I'm in New Zealand! We (Susie, Isabelle, Tommy, and I) arrived really early this morning around 2am. New Zealand is ahead of Australia by 2hours which means it's 16hours ahead of Yorktown! I'm constantly having to do the math in my head. It's almost natural now for me to look at my watch and know what time it is both here and at home. So far this has been a wild adventure because we had no plans what-so-ever when we arrived. (We were kinda busy with the course to look things up) We stayed in a trailer park near the airport last night (or should I say this morning). I had booked a cabin for the 4 of us in the Mt. Cook area for the next 4 days when I was in America, but then realized that transportation out of Christchurch was extremely expensive. So we decided to cancel the reservation right before we left Sydney. We woke up this morning to check out and asked the lady at the front desk where we should go. She recommended the YMCA across the Botanical Gardens in the middle of Christchurch so that's where we are now. It's a wonderful place and everyone in New Zealand has been so kind and helpful to us. There is no way we would have made it to where we are now without the help of Barry our taxi driver from the airport. We called him up this morning to drive us to the YMCA and he was off work but he offered to drive us in his car. Then he realized it wasn't working so he called one of his taxi buddies, Chris, to pick us up. Traveling on our own is super thrilling, but exhausting. I'm loving every bit of it. I love having these challenges presented to me.
Tomorrow we have something particular planned, but I don't wanna put it on here until I surprise my dad. The next day (Wed) we are doing a Lord of the Rings tour so that should be heaps of fun.
I'm missing Australia already, but so far New Zealand is pretty great. Here's to more adventures!
DAY 2
SNOWBOARDING!! Yes, that's right. I called my dad before I bought my tickets and such so I'm allowed to put this on here now. It was beyond belief. Susie and I skied and boarded the mountain (Mt. Hutt) while Isabelle and Tommy took skiing lessons! Not many people can say they learned to ski in New Zealand! It was a really fun day and we are all sure to be sore tomorrow.
DAY 3
The Lord of the Rings tour was spectacular! We were picked up at 9am from the YMCA and our final destination was Mt. Somers - the setting for the city of Rohan. It was incredible how ginormous all the mountains were! We were even given swords to carry which made me feel like a true warrior. As we were hiking up the hill, I was constantly playing the LOTR theme song in my head. Once we reached the top we could see for miles and the glimmer of the water looked like pure silver! Tommy was getting really into it and had some impressive sword moves to show everyone. It was a long day for sure and tomorrow we check out from the Y to head back to the trailer park I mentioned earlier. I can't believe this massively long journey is almost over and I'm heading back to the States! It's bitter-sweet. I have so many stories to tell everyone so prepare yourself!
