Once again, I apologize for the delay of this post and it is kinda long overdue, but I still want to post it.
Sunday June 14th all of us ASCers met outside of Wesley ready to set off on a new adventure, but sad to leave the life we'd made the last four months in Australia. It was hard saying goodbye, especially since I knew that the odds of seeing them again are pretty slim.
We arrived in Aukland, New Zealand after an uneventful 3ish hour flight. There was rolling green hills everywhere!! It was so BEAUTIFUL! All the green and hills made me realize how much I had missed home. After collecting all our bags and getting through customs (thankfully there weren't too many snags at customs, just a few minor ones) we were off to the YHA we were staying at for the night.
Monday, June 15th we headed to a town called Whakatani (pronouned Fahkahtahnee) which was a few hour bus ride away. There we stayed at a Maori (the native people of New Zealand) village. The Maori have a sacred house (like our church) that they call a Marae. This is the building we slept in, they had mattresses laid out in rows on the floor, boys on one side, girls on the other (for the most part anyway). Interacting with this Maori family was a lot of fun, I learned alot about their culture and it was very interesting.
Tuesday we began the journey back to Aukland, but stopped in Rotorua for the night. We stopped at another Maori village where in one of their churches they have a famous window with an etching of Jesus that's pretty neat. Jesus is etched into the window, but when you look at it you see him against the view outside the window and if you look at the right angle it looks like he's walking on water. We also went to a Maori cultural show where we got to experience a traditional hangi meal, and some traditional Maori ceremonies. The thermal resort we stayed at in Rotorua had a natural hot springs hot tub that was a lot of fun, though it smelled like rotten eggs because of the sulfur.
Wednesday we completed our journey back to Aukland. On the drive back we stopped in Hobbiton, the town where some of Lord of the Rings was filmed. However, to get technical, the movie was filmed on a farm just outside of Hobbiton, and you have to pay lots of money to go out to that farm, but the town is now called Hobbiton. We also stopped at a place called Te Puia where we saw a geyser and lots of other natural thermal areas. We stayed the night in the same hostel in Aukland we stayed in the first night.
Thursaday we went to a place called Laidlaw Mountain where we were going to hike up and look at some ruins of a city, however, I had been having issues with my foot (shoes with bad support and it had been hurting pretty bad) so Kimberly (the ASC director) had me stay behind in the bus. I had a nice long chat with the bus driver though, I got to hear all kinds of stories about trips he'd been on, groups he'd had in the bus, etc.
Friday was our free day, we could do anything we wanted to. I started out shopping a bit with some of the group, but we got split up so I went off by myself to explore Aukland more. I had a map and found several parks around and began to head towards one. I walked to several different ones before I found one that was what I wanted.....peaceful, off the beaten track, and with good places to sit. I found a nice tree, climbed up in it and jornaled and just sat and relaxed for quite a while.
Saturday we again packed up all our stuff and returned to Aukland airport. These goodbyes were even harder than Australia because we had to say goodbye to Kimberly, Melanie, and Matt and we said our goodbyes to each other there too in case we didn't get a chance in the confusion at LAX. I pretty much bawled my eyes out.....yep that sums it up. The flight back was super long, even though it was only 12 hours (which was 2 hours shorter than our flight to Australia) it felt like an eternity. I didn't sleep at all and I was boxed in by sleeping elderly people. I watched 5 1/2 movies. This was the day I got to live twice. We left the Aukland airport at around 3pm on Saturday, June 20th, were on a plane for 12hours, then arrived in LAX at around 7am Saturday, June 20th. Weird. A bunch of us went to Chantel's house from the airport for something to do during our layovers. Her mom made us breakfast, it was amazing, though we all fell asleep all over her living room floor. I however, didn't go back to the airport. My aunt and uncle, who live nearby, picked me up.
I spent a few days with my aunt and uncle and got to see my cousins and their new baby and got to hang out with my other cousin. Then on Tuesday, June 23rd, they drove me to the Long Beach airport and I flew home. And that ends the most amazing 4 month journey ever!
