i wonder where the road will take us…

Day three of our week long adventures on the north island of New Zealand got off to a great start. The sun was shining and the skies were clear and it looked like we were going to have a great day ahead of us. We once again woke up at a leisurely pace and enjoyed a cold morning breakfast of cereal with the news playing on the television. We realized when we woke up, that our front door had actually blown open last night and that our lock was no longer working properly. My mom and grandma promptly called Jim, who of course wasn’t on the property and was enjoying a few days on the lake with his wife and told him that we didn’t have a functioning door. He assured us that it would be taken care of as quickly as possible, but that didn’t stop my grandma from trying a few things for herself. She managed to sharpen a q-tip and tried to pick the lock to shift the gears around but that didn’t work. Jim also called one of the ladies next door to the property to come out and look for it without much luck either. She tried some WD-40 like lubricant without any response and also looked for a wire clothes hanger she could bend and straighten so my grandma could pick the lock. Nothing really seemed to want to go our way. It was eventually decided that the lock needed to be looked at by a professional, but everything was closed on a Sunday, so we were a bit out of luck there.

But, we survived and decided that we would just pack all of our valuables with us because if anyone wanted my clothing bad enough to come to the Turangi, New Zealand to steal a few shirts, well they could have them. We loaded the car with all of our valuables (which was about the equivalent of one small shopping bag) and we headed out a few hours later towards the Turangiriro National Park. The Kaimanawa Lodge isn’t situated too far from the park, so we figured that we might as well spend the day exploring what it had to offer. We took a bit of a detour getting into the park itself, mostly because I overshot the highway that we originally wanted by a few feet when I pulled onto the main highway. But that’s alright. We ended up where we wanted to be eventually so we just took a scenic drive there. The park is a beautiful place with a very diverse scenery. On one side of the highway were lush, green rolling pastures with cattle and sheep and on the other side it was very alpine-esque with low bushes and flowers and the mountains towering in the distance. As we were driving along, you could see Mount Doom (the famous mountain from Lord of the Rings), rising and growing in the distance.

Our first stop was at the Sir Edmund Hillary Wilderness Center. None of us were sure exactly what it was but we figured that it would be interesting with some good information about the success Sir Edmund Hillary had as an adventurer and a climber. However, it was a bit of a bum steer because it was in fact a base camp for mountain climbing and long term backpacking treks through the Turangiriro National Park. So we were once again on the road and my go-to method of “turn off when you see the brown signs” didn’t really work here because there were no brown signs to follow. We did eventually make our way to the Whakapapa Village, which is right at the base of Mount Ruapehu. Mount Ruapehu is an active volcano site that erupted relatively recently. In fact, the entire central north island is very active and you can see a number of natural hot springs and geothermal hot pools virtually all throughout Turangi and Taupo where we are staying. We visited the Visitor Center first, which had some great information about the recent eruptions and the wildlife found in that area. It turns out that the Turangiriro National Park has a small Kiwi population so they work incredibly hard to protect the birds that live there.

After our time at the visitor center, we decided it was time for lunch. There were three options that we had in the village. There was a lovely hotel that had a dining room we could eat at, but everyone there was dressed up very nicely and we weren’t anywhere dresses appropriately for a high tea in the afternoon. We also checked out a small café that was in the village, but there wasn’t much there other than hot meat pie and ready to go sandwiches. We decided that we needed a real meal after the day we had had, so we settled on the café at the hotel that wasn’t quite as nice as the restaurant. It was still lovely and we had a wonderful lunch. My grandma ordered fish and chips, my mom ordered salmon pasta and I ordered a BLT. It was all very delicious and we enjoyed some real food for a change. We ate slowly and enjoyed the time sitting down that wasn’t in a car and had some good conversation as well.

The next stage of our adventure for the day was to head back in the general direction of Turangi. We had spotted a short falls walk on our way to the Whakapapa Village, so we decided to stop there and have a short walk to allow our food to settle. We took a short fifteen minute walk through the bush with the mountains looming in the distance. Mount Doom could be seen with the summit hidden in a layer of clouds and thick brush lined either side of the track. It didn’t take us long before we heard the sound of rushing water. The falls themselves were amazing. Crystal clear water that gushed over sharp rocks in a beautiful display of power. It was fantastic. We stopped at a few of the viewpoints along the track that offer different angles on the falls themselves and we took lots of pictures. It still amazes me, even though I’ve been in this country for months, how absolutely breathtaking the scenery is here.

We didn’t stay at the Tawhai Falls long and eventually found our way back onto the main highway and back towards Turangi. On our way down the road, we passed an area called Opotaka, which is the site of an ancient Maori Village. We decided to stop and have a look. Unfortunately, there were no remnants of the village or any replicas that were built in place of the originals. We did however, get to see one archeological site where many artifacts were found. The village was situated right on the lake and we had a chance to walk to its edge and enjoy the scenery from there too. Overall, there wasn’t much to see at Opotaka, but we were all glad that we stopped and saw the ancient village site.

Our final stop of the day on our adventure through the Turangiriro National Park was the Rotopounamu Lake. I had heard great things about it and we were told by the signs that it wasn’t going to be that long of a trek to the lakeshore itself. Well, as it turns out, we were lied to. Well, at least that’s what my grandma claims. It was slow going for a while and none of us were quite prepared for the steady increase in ground we were about to find. Eventually, my mom and grandma sent me ahead to go see the lake myself so I wasn’t waiting around for them. It was a very beautiful lake, when I finally did find it, but it wasn’t anything special. There was a trail that went the whole length of the lake, but it would take about two hours to do. So, I took my pictures and met back up with my mom and grandma. We made our way back to the car and we were very happy to see our car.

And so that concluded the official adventures for today. It didn’t take us long to find our way back to Turangi and we made a quick stop at the grocery store and pick up some more essentials. And then it was back to the lodge for a light dinner, some TV and a bit of relaxation. It was a fantastic day with beautiful weather and scenery awaiting us. Tomorrow, we are off on our Hobbiton adventure through Middle Earth!

look mom, i’m on a boat…

Today was an early start to a beautiful Saturday morning in Turangi. My mom and grandma had woken up a bit before I did and it was a pleasant morning to wake up slowly and gently. There was a morning “breakfast” that the hosts were having in the lodge’s lounge so we made our way over to that around 9:20 AM this morning. Rae, one of our hosts, had fresh breakfast scones waiting for us along with coffee and tea and it was a great chance to meet the other people who were staying at the lodge for the week. It is mostly older couples but we have a pretty good spread of people from across the world. There are families from Australia, Canada, the United States and South Africa staying here this week.

