From Paradise to NZ

1/7 Today was the last day in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. A bunch of people went into the town in the morning after packing up all of our stuff and checking out. The town is pretty small but was surprisingly nice. Anything you wanted you could find there! We shopped around a bit for some souvenirs and then had lunch. We headed back to the resort for one last walk on the beach. Of course today was beautiful and sunny as I sweated in my clothes, but I got some incredible pictures! We headed back to the airport with one departure gate, no air conditioning, and only three airlines that fly there. We also all have to pay $55 to get off the island, apparently going towards renovation projects. I saw a sign saying that the new departure gate was to be completed December 2009, obviously that didn’t happen as they were just getting the foundations up. It was definitely an experience in that airport. We took off around 5 pm. Off to Auckland and crossing the dateline! On the plane I watched Case 39 with Rene Zelweiger and Bradley Cooper…. Very strange and scary.

1/8 We arrived back in Auckland around 8 pm, so only 4 hours later but of course it was the next day. I can honestly say keeping up with these time changes and thinking about east coast time has been difficult. I ended up just chilling in the room, getting my stuff organized and hitting the hay early, and by early I mean like midnight. This trip is all go go go, and I feel like I might shut down soon, but hopefully getting to Wellington soon will help!

1/9 Off again, no time to settle! We left and headed out to Waitomo’s glow worm caves! The caves were amazing with their stalactites and stalagmites. But best of all were the glow worms that reside on the top of the darkest portions of the caves. The tour ended in a boat ride through the river that goes through the cave with all of the blue glow worms overhead, the only thing lighting the way. It was incredible and almost creepy, being silent and in the dark with only the worms glow that looked like stars in the sky above. From there we stopped in a small town close by and ate at Subway then headed off to Hobbiton!

Hobbiton was sooooo cool. We got a tour right to the set, saw all the hobbit holes and the big party tree!!! Eeeeek. Apparently it was more put together then a couple years ago when our profs were here last because they’re starting to get ready for filming of the Hobbit. The guide told us that a couple weeks ago Peter Jackson and Del Toro were there scoping everything out!! That would have been so cool to meet them. The casting call for hobbits starts in March… anyone up for a trip back here? I’d be perfect since there’s a height limit—you have to be short! And they look for a good laugh, and since I laugh a lot… me=perfect hobbit. Oh well! The set is on a family owned farm so afterwards we got to see a sheep sheering and got to play with baby lambs.

Then we were finally off to Rotorua, Sulfur City. It reeks here just like rotten eggs. The hotel is pretty nice but the room is definitely supposed to be a double and they just stuck an extra bed in the room so the three beds take up the majority of the space, very squishy and a big change from Auckland and Rarotonga where we had lots of space. For dinner we went to Hell’s Pizza, apparently it’s pretty famous here, and it was delicious. After we wandered around and found a grocery store to check out and get some snacks. Then we headed back to the hotel for some down time before going out.

The Lava bar was quite the experience. I was into it at first but by the end of the night I wanted nothing more then out. The dance floor was insane—strobe and blacklights, mist, smoke, lasers, and disco lights. Got some good dancing in until I started to realize how many creepy people were there and my contacts started getting sticky from being up for 16 hours. Somehow I managed to almost fall asleep standing up so I convinced people to walk back with me thank god! Not sure how people can stand being hot and getting constantly shoved and smashed by people dancing all night, I can’t say it was that enjoyable.

1/10 Today we got to sleep in a bit, didn’t have to leave until 10:15 am! We took the bus around to the volcanic crater lake and then onto a park with a hot spring. Then we were dropped off at Te Puia Thermal Reserve. We first got a tour of the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute where they teach people to carve and weave in the traditional ways. Then we got to see a Kiwi Bird! Unfortunately it was in a display cage to mimic its natural habitat and we weren’t allowed photos, but it was so cute and fat!! Finally we checked out some boiling mud pits and a huge geyser that erupted while we were there!

Then we went off to the Agrodome and saw a sheep show! We got to see 19 different prize rams, a sheep getting sheered, and seeing how the dogs herd the sheep. It was actually pretty cool and the sheep were so cute! Afterwards we headed over to Zorb!!! Zorbing consists of a giant 11 foot ball with two layers, so its sort of one big ball with another small one suspended inside of it. Then you hop on in and they fill it up with a little bit of water and you roll down a huge hill tumbling around floating with the water. It was completely disorienting and loads of fun! I recommend googling it to get a better idea.

Now I’m sitting in the hotel room that doesn’t let you call out with a phone card. Luckily they give you 30 min/8MB of internet for free each day but still not much you can do with that small limit. I’m starting to miss home for the first time during the trip which is only being made worse by the lack of communication. Two more days and I’ll be in Wellington for 9 days at the university so hopefully settling down somewhere will be nice and maybe I’ll actually get to Skype the fam, Richie, and any other friend that’s available! These megabyte limits that these places put don’t really allow for skyping since it involves so much data exchange with the streaming of audio and video so I’m hoping the University will be different! As for now I’m thinking of doing some laundry and going to bed early!

1/11 Finally a free day! Tracy (one of my roommates) and I decided we wanted to sleep in which was lovely, and of course sleeping in here still means waking up by 10 am. So we chilled and had some tea then set off with Maura to walk around the town, eat, and shop. We later met up with a bunch of other girls and found some really cute stores. I’m definitely getting used to the sulfur smell throughout the city as I can say I’m not really noticing it anymore. Tonight we have our Maori Hangi concert and dinner which should be pretty exciting and entertaining! Then tomorrow it’s off to Wellington which is about a 5.5 hour drive, however our bus driver is a little insane and wants to stop every hour. He is a little overbearing and likes to explain everything in extreme detail, even things that don’t matter like parking regulations for buses, and he also went into an extreme explanation of happy hour—“it’s a time when drinks are a dollar cheaper or so. Sometimes its from 5-6, sometimes 6-7, sometimes, 7-9:30, so if you’re looking for cheap drinks I’d go to happy hour, again drinks are cheaper.” Like we don’t already know what that is anyway…. So it gets a tad annoying when you’re trying to talk, listen to music or watch of movie.

The weather has been super nice though. A little breezy but hot under the sun, it’s pretty much my favorite weather, not too hot, but you can still get away with shorts. And it hasn’t rained yet since we’ve gotten back to NZ! It was funny because today in a store some Kiwis were talking about how they were jealous of our accents and wished they could talk like us…. Lol, and of course we’re the ones wanting their accents.

It’s going to be weird switching into school mode starting Wednesday. But I mean we have class from 9-11am… and then we’re watching movies and writing journals, can’t get any better then that.