Well folks, after 7 months, back in the ol' US of A.
First things first, North Island trip:
Laing and I flew into Wellington on the night of the 1st and hit up our hostel with the YHA. We had 4 Americans as our dormmates...which was interesting....as they only talked to each other about how much money they had, yada yada yada. Aka stereotypical proof of why people hate Americans. Yeesh. Good thing I'm heading out like ambassadors. On the 2nd, we went to the Botanic Gardens which was quite pretty as it had rained that morning so it was all nice smelling and green. You have to take a cable car up past the college to the gardens so that was cool too. Afterwards, we took a bus to the Weta Caves - Peter Jackson's little tribute to movies he's made and this company who makes all the models. On the bus ride there, Laing sees a sign that says "Weta Caves ->" and says "Oh, this is our stop!!!" Thinking he knew what he was talking about, we hopped off. Come to find it was like a 10 minute walk (through rain) down the road. He just saw a roadsign pointing in it's direction. Needless to say, I was the bus navigator from then on. We got there and it was lame. Just a tiny little place full of little figures of characters - cool if you're a collector but boring for such a trip out there. We left the caves (which were NOT caves) and went to the Te Papa Museum which was pretty cool. Lots of information on the Maori culture, etc. We played some pool after that since we were pretty toured out at that point and then met up with our friend Tom from the F&B crew on the mountain.
After Wellington, we headed to Rotorua - the hotspot for geothermal activity. You could smell the sulphur about 30 minutes away! Yuck! First, Laing and I went Zorbing! You get into this giant hamster ball thing with water in it and get pushed down a hill. So much fun! Then we toured Wai-o-tapu, the "geothermal wonderland of New Zealand". It was quite pretty, lots of really colorful pools of hot water and mud. :) There's a geyser that erupts at 10:15am every day, so we went to see that as well. It was raining (again) and this older lady came up behind us and says, "Now I just can't let y'all stand in the rain without anything!" and shares her umbrella with us. Come to find out, she was from Houston, Texas and live semi-near my grandparents. Quite funny! The husband had an umbrella of the American flag, of course. Texans. :) After all the bus trips and plane rides, we were a little sore so we headed to the Polynesian Spa which is pools heated by geothermal activity. Quite nice and refreshing!
We then caught a bus up to Tauranga. Mind you, Tauranga's like an hour away from Rotorua, but we booked our tickets in a rush since this was a last minute trip so we find out that the bus goes to Hamilton first then Tauranga. So this hour trip would take like 4 hours. Sucks, but oh well. We're waiting for our transfer bus to get there and it never comes. 2.5 hours later (plus the 3 hours layover) it comes. Apparently it broke down on the way in so it was super late. LAME! So it was quite a long journey for pretty much no reason.
In Tauranga, we stayed at a sweet hostel and hung out most of the day walking about the place. Saw "Where the Wild Things Are" which...was lame. All lonely and depressed and poo. We borrowed the hostel's bikes and rode over the river to a small beachy town on the other side and went to fun shops there.
We headed up to Auckland last, toured the place, went to the zoo - saw a Kiwi (the bird)!!! and lots of fun critters. I also saw my first kangaroo, which i found very exciting (Laing just laughed at me) and my first emu, which are UGLY.
Conclusion of the trip: Canadians need to prove they're not American. Seriously. Every freaking Canadian puts their flag on their backpack and will say, "I'm not American! I'm Canadian, we're so much better." Don't get me wrong, I have many great Canadian friends, but really, that's just ridiculous. Rubbish on you, Canada!
Anyway, we got back to Queenstown, I met up with all my friends that were left and we had a lovely time. I'll miss everyone heaps! They made me feel quite loved before I left, I must say. :) Had a plane up to Auckland, then a 13 hour trip to San Franscisco, then one to Dulles. I only slept like 30 minutes on the flight, watched about 12.5 hours of movies and wasn't tired. Jackee, Bryce, Sophia and Veronika were waiting for me in the airport when I got to Dulles - with a bag of Doritoes for me, lol. We all headed over to Taylor's and hung out for awhile until everyone had to go home and do work. Yay friends! Anyway, so far I do miss New Zealand's pretty mountains everywhere and all that - especially the fact that it's the summer there! Sigh. Stupid cold. Heading back to VA Beach tomorrow afternoon with my dad. Woot! Yay for a fun trip to NZ. Next up: Australia!
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