So once everyone had arrived Jim, the other host, gave us a great introduction to the Turangi and Taupo region. There was a lot of information covering a lot of different topics, but we all sat tight and managed to stay attentive and focused throughout his whole speech. We heard a lot about the Tongariro National Park with all of the hikes and tracks that you can walk and we’ve decided that we are going to spend a day doing the short walks throughout the park and hopefully see Mount Doom. The major saving grace to Jim’s long adventure of talking about the local adventures were guides from fishing companies, white water rafting guides, and a massage spa. It was great to hear about all of the things that you can do in this region and there is definitely not a shortage of things to do here.

My grandma decided that as soon as the white water rafting guides got up and spoke that we were going to go rafting today. So my mom and I jumped on board and we ended up scheduling a rafting adventure for 2:00 PM this afternoon. Lord help us all. But we were all excited and we sat through the rest of Jim’s information speech and eventually we were free to go about our day. We had a few hours to kill before we were to head out on our rafting adventure. It was just enough time for my mom to take a quick power nap and for my grandma and I to eat some lunch. We enjoyed the down time to get a good idea of the things we wanted to do while we were here and we came up with a very long list of things that we can see and do. Imagine that. There is always something to do in New Zealand.

At 1:50 PM, Ryan from Tongariro River Rafting came to pick us up from the Kaimanawa Lodge. He was the same one who came to speak to us earlier that day at Jim’s information extravaganza and he was going to be one of our guides for the day. The rafting building wasn’t far at all from where we were staying and it was dead quiet when we got there. As it turns out, we were going to be the only ones going on the rafting trip that afternoon. Which was just fine with us because to be honest, I’m not sure anyone would have been brave enough to be stuck with us for about four hours.

Now the first order of business once we got there was to give them our information and I’m sure we secretly signed our lives away. They are very sneaky about it in this country, but that’s alright. I’m sure we aren’t going to have any problems today. At that point we also met Alex, our other guide. He was going to be doing most of the work for us today and was getting his evaluation tomorrow. He was very sweet and we found out that he was from Seattle. It was nice to run into an American. You just never know what you are going to get in this country. Once we had been introduced to everyone, we had to get properly outfitted for our day on the river. This consisted of a full body wetsuit, a polar fleece to ear under it, an outer waterproof shell jacket, and wetsuit booties for our feet. I had been in a wetsuit recently on my swimming with dolphins adventure so I was all for the new get-up we had to get situated in. My mom and grandma on the other hand, weren’t quite as convinced as I was. We took our gear into the nearby changing room and took our time dressing ourselves in our gear. We spent a good amount of time laughing hysterically at each other and it didn’t take me long to get situated. I was able to help my mom and grandma into their wetsuits after much opposition and protesting (even from my grandma who was so gung-hoe to go rafting in the first place) and before we knew it we were in the van heading towards the river.

The Tongariro River is a man-made river based on a series of underground tunnels that have redirected the water to feed into Lake Taupo. Even though it is technically considered man-made, it is absolutely breathtaking and beautiful to look at. It didn’t take us long to get the raft down the river and we spent a good amount of time going over all of the need to knows about the raft and our trip. We learned how to properly hold the paddle, how to sit in the raft, how to not fall out of the raft and how to look like a complete dork if you fall into the boat. There were some protests and a lot of laughs along the way, but we eventually made it through Alex’s safety briefing and we pushed off onto the river.

Alex and Ryan were wonderful tour guides and we very quickly learned that we were going to be conquering a total of 64 rapids on our adventure today. We were on a grade 3 fating trip, which had some good sized rapids on it but nothing too scary or dangerous. My mom and I were at the front of the boat and my grandma was sitting behind me with Ryan. Alex had the entire back of the boat to himself which was good because he was going much of the directing and steering. We had learned how to do a forward and reverse stroke and would listen to the calls made by Alex and row accordingly. It was a beautiful afternoon and the sun was shining overhead. We managed some great conversation in between the rapids and had plenty of good laughs. There were plenty of amazing birds that we saw on the river and at one point we even rafted past one of the caves that they used in the Lord of the Rings as Golomn’s cave.

We spent about two and a half hours on the river in total and everyone survived the rapids. Amazingly, no one fell out of the boat but plenty of people fell into it. Well, mostly my mom and my grandma but I even fell in as well when we bumped one of the rock canyon walls. It was a very fun and peaceful afternoon and we all knew that we would be sore the next morning. We were treated to sandwiches once we got back to the rafting basecamp and I am pleased to report that it was much easier getting out of the wetsuits than it was getting into them. Although I must say, there was still the same level of complaining and laughing as there was earlier. Once we had had our fill of sandwiches, Ryan gave us a ride back to the lodge and we called it a night.

We had eaten the sandwiches a bit on the later side, so that became our official dinner. I still had some leftover pasta from the night before so I eventually finished that off and we enjoyed watching some TV for a while before I showered and called it a night. We were all pretty tired considering the full day of physical labor and exercise we had, so we were very happy to climb into bed at a reasonable hour and we didn’t find it very hard to fall to sleep.

one adventure ends but another begins…

And just like that, my time in Lincoln has come to an end. It seems like just a few weeks ago I arrived in this small townships that I would learn to call home, but it has indeed been 138 days to be exact. But, let’s be honest, who’s counting? I am shocked to think and realize that I am done with my study abroad experience in an academic setting. I have completed my four exams and have learned so much in the process. A lot of people think that learning happens mostly in the classroom and that the true education is one that you can gain from textbooks and lecturers with PhD’s. And while this is valuable knowledge that needs to be taken seriously, there are no lessons like the ones you learn out in the “real world” where you are your own teacher and you learn from experience. As much as I have learned about New Zealand deer production, social cognition and group formation, population management and genetic planning, and the structure of our DNA molecules, I have gained invaluable experiences with people that I’ve just met that I will remember for a lifetime.

After I finished my last exam, I had about a day and a half left in Lincoln to pack and organize myself before starting phase one of Family Vacation with my mom and grandma. Surprisingly, it didn’t take me long to pack my room and I managed to donate a lot of clothing that had seen its last days in New Zealand. I was a bit disappointed though, because despite my efforts to purge the unnecessary, I still ended up with two full suitcases. Well, I guess that makes that I need to continue to lighten every time I get on an airplane. It was so bittersweet saying goodbye to all my friends that I had met. Bitter because I know that we are all going on our separate adventures and although we will try to stay in touch, it will never be the same as when we were together in New Zealand. But sweet because I get to see my mom and my grandma who I have missed dearly. It also means that I am one step closer to being back home and seeing all my friends and family that I left behind.

