New Zealand!

I just got back to Canberra a couple days ago from my final adventure of the semester. The latest adventure? New Zealand. New Zealand is by far the most gorgeous country I’ve ever seen in my life. It made me actually believe that all the scenery you see in movies exist. Haha We traveled around the South Island for a week, and it was absolutely amazing.

The Boatshed cafe where we
had lunch

A building destroyed by the earthquake

4 of my exchange friends and I flew into Christchurch on Wednesday, December 5. The group I went with was made up of me, Alex (Canada), Phil (Germany), Dan (States), and Joonas (Finland). We were in Christchurch for 2 nights. We arrived late, late Wednesday night, so we just checked into our hostel and went to bed. Thursday, me and Alex went and explored the city. In February of 2011, Christchurch had an extremely bad earthquake, and the city is still recovering. The CBD is still partly closed and we could see buildings that were still just rubble. I can’t imagine what it looked like considering it’s been almost 2 years and they are still rebuilding. That night, we met up with the guys for dinner and just hung out. 

Drive to Queenstown

The next day, we picked up our rental car to head to Queenstown. We first made a little side trip to Akaroa, which is located about an hour from Christchurch. There is supposed to be a beautiful lookout that overlooks Christchurch and the ocean, but it unfortunately was rainy and foggy, so you could hardly see 20 feet in front of you, much less see what we wanted to see. The rest of that day was filled with gorgeous scenery while driving to Queenstown. We passed New Zealand’s highest mountain, Mount Cook and other amazing scenery like lakes formed from glacier water, making the color of the lakes indescribable.  

Queenstown sunset

We stayed in Queenstown for 3 nights/2 days. The first day we were there, we decided to to do a boat cruise around the lake, which was a great choice. Queenstown is beautiful! We also went up what is called the Skyline, which is up on a huge hill/cliff and overlooks Queenstown and the lake. Up there, there was something called the Louge, which is like a go-cart track that you go down. Except it’s not go-carts, they are just little carts with no engine but instead go because you are going downhill. That was so much fun! Queenstown is the extreme sport capital of the world, and I REALLY wanted to go paragliding or something, but it never happened. Little too pricy, but I still had a great time doing more chill things!

Up on the Skyline! 

Sunday, me and Alex drove 2 hours to Te Anau to visit the glow worm caves. We got a gorgeous boat ride across another lake before getting to the caves. The caves were full of little organisms that glow. The glow worms are actually larvae that turn into flies, but at that stage in their life, they glow when hungry. It was a pretty cool thing to see!

The group infront of Fox Glacier

On the glacier!

The next day, the whole group headed to Fox Glacier. This is by far my favorite thing I did in NZ, and is my second favorite thing I’ve done the past 5 months (my favorite thing was diving the Great Barrier Reef)! We did a tour that allowed you to actually walk on the ice. So. Much. Awesome. It’s so weird because the glacier is surrounded by a rainforest that isn’t that cold, yet on the actual glacier it is obviously cold since it’s a massive chunk of ice. They explained how it stays frozen, but I don’t understand Earth things (this is why my major is all about people!). Of course, the glacier is melting, but still...The fact that this huge thing is in the middle of a rainforest...So amazing. I wish I could find better words to explain this experience, but I can’t. It was so great and one of those things I think you just have to see and do yourself to understand the true beauty of it.

Hanmer Springs hot spring pools

The next day was a lot of driving. We drove up to Hanmer Springs, which has naturally occurring hot springs. We went to the hot springs pool and stayed for a few hours before heading back down to Christchurch. Instead of sleeping that night, everyone cancelled their hostel and we went to see the midnight premiere of The Hobbit in New Zealand! Our flight was Wednesday morning at 6:30AM, and the movie got out at 3AM, so there was no point in going to a hostel for like an hour. So, after the movie, we dropped of our rental car, and went to the airport and hung out there for 2 hours. And that concluded New Zealand!

Speeding ticket. No use being upset,
it happened and being able to say
my first speeding ticket is from NZ
is kind of funny.

