Heading home!!!!!!

I'm hanging out with my friend Njeri tonight, and then Bruno is going to drive me to the airport early tomorrow morning. Wish me luck and safe flights!!

New Zealand has been absolutely amazing- I'm so glad I chose to study abroad. I just can't wait to be home and see everyone!

Only four flights to go!

So excited to head home finally!!!

Finally some good news!!!!

I'm leaving Auckland Thursday morning at 9 am! I'll be flying to Sydney, then Los Angeles, then Washington, D.C., then Connecticut! I'll be landing in Connecticut really really tired at about 11:15 on Thursday night. I said bye to two more of my friends today, and more of them leave tomorrow. I'm SO ready to be home, just have to make it through the longest day of travel in my life!

Wish me luck, one more day in Auckland, then I'm out of here! =)

Goodbyes

Still not sure when I'll be flying out of New Zealand. I don't think my mom and Sharon are coming here, so I'm pretty much just hanging out until I hear.

I'm having a hard time saying bye to my New Zealand and Australian friends, the ones I might never get to see again. I'm excited to get to see the ones that live in the U.S. again. Studying abroad makes no sense at all- you make these great friends that you have so much in common with only to have to say goodbye. I'm so glad to have made the friends I did, so this post is dedicated to them. I've included some of my favorite pictures of me and my friends.

bad news.

So, forget about the best road trip ever.

My mom and Sharon are currently in California, because their flights to New Zealand got cancelled due to the stupid ash cloud from the volcano in Chile. The earliest they would be able to fly here is Tuesday, so that shortens the trip quite a bit, and then we might all be stuck here when we're trying to fly home. That being said, I might just fly to California and meet them there. Now that I won't be traveling around New Zealand any more, and all of my friends are heading home, I'm SO ready to be home as well, or at least in California. I'm currently pretty disappointed, but that's life. As long as we all get home safely, we can always come back to New Zealand in the future.

Other than that, I had really amazing dinner last night with five of my best friends here- Jo, Njeri, Flora, Olly, and Bruno. Anisha was sick so she didn't come. We went to a pretty fancy italian restaurant, where I got prawn cutlets (essentially just New Zealand shrimp) with broccoli over penne pasta with tomato cream sauce. After that, we went out dancing and enjoyed our last night out despite the rain. So, now I'm just sorta hanging out until I hear about a flight.

I've also included some pictures of what my room looked like before I packed it all up.

Best road trip ever!

Last night I went to the Mexican Cafe with Flora- it's a mexican restaurant by day and a salsa dancing-type place at night. They had a spanish DJ, and it was AWESOME! It's the kind of place where there's tons of people that know how to do the dances and the twirls, and all the guys just randomly dance with all the girls. I haven't had that much fun at a bar probably ever!! Plus I've been told I'm quite the salsa dancer! I can just fake it really well.

Tonight we're all going out to our last dinner, Njeri made a slideshow of the semester, and then we're going to town.

Tomorrow morning at 8:10 (my time), my mom and Sharon will be here!!

