.

Then we headed to the lower east side, aka hipster central, the cuba st of NY, to Ben's favourite mexican restaurant, there was an hour wait for a table, but Ben knew a waiter so that got changed to 10mins, ballin'. So we went to the bar next door for a beer and some oysters, it was practically good luck but cooler, it was here that I recorded my first triumphant victory over the ridiculous New York drinking age of 21. 1-0. We then moved back to the mexican restaurant where I scored my second victory over the drinking laws, via mohijto. 2-0. Amazing food, and then there was the company, obviously being with Dad and Ben was lovely, but then these two girls (from michigan originally, now NY) leant over and started talking to us, we were polite and courteous as per usual, then one (very drunk one) said "Sorry if we're interrupting your meal, but this is New York, You're Welcome" - thus confirming my hypothesis of the brash New Yorker.

Aprés dinner, we went for a stroll through Chinatown and Little Italy, to the Brooklyn bridge, which although cold, provided a stunning view of the city skyline. We then returned home for some chats and a quiet whisky, day 1 = success.

Day 2: Tourists

Today we did the whirlwind tour of NYC. We managed to squeeze in Times Square, a bagel breakfast, the Rockefeller viewing platform (360 views of the city from the 70th floor - sick) grand central, 5th avenue, Madison avenue, the Waldorf Astoria (v.flash hotel) Central Park, where we had a nice cold Stella Artois after a long march through the city, in a flash bar that looked out over the frozen lake of central park, very upper east side, very gossip girl, 3-0, We went to the natural history museum (big dinosaur bones) and a few trips on the subway for good measure! The city is amazing, I have no idea where the day went! We just went and went and went, like the Energizer battery, until we flopped down at dinner, had an all you can eat texas bbq (Jonny Anderson would LOVE this place, you pay for your meat by the pound, and salads are actually not available) and just generally had a jolly good time (and a few beers, 4-0).
I could, and probably will ramble on about NYC all day, but i'm pretty much exhausted, and am quite happy to say goodnight! I start *College* read: uni, out in New Paltz tomorrow with a week of orientation, it's about an hour and a half by bus from central manhattan to there! Apprehensive but excited!

Peace y'all.

Au Québec

Bonjour tout le monde!

I am currently situated on a train heading for Montreal having spent the last 3 night in the beautiful Quebec City! I have learnt a few things since leaving Vancouver. Here's a list: 1) I must stop selecting the french option when it is presented to me, my french is not that good, and I cannot handle airport check-ins and other complicated procedures in a foreign language. 2) It transpires that lower jeans, though straight gangster, are not sufficiently warm on their own for sub 20 temperatures and 3) If your bus is drifting in the snow and ice, the answer is to go faster, not slower. Who knew? Point 3 refers to our clinically insane bus driver who took us to and from the mont saint-anne ski field in Quebec (which was sick). We weaved amongst the traffic with a solid 5cm of fresh snow and ice crunching beneath our wheels, sans indicators or snow tyres, the bus jolted and shook as we plunged into 20cm deep wind drifts, the driver was not phased, meanwhile the rest of the passengers were defecating masonry.

My french lessons from Caithlin Jones (read: CJ filling out my grammar homework sheets for me in record time) at Weir House, were detrimental to say the least. I wish now that i'd done my own homework, then I would have (peut-étre) been able to tell our taxi driver more than "il y a plein des choses a faires à Nouvelle-Zelande, telles que faire du ski our pour une promenade" ('there are plenty of things to see and do in NZ, such as go skiing or for a walk' - for the non french-readers) Btw, our taxi driver was kind of famous, all the reporters from the papers were calling him to ask for a comment on the extradition of a fellow Rwandan refugee back to their homeland, heavy.

Québec was a beautiful old city, somewhat Narnia-esque when it was snowing, and i'm sad to be leaving it, however we must press on to Montreal now, where a flash hotel and ice hockey game awaits us, then tomorrow it's on to New York City! Empire state of mind will be on repeat from now until then.

Au Revoir mes amis!

