We're baaaack!

Back home! Well, one of the places I call home out of 3. What a great trip we had together! No regrets. We saw the whole country, both Islands in 18 days. It started to get to the point where it was too long of a vacation though. No complaints, just so happy to be back on the daily grind! I've just made a May TO-DO list. I only have 3 weeks of school left, as of next week. How nuts! A month and a half. I have a few papers to knock out and a book to finish, I got this! I fly into BWI on June 18th at night whoever wants to be there to greet me with open arms and a warm welcoming home. That goes for you too, Lilly. Damn, I miss that dog! Welp, I have work to do. Just checking in with a few deets :) hasta luego!

New Zealand, Day 16

One last bus ride. Museli for breakfast, thanks to the continental services at the hostel. We’re off! We moved out of the nasty smelling town of Rotorua and traveled, slowly, to Auckland. It usually only takes 3 hours to get there from Rotorua, but we kept stopping in random towns for very long periods of time for not apparent reason really. We stopped at a town right along the coast, before Thames, for about an hour and a half. I grabbed a latte and walked down to chill on the beach. We laid there for a little bit then hopped back on the bus. An hour later, we stopped in Thames to waste some more time. We had lunch then left another hour and a half later. Nothing like bangin out the last bus ride in a timely manner. C’mon guy. And then he tells us, he’s “tired”. Great, well don’t fall asleep at the wheel or anything. It’d be nice to make it to Auckland in one piece please! We’re just about there, I think we’re about 50km away. Not too much longer! We’ll probably stop for another few hours just to sit around before we actually get into the city. Who knows. Well, sadly, that’s all for today! We’ll check into our hostel in just a bit, City Lodge, and chill around the city as our vacation comes to an end. We’ll leave Tuesday morning from New Zealand to go back to OZ! 

New Zealand, Day 15... Err, something. Better said as, a long ass vacation.

SLEEP! Yesss! What a great day today was, besides the gloomy weather and the ten year olds bouncing basketballs upstairs and right outside our door of our room starting at 6a.m. Jerks. Take your tournament to the courts, not above my head so early in the morning. Does anyone discipline their kids anymore these days?! My god. Right, so Karen and I walked to town today around 11 for lunch at a little cafe called Fat Dog 2 Go. I had a vegetarian salad and obviously I had to get my caffeine fix in for the day. After lunch we walked around a bit, poking around in a few shops and things. I love the clothes here, totally diggin it. We decided we really didn't have much to do, so we went and saw a movie. We saw Fast and Furious... 5. They didn't have too much out in the cinema. It was alright, but how many times can "The Rock" and Vin Diesel really drive amazingly good looking cars and explode things? We get it... Well, we got it after the first or second one. It had a lot of bad acting in it, but it was entertaining on such a dreary day. The movie finished and got out around 5:30ish. Neither of us were hungry yet and didn't really want to walk all the way back to our hostel just yet. We went to another movie. Haha, I haven't been to the movies in ages and went twice in a row today. I've never done that before, but we had nothing better to do! After the second movie, we had Italian. We walked back in the dark, got a little lost trekking through wet rugby fields, but made our way back eventually. It was a nice little day in town. Put some hours in at the cinema! It's bed time. Tomorrow is our LAST DAY on the bus. Thank god. I don't even want to know how many hours I've put in on that thing. It shouldn't be that long of a trip tomorrow, a few hours maybe. Back to OZ on chhhuuuuesday... as they say. Then home in a matter of weeks to see friends, family and my beloved Ryan.

