Submitted by Kyle Weinberg on the 2016 winter session program in New Zealand sponsored by the Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology…
We just had our “hell week” for our classes. Last Sunday, we were reminded once again that the first word in Study Abroad is indeed STUDY. Both of our classes seemed to save all our work for this week in particular and we didn’t do much except for study and create annotated bibliographies of health problems relevant to New Zealand and its citizens.
A lot of the material was pretty interesting, and lucky enough for us it rained most of the week so we probably would have stayed inside anyways. Some of the surprising things we learned is that every 1 in 3 New Zealanders are obese—you would never guess that from being here! Everyone looks so fit, but there is a larger obese population on the North Island and we have not been there yet so we haven’t really had anything to compare the city we’re staying in to. New Zealand also has the highest amount of melanoma in the world, but I have been lucky enough to not get burned at all yet! (Thanks, Mom, for all the sunscreen).
To top off the week, we had a 70 km bike ride on the Central Otago Rail Trail. It was so scenic and luckily, we split the ride into two days where we rode mostly down hill. Apparently in years past, the wind has been brutal so it seemed like we were spared this weekend.
Saturday night, after the first day of biking, we went to a local curling rink! It was fun, it really is a lot harder than pushing a stone across the ice. It weighs 20 kg which is about 44 pounds, and sliding on the ice is a lot more difficult than what it looks like on the Olympics. After a couple tries though, I’m sure we are ready for the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Tomorrow, we leave the University of Otago (where we’ve stayed for the past 3 weeks) and head to Wellington! I’m excited to see more of what New Zealand has to offer.