Emily's Visit

I got a text from 2 degrees, my phone company I have here:

"This week we announced that 500K NZers have made the move to 2degrees. You're 1 of them! Thanks for your support. Everyone now knows someone who is on 2degrees"

I'm one of them! I'm a real NZer! 2 degrees told me so! Usually I ignore and am slightly annoyed at these texts, but this one I cherished.

Every day that I’m here I start to realize more and more how hard it’s going to be to leave. Wellington is starting to feel like home to me. That became especially noticeable when Emily came this week. I had so much Wellington pride. Plus when I was in the airport waiting for her to arrive, I was almost sick to my stomach imagining that in three months I’ll be back there with my bags packed, waiting for my plane out of here. That is most definitely going to be a tough day.

But let’s not think about that! Let’s think about the sweet road trip I took this week! There aren’t any huge exciting stories to tell, but it was definitely a successful and fun trip. Alexis Sara and I picked up the car on Wednesday morning and headed to Martinborough, wine country. Driving on the other side of the road was fun and easy to get used to. Plus our Nissan Sunny rental car was a surprisingly smooth ride for the fact that it was the cheapest car possible. We ate breakfast at the Village Café when we got there. They had the best presentation of a Chai Tea Latte that I have ever experienced. It was rainy but that barely took away from how beautiful New Zealand is. We didn’t go to any wine-tastings or walk through any vineyards partly because of the rain and partly because they weren’t even doing them because it was harvesting week. Martinborough was way to tiny to spend the day in so we left after only a few hours and went looking for a “chocolate factory” in the next town over that we heard about, that ended up being just a tiny, really expensive chocolate shop. After that we headed to the Paua Shell Museum which ended up being more touristy than anything I could have ever imagined. There really is pretty much nothing between Wellington and Taupo besides New Zealand countryside. After the museum we drove to the shore to try and see some seals. We ended up in tiny towns with no one in sight. I got a really weird vibe driving on the drizzly coast with majestic mountains and hills and big crashing waves on the beach but no one around. We turned around once we hit a natural road block in the form of a river, and headed back to Martinborough for dinner in a strange but delicious “western” style restaurant. …Like cowboy and Indian western. With club music playing. Hmm.


We made it home with a few hours to spare before we had to pick up Emily at the airport at midnight. I took advantage of the hours by sleeping through them, since sleep was not in my future. The plan was to drive all night to get to Taupo in the morning for jet boating, and drive all night we did. It was easy to stay up and drive because I was super excited for the adventure and to have Emily here. Plus, thank the Lord Jesus, my friend Simon hooked me up with an adapter so I could play my iPod in the car. That pretty much made the trip. Without it, New Zealand radio stations are few and far between.

We parked and “slept” in the car for about 45 minutes when we arrived. Fatefully directly across from the jet boat place (we didn’t realize this in the dark but were pretty impressed with ourselves when the sun rose). I didn’t sleep. Maybe I was just too wired from the two huge red bulls I drank, or just overcome with excitement about seeing the sun rise after what felt like millions of hours of darkness. I wandered around and took pictures instead.

Jet boating was a blast. We went down the Waikato, the largest river in New Zealand, and stopped along the way to have some little info sessions, it was beautiful, naturally. We were dropped off to walk around and look at the geysers and mud pools and it was pretty awesome. SUCH a nice day, too. I couldn’t have dreamed for better weather. On the jet boat ride back we went fast. did crazy spins, and got close to rocks and trees. Emily, Sara, Alexis and I laughed the whole way. Good times.

Oh, I got a free rugby ball out of it, too! Our tour guide found it in the river and gave me it. Free New Zealand rugby ball! Winning!

Speaking of rugby, I went to my first practice last week. It was a lot of fun. The girls were all nice and I got a good work-out out of it. I could definitely see my skills improving by being on the team and playing with people who have played their whole lives. It’s $90 to play however and I’m not totally into it because I’m afraid of getting hurt and ruining the rest of my time here. Don’t tell my teammate Boo, but another girl and I plan to just play as long as we can without paying until they make us stop. I’ll get my New Zealand rugby fix for cheap and get out before anything bad happens.

So back to our adventure: After jet boating we drove into downtown Taupo for dinner, which was pretty nice. Taupo is still not too big of a place but it was bigger than all the other towns we had been driving through.

The ride back to Wellington was perfect. Afternoon sun with the windows down. Beautiful views. Good music, good times. We got home and immediately crashed after more than 24 hours without sleep.

Friday morning I had my favorite creative writing class while Emily wandered around Wellington in search for the beach. It was another perfect weather day. I thought maybe I might have been exaggerating back when I said how nice the view from my creative writing class is, since I’m not from around here and I’m not used to the beautiful views, but during our break one of the Kiwis in my class said “this might be the best room in the entire city.” I was glad to be in there. I still keep forgetting to bring my camera but hopefully I’ll remember this week.

After class Emily and I took a Lord of the Rings tour! It was awesome, we had a perfect day for it. Just us, four Polish women and one Croatian, all coming from a conference at Te Papa. They were fun. We stopped at a bunch of spots where the movie was filmed, and the tour guide had little laminated posters of the shots so we could match it up. We also got to hear a lot of behind the scenes stories, like how Peter Jackson went to Wellington Rugby games and used recordings of fans yelling for the battle scenes. The place where they filmed Rivendell is actually named Rivendell now, and all the rivers that flow into the Wellington reservoir are from there, so all my drinking water is from Rivendell! Cool! I still haven’t even seen the movies but when I do it’s going to be really exciting to recognize the places. We had a little break for muffins and coffee outside of Rivendell and then headed back.

Emily and I went out to dinner Friday night at Tulsi, an Indian food restaurant, and then hung out on Cuba Street for a bit before heading back to Stafford and having a low key night hanging out with some friends. On Saturday we woke up relatively early and did some shopping, before stopping for the quintessential Wellington eating experience: Burger Fuel. We both got the “El Camino” - A huge burger with lettuce, cheese supreme Doritos, melted cheddar, aioli, re-fried beans, sour cream, salsa, and guacamole. My favorite. After that Emily caught a taxi and soon was on a plane flying back to the States. That crazy girl.


Click here to see my entire facebook album of pictures from the roadtrip. I hope that works.

So Absinthe night last night was nothing special. I had a good time with my friends though and spent today relaxing. Alexis and I went out to eat at an Italian place and had a hilarious candle lit dinner. Lots of laughing occurred and our loud American conversation drowned out the Louis Armstrong and Elvis Presley playing in the background.

Now it’s time do some reading for my longest day of the week, Monday. Maybe after I’m done I’ll start planning for my next big adventure to the South Island on my two week break in April! Bungee jumping will be involved.

Oh yeah P.S. my dehumidifier came. The state of my room is improving slowly but surely.