Wine Appreciation

For the past five weeks, I was enrolled in a wine appreciate course. New Zealand is full of many fine wines, so I took the opportunity to learn a bit about them. Oddly enough, my two favourite wines by the end of the class were European wines. Gewurztraminer, an Italian wine, is my favourite white wine, which is also made in New Zealand very nicely. Beaujolais, a French wine, is my favourite red wine. They are both pretty mild wines without any sharp bite or oaky flavour to them. There are a ton of other wines I did not get a chance to try, however I feel that I good a pretty good basic overview of wines. The course was run by Geoff Weston, the owner of the World's Most Southern Winery in the world. He is quite proud of this feat, but I suppose this may not be too difficult of a task if you live in the South Island of New Zealand. Geoff was an excellent teacher though - very full of life and passion for wine. If you ever get the chance to to take a wine class, I definitely suggest it. Below are pictures I took at Geoff's winery. We went to his winery for the last class and had an official tasting. His winery is in his own backyard. It is a beautiful property. He seems very happy doing what he does. I would be so happy to have a life similar to his when I am older. If you want to order his wine, go to this link.

I am looking forward to the next two weeks. It's Easter break here at the University. I will be travelling all around the South Island and even fly into the capital, Wellington, for a few days. Some of the activities on the unofficial intinerary are white water rafting, glacier walking, swimming with dolphins and tramping. I cannot wait! I will update my blog with tons of pics and stories when I get back. If you want to contact me, e-mail me. I will check my e-mails at internet cafes on the road. I will offically be back in Dunedin on April 27th.

Wine Appreciation

Jenn, Des and Carleigh

Wine "swirling" to get a whiff of the bouquet

Geoff pouring us some champagne

Geoff proud of his world record title of "most southern winery"

Jenn and I being wine snobs

Black and White Birthday Bash

Me and the flatties
Our Beautiful hall decorations
Our message board (Pre-Bash)

Decorations and Sound System (Pre-Bash)

Birthday Girl Claudia and I

Flatmate Jenn and I making sure dance floor is in check

Dance floor getting a bit more crowded...

Now the party has started

My pal Kalinka (uber cool Kiwi)

My RA Vania from SwedenMy Canadian friend Nick pretending he is an Anne Geddes model

Thiago showing off his new winter coat

Laurie and Kim figure skating

This week was Rua's (our flat name) massive birthday bash. The guests of honour included Thiago, Sam, Claudia, Hendrix and myself. Our birthdays are all generally around the same time, so we decided to make it easy for people and throw one large party. This week was a busy one. The party was on Saturday evening and the theme was Black and White (if you haven't already figured it out). We had loud music, decorations and food. It was an event not to be missed. The following morning, the flatmates and I had a nice big clean-up session. It was all worth it though.

This past week was a very entertaining one. Toroa House planned a skating night for all residents. Obviously my fellow Canadians and I jumped to the opportunity to show off our skills on ice. It was really interesting to find out that many of the residents had never skated before. Most of the first timers came from very warm climates where ice skating was not a big sport. Despite the blisters acquired the following day, skating was a lot of fun.

In my last post, I forgot to mention something I took part in for the first time last week: SURFING! What an incredible sport. The water is super cold now but the waves are massive here in Dunedin (which I'm not too sure is a good thing for first time surfers). I got suited up in a wet suit, got myself a board and faced the waves. I had such a great experience, but of course I could not avoid injury. Occasionally, multiple waves will come at you and you have to be prepared for them, however I guess I was not quite strong enough. My board flew out from under my body and hit me in the mouth and cracked my tooth. It did not hurt at all, however it was obvious that I had a much thinner and shorter tooth, so the following day I went to the dentist and I was in and out in 20 minutes. My tooth actually looks better than before. On top of it all, it was covered by accidental insurance, so I didn't pay a dime (Kiwis don't have pennies in their currency). This insurance is offered to anyone who ever gets hurt in New Zealand through accidents of any kind. You are automatically enrolled and don't have to pay for it. I think New Zealand has this because they have so many extreme sports here, which often leads to injury. All in all, surfing was pretty awesome and I intend to go back!

Julia and the Chocolate Factory

Me and thousands of Crunchie bars

The biggest candy bars I have ever seen in my life .

Shopping for dinner

Road to the peninsula

Sights on the Otago peninsulaAt the Albatross Colony

Royal Albatross flying above

This week, I got the opportunity to take a tour through Dunedin's own Cadbury chocolate factory. While the tour isn't as grandioso as Willy Wonka's, I got free chocolate and some good pics (see above). We weren't allowed to take pics on the actual tour though. New Zealand has some chocolates that Canada does not have. For example, they have these candy-coated chocolates called Jaffas. The candy coat is an orange flavour. They look like small Gobstoppers. They are delicious. They also have a ton of different flavours when it comes to their bars. Everything from turkish delight to triple chocolate to whipped delight. Kiwis also love marshmallow as filling for a chocolate bar. I'm not such a fan of the stuff.

After the tour, we went to the Otago Peninsula to check out the Royal Albatross. These birds are quite famous in New Zealand. In fact, the name of my hall is Toroa which means Albatross in Maori. These birds essentially look like giant seagulls. But they act a whole lot more elegant and classy than the annoying birds that we know in Canada.

Overall, it was a good week once again. I will be having my flat birthday party this upcoming weekend. I know my birthday isn't for another month, but 2 of my flatmates birthdays are this week, so I wanted to have my birthday with them.