This is what we ended up planning:
• Sunday the 26
o Mom and Sharon arrive 8:10 am, meet at airport, rent a car, start driving north
o drive up to Whangarei (3.5 hours)
o Sleep at a beach house (called a bach)
o dinner at either Schnappa Rock or Marina Pizzaria
• Monday the 27
o Go diving/snorkeling/kayaking with Dive! Tutukaka http://diving.co.nz/
• Tuesday the 28
o Wake up, drive back (3 hours)
o Drop off stuff in Chelsea’s room
o Lunch somewhere (with Flora and Jo)
o jet boating http://www.aucklandjetboattours.co.nz/
o Dinner at the sky tower http://www.skycityauckland.co.nz/Restaurants/Orbit.html or just visit: http://www.skycityauckland.co.nz/Attractions/Skytower.html
o Sleep by Auckland
• Wednesday the 29
o Drop off car by airport
o Flights to Nelson departs 11:00 am
o Wine tour?
• Thursday the 30
o Nelson zipline http://www.happyvalleyadventures.co.nz/
o Rent a car, drive to Punakaiki (3 ¼ hours)
o view pancake rocks in Punakaiki (http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-visit/west-coast/buller-area/punakaiki-pancake-rocks-and-blowholes/ )
o Drive to Greymouth (half an hour)
• Friday the 1
o Drive to glacier (2.5 hours)
o Heli-hike the glacier in the afternoon
o sleep at glacier
• Saturday the 2
o Horse trek by the glacier
o Drive back to Nelson (6 hours)
o Sleep in Nelson
• Sunday the 3
o Flight to Auckland leaves at 7:40 am
o Rent a car; pick up stuff from Chelsea’s room, laundry!
o drive to Waitomo (3 hours)
• Monday the 4
o Morning caving
o drive to Rotorua (2 hrs)
o thermal pools http://www.waiotapu.co.nz/ or
o hangi dinner, maori cultural performance
o sleep in rotorua (all of these places have thermal pools right at the hotels! http://www.waiotapu.co.nz/)
• Tuesday the 5
o Drive to the Coromandel
o Kayaking http://www.seakayaktours.co.nz/sea_kayak_tours.html
o Hot Water Beach (low tide 4:21pm) http://www.mercurybay.co.nz/activities/hotwaterbeach.php
o Drive back to Auckland (or sleep somewhere between Auckland and the Coromandel)
• Wednesday the 6
o Return car to airport
o Fly home! (return home the same day, too!)

Friday

not going to post too much right now.

I've started packing, said bye to my friend Kaitlyn today, and got a whole bunch of errands done. Packing is probably one of my least favorite things to do, ever.

Tomorrow I'll put up my itinerary for when my mom and Sharon get here!!

Tomorrow will be a long day of finishing packing and going to a goodbye dinner with all my friends.

Quad biking!

Today was a pretty good day!

I had lunch with my friend Marc, whose headed back to Germany on Saturday after his last exam. He had plans to go to Fiji, but one of his good friends passed away while tech diving in a lake in Germany. His friend was a great scuba diver, and taught technical diving classes, so no one really knows what happened, but his gear is going to get checked to see if there was a problem with it. Diving accidents really scare me and serve as a reality check that this wonderful hobby is actually really dangerous.

This afternoon, Jo and I went quad biking (4 wheeling) in a forest 35 minutes northwest of Auckland. We saw a rainbow on the way, and I took a picture, and the tour guide (who was probably in his fifties) said that I was the first person he'd ever seen take a picture of a rainbow. Since it rains here usually once an afternoon for a little while, rainbows are pretty common. The quad biking people picked us up in front of our building, and we got a free 1 hour Trail Blazer Safari. They do up to 3 hour tours, where they can bring you all the way to Muriwai Beach, which is where I went with my Coastal and Marine Geography class. We only did the hour long, so we went up to an outlook where you can see tons of beautiful forest and then the beach in the distance (look for it in the picture with the sun). It was so nice to get out of Auckland- makes me unbelievably excited to do some more traveling before I come home. Riding quads was so much fun- the trails ranged from huge puddles (they supplied rain gear, helmets, goggles, and gum boots) to gravel roads that are used for logging, to really narrow roads that curve between trees and over stumps in the dense forest.

Tomorrow, I start packing up my room.

Done with classes!

So today I finished my last exam for this semester. Marine Ecology- seeing as I love watching ocean documentaries for fun, I'm pretty sure I did well. I cannot believe I'm done with classes. Now, I get a couple of more weeks of vacation, and then I'll be home! Regret for the semester- not paying more attention in class, although it's much harder to learn classes this way (all of my friends would tell you that). A lot of professors won't assign readings or even a book to go with the course, so that means either you soak it all up in lecture (which will be really boring because they ALL use powerpoint) or you don't learn any of it. I'd prefer a class where the teacher assigns readings, actually has more than one test the entire semester, and tries to engage us in learning. Also, we had so many guest lecturers for my classes that as soon as you get used to the way one professor teaches, you get a new professor. Sometimes they only teach one class and then it changes again.