My morning started early and consisted of a brisk morning walk down to the accommodation office to drop off my key to my room. Now when I say early, I mean 5:00 AM early. I suppose on the scale of things it isn’t that terrible, but it was really hard leaving my warm blanket to get up and get the day started. I have a shuttle coming to take me to the airport at 5:45 AM, but he arrived a bit early so we went ahead and got on the road since I was ready. It still amazes me to this day how easy it is to travel in other countries. From curbside drop off to gate, it took me all of 10 minutes to check in to my flight, check my two bags, go through security, and walk to my gate. I didn’t have to take my 3 ounce or less liquids out of my carryon and my shoes and outer jacket could remain on while I walked through the metal detector. Let me tell you, it makes things much easier.

I had two quick flights today: the first one from Christchurch to Wellington and the second from Wellington to Taupo. Neither flight had much to report, except that on my flight from Wellington to Taupo I was on the smallest passenger plane that I have ever been on. There were 20 seats on the plane in total, with no overhead storage bins and no door to the cockpit of the airplane. It was tiny tiny tiny. But that’s alright. It made for a good story. Once I arrived I was able to quickly get our rental car and I spent the next few hours waiting patiently for my mom and grandma to arrive. I ordered some chicken wedges with sour cream and took to writing a letter home to my boyfriend and working on updating my blog. Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi in this country still isn’t available enough to the point where I think you will be getting those updates anytime soon.

But once they landed we were able to collect their baggage and we hit the road towards Turangi. It wasn’t long of a drive at all, probably 30 – 45 minutes at most, but it was great to have them here and to be situated and finally done with major travel for the day. The north island is very different from the south island and it was a nice change of scenery after all the driving I had done over the past four months here. We arrived at the Kaimanawa Lodge, the timeshare we are staying at, about three hours before the official check in time. Thankfully, the manager was on site and they were able to let us in early because the flat had already been cleaned and stocked for us. It’s a nice one bedroom flat with a queen sized pull out couch and a full sized kitchen. The facilities had just been updated so it is nice and modern. It’s a nice change to the old flats I was living in before at uni.

We made ourselves at home pretty quickly and decided that we should pick up a few things from New World. We looked frantically for a place to eat dinner but since it was closer to 3:00 PM and a Friday, but there wasn’t anything that was open. I tried to explain that New Zealand, especially small townships like Turangi, things close in-between lunch and dinner service, but it just wasn’t sinking in. We got some bread, milk, fruit, pasta and some cheese just to hold us over. Once we made it back to the timeshare, my mom and grandma took pretty quickly to the couches and eventually found themselves asleep. They had just spent way too much time on an airplane and needed to catch up on sleep anyway.

I spent my night making pasta for dinner and resting. I made a phone call to my boyfriend for a short bit and then enjoyed some time on the couch myself watching a bit of television. I have gone a long time without TV and as nice as it was to watch it and just relax, I realized that it was a very big waste of time. But my night didn’t last long and I was in bed nice and early. It had been a long day, with a very early start to it. I am really looking forward to spending the next two weeks with my mom and my grandma and it will be interesting to see how many adventures we have together.

the final countdown…

One more week left? How can this be? Did I really just take three exams over the past four days? Holy smokes! Well, if you couldn’t tell by the opening sentence, I only have one more week here in Lincoln. I can’t believe how quickly this semester has gone by. There were moments where time seemed to crawl and the homesickness would creep in, but looking back now and being so close to going home, it’s really weird to think that it was back in June when I left the United States and arrived in New Zealand.

It has been four months since I have seen my parents, my brother, my boyfriend, my friends, and my little kitten who isn’t such a little kitten anymore. A lot has changed since I left too but at the same time, a lot has remained the same. I am going back to the same wonderful boyfriend I left back in the states and with him my cat and his new sister (feline sister to clarify) will be waiting for me! I will get to see family that I haven’t seen in a very long time and get to spend two weeks with my mom and grandma traveling through the north island of New Zealand and even Australia! I can’t believe how lucky I am!

On the exam front, my three exams I had so far went well. The exam format in New Zealand is very different than it is at Oregon State, because most of my essays are short answer and essays, so they actually want you to know your information, not just regurgitate it onto a multiple choice exam. I should end up with A’s or B’s in all of my classes which would be fantastic! I do admit, I didn’t maintain my “normal” study habits and level of commitment to school, but after years of feeling burnt out and constantly stressed, I took this semester as an opportunity to take a little R&R time. I know I certainly needed it. But the good news is, I should come out of this experience with good grades, amazing memories and fantastic friends.

One more week left. One more exams and then I am off on my next adventure: two weeks with my mom and grandma traveling the north island and Australia. Let’s do this!

the last hurrah…

After falling asleep to the Sound of Music and being woken up a few times from the occasional drunk parading through the house a few octaves louder than necessary, Danielle, Ginny and I all woke up around 8 AM. We had all slept in a full sized bed that was offered to us by Everto’s friend and snuggled up under some sleeping bags we had brought with us. Needless to say, it was quite cramped and we all got to know each other really well that night. Thankfully, Danielle and I had become pro snugglers on our two week road trip through the southern half of the south island in our trusty campervan Doris. If you haven’t heard about Doris, scroll back through the blog to the end of August. That will give you a pretty good glimpse into that adventure.

We woke up relatively slowly and were hoping that everyone else would be up so we didn’t have to wake people up. That wasn’t an issue because Everto was already up. Apparently Amanda woke up early that morning and decided that she was going to go surfing, so we had a bit of time to kill in Dunedin before we could head home. It didn’t take us long to pack up our things and get the car all ready to go for the trip home. We took off towards the Octagon, where the massive post-game party was held last night, figuring that we could find some of the carnage to appreciate after a good night’s sleep in an otherwise comfortable bed. We were also on a mission to find somewhere to eat, since none of us had brought anything for breakfast.

And so, we wandered around Dunedin trying to find a place empty enough on the Sunday morning to feed four tourists on a college budget. We passed a number of cafes that looked fantastic but were either too crowded and had a long wait or they were way out of our budget for food that morning. There were a number of couches on sidewalks and bottles and cans lining the streets everywhere. It was obvious that people had a great time last night. If that wasn’t proof enough, a number of houses still had their doors open and we could see people passed out on couches and chairs in the houses. So yeah, it’s safe to say that it was absolute chaos last night. And I’m glad I got to enjoy it from the comfort of a private room with pizza and a musical.

