616 Castle Street, Dunedin, New Zealand

I spent the majority of my time in New Zealand at the University of Otago, New Zealand’s oldest university. Located along the southernmost coast of the South Island, the city of Dunedin is known for its secluded beaches, steep hills like those in San Francisco, and live music scene. Even in the summertime, lasting roughly from November to March, it was common to experience every season in a single day - the mornings were crisp and foggy, mid-day was typically marked by picturesque blue skies, and periods of rainfall settled in around late afternoon and evening time. When I first arrived in Dunedin in early February after my week-long orientation program, it was a hot summer day that left heat waves radiating off of the cracked sidewalk. The sound of pounding electronic music filled my ears before I turned onto my street. I tightened my grip on my backpack and duffle, desperately trying to swallow my first day of school jitters.

616 Castle Street. I repeated the address in my head until it drowned out the drunken shrills of returning Otago students. As I turned onto my new street, several lawns were littered with battered couches and piles of plastic cups. I looked up from the broken glass that lined the street only to find Otago students standing on the roofs of their spray-painted flats in themed party clothing. Each flat had a unique name that was marked on a hand-made sign on the front door. The word “Fridge” was painted in black bubble letters on a wooden plank spray-painted neon green outside of a stain-covered white stucco house. Other flats were unkempt Victorian-types that were similarly tainted with spray paint and beer stains. After the initial shock of being thrown in the midst of 20,000 new faces at a university on the opposite side of the world, I noticed an interesting distinction between the “kiwi” side of the street versus the “international” side. While the “kiwi” side was characterized by hand made signs, empty bottles, and run-down flats, the “international” side was pristine. The flats were surrounded by white-picket fencing, fresh flowers, and appeared to have a shiny new coat of paint. In contrast to the “Fridge” and the other “kiwi” flats, my home looked more like a condo in a retirement community than a college downtown house. I anxiously turned the key to enter my new home for the semester and although I was the first of my flatmates to arrive, I was immediately greeted by my host student who had decorated the interior of the flat with a large banner reading “Welcome to New Zealand!”. I couldn't have anticipated how much the next five months of overall dancing, mountain climbing, potluck-throwing, and campfire sitting would nourish my soul. .