Mt. Cargill and the Otago Peninsula

Last week went by pretty quickly. Thursday night was pretty sweet-as. I went with a bunch of people to the Robert Burns Pub for jazz night. After the jazz ended and we'd had a good many Monteith's Blacks, a great dark beer made here in New Zealand, we headed across the street and discovered the glory that is Velvet Burger.
On Friday afternoon Rob, Xander, and I climbed Mt. Cargill (about 680 meters high) and got a pretty sweet view of Dunedin and the highlands surrounding the city. It took us a little less than 3 hours round trip. Just as we were heading back down from the summit, a cloud passed through and we walked in it for a while. Friday night was pretty low-key; we hung around the flat. Then on Saturday I went with a huge group of international students for our re-scheduled trip out to the Otago peninsula. They had us in 3 charter busses and we rotated between 3 different sites out on the peninsula. My group first went down to a nice stretch of beach on the Pacific Ocean side of the peninsula. We were hoping to see some penguins or sea lions, but apparently none were out because it was very windy. Then we walked through a nice botanic garden with a bunch of different paths. After that they took us to a point near the very end of the peninsula that had a great view of the Otago harbor and Dunedin. There was also a museum up there with stuff about the wildlife that we didn't see. Our last stop was at a town hall type place where all of the busses converged and they had a big BBQ for us all. Once we were back on campus Rob, Xander, and I headed to the Cook (The Captain Cook Tavern) to watch the All Blacks game against Australia. New Zealand was triumphant 26-12. For the game they cooked up a sheep on a spit and gave out the meat for free to us patrons watching the game. Also I had two of the largest mugs of beer I've ever seen- these Super Stein glasses had to be at least 30oz, not that they use such measurements here. Good times.
Sunday was pretty chill except for that Rob and I had to take Xander to the emergency room because his uvala (the dangly thing in the back of the throat) had swollen up to extreme proportions. So he was at the hospital in observation for most of the afternoon. He's fine and is on some antibiotics now to deal with the problem. So that was interesting. I made balsamic marinated pork tenderloin and some roast potatoes for our Sunday dinner at the flat. That went well- my flatmates enjoyed it.
This week we start tutorials, which are basically small group sessions of our classes. Also, I actually bought a book for my history class. Its pretty interesting material and I have a good amount of free time during the weekdays here so I should get through it. That's pretty much it for now.