I never thought we would have ended up at a hold in the wall Chinese place, but we did and it was pretty good. I ordered some chicken chow mein noodles and we enjoyed our brunch on a sidewalk table in the morning sunshine. Prior to eating, we made a quick stop at the local iSite to find some postcards and noticed quite a few men walking around in dresses and high heels. We saw a handful, probably about five or six in total while we were enjoying our breakfast and couldn’t figure out if there was a drag show or if they just lost a bet. But regardless, I must say, they had awesome confidence and rocked the look better than a lot of women could with their natural curves and grace.

Before we knew it, Amanda was back from surfing and we hit the road to make it back for our exams the next day. It was an uneventful drive back with studying galore for everyone except our driver Everto and we made good time on the journey home. Luckily, even with the set back that morning, we were back in Lincoln by about 5:30 PM so that still gave everyone plenty of time to study for their exams that were the next day. And of course, that is when my first one was set to take place. I have three this upcoming week that I needed to prepare for. Beef and Deer Production on Monday, Biochemistry on Wednesday and Social Psychology on Thursday. And then I have a five day break until my last exam, Population Biology, on Wednesday of the following week and then I am off on the last leg of my adventure!

It’s hard to believe that time has gone by their fast. I feel like I just got here and now all the sudden I am taking final exams and am starting to get organized to pack up and leave. Where in the world has the time gone? This was my last official adventure before leaving Lincoln and I must say that it was a good one. The rugby match was fantastic and I spent another awesome weekend in the company of good people. It’s safe to say that my “last hurrah” was a good one! Now the only thing that stands between seeing my mom and my grandma and being done at Lincoln University are four exams and 12 days.

balls, butts, and blacks…it’s game day folks…

Well folks, today is game day! That’s right. The fateful day of the All Blacks match has finally arrived and I am so stoked that I am going to this match! We were originally planning on making it a weekend trip in Dunedin but since our car was full and one of the girls in the car had a final exam that morning, we decided to just have it be an overnight adventure. I spent the morning sitting around trying to learn as much about rugby as I could before we left and we got on the road shortly before noon. Thankfully, we had time on our side. The match didn’t start until 7:35 PM and the pre-game entertainment wasn’t set to start until 7:00 PM so we had seven hours to do a four hour drive.

Now, because exams had started, everyone except our poor driver was busy studying most of the drive there. Since we had so much time in the car together, it was nice to have a bit of silence. We all focused on our respective study topics and time passed pretty quickly. Luckily for me, I was able to read through 90% of my social psychology notes and even though I wasn’t doing intense studying, it was enough to at least review and jog my memory. Oh, another thing I forgot to mention were there were five of us in a little four and a half seater Honda. I saw four and a half because the middle seat was built for a small child, not a full grown college student. Oh well, I sat middle seat because I was the smallest (which is really unfortunate) but we all made the best of it.

We stopped about half way to Dunedin at a small roadside café for a late lunch/early dinner meal of some sort and I got the best Chicken and Bacon Panini I’ve ever had. It was fantastic. Of course, in New Zealand, their bacon is more like ham, but that’s alright. It was still really good and it definitely hit the spot. And of course, we had great conversation during our lunch. We covered everything from politics to social norms to plants and animal production. It was a good time. The only complaint I had was the one of the girls on my no camping list had one of the seats in the car, but it wasn’t my car and I didn’t know this until the day of so I was kind of S.O.L at that point. Oh well. It was a good test in patience this weekend. That’s for sure.

And of course, as they always do, shenanigans always manage to happen to me when I lease expect it. As we drove through Timaru, a small coastal town, we pulled up next to a car with four or five (it was hard to count because I was avoiding eye contact) Maori teenagers who couldn’t be more than 16 or so. They were making faces at us and shouting, acting like they wanted to race. Thankfully, Everto had no interest in racing them but they did continue to shout at us. And of course, one girl in the car *cough* Amanda *cough* decided that she wanted to engage with them and was smiling and blowing them kisses. So naturally, they pulled in front of us and we were mooned. Luckily for me, I only caught a slight bit of the full moon in front of us and just waited it out. They eventually pulled over and we were free. They were probably on their way back around town to look for another group of travelers to pester. So after surviving that, nothing else that exciting happened on the rest of our drive except for the traditional weird faces, laughing, and overall stupidity that just can’t be helped when placed with funny people in close quarters for an extended period of time.

But we made it to Dunedin by 5:30 PM and found the house we were going to be staying at. Everto, the guy who gave us a ride down there, had a friend in Dunedin who offered to let us stay at this flat for the night. We dropped all of our stuff off when we got there and hung out around the flat for a bit. Now, I was traveling with Everto, Danielle, Amanda and Ginny. Danielle and I are the only ones who don’t drink at all and Ginny only drinks occasionally. So, we were of course offered a beer when we got there and it was obvious that a number of people at the flat had already consumed copious amounts of alcohol. Danielle and I politely declined and I told him I would much rather observe from the periphery. It tends to be the safest place to be.

Now, I needed to pick up my ticket from will call so Danielle, Ginny and I decided to head down to the stadium on the early side. We had the opportunity to walk through the campus for the University of Otago and that was fun to see. They really have a beautiful camps because Dunedin in general has a very large Scottish influence. But it didn’t take me long to determine that I wouldn’t have wanted to go to school there and that I was very glad I chose to go to a school with the farm boys who wear socks and jandals on a regular basis. We stopped at a convenience store on the way to the stadium to get ourselves a nonalcoholic beverage (Sprite for me. I’m working on cutting out the colored soda from my life) and it was only a few more minutes to the stadium.

The town was already buzzing with activity and it looked like it had been for a long while. There were a number of people who looked prepared to go to the rugby match but would never make it through the security checkpoint and to their seats, but that’s alright. It was still a completely packed stadium for the game. The Forsyth Barr Stadium was built for the Rugby World Cup back in 2011 and was a completely covered facility. That made it great because it stayed relatively warm all night and in the case where rain was a possibility, we didn’t have to worry about being soaking wet and miserable. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. It took us a bit of time to find will call because it was located in an old container just away from the main hub of the stadium. Thankfully, they did in fact have my ticket and we were ready to go with plenty of time to spare.

