Christchurch - Love it, mate!

Actually, my first post about my new home should have been a sarcastic look at the disadvantages of living in New Zealand, since everyone has a positive image of NZ anyway. But after four weeks in Christchurch, there is hardly anything bad to write about, so I'll end up listing the highlights so far, and there are quite a few...

1. University
After just one week at Uni you realise what kind of torture Highschool actually was:
- You can choose which courses you want to take, so my timetable is consisting of cool and interesting things with three Biology, three Geology and one Antarctic Studies paper.
- In classes of up to 400 people, no one cares when or whether at all you turn up and whether you pay attention or not.
- No one cares when or where or how you study, and no one punishes you like a five year old for not doing your homework.
- The lecturers are close to the theme and mostly into research, so they bring in lots of fascination and positive energy, rather than the Highschool teachers who are usually either freaks or underchallenged or both.
- Classes start at friendly times like 10am, so you can actually pick up something rather than sleep through the lessons or end as early as 9am, so that you can actually do something with your day.

2. Living on Campus
One thing Christchurch is not fussy about is space - there is enough for everyone everywhere. The Uni Campus is an own suburb with streets for different facilities, restaurants and shops, two huge sportfields, tenniscourts, a big recreation centre and six residence halls, in the most beautiful I'm living in along with 69 other students. It's peaceful and quite, yet just a 15 minutes walk away from the lecture rooms. We have a wonderful Japanese garden as well as a nice common room with pool table, table tennis and Sky TV.

3. My new Road Bike
Christchurch is the perfect city to ride a bike, since most streets have actually room for three cars on each lane. Therefore I bought myself a brand new Genius road bike at the second weekend and am loving it ever since. My favourite ride in the city is along the Avon river, where hardly any cars are driving and you can observe the ducks among rowers and the caracteristic willow trees. For longer rides, I go up the hills south of the city, which lift you up to an altitude of 400m above sea level and offer breathtaking views over the city, the Canterbury plains, Lyttelton harbour and the Banks Peninsula.

4. My new Tennis club
I joined the Burnside Park Tennis Club and it immediately became my second home in the city. With nine courts and hundreds of members, it offers me heaps of competitive hitting partners and I'm playing more or less every other day. After many years of hitting the ball for its own sake, I now can start working a little at my game again and might be competitive soon as well. Moreover, I get a chance to get into kids coaching there, which I regard as a dream job during Uni. And of course, like everywhere in the world, you easily make lots of friends.

5. Cricket
Hardly anyone is into this sport, but everyone who is into it knows, that they're missing out. I was really longing for it during my time back in Europe and still can't get enough, especially since I'm learning new things everytime I watch it. After a rainy tour of the West Indies in New Zealand, the Kiwis nearly crushed the mighty Australians and are now taking on red-hot India. I was at the first match of the series last Wednesday and saw a world record of Sixes in a comfortable win for New Zealand. What's more, I am occasionally playing a little as well.

All in all, life here is greater than the highest expectations, I just love it and am so excited about sticking around for a long time in beautiful Christchurch.