The Cove - Ilam Apartments

We put on blazers and have scotch and cigars and stuff. We got suits from the second hand store, and it started off a tradition. It’s been a bit of a “central flat” for a lot of people to come and hang out at, because they’ll know something will be happening. It’s good that we all know each other and get along so well – if one of us has a party, we’re all having a party.

We were all mates from Nelson, and we all realised we were coming down to Christchurch together, and we didn’t want to do the full-on flatting thing first. Because we don’t all go to uni we couldn’t live in the regular halls of residence, but Ilam Apartments accepts other students from different places. It’s been pretty sweet – it’s a real nice place, and it’s a good place to meet people. There’s a good community aspect. They’re having pizza and beer in the common room for the game this weekend, which they do quite frequently. Meeting international students has been pretty cool; there are lots of different cultures here in one place. The Americans here brought in Beer Pong, and that’s become quite popular. They trash us at it.

We don’t have an oven, but we do have a toaster oven. We’ve cooked a whole roast chicken in there… though we’ve also set a chicken on fire in there. We had a dodgy spaghetti with Jägermeister, rum, and wine in Bolognese. It tasted like someone walked past and spilt their drink all over your food. Sometimes if you’re slack you go hungry a bit, since you have to organise your own meals, but it’s quite handy having five people that know each other to share groceries.

The deep fryer was another investment for the flat. We got it off 1-Day, so it was pretty cheap. We’ve tried out banana, egg, kiwifruit, doughnuts, chocolate bars, Easter eggs – the Easter eggs were good. Deep fried pies were the best. Microwave it, batter it up, then put it in the deep fryer. It can smell sometimes, and it’s probably not that healthy…

Next year we’re moving into flats. This was a good starting place; they’ve got a good flat vibe about them, but you don’t have to worry about all the different things like power and sorting out your Internet. But it’s quite independent, which is cool – living with your mates and getting away from home is pretty sweet.