E noho rā Aotearoa

The time between when my dad was here and today, my last day in New Zealand, seems to have flown by. I can't believe I'm already leaving, living in Auckland for 6 months has made it seem like home.

As I sit in this lovely egg-shaped chair in the Auckland airport, I've been thinking about the things I'll miss most about New Zealand...

13:

The number of days I have left in New Zealand. It blows my mind how quickly the time has gone by here; who knew 5 months could go by so quickly?

I just finished up my internship, and I have to say I'm pretty bummed out. I learned a lot but also had heaps of fun while doing it, and the experience has definitely given me something to think about for the future. Anyway, here are a couple pictures from my time there (and some examples of New Zealand style):

The showroom!

A little late, but...

...here are some pictures from our trip to Rotorua! 

Lydia and Eryn go Zorbing!

Post-Zorb giddiness

South Island Pt. 2 (and some North)

Just finished up an amazing three-week Easter break - another trip around the South Island and a little of the North Island with my friends Matt and Tori. After Sydney we all flew into Christchurch and started off our adventure from there. We rented a car this time, which made getting around so much easier - and I got to experience my first time driving on the left side of the road!

Just kidding!

While packing for the South Island today I gave my camera one more shot...and it decided to work! :D So I'll write about Sydney now, before I forget everything that happened.

We flew into Sydney on the 9th, and got there in time to go catch the end of the Surry Hills Festival. There were two locations and we stumbled upon both of them; there were tons of little booths with food, clothes, jewelry and crafts - I wish I had had more time to poke around, but it was getting dark...and we had some celebrating to do for Kaylee's 21st!

April Break!

Just got back from a 6-day trip to Sydney to visit my friends Kaylee and Ray! It went by so quickly, and I'm kind of regretting not allotting more time to explore Australia. Unfortunately my camera pooped out during the trip and I don't have a way to get the photos on my computer for now :( Since I know the post will be pretty lame without pictures, I'll do another entry (with lots of pictures!) when I get back from the rest of my break. 


I'm off to the South Island again tomorrow to do some more exploring! Matt, Tori and I will be heading down to Dunedin and then up around the northern part, then taking the ferry to Wellington and back up to Auckland. I'll be back by May 1st, so expect a hefty post by then!


Until then, I'll leave you with these facts:
Formed in a crater, New Zealand's largest lake is Lake Taupo, extending to 616 square kilometres (or 238 sq miles). This makes it almost identical in size to the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia and slightly smaller than Singapore.


In addition to 'Aotearoa' (Land of the Long White Cloud), New Zealand is also known as 'The Shaky Isles' because of it's geothermal activity and numerous earthquakes. (This is something I just found out recently, and is also the name of the Internet cafe that my friends and I go to at least once a week.)


New Zealand claims the longest place name (85 letters) in the world - Taumata whakatangi hangakoauau o tamatea turi pukakapiki maunga horo nuku pokai whenua kitanatahu - which means: 'The hilltop, where Tamatea with big knees, conqueror of mountains, eater of land, traveller over land and sea, played his koauau to his beloved'.


And also, this:

The Great New Zealand Muster aka "The Running of the Sheep"

Unfortunately we didn't find out about the Muster until after it happened...maybe someday...


xx
Tessa


Images from here

Coromandel Adventure

This past weekend we took an amazing trip to the Coromandel Peninsula, on the east coast of the North Island. My friends and I rented a 10-person van for the weekend and camped out by Hot Water Beach and in Coromandel Town (they're really creative with naming things here).

Our van in the gorgeous sunset

Hitchhiker's Guide to the South Island

Just getting back into the swing of things here in Auckland, since I just got back from my inter-semester break. I had so much fun, and got to see a pretty good amount of the South Island, but I definitely need to go back again! I'll try to break down my travels day-by-day here, sorry if it gets a little long!