While I loved New Zealand, I can’t say I think New Zealand liked me too much. There were so many things that just went wrong on this trip, but it all kind of makes for a good story. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about...We missed our bus to the Sydney airport and cut it pretty close to catching our flight, we had issues getting into the country because you are supposed to have proof that you plan to leave and none of us had our flight itinerary printed, I got my first ever speeding ticket, and other random things just went wrong. Like I said, it all makes a good story, but man...I did not feel the love from New Zealand! Regardless, it was such an amazing trip and so much fun!!

So, if you ever get a chance to visit NZ, GOOO! It’s the prettiest scenery I’ve ever seen and maybe ever will see. Kiwis are super nice (that’s what people from NZ are called). Their towns are just small and cute. Such a great trip, regardless of things going wrong. It all just helped me realize that things will all work out and be ok regardless of things not going as planned! That’s honestly one of the main things I have learned from studying abroad.

Our flight landed in Sydney early Wednesday morning, and I stayed in Sydney Wednesday night. Anna and Katie had gone to the North Island of NZ while we were on the South Island, and they came back to Sydney Wednesday afternoon. I didn’t want to tell them bye before NZ, so I decided to stay a tell them bye in Sydney. That day, me and Alex hung out, went shopping at Paddy’s Market, and just chilled before Alex headed back to Canberra. That night, I went to dinner with Katie and Anna and their Moms who came to Australia to visit. We had dinner on Darling Harbour, and then we went back to their hotel to do our tradition of playing Rummy. Man, how I’m going to miss playing Rummy with them and Mandy all the time! I stayed in the hostel I stayed in my first night in Australia back in August, and it just seemed right that Wake Up Hostel would be my first and and last hostel in Oz. Haha

Goodbye picture in China Town

Thursday, I met up with them again and we went to Paddy’s Market to do some shopping. We got lunch in China Town, then I had to catch my bus back to Canberra. We had a tearful goodbye in the middle of the China Town foodcourt. It’s so weird telling people bye and not being able to say “See you in a few months,” but instead just saying “See you sometime in life.” I’ll be seeing Anna on New Years Eve, but I don’t know when I’ll see Katie again, I just know it will happen! 

I’m still in disbelief that this experience is basically over. I go through stages where I am ready to come home, but I’m still mostly not ready to come home. It’ll be great to see family and friends, but I feel like I should just be at home for Christmas then come back to Canberra. It’s weird because so many of my friends have already left Canberra that it’s already not the same here. It’s weird to think that we’ll never all be together at the same time again. Even if I were ever to return to Canberra, the people won’t be the same and the people are what made my life here so great. Even my Ozzie friends will probably be somewhere besides Canberra. I know by now that life is constantly changing, so this change is nothing really new or unexpected. I just don’t particularly like it. I left my life I’d been living for the unknown. I made my life in this unknown place that I called home for 5 months. And now I’m leaving that life I made to return back to my other life...Except, my other life will change as well. It’s been 5 months since I’ve seen everyone. I’ve changed in that time. Things have happened with friends that have changed them the past 5 months. I’m going back to my old life, yet I expect things will be so different. Ok, enough with the deep life reflection section.

In other news, I will be the RA for the International Floor in the Apartments Residence Hall this Spring semester! I am SOO excited for this opportunity because I dreaded leaving all my friends from other countries. I enjoy getting to know about other lives and cultures in different countries, so now I can just learn things from residents! And hopefully they can also learn from me in return! Super stoked about this opportunity! 

Yesterday, final grades came out for the semester. Considering the small amount of effort I put into anything uni related, I did really good and better than expected! I got 3 Distinctions and 1 Credit, which is pretty good for Ozzie standards. I think Distinctions would be like an A- or B+ and a Credit maybe a B? That would be my guess. It’s hard to convert Aussie grades back to the American system because their grading is so different here!

Ok, well, while I could easily write more, I think this is long enough already. My next post very well may come from the States, which is CRAZY! Where did this semester go??