It has suddenly occurred to me that there are certain aspects of the day-to-day that are worth sharing, particularly to those of you who are planning to soon travel abroad. I will attempt to cover some of these topics in my post, but if y’all out there have any questions or requests, feel free to ask. No need to feel self-conscious; I can guarantee you that I’ve probably asked the same question or dealt with a related issue.

Now, onto more information regarding my living arrangements. I live in a five-person flat (two bathrooms, thank Mike). Fortunately, all of us are fairly laid-back individuals, so our experience has been generally very positive. Living with members of the opposite sex is not so much of an issue, except when we poke fun at Christa for the inordinate amount of hair she sheds all over the house, which we liken to living with a cat. But other than that, things proceed very smoothly.

Our schedules are all pretty similar, so we decided early on to take turns cooking. Each of us cooks dinner one night a week, with Friday and Saturday declared as FFY (fend for yourselves). This works great, because most nights of the week, you get to come home to the smells of a delicious dinner cooking. Or a dinner at any rate. Initially, I was worried about my lack of cooking experience, but I was able to procure a recipe book from my mom, and coupling that with sites like www.Meals.com and a healthy bit of innovation, preparing meals is actually fun, since we only have to do it once a week.

Cooking together also means shopping together, and usually on Sundays or Mondays, we write up a grocery list—everyone jotting down what they want—and then split the cost, which for us is around US$20-25 per person per week, which is excellent, since that includes food for breakfasts, lunches, the dinners (which are pretty fancy; Marco made chicken parmigiana a couple of weeks ago) plus a few snacks. Definitely cheaper than the meal plan back home.

Outside the kitchen, things get a little less clear-cut, particularly with regard to general household chores. Everyone does their own laundry, and cleaning is usually done by whomever has enough time to spare for it. There’s a general assumption that everyone’s adult enough to take on responsibility without being asked (though in not so many words), and if some flatmates clean more than others, it isn’t significant enough to merit argument.

Utility bills are most often paid by Hayley, since she is familiar enough with her bank account to work out the best way to do that, and we simply pay her back. We all use prepaid cards, so the phone bill is always inexpensive (perhaps US$6 per person per month, if that), and we try to conserve power by only using the dryer and our space heaters (no central heating/air conditioning in many homes in Dunedin, though that trend is not true for New Zealand) sparingly. We use clothes lines and drying racks instead, and since I iron my clothes anyway, it hasn’t made much of a difference.

And there you have it. I didn’t know how to do very much of this stuff before coming to New Zealand, but one catches on pretty quickly, and the upside is that now I’m not so intimidated by the thought of taking care of myself in the years after college. Piece of cake. Piece of crumb cake, even. Or ice cream….mmmm.

Ah, one last note before I go off in search of something containing sugar. My flat arrangements are certainly not the only way to do things. In most of the other flats that my friends live in, shopping and cooking is purely individual, which means that you can eat what you want, when you want, and you don’t have to pay for things that you won’t use, which occasionally happens to us at 10c, particularly when someone goes on a trip mid-week after paying for groceries. All in all, do what’s best for you and your roomies, but don’t let things like this dominate your abroad experience. And again, if you have any questions, or some part of this post doesn’t make sense, let me know!