Day One

Lina and I left the Unilodge at 6am (after having to wake her up at 5:50am) and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Christchurch. We were so tired that we pretty much slept the whole way, but the view just before landing was SO amazing, mountains everywhere!

After landing in Christchurch we milled around for a little bit then started walking out of town, figuring that we'd catch a ride from there and get our trip going. 

Relaxing with a latte in Christchurch

It's been a while...

I have to apologize in advance for two things:
1) All this stuff happened over the past two weeks, sorry about the lateness!
2) The bottom half of this post gets a little text-heavy, since most of the pictures documenting our travels were on Lina's camera and she lost it recently. Bear with me and I'll try and steal Tori's pictures to post up later!


So getting into the past two weeks, nothing tooo exciting happened, but I did get a pair of hiking boots and I've been having so much fun breaking them in! 

Modeling my super stylish hiking boots

Last-last Saturday my friend Lina and I walked out to Mission Bay, which is a little over 4 miles away. Soooo gorgeous! We hung out there for a little while at the beach to reward ourselves :)

Week Four

This week was a pretty busy one for me; I started my internship, had a pretty big assignment due, and had a test too. Must be why this trip is going by so quickly - I can't believe I've been here for just about a month! Time is flying by here, and I have so much I want to do!


I just realized that I haven't posted any pictures of where I'm staying while I'm here, it's actually a pretty interesting building and we have some great views up on the 10th floor! Our building actually has a pretty wide age range since it's not specifically university housing, so we have families next door as well as college students. Everything is pretty close within walking distance; campus, grocery stores, and the better part of downtown Auckland are all 5-15 minutes away. 

View from my window, out onto part of the harbor (excuse the glare)

Week Three

          This week on Friday I didn't have any class, so my roommate Lydia and I went to the zoo. It was really fun, and we got to see a lot of cool animals, including the elusive kiwi! They’re usually nocturnal, so when we went into the Kiwi House it was almost completely dark and lit like a photography darkroom. Even though it was just their silhouettes, it was really cool to see them wandering around foraging for food. Maybe I’ll get the chance to see one in its natural habitat when we go down to Stewart Island! 

At the entrance

Week(end) Two

On the second weekend we went on a trip around Northland, up the east coast and down the west. Our first stop was Bream Bay, which was one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever been to. Perfect waves, perfect temperature water, and soooo blue. Also a nude beach, but most of us opted to stay clothed.

Bream Bay

Lots of pictures at the link!

Week One

It'll be a little hard for me to remember everything we did, but I'll do my best!

Most of our group arrived here on Tuesday, January 2 and quickly had to get settled in before class on Thursday. Many a trip was made to The Warehouse, which is like Auckland's version of Walmart, I guess. Luckily the students who lived in our apartment before us left us a lot of pots, pans, dishes, and utensils so we didn't have to buy them ourselves. Some of our friends weren't so lucky and had to buy almost everything. Some random stuff here is really expensive, like facewash and drugstore makeup, and especially sunscreen. The sun is definitely a lot stronger here (little to no ozone at all), so sunscreen is a priority...just gonna have to bite the bullet on that one.

The first weekend, we were taken on a day trip around Auckland. We stopped at Mission Bay for a little bit, then continued on to Mount Eden, a volcano near the city. The view from the top was amazing, and there was an enormous crater up there as well. Unfortunately my camera died once we got up to the top, so I only have a few pictures from the day :(

Mission Bay

More pictures and stuff after the jump!

Kia Ora!

"Kia ora," in the language of the native Maori people of New Zealand, means hello or welcome. I'll be posting things here about what I've been up to in Auckland and other places in New Zealand. We're already been here for a couple weeks, so the next few posts might be bigger ones...in the future I'll try to post at least once a week.

Oh, and if you were wondering - "sweet as" is a term they use here if something is awesome or really cool. I think "as" can be added to just about any adjective to make it "really _____", like "smart as" or "smelly as". It'll be something I'll have to bring back with me to the States :)

More posts to come soon!