Now, I ended up sitting by myself for the match because all of my friends wanted to sit in the cheap seats at the end of the stadium. I can’t say I blame them, but I figured that for the extra $60, it would be sweet to sit at the 22 yard line, four rows up. I mean, when in New Zealand, if you splurge money on anything, it’s All Blacks tickets and bungee jump photo and video packages! And I must say, it was completely worth it! I had fantastic seat and as the players spent time warming up, I could see the beads of sweat already rolling down their faces. I know immediately it was going to be a great game! Once I saw down I realized that I would very quickly be making friends. There was an elderly couple sitting on my left, who appeared to be in their late 70’s or early 80’s. I quickly learned that the gentleman had played rugby since he was a little boy and had a huge passion for the sport. He still sported a nice cauliflower ear and he said his body took the beating for him all those years. You could tell though, his soul still longed for the sport. His wife was also a spitfire and they were armed with their portable radios so they could hear the calls the officials were making on the field.

The other group of gentlemen I met were a little more up my alley as far as my expectations were for rugby fans in New Zealand. There were five of them in total, all who played rugby as young boys but stopped because they didn’t want to get hit anymore. I could understand that. They consumed beer in copious amounts but were nothing but friendly throughout the entire match. They explained parts of the game that were still a bit fuzzy to me and commended me on deciding to come to New Zealand instead of Australia or Europe. They were all so very proud of their small country and you could see it in their eyes when the All Blacks successfully got a try (similar to a touchdown in American Football) that they were Kiwis through and through.

Now, back to the actual events that took place. Emeli Sande performed for about 15 or so minutes before the match started. She performed her hit “Next to Me” and a few others that I recognized but couldn’t really make out due to the increasing noise in the stadium. There were flag girls and gymnasts performing on the field as well. It wasn’t long though before she had completed her entertainment for the night and was ushered off the field. The noise level continued to increase and before I knew it, the stadium was completely full. There wasn’t an empty seat anywhere to be seen and there was standing room only everywhere else. Both the Wallabies and the All Blacks were welcomed to the field and each nation’s national anthem was sung. I was so surprised to hear a lot of Kiwis join in and sing the Australian national anthem, although they sung their own with way more passion. I half expected there to be a huge rivalry between the fans that turned into otherwise inappropriate behavior, but as far as I could see that wasn’t the case. American sports fans should take a few lessons from these people.

So once the anthems had been sung and the players lined up on the field, it was time for the haka. Now, I will admit, one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to go to an All Blacks game was to see them do the haka. And let me tell you, there is nothing in the world like seeing full grown, monstrous men stomping the ground and beating their arms and legs while you just stand there, arms linked with your teammates, hoping you don’t pee your pants. If I had been in the Australian players shoes, I probably would have just curled into the fetal position and laid there the rest of the night. The entire stadium roared and immediately the full stadium wave was underway. And it didn’t really stop until the last 60 or so seconds of the match.

Now I highly recommend that anyone who hasn’t seen a game of rugby go online and watch one right away. Rugby is a fantastic sport and a thrill to watch. The best part is that you only need to know a few basics and the rest gets filled in as you go. The basics are: you can’t throw the ball forwards. You can throw it side to side and behind you only. You are allowed to kick the ball forward however. A try is when the players carry the ball (well, usually dive with the ball) into the try zone at the end of the field, and that is worth 5 points. A subsequent kick from the 10 meter line after a try is worth 2, with the total points for a successful try and kick adding up to 7. A simple kick between the posts is worth 3. And after that, pretty much all major rules are off the table. There are finer points that you can pick up along the way, but those are the basics. As long as you know which team you are rooting for and which way they are supposed to be running, you’re as good as gold!

The game itself was incredible. The All Blacks got off to a great start and despite a few mistakes that cost them a few points, they never missed a step. The final score of the match was 41-33 in favor of the Blacks and there were definitely a few Australian Wallabies shedding tears that night. Just remember, there’s no crying in rugby, unless you’re Australian! I eventually made my way to meet up with my friends after enjoying the celebration of high-fives with some beautiful strangers and we headed back to the house we were crashing at for the night. Ginny, Danielle and I didn’t have dinner before the match, so we decided to wander around town for a while before we called it in for the night. We came across a Hell’s Pizza, a fantastic pizza shop that can be found through New Zealand, and we indulged in some delicious pizza.

I must say though, it would have been quite interesting to walk through the heart of town for a few hours to just watch the shenanigans unfold. Apparently they shut down the center of town, otherwise known as the Octagon, for a huge after part. That’s alright though. We decided we could go by the following morning and check it out then. It didn’t take us long to walk back to the house and we made ourselves comfortable and pulled up the Sound of Music and devoured all of our pizza. Overall, today was a great day filled with awesome sport and fantastic strangers! I must say, that my experience at the All Black’s game, was probably one of my favorite New Zealand experience so far. But a close runner up, is definitely hurling myself off a bridge. Because I mean really, it’s required when you go to New Zealand. You can’t help but get a little reckless and go a little crazy.

thirty-one more days…

I only have one more month here. Where in the world have the past four months gone? I don’t know how time can go by so quickly and yet you feel like no time as passed at all. It makes no sense to me sometimes! Well, the good news for all of you who have been following my semester long adventure in Lincoln is that my adventures are not even close to being over! I will have so many more things to talk to you about and to tell you! I have an All Blacks test coming up against the Australian Wallabies and everyone knows that is going to be a great match! And then I get to sit four final exams and those are always fun and exciting. And once I conquer those, my mom and grandma arrive and we get to vacation! One week on the north island near Lake Taupo and one week in Australia in Advancetown outside of Gold Coast and Brisbane.

I have grown a lot because of this experience. It is safe to say that being in another country, even one as similar to the US as New Zealand is, really forces you out of your comfort zone. You try new things. You jump off of bridges. You meet all kinds of people (and you don’t always get along with those people). You try new foods and you learn how to be even more independent than you were when you got here. Living away from my family, friends, and boyfriend for the past four months has been really hard and challenging. There have been days that I have been very homesick and days when I would still miss home, but would be so content with my life in New Zealand that the sadness wouldn’t creep in.

But, like every traveler, I am very excited to be coming home. It is great to get away and to experience the amazing things this world has to offer, but there is nothing like coming home to the people who have missed you and supported you the most while you have been gone. And I think that when you are excited to come home after an amazing experience like I have had, that is just a testament to show what an amazing life you have to look forward to.

