OUSA Christmas party, dancing and paua diving - in short, this weekend

Friday night was Laura and Vanessa's work Christmas party.  Todd and I drove down to the aquatic/rowing center on the bay to meet Laura and Vanessa.  We then all settled in for an evening of good food, wine and dancing.  Despite the fact that I knew few of the people who work at the Otago University Student Association (OUSA), I made a new best friend, Matt Tucker.  After the all the food, dancing, and secret santa gift giving was over, me and my new best friend Matt Tucker jumped into a cab with a couple other people and beat feet to the Octagon where the bars and dancing were.  We danced till the wee hours... so nice to be out and about in a new city! 

Saturday was a gorgeous day that I spent doing nothing except lazing in the sun.  Sunday, all signs pointed to the same day as Saturday, but my new best friend Matt Tucker Facebook stalked me to go Paua diving with him.  So, we drove out to Shag Point (Shag is a bird people...sheesh), grabbed goggles and screwdrivers and jumped into the relatively cold water.  I found it about on par with warm summer Maine ocean water so I was fine.  

Paua are shellfish that attach themselves to the sides of rocks and reefs and have a really pretty shell interior.  I was excited to go looking for them, but apparently my new best friend has only been paua diving once... so he wasn't quite sure where we were going either.  So, it turned into a lovely swim through the seaweed and the rocks on a beautiful summer day.  

this is the paua shell in Vanessa's bathroom - the only one i've seen so far...

At that point, we were quite close to the Moeraki boulders, so we decided to play the tourist and hit up all the touristy things in the area just north of Dunedin.  So, here are the boulders, pretty cool, eh?

me in a boulder - kinda felt like i was hatching

me and my new best friend matt tucker

After the boulders, we went to go see a seal colony.  The only seals I've seen here have been comatose and smelly.  This seal colony was actually a colony with probably 40 seals lounging on the rocks.  A couple were fighting each, kinda looked like a thumb war since they just used their heads.  Fortunately, the wind was SUPER strong, so we didn't smell the seals. 

the two in the middle are fighting - but they're still cute (from a distance)

After that, on our drive back to Dunedin, we pulled into the old Asylum complex that happens to be next to a cheese factory.  It's a huge area with all sorts of different, now abandoned buildings, and empty plots of land where there were buildings that got torn down and are now for sale.  I don't know about Kiwis, but I wouldn't want to live on lands of the crazy...

some more pretty around the seal colony