P.s. Any typos are the direct result of our train hitting large piles of snow and jolting me, they are in no way related to the inadequacy of my typing technique, chur.

Au Revoir Whistler

Currently chilling at Vancouver airport waiting to board our flight to Quebec. The last few days have been pretty much action packed! I lost Luke's GoPro, I bought Luke a new GoPro, I tried chocolate & honey flavoured beer, made friends with some Vancouver locals in the spa at our resort, evidently there is a huge weed culture in Whistler, one of my new acquiantances was quoted as saying "I pretty much just smoke all the time, my mother had to tempt me out of her womb with a joint..." lololol. I had a chat with another local rider on the lift heading up to the blackcomb park, he informed me of how he had once hurt his neck learning tricks on the airbag, I asked if he'd been learning backflips, he replied, "nah, double corks, but I do them good now." - Next level shit.

Got up at 6am this morning for the "fresh tracks breakfast" which involves getting the Whistler Gondola up the hill at 730, having a mean cooked brekkie, then hitting the slopes/fresh pow for an hour before it opens to the public, was a crazy feeling standing on a mountain top watching the moon set and the sun rise simultaneously, pictures will ensue.

My final comment is on the American nuclear family. This particular family of three was getting into the spa, they were a real sight to behold. The white haired, distinguished and wealthy looking father had clearly fallen asleep in a sunbed for several years, and looked like an older, African-American version of Mitt Romney. Lolza. The wife, was a classic peroxide blonde haired, surgically enhanced botox and collagen injected barbie doll, and the son, a "built like a brick shithouse", All-American quarterback. Classic.

That's all for now, hope NZ is keeping it real.

Peace

Whistler Pics

Whistler

In the battle of face vs tree, tree always wins. I was shredding through some boot deep pow in the trees at Whistler today, saw a snow covered boulder on the right hand side of the run and thought "this looks like a nice place to drop a back 3." I was mistaken. Came around at 270 to see a branch looming at face height, luckily for me it was just a soft leafy branch without much substance, however, being closelined mid 3 definitely lost me a few steeze points.

The riding here is unreal, I have finally discovered how to turn in deep snow, I watched a dude double cork an 80ft jump (for the non-skiers reading this, it is a fucking outrageous trick), learnt how to air out of a half pipe (scary as shit) and just generally killed it. Riding Whistler makes your skill level increase every minute that you're on the hill, we are possibly cancelling our plan to ski in Quebec cause every Canadian we talk to about it says it's shit, and instead staying an extra night or two hear. Big storm supposedly coming through tonight and tomorrow then bluebird Tues/Wed! Stoked. Apologies to all the non skier-boarders reading this, you probs have no idea what i'm on about, but that's ok, your time will come.

Peace

Oh Canada!

Canada is fully sick. Got out (apparently this is pronounced oot - HIBS Students, think Willy Mac) of the airport and straight onto the sky train for a wee venture into Vancouver, heaps futuristic. Upon arriving I ate my first overseas meal, a burrito from Taco de something, instant regret. Round 1 goes to mexican food, but I'll be back. We then caught the bus out to Whistler (2.5hrs), in case any of you male readers find yourself in the same situation as me, the sign on the tiny toilet on the bus saying 'no urinating standing up' should under no circumstances be taken as a challenge. You have been warned.

Our accommodation in Whistler is unreal! Spa pools meet the snow's edge, our room has a bad ass fireplace next to two arm chairs which look out over the twinkling lights of Whistler, pretty legit spot for a cheeky post-riding whisky. Ventured out into the village (where it was lightly snowing) to purchase some new goggles, gloves, balaclava and a feast. I met Luke Brindle's (hopefully) future wife in the ski shop where I bought the gloves. She's a blonde haired, Pol Sci degree holding ski bum, I'd marry the shit out of her, but she's a skier, which is against my morals, so i'll fob her off to Luke. Went out for dinner with the old man after a hard evening's shopping, where upon we met some Aussies at the bar who shouted us some kind of delicious passionfruit vodka shots, chur.

First run's on the Gondola start at 830am (did I mention our lodge has it's own private Gondola?) and I couldn't be more excited!

Peace