I have a wonderful boyfriend in Oregon who has never stopped supporting me even when I abandoned him for this journey (but of course, I never stopped caring) and I have a cat waiting for me there too. He was just a little baby when I left, but he’s 6 months old now and a monster. My mother and grandma have been planning their adventure over here for longer than I have been in the country and I can’t wait to share this experience with them. My dad and step-mom have been missing me from a distance, but I know they can’t wait to have their crazy, loud daughter back in their house. My brother has been kicking butt in school and finding time to get everything done he needs to, but I can’t wait to just chill with him and have a conversation face to face rather than over Facebook. And of course, my grandma and grandpa who have probably been the most faithful readers of my blog and who have already blessed my life with so many adventures. And I cannot forget my best friend forever and ever who has been there for me throughout this whole process and lights up my life.

With only one more month left in this country, I am excited to live it up the rest of the time I am here. I want to continue solidifying the friendships I have made here in the hopes that they will carry back with me to the states when I return home. I of course have exams to study for and I have somehow been finding time for that. I think that’s because they will actually count for some pretty important classes back home so of course you need to be dedicated to the real reason why you came here in the first place. Well, the first reason on paper at least.

I’ve realized that people don’t come here to study. At least not in the classroom. I came to New Zealand because I wanted to learn about the culture. I wanted to experience another way of life. And even though it wasn’t drastically different than the lives most Americans lead back home, I have learned so much from the people here. I have learned to live simply and appreciate some company and a good glass of dessert wine every once in a while (I still can’t get the regular stuff down. What can I say? I have a sweet tooth!). They’ve taught me to be spontaneous and let go of the control (but not completely) and to seriously rethink your priorities in life. Because yes, money and material things will fill your life, but that doesn’t mean your life is full. And being so far away from home, made me realize everything I ever wanted and needed was already mine. And it was right in front of me.

So, as I work on my last 31 days in this country, I’m going to live a little and keep having fun. If anything, the adventures are only going to continue. Even when I am back in California and Oregon, these lessons and experiences will come back to shape my life forever. And with everything I’ve learned in four months, I can’t wait to see what I still have to learn in my last one here.

i’ve seen the island…

Well, there isn’t too much to report on the final day of our weekend Queenstown trip, but I figured I would write up a post anyway to tie up any loose ends so we don’t have any confusion. We woke up early this morning after our luxury of sleeping in the previous morning. It was probably 7 AM when the first alarm went off and we were downstairs for breakfast quickly and efficiently. It was just a remainder of leftovers and some toast and fruit that we had left so it wasn’t anything fancy. It was a good thing we took off when we did because there was a pretty big storm rolling in and the wind was blowing and the rain was falling down.

We got on the road quickly to hopefully beat the storm that was supposed to be heading our way. We originally planned to take a long drive along the coast, but decided to cut it a bit short to make some better time home. I drove the whole way back, which wasn’t too bad but it rained most of the time. Thank you Oregon for introducing me to driving efficiently and safely in the rain! Danielle and I found all kinds of things to talk about and we chased the rain all the way home. We cut across to the coast for part of our drive and you could see the storm rolling in. The sky was dark blue on the storm side and light blue on the “normal” side. It was pretty fantastic to see.

Danielle and I were both sad when we realized that this would be our last major weekend adventure until our families both arrived in New Zealand. I am so thankful that I met Danielle and was able to travel with her because she’s been a great travel buddy! We always have a good time and it was fun traveling the island with her because I honestly saw pretty much the entire south island with her. I definitely couldn’t have asked for anything better.

i’m on top of the world…

After a long day adventuring through middle earth yesterday, Danielle and I decided to have a nice leisurely morning. Now, after doing a lot of traveling together and always having a very full agenda, the thought of sleeping in was really new to us. We set an alarm for 8 AM, thinking that would be sufficient time to slowly wake up and enjoy a few extra minutes of sleep, but ended up not getting out of bed until about 9:30 AM. We were lying around for a while just talking for about half an hour, but once housekeeping came by and opened our curtains, we decided that was our cue that we needed to get our day started. We took our time getting ready and it wasn’t too much longer until we were downstairs for our breakfast.

The one good thing about waking up late is the kitchen is much quieter than it is at 7 or 7:30 AM. We had our typical toast, fruit and PB&J breakfast but I decided to pass on the fruit. I tried a golden kiwi fruit but it just didn’t have the same appeal as the green kiwi fruit did. Oh well. Live and learn right? After doing a small batch of dishes and finishing getting ourselves prepared for our day, we headed out into town and walked along the lake towards the gondola.

Queenstown is a great city and there is surrounded by awesome mountains. It reminds me a lot of ski resort cities like Big Bear and Mount Bachelor. And one of the things I wanted to do last time we were here but didn’t have the time for, was riding the Gondola to the lookout on the top (well, almost the top) of the mountain. So Danielle and I made our way slowly but surely through the streets of the city to the Gondola station. And of course, since Queenstown is the city of spontaneity, we decided that we would do 2 runs on the luge at the top of the mountain. Hey. Why not? This now means that I have officially luged in 3 different countries on 3 different continents. Not too shabby right? Now it was no surprise that when we went up to buy our combination tickets Danielle ended up looking like a dumb American tourist. She wasn’t understanding that the luge track was at the top of the mountain and you only got to take the gondola once. That’s alright though. If I had been first in line I probably would have had the same issues.

So with our tickets bought and our excitement starting to build, we got on the gondola and made our way up the mountain. We were told that we could hike up it and it would take about an hour or hour and a half, but I must say that it is much nicer to be up the mountain in 5 minutes and to get to enjoy the breathtaking scenery on the way up without huffing and puffing and sweating. Don’t worry though. The day is still young and there is plenty of time for that! We decided once we reached the top of the mountain that we would go ahead and do our two luge runs. Danielle and I were each outfitted with helmets (that were color coded for size) and rode the chair lift even farther up the mountain to the top of the luge run.

Now, both of us being snow sport people (Danielle snowboarding and myself skiing), we weren’t used to being on a chairlift without something strapped to our feet. It felt really awkward getting off the lift and not gracefully sliding away from the chair, but rather having to briskly walk (almost run) to get out of the way because there was no snow on the ground. But, neither of us got run over by the chairlift and we made our way to the luge track. When it was our turn, we were given our luges, had a brief lesson on how to properly operate the carts (pull the joy stick back and you moved forward, pushed the joy stick forward and you stopped; idiot proof really) and we were off. Luging is pretty fun and the two tracks in Queenstown were super fun! There were some nice hairpin turns and a couple of tunnels and the more advanced track even had a couple of “hills” and drops that were really fun! Danielle and I had a blast racing one another and I proved once again that if you are patient enough on that inside line, you will eventually win!

