Arrival and first two weeks

After being here for almost two weeks things are starting to settle down. The people are very nice and accommodating. Overall, it doesn’t feel that much different than home. I arrived in Wellington on Tuesday the 16th and stayed there until Friday. Wednesday and Thursday in Wellington were utilized as a pretty low-key orientation. We stayed at the Kingsgate Hotel and had our rooms and meals there covered by the Royal Society of New Zealand (RSNZ). Wednesday morning we went to a constituent of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research (NIWA) at Mahanga Bay. They discussed what sort of research that NIWA does (very similar to NOAA back home but also has an oceanographic aspect). The station that we were at was just a few small buildings originally built for the NZ Navy but was later transformed into a NIWA research center specializing in aquaculture. There were several tanks and tubs set up for fish and many for mussels and abalone. I gathered that there’s been a big push towards expanding aquaculture here for profit. This brings me to an interesting point about the way the government research organizations are run here. Basically, groups like NIWA do receive government subsidies but are overall run as businesses for profit. Domestic companies and also foreign ventures can hire them out as independent contractors. The Science New Zealand website has lots of information on this if you’re interested and willing to dig around.

Later that day, we had lunch at the RSNZ’s headquarters and one of their employees, a Maori descendent, give us a brief talk on the Maori and the unique relationship they have as a colonized indigenous people within NZ. Specifically, this relationship is built on the Treaty of Waitangi. He stated that he was involved in teaching Maori language classes in his spare time and that the preservation of the Maori language was the most important cultural aspect to pass on. Interestingly enough, the Maori language became recognized as one of the official languages of NZ in 1987, the official language remains English; however the majority of signs have English and the latinized Maori text. He concluded by stating that he believed that the Maori were lucky enough to have the foresight to see that they had to work with the European settlers to survive. Judging from the integration and assimilation of the Maori culture into the European culture, I would have to say I agree.
Next, we went to the Te Papa museum (the Museum of NZ). We had the chief geologist/curator for several of the exhibits as a guide. He mostly discussed NZ’s geological past and illustrated where geological phenomenon like fault lines, active volcanoes, and extinct volcanoes were in one of the rooms which had a giant satellite map of the country on the floor. The museum was really well done, check out the link for more information.
Thursday morning we visited the MacDiarmid Institute at Victoria University. The Institute as a whole is a conglomeration of researchers throughout the country specializing in nanotechnology. We toured some laboratories there and got to see some awesome equipment (scanning electron microscopes, a transmission electron microscope, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopes, and some Raman lasers). After this, we met up with some members of the RSNZ and gave a brief overview of what we study and mingled with them for awhile. The last organized trip we had was to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. This is a large, fenced in area to allow the proliferation of native birds that were decimated by the introduction of foreign mammals. The fence runs the length of the boundary and is 1.8 meters high (the way it looked and ran up the mountain reminded me of Jurassic Park). The guide explained that before they built the fence they tested the capabilities of all wild mammals to get over/through the fence. It’s a mesh pattern of metal rods approximately the diameter of a pencil with a top that curves towards the fence exterior. He stated that after extensive trapping there is now no mammals within the sanctuary besides a few mice that squeeze under as babies. It’s not a zoo in the fact that the (flight-capable) birds are free to leave, but they do have food and water available to entice them to stay. We walked around the sanctuary for about two hours and saw some native birds and plants.

I've settled in Dunedin now and have been working in the lab during the day (at the University of Otago). I'm staying at the Lovelock House here. It's like a boarding house, where everyone has their own room but bathrooms and the kitchen are shared. The tenets are pretty much all international graduate students, so that makes it interesting. The picture on the right is taken from Dundas St. which is one of the main streets of student flats that runs past where I stay (the first road to the left takes you to the university which is about 200 yards away). The picture below is the university clocktower in the middle of campus.

The lab here is bigger than the lab back home (both in personnel and physical size). This is partly due to the fact that the whole lab is a combination of two professors' groups. Although there are minor differences in protocols from lab to lab, there are some things that are done entirely different here than the US. The most obvious is the paranoia over genetically modified seeds getting out of the building. There is a separate room from the lab for working with mutant/GM seeds and plants, and a separate room for wild-type seeds. In both of these rooms you must wear a lab coat that is not removed from there and booties for your shoes. You must also walk over this sticky mat when you leave to remove anything that may have gotten trapped on the bottom of your shoe.
The university culture here reminds me a lot of WVU. It's like Morgantown except with rugby and accents, but primarily because the student apartments around here are known for being rundown, damp, and cold (Sunnyside anyone?). This picture should illustrate that point and it also made me wonder if indeed I had left Morgantown.
Culturally, there are several things that are different, such as:

• There is no tipping for services (I really like this and the reasons behind it are that wages are higher and it’s seen as patronizing).

• All monetary transactions are rounded to the nearest ten cents; there are no nickels and pennies.

• The houses are not as well, if at all, insulated. A few of us went out with the Royal Society assistant and asked her about this and she said that she wasn’t sure exactly, but it never caught on and that it also has a bit of a machismo factor. They’re tough enough that it’s not needed.

• When you go out for drinks, everyone takes turns buying rounds for everyone instead of everyone buying their own each time.

• Tea breaks occur approximately 10:30am and 4pm everyday. Most people go to the tea room (the reading room at work) and has a break for anywhere from 20 minutes to almost an hour. This is a pretty sweet little custom and I may have to implement it into my schedule when I get back.
  

These were the most obvious, and I’ll continue to update the list as I discover others.

I've been meaning to get this post up for awhile now. However, since I only have internet access at the lab and was on a guest building card I was limited to when I could access it. Now that I have a student card and around the clock access I will be adding another post within a day or two. I'll also post some more pictures of the university, Dunedin, and the Dunedin Botanical Gardens.

A look down George St. towards the Octagon on a rainy Sunday

The Gore Pl. entrance to the Dunedin Botanic Garden