Fourth Week

This week was quite nice...except the bad new about the Earthquake in Christchurch - last September they had already one...and now again...curious was that they came from different epicenters!!! And, actually, the earthquakes don't usually heat Christchurch...except this last few months! Actually, it is expected to have one strong one in Wellington...anyway, Lisbon has similar problem and we people don't think much about it, right?

I made my first match by Wainuiomata A.F.C.. I must admit that I was not very succeeded...they play very hard here (not so much skilly way, like in Portugal)...and I am not really used to it...besides the fact that I have never played football (soccer - 11x11) officially, with 3 referees, off side and so on!!! It was raining during the whole match...fortunately I had brought my rain jacket (while I was out of the game)...then went in and played only the last half an hour...

On Thursday and Friday, I had this PhD orientation session in the University, in Wellington (spend the most of the rest of the week there).
The orientation session was very nice...they were giving us everything for free: advices from professors and veteran students, recommendations, food and drinks, possibility of knowing the other PhD students (from New Zealand, Taiwan, Mexico, Colombia, UK, Germany, France, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Iran, many from Malaysia...and some other countries!)...on Thursday, after the PhD chill out evening, me, Alex (very cool kiwi guy) and Johnny Antonio (very cool guy, from Colombia) went  to the open air cinema (for free) in the botanic garden...it was really great...and, guess which movie? Black cat, while cat...oh, it was sooo great to watch it once again! This is definitely one of my favourite movies! I ended up sleeping in Alex place...and was invited for his room mate (Johnatan) birthday party, a barbecue on Saturday evening!

On Saturday, I went to this mentioned birthday party...met some other people...I was even speaking in portuguese to some kiwi guy...because his partner is brazilian, and she was there as well - very nice couple! In the end, I lost my last night bus back to Wainuiomata, and ended up in sleeping in some hostels common living room! :P And only got home at about 9a.m. - long journey back home - this is one of the biggest disadvantages of not living in the city.

On Sunday, went to play one indoor match for the work team...we finally won a match...6-3...and I scored 4 times...good feeling to "poker" in an official match! ;) At the end of the day, Sudhir (a colleague team mate, who works in IRL - also PhD student - who gave me a ride to the match and back home) took me to some beach about 20 km from Wainuiomata, before leaving me at home...it was really nice of him!!! ;) He is from Fiji islands, but he is from indian origin! :)

Beach in the south of Wainuiomata