Before we knew it we had already done our two runs on the luge and needed to find another way to entertain ourselves. There was a souvenir shop near the gondola station that we walked around in but neither Danielle nor I bought anything. Thankfully, we are both very good about not buying those useless, tacky souvenirs. So after a bit of window shopping, we decided it was time for lunch. There was also a café on top of this mountain (they are super prepared here in Queenstown and are desperate for your money!) so we got a slice of pizza, a meat pie, and a chocolate mousse to share. We enjoyed our munchies but were eventually interrupted by a woman walking around with an iPad asking people to take a survey for the tourism board of New Zealand. Now, I wouldn’t usually agree, but I love this country so I figured why not. As it turns out, she actually thought I was Irish. Ooops.

Oh well. Danielle and I just worked on the survey together and it was pretty straightforward in terms of questions about where we have traveled and why we decided to come to Queenstown. It took a while, but we contributed to the tourism board and their mission to continue attracting people to this beautiful country. I feel like we paid it forward. Once we returned the iPad to the woman, we took a quick bathroom break before heading out on our walk/hike. Remember earlier how I said there would be plenty of huffing and puffing? Well cue the huffing and puffing now! I like to think I don’t complain, but I know I do and I am incredibly out of shape. But it was nice to be outside and to enjoy the scenery because the area surrounding Queenstown is fantastic. We took the Skyline Loop and eventually worked our way to the overlook where the paragliders launch from. So that was pretty sweet! But of course, right as we made it to the top and sat down to catch our breath, it started to rain. Luckily for me, I’ve never minded the rain and was enjoying the fresh air it brought with it. Danielle on the other hand, wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as I was. Oh well. We made our way back down, much quicker than earlier on our way up, and before we knew it, the rain stopped and we were back at the gondola station.

We spent a bit of time on the viewing deck and eventually found the bungee platform that we heard so much about. Unfortunately, no one was jumping so we didn’t get to hear their screams. That’s alright though. Danielle and I just took some time to reflect on our own jump on the bridge just a few weeks ago. Sometimes I’m still shocked to think that I actually bungee jumped! Holy smokes. But eventually, we decided it was time to go so we rode the gondola back down the hill and made our way back to the hostel and our car. We needed to do a bit of grocery shopping for another curry dinner since we had some leftover onion and potato from the previous night’s dinner.

So we drove our trusty Roxanne to the supermarket, picked up some Rogan Josh curry paste, some beef stir fry and made a very early dinner once we arrived back at the hostel. We missed the bulk of the dinner traffic in the kitchen by eating early and neither of us complained about that. After we did our dishes, I made a Skype call back home while Danielle read a book for a while.

Thankfully, we did have two more mini apple pies in the fridge that we needed to eat plus a bit of dessert wine we needed to finish. So we heated up the pies, poured our final glasses of dessert wine and settled down in our room to watch the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. And of course, like the nerds we are, we were giggling and screeching every time Isengard came in the background because we had ridden past those mountains the other day. Can you say nerdy!? And before we knew it, we were ready for bed and asleep. We had a longer day ahead of us tomorrow and we knew we wouldn’t have the luxury of sleeping in like we had the previous morning.

they’re taking the tourists to isengard…

We woke up on Saturday morning to a 7:00 AM alarm and beautiful weather. It had been raining the night before and we weren’t sure what the weather was going to do today. Luckily for us, it looked like we were going to have some good weather for our horseback adventure of the day. It didn’t take us long to get ready and we were downstairs for breakfast quickly. This hostel, unlike others we had stayed at, didn’t provide breakfast for us (imagine that, it is Queenstown after all), so we made ourselves a quick breakfast of toast, bananas, kiwi fruit and yogurt. Then we made some PB&J sandwiches to snack on after our ride and braved the sunshine to catch our shuttle to Glenorchy and Dart Stables.

Unfortunately, we had a little bit of time to kill and that led Danielle to the brink of insanity. After waiting for about 10 minutes, she decided that the best way to kill time would be to walk in circles around the fire hydrant and then around me. It was pretty entertaining to watch and luckily for her, the bus showed up about five or so minutes later. So we didn’t have to put her in the strait jacket today. The stables provided a complimentary shuttle to and from Queenstown so we decided to take that instead of driving to save on gas.

Our shuttle driver was very nice and told us it would be about a 40 minute drive out to Glenorchy. It was a nice drive along the lake on a windy road and it very much so reminded me of the canyons back home in California and along the Oregon coast and the beach. About halfway to Glenorchy, we stopped at a lookout point and our driver pointed out some areas in the distance where they filmed the final battle scene of Lord of the Rings and parts of Prince Caspian. They brought 250 horses across the lake to a large shore line across from the lookout that served as the ground for the final battle. The scenes from Prince Caspian were the opening scene where the army is chasing Caspian through the valley with rivers in the bottom.

Once we arrived at Dart Stables, we signed in and got fitted with all of our necessary gear. We were given helmets and boots (plastic gumboots of course) and were given the option to wear these really great looking coats that made us look like characters out of Indiana Jones. Danielle and I both took a jacket, especially because it looked like there were some clouds developing out in the distance. We figured it would be better to be safe than sorry and we loved our new look too! Once we were all ready we had to take yet another shuttle ride to our location. Dart Stables offers a variety of different rides and we were doing the Ride of the Rings, which is the easiest paced ride (walking pace) but gives a ton of excellent views of various filming locations.

We were assigned to our horses once we arrived at our location. Danielle was assigned a pretty black gelding named Elmo and I was put on Yogi. He was very sweet and lovey but definitely had an attitude once you were on his back. I can’t really blame him. With all kinds of tourists who don’t necessarily know what they are doing, you can never really know what you’ll be getting on your back and consequently, who will be pulling on your mouth that day. Luckily, I had had enough riding experience to know how to handle his sass and we got along relatively well once he realized that I actually knew what I was going and I wasn’t just another tourist he could take advantage of.

When everyone was situated, we headed out on our ride. We had the logistics talk about not sitting on the horse’s kidneys while they pee and how to properly steer your horse without sawing their mouths with the bit. Those are always very important conversations to have and even though there was a small covering of dark clouds in the sky, I was enjoying being on horseback again. It had been a while since my last mounted adventure and I had been suffering withdrawals since it has been so long since I have ridden at my barn back home.