New Zealand, Day 14

Geothermal mud pools!! Karen and I spent the morning//early afternoon at Hell's Gate mud pools and spa. We got picked up at 9a.m to head straight there. It was so cool there! Before we started our mud bath, we got to walk around the geothermal mud pools that weren't for swimming. There were a lot more pools than the day before, but they smelled just as awful. After we walked around a bit, Karen and I changed into our swim suits. Brrrr! It was freezing outside, I didn't want to be in a bikini. I needed to change quick and head straight for the hot bath! I stepped in first, we both shared a bath. They were outside. It was such a crazy experience. There was mud gooshing all in between my toes. I got in and lowered into the muddy water. Yuk, I was thinking. Apparently, it's really good for your skin because it opens up all your pours 100% and gets rid of all your toxins. They use all natural products and no chemicals so that was reassuring. After soaking in the mud for 30 minutes and rubbing it all over our bodies, we had to blast ourselves with ice cold water to ensure that our pores were sealed. The cold water does that for your skin. All I could think about was getting in the hot tub afterwards so I showered off as quickly as I could! We spent about 15 more minutes in the hot tub and got out to shower off in steaming hot water and got dressed. At the gift shop, I bought a special face scrub and lotion. Our bus driver and the woman at the shop said that the white mud they have is no where else to be found in the world and all the major makeup companies are trying to buy it. I found that pretty unique. Lets hope it works! It's been proven to really even out your skin and remove any blemishes and make your skin extremely soft. I'm looking forward to using it. I hung out for the rest of the day, skyped with Ry and took a little nap while Karen went to do more Lord of The Rings things. I'm glad I stayed behind! Haha. When she got back, we went for Indian. Big surprise there! I had a glass of wine at dinner... Not the same. Now I'm spoiled with great wines! We came back, excited about sleeping in  for once and mellowed out.

New Zealand, Day 13

I'm not an early riser. I don't like waking up early. Quit making me wake up at these obnoxious times, I need my beauty sleep! Riiiight, I'll sleep when I'm dead. This trip was made more no sleep, running high on life for 18 days straight. Whew, today we were up around 7 to head out of Wellington to Rotorua via Taupo. We had a haul ahead of us. We literally drove from the bottom of the Island to the very top. We didn't get into town until about 5p.m with only one or two stops the whole way.. Quite awful. We've both agreed that this trip has been draining and getting on and off the bus is wearing on us, but it's all character building right? Exposing ourselves to things we've never done before. I swear I've slept in more hostels than I would've ever dreamt about. Anyway. We made some, obviously beautiful, stops along the way. Before we got to Taupo we stopped at Huka Falls, which was a 20ft or so waterfall that we were told has an olympic swimming pool-size water load run through it every second. Mind boggling aye? That's a ton of water! It was so blue! Clearly, don't jump in is an obvious indicator, right? Apparently not. Some people jump in to try and survive the falls. No one has ever come back. How stupid can one honestly be?! After the falls, we drove all around Lake Taupo. Naturally beautiful. This lake is the biggest in New Zealand and Singapore could fit into it. Pretty interesting. By the time we hit Rotorua, we checked out some geothermal mud pools for a couple minutes. We were warned that Rotorua smells like rotten eggs... strange? It's because of all the sulfar that comes out of the mud pools. We got to experience that at the mud pools we stopped at. Yuk. The mud pools were really interesting. I've never seen anything like it before. They would splash like crazy, with a bare minimum of 400 degrees. We were also told not to stick our finger in it. Once again, you think that would be obvious, but no. A few weeks ago, some guy stuck his finger in it and it was only a matter of second until his skin shriveled down to the bone. He had to get it amputated. What brains he had! We hopped back on the bus for a few more minutes and winded down the mountain, right into the town of Rotorua. We arrived just in time for our Maori cultural dinner at 5. The Maori are New Zealand's native people and their cultural traditions are similar to those of Hawaii because their people came from the same place. A bus came and picked Karen and I up from our hostel around 5. We were labeled right off the bat as the "token Americans" because we were the only ones. Our driver was super sweet and funny. He had to have photographic memory because at the end of the night he remembered every single person's name on the bus. It was damn well impressive. I could never! On the way to their land where our cultural experience was held, our driver informed us of everything that was going to happen that night. The night started off with an opening ceremony of sorts, where the Maori dressed in their traditional clothing and imitated the birds and other animals that are in their culture. They use this as an imitation method and then peace was made to establish understanding between us and their people so we could enter their village to explore. They all had tattoos all over their body as a form of symbolization. Once inside the dark village, we walked around to different little huts where 1-2 people of the village would teach us more about their culture. After we finished in the forest, we went into a small theatre before we ate the dinner they cooked in a pit underground (we got to see them take it out and it smelled delicious). In the theatre, about 10 of the people from the forest came on stage and explained to us their music and some of their traditional songs. Words started coming out of their mouth... they all started to sing. I was blown away! I mean, really. They had some of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard. Even the huge guys! We then made our way into the restaurant area where we had a buffet style dinner. Our guide was playing the guitar softly in the background after he dismissed each table up to eat. How soothing he was. After we finished up with dinner, the closing ceremony reminded me of an childhood memory... Brought me right back to home. Everyone stood up, he started singing a very familiar song... "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray..." Everyone was holding hands, we all formed lines together and joined in. What a moment. All the waitors and waitresses came out to join in as well. By just being their, I could really feel how much they enjoyed each other's company. Everyone was so happy and welcoming. It was a nice, warm feeling. They're really down to earth people, so kind to anyone they come across. What a beautiful soul each and every one of them had. Their really are good people out there. I'm so grateful to have experienced another culture in such a way that I'll never forget.