On the bright side, I'm pretty sure I passed all my classes. Seeing as I have honestly no idea how I did in my classes, that's all I can hope for until I get my grades back. I already got my philosophy grade back, and if the professor doesn't curve the test, I already did better than I expected.

Tomorrow will be a good day, as I'll be going to lunch with my german friend Marc, and then Jo and I will be going quad biking finally!! Hopefully I'll have some awesome pictures for tomorrow.

Monday

Not much going on today- it rained all day so I pretty much just studied for my Marine Ecology exam on Wednesday. Time is flying by but at the same time dragging on. By that, I mean studying is going so slowly and I just can't seem to get enough time with my friends! The good news is that we're already planning road trips because two of them live in New Jersey and D.C.

Sunday evening

I didn’t end up going diving this weekend because the trip got cancelled due to bad weather. Then, we didn’t end up going to the beach today because the bus that goes to the beach never came, but it’s good that it didn’t come because it ended up pouring.

Despite all of my plans getting cancelled this weekend, I’ve had a blast with my friends. Friday night we pushed two beds into my room (notice the picture of the huge bed)

and we all hung out until about 3:30 in the morning, watching funny videos online and literally just hanging out. I sure am going to miss these girls! Then, last night, I went out with Flora where we met up with lots of different people and just had a great night out. We ended up going to some of our favorite bars (we especially like the classier ones) and the rain held off so we didn’t have to walk around in the rain.

Today, walking back from the bus stop, I took a picture with a street performer (the gold rugby-player guy). He stays absolutely still until you put money in his container, and then he strikes a new pose. Pretty cool if you ask me!
More people leave every day, but all of my close friends will be here until next weekend. We also booked the Quad Biking for Thursday afternoon, after my last exam on Wednesday.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad, Poppy & Uncle Steven!

(My Mom and Sharon (a close family friend that we see a lot at the boat- a lot of you might not know who I keep talking about!) will be here in less than a week! I’m SO excited!!)

Friday night

No post tonight- having a sleepover with the girls!

On a side note, Jo, my Australian friend, has never had onion rings. She was asking about them, "so they're actually just onions...?" I guess if you've never had them then they do sound kinda gross. However, I can't wait to have some when I get home! That and Kraft Mac and Cheese!!! (Mom take note!)

We're all realizing that we only have about a week together, so we're going to try to make the most of it! Just gotta get through one more exam.

a wonderful Thursday

Today was a great day! I had to say bye to my friend Hailey, who lives in California, and my friend Nick who lives here in New Zealand. Then, I went to brunch at a place called Shaky Isles with Njeri, Jo, and Flora. I got bruschetta which was grilled yummy bread with fresh avocado, tomato, coriander, crushed pepper and grilled halloumi (amazing delicious cheese). It was SO good, partly because all of the ingredients were so fresh and partly because it wasn’t usual International House food.

Then, we all went shopping for souvenirs for people. Jo and Njeri headed home, and Flora and I went on to Parnell (a really cute area of Auckland) where we did a bit more shopping and ended up walking back through the Auckland Domain. On the way, we saw tons of flowers, a bride and groom, random dolphin statues… It’s always fun walking through Parnell. We also saw a road with two trees with the road paved around them. Rather than cutting the trees down, the road people built the road around the trees, and it’s SO cool! New Zealand tries to stay as environmentally friendly as possible. (Notice also that the tree appears to have no leaves. There's these stubby sort of trees that I've seen in a couple of places around New Zealand. Not sure how they photosynthesize if they don't have leaves.)

Walking through the domain, we also took some cool pictures of the Sky Tower, because the sun was behind it in the sky. Also, it’s getting more and more noticeable that it’s fall (notice the changing leaf colors). We also found a bunch of geese in the domain. There’s so many birds there because everyone goes and feeds them.

It was SO nice to stop thinking about exams for a day!!
Also, my dive trip this weekend got cancelled because it’s going to be bad weather, and we can’t take the boat out in bad weather.