A friend from Northwestern and I outside of her Uni Flat before heading to Countdown.
Don’t go grocery shopping jet lagged. I found that out the hard way when I arrived in Dunedin, New Zealand, my study abroad destination, after a full twenty two hours of travel. I had very few expectations for New Zealand in general. I did not do much thinking about the fact that I was actually going to live there for the next five months. Instead of seeming like a part of me real life, it all seemed like a vague, dream-like idea.
Midway through the 14 hour long flight it hit me—I was going away for college for the first time. Being from Evanston and going to Northwestern, I’ve always been in a comfort zone. Even during the tumultuous time of figuring out freshman year, knowing the street names and where I was in the world helped me calm down. Now, I was going to have to create a temporary life for myself in an entirely new place surrounded by entirely new people.
My introspection was interrupted by the hours of travel ahead of me. After a domestic transfer in the U.S, a fourteen hour flight across the Pacific, a three hour flight from Auckland to Dunedin, and an hour long shuttle ride where the driver was going so quickly down the left side of the road I was almost positive I wouldn’t make it to the University of Otago, I stepped foot onto New Zealand ground.
The clocktower on the University of Otago’s central campus.
Logically, after a full day of travel the next step would be shower, unpack, and get situated. But being sleep deprived and hungry, grocery shopping seemed like the best option to me. I walked through the classic parts of University of Otago’s campus, like the little houses that students lived in as well as the parts that my friend described as “Scottish-grunge,” and ended up at a nearby grocery store called Countdown. Immediately, I felt comforted by the fact that Countdown looked like any grocery store in the midwestern United States.
Inside my mission was to buy one meal for myself: canned salmon, bread, dijon mustard, and mayonnaise. The first three items materialized in front of me, it was the fourth that gave me trouble. I found myself scouring the aisles that grew taller and longer in front of my tired eyes, trying to google whether or not Kiwis used mayonnaise. I wandered each aisle so many times I felt like I could recite the order in which items were placed on the shelves. Dazed and slightly confused, a trip that should have taken thirty minutes instead took two hours.
Me, walking down Great King Street on my way home from grocery shopping.
Long story short—they had mayonnaise. Although the trip to the grocery store was disorienting, it helped me ground myself in the fact that I was actually here. It was a small trip that made me feel more acquainted with Dunedin, and made me feel ready to take on this semester of new experiences.