Beginning of opening ceremony

Wine, wine and more wine! New Zealand, Day 12

Once again, we woke up and caught breakfast downstairs just before we checked out of the hotel. We had to catch a taxi to the train, which we had about an hour ride or so on. We were in route to Martinborough... The land of fine wines. We weren't quite sure where we had to get off and ended up missing our stop. A very kind man let us use his cell phone and it wasn't a problem contacting our guide to get picked up from there instead. Whooopsie. The area was gorgeous. There were fields and fields of green with sheep all over the place. There were vineyards after vineyards. I was in heaven. I wanted to visit every single one of them! Some were smaller than others, mostly all using different grapes with various techniques when picking. We arrived at our first vineyard of the day and started to taste test right away! It was only 10:30a.m! Haha. What a wake up call! We tried 4 white wines and 4 reds. We had sauvignon blanc, chardonnay,  pinot gris and a reisling for the whites. Then we had 2 pinot noirs aaaand... I don't remember what else, but they were delightful. The finest wines are made in the region. We went around to four different vineyards and sampled many, many kinds. We also had a free glass at lunch along with our cheeses and things! It was a really enjoyable, relaxing day. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned much more about wine than I knew before. What a complex process it is to make any sort of wine! Our guide taught us so much, I was really pleased with the whole winery tour. So much that I sent a whole case home to enjoy over the hot summer for Ryan and I to enjoy. We were then in route on the way back to Wellington after our long day of taste testing at least 20 different wines. Best day ever, so classy ;) Rotorua tomorrow. Trip is dwindling down...

New Zealand Day 11

I woke up around 9 today, enjoyed breakfast downstairs & waited downstairs for our guide to pick us up for the Lord of The Rings tour. He came around ten in his movie tour bus, all cheesy like. Karen & I hopped in and we were off to pick up another girl. It was just the three of us for the day, which was nice. We were shown around various sets for the making of the movie. Our guide would drive us around to different places with his lap top in hand. He played scenes that took place where ever we were and showed us pictures from the set. It was interesting, but I'm not the biggest fan of LOTR movies so I wasn't as into it as Karen and the other gal. Don't get me wrong, they're great movies... Just not a die hard fan. We traveled through different parks and quarries through out various rainforests and mountains. It was nothing short of beautiful all day. They would chat about the movie scene that happened and I would gaze off into my own little world, daydreaming. I was taken back when he told us the movie was filmed in 1999. It’s already been 12 years since the first one came out! That’s nuts! The tour lasted until 2:30. We stopped for lunch in the middle of the woods underneath beautiful multi-colored. He picked us up some subway and drinks. We sat and chatted at a picnic table discussing American culture/sports in comparison to New Zealand. Quite funny. We sound so dumb trying to understand the game of rugby. After lunch, he showed us a few more scenes and dropped us back off at our hotel around 2:30. We had nibbles at our lounge and went out for din!