Our arrival in Hamilton...aka Kirikiriroa!

Since our first week in Auckland we have moved on to our new home town of Hamilton (the Maori name is Kirikiriroa, which of course, I think is the best name ever!). It's about 1.5 hours south of Auckland, and although not strictly a tourist destination, it's more central to many amazing parts of the north island and almost everyone passes through it fro Auckland to get anywhere.

 

 It is a nice city, with distinct communities that have their own little "main street" areas with shopping and restaurants. This way you get a small town feel in your own community, but there is a bigger "centre city" area with high rise buildings and big shopping districts with more the feel of bustling city life.

As you drive around, most intersections are governed by round-a-bouts and there are marked bike lanes on most roads. Many many people bike or walk to work, making healthier lifestyles, less traffic, and reduced pollution. The stars here are gorgeous and you can see the milky way every night! No one seems to feel the need to filter their drinking water. Most people grow a veggie garden in their back yard (all year long too!) and hang out their washing to dry. There are free big public gardens and parks scattered all throughout the city with spaces to think, read, exercise, and play. It's not weird to see people barefoot, even in stores.

 The city is surrounded by agricultural land stretching over rolling hills with scattered forest (i.e. "bush") on the peaks of hills. The Shire you say? That's correct, it was used as the movie set for such. Although right now it's a little crispy looking because of a bad drought.

Many things here are pretty much the same and straightforward:

Beer! We found a decent IPA! Although this isn't it, but warranted a photo due to awesome name and sperm-themed glass

People here have dogs and feed them this.

There are grocery stores. Mostly they have smaller carts.

 There are a few things that are different too:

You can buy fish and chips!!

There are giant statues of cicadas!

Eucalyptus trees! Which I think actually belong in Australia...

We have been staying with one of my Ph.D. committee members and his wife. Their names are Daniel and Kara and they are actually from the U.S. themselves, just moved to NZ about 1.5 years ago for Daniel to take a faculty position at the University of Waikato. He is one of my committee members. They are wonderful hosts and we are enjoying their beautiful home while we search for our own place to stay. They completely empathize with us in starting from scratch in a new country and we've found many more things in common besides that.

Kara and Daniel took us to a reggae concert, which was an awesome break from house-hunting, and gave us a peak into the culture here. The arts/music scene is pretty big. People are into peace and love and stuff.
Tough crowd but I guess we'll manage...

We've been driving about Hamilton quite a bit, looking for a home. This is helping us to get to know our way around, as well as meet every realtor and landlord in a 6km radius. There have been some decent options, so even though it's exhausting, we are optimistic.

Some places have pretty small bedrooms though. Actually, a lot of things are smaller here (i.e. roads, portions, shops).

A final highlight I will leave you with is a picture of my lovely self with my new student ID:

So happy to be a starving grad student again!