A chill couple of weeks in NZ

Hey everyone,

Time for another update from En-Zed, although we have been pretty low-key these past few weeks and there's not much to say. I'm supposed to be reading The Odyssey, so naturally I'm finding other things to do. The weather this weekend has been miserable, cold and grey and depressing. Rachel is out tramping in the rain! She would be. She's become a tramping fiend. The rest of us staying at Ilam over the weekend are having fun though- we went to a rugby match on Friday night, and Canterbury absolutely massacred the other team. We got the cheapest seats, for $16, and sat wherever we wanted because the stadium wasn't full. It's not the same as football, but rugby helps cheer me up about missing Wake's football season. Last night Nora bought The Fellowship of the Ring: three hours of group bonding : ) Also, last Wednesday, Alex, Jas, Nora, PT and I went to hear some Beethoven piano/cello sonatas at the Arts Centre, which was awesome. We like to get our culture on.

So, last weekend was the adventure weekend, which I hear was a lot of fun. They rode four-wheelers for part of it and also went to Kaikoura and saw baby seals. (If you happen to talk to Rach, try to make her write her own post. I can't keep writing about all these events I didn't go on! I'm not that good!) Here's what I was doing last weekend: writing an eight-pg paper on the role of women in Nazi Germany. Enough said. Rachel and I have a paper on Ovid due for classics this week (Rach also has like three others due this week), which our grumpy American prof told us to start on a month ago, but being Wake students, we haven't looked at the assignment since she handed it out. I should probably find that. Writing it will be tricky seeing as how my Thinkpad bit the dust yesterday, and I may have to send it back to Wake for repairs. I love my life. Fortunately I have a ton of great friends here who are very generous with their computers. One more week of classes and we're out for a two-week spring break! Still not sure what we're doing for that. Knowing us, we'll decide next Saturday or so.

Thanks to everyone who has written us letters! Seriously, it makes our day, and we will write you back.

love, love, love-
Carie and Rachel