We saw a ton of movie sets and areas of filming while on our ride. We saw where they filmed the Ents emerging from the forest to take over Isengard and another view of the opening scene of Prince Caspian where the guards chase Caspian though the valley with the rivers. As it turns out, the film makers brought over handful of flash, expensive film horses to film this opening scene but the horses wouldn’t gallop through the rivers. That didn’t really work for a chase scene. So the filmmakers contacted Dart Stables and asked if they could use some of their horses in the scenes because the Dart horses were used to running through the rivers. So as it turns out, the five or so horses in the opening scene were working trail horses from the local stable. Who would have thunk it huh? Unfortunately, Yogi and Elmo never made the cut. It would have been really really cool to have ridden one of the horses who starred in the movies!

We passed through Lothlorien and saw where they filmed Gimley getting caught by the elves. Our guide also pointed out the tree that Aragorn gets pinned to in the battle of Amon Egn. Looking through the forests of Lothlorien you could actually recognize certain parts of the forest from the movies. That was really neat to get to see. We also rode past Mount Ernslaw, which was filmed as about 80% of the backdrop for Isdengard throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy. They did a lot of computer editing with Mount Ernslaw so they didn’t have to keep filming the same mountains, but you could definitely recognize the parts that appeared in the films.

At one point we passed a large group of Manuka bushes, which are very popular in New Zealand. Mauka honey is supposedly very good for your health and is sold in supermarkets across the country. As we were riding past, we were told we could grab a handful and rub it between our hands to release the small amount of “honey” present and enjoy the scents. It was great. Shortly after that we came across a dog wandering through the fields and he decided it would be a good idea to start herding the horses. He must have been a sheep dog of sorts and never attacked the horses, but just enjoyed walking around and watching them all walk through the fence, as they were going to do anyway because that is where the guide horse was going. We experienced a ton of mud at this point and had our own mini “water crossings”.

Once we crossed the giant mud pit, we stopped in the woods for some pictures with our trusty steeds and we enjoyed the cover of the trees from the light rain that was starting to fall. After Yogi and I did our dance of the wills and I won once again, we did a loop through the forest and continued our sightseeing of the various filming sights. We came to a lookout that showed the riverbed of Isengard below and it was just below a large downhill climb the horses had to do. We rode through a couple of fields where the fellowship was filmed moving through as a group and we also came across the hill where the orks chased the fellowship down a large hill. As it turns out, the film crew hired a large group of high school rugby players to play the orks because the costumes provided very low visibility. They were shot running down this steep hill in large masks and heavy costumes and they were tripping every couple of seconds. This explains why in the ork chase scenes, the film makers needed to cut to the different orks every couple of seconds. Apparently they medical team treated a lot of sprained ankles, bumps and bruises. At the bottom of that same hill, we saw the place where Boromir is shot and dies in the first Lord of the Rings movie.

As it turns out, there were all kinds of fun facts we learned on our ride. Liv Tyler, one of the actresses in Lord of the Rings, actually hated horses and never rode before being cast for this movie. For all of the scenes of her riding, she had a stunt double. That is why there are never that frontal shots of Arwen riding in the movies. Whenever there are shots of her riding, they are very close and don’t show the horse. Apparently, during these scenes she was riding a barrel that was being drug behind a truck through a field. And in order to make it more real, Peter Jackson told Liv Tyler to “make love to the barrel”. Can you say awkward?

On the other side of that spectrum, Viggo Mortensen loved horses and had a collection of them back home. He actually ended up buying the horse he rode in the trilogy and bought the grey stallion that Liv Tyler’s stunt double rode and gave it to the stunt double as a gift. Nice guy huh? We also learned that Viggo Mortensen’s son was a huge Lord of the Rings fan before his dad got cast as Aragorn. So, in order to continue fostering his great sense of humor, Viggo’s son was cast as an ork so he could fight his dad in one of the battle scenes. Gotta love that opportunity as a son to beat up on your dad. Finally, the last movie scene we rode through was the paddock that Wolverine ran naked through after he was given the special elixir. That must have been fun to see!

And before we knew it, it was time to get off our horses and make our way back towards Queenstown. It took us a few minutes for our legs to recover from being in the saddle for so long but we were quickly on our way back to the main stables to drop off our gear. Once we had done that, we loaded back into the shuttle and drove the same route back to Queenstown as we had earlier, just in the opposite direction. We munched happily on our PB&J sandwiches and were very glad we made them earlier that morning. When we arrived back in town center, we stopped by the iSite to figure out what we were going to do during our free day in Queenstown on Sunday. 99% of what Queenstown has to offer is incredibly expensive so we wanted to figure out what our options were for free activities to do in the city.

After, we started to walk towards the lakefront but Danielle ended up getting cold so we went back to the hostel to get her jacket. Once we grabbed everything we could possibly need, we walked back to town and then headed towards the harbor. We played on the playground that was next to the water for a while, but eventually left because there were families coming who wanted their small children to be able to play on the swings. So, we took to climbing trees instead. Eventually, we made our way around the harbor and walked through the Queenstown Gardens. We were loving the spring time flowers and there were even a large group of ducklings there that Danielle and I watched for a while.

But soon enough, it was time for us to go into town and have our wonderful dinner we had been dreaming of all day. We had gone to Fergburger the last time we were in Queenstown and it was so good we decided to go back for round two. This time around, I got a Tropical Swine burger, which was a beef burger with bacon, pineapple, tomato sauce, lettuce, tomato and onion. It was absolutely delicious. Danielle got a Bun Laden burger which also looked pretty good and was falafel rather that a meat patty. We found a nice spot under a tree that we could eat at but we didn’t stay there long. There were a few birds in the trees that decided it would be a perfect time to poop. And low and behold, their poop landed right on Danielle’s knee and then another pile landed on the outside of the bag of French fries. And then we realized, we were being stalked by two ducks. They were like two dogs begging for food from their owners and they were the cutest things. But no, we didn’t cave and feed them. We were bad tourists in that regard.

When we decided the poop was too much to handle, we moved to another bench and the two ducks followed us. We were able to eat our burgers without major incident other than having the ducks continue to beg for food. When we were done eating we headed back to the hostel and watched a couple of movies. All About Steve was the first one we watched and then we poured ourselves a small glass of dessert wine and heated up some mini apple pies before settling down to watch Captain America. After our second movie of the night and our small glasses of dessert wins accompanied by our mini pies, it was time to head to bed and rest up for our full day of adventuring tomorrow.