Melting

Happy Birthday to my sister Kendra…Hope you are having a great time in Vegas!

I took a few days extra before writing again. I’ve just spent 5 days “recuperating” in Melbourne at my friend Jane’s apartment and trying to get things sorted. I managed to upload a fair amount of photos in that time, but even on a home computer it still takes ages. I have posted them on my smugmug, and was going to transfer some on to here, but still haven’t found the time. I also haven’t put captions on any pics yet, so you might not know exactly what you are looking at. But since you all just miss seeing my face, it will do you just fine. Here is my website on smugmug. Smugmughomepage It will be about the first 3-4 weeks in NZ and the first two weeks that I spent in Oz for NYE. Also my going away party is on there as well. I’ll have to try and be more picky about which photos to keep and to upload in the future, as I didn’t delete enough from my camera and some just aren’t that great. But it’s all a learning process so bear with me.

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I can’t believe I have been traveling for almost two months now. I had 6 weeks in New Zealand, and it really wasn’t enough time to do everything I wanted. I had to cut a few things out and would have liked a few more weeks to go to: the Coromandel Peninsula, Mt. Taranaki, Golden Bay, Napier and Stewart Island and the Catlins. If I had to do it all over again, I would have planned on three months and bought a car, but seeing as I can’t do it over, I am satisfied with what I did. And three months in New Zealand would have been very expensive as well. For those who are planning on traveling in New Zealand or just curious, here is a sampling of the costs of things here. I’ll post in NZ dollars, as exchange rates and things change. Right now, my rate is about US$0.75 to NZ$1.00. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m back in Christchurch for the third time now and staying again at what I think I’ve decided is my favorite hostel in New Zealand, Dorset House. Since I didn’t have too much planned for my last day here, I really wanted to sleep in and get some rest, but I was awoken early this morning to, of all things, hail pounding against the window. It was really strange, the weather here usually isn’t so violent, just rain or sunny etc. But it was really coming down, and everyone in my room woke up and watched it come down. I managed to go back to sleep for another hour or so and when I woke up again, it was sunny but cool and really windy, just like September in Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »

If I had to guess, I would say that Milford Sound is probably one of the top three most visited destinations in New Zealand.  When it was first discovered by James Cook, he called it a Sound because the word fiord didn’t exist in the English language, it is a Scandinavian word. But Milford Sound is technically a fiord, which means it is formed by a glacier, whereas a sound is formed by a river. The minute I arrived in Queenstown, there were ads and fliers and tons of information on all the various tours and trips you could do out to the Sound. There are options of flying into and out of Milford, taking the bus, cruise, overnight cruise etc. You also have the option of staying in Te Anau, a small town which is much closer to Milford than Queenstown. There is also another option of going to Doubtful Sound, which is a little bit further away and less popular, but apparently no less spectacular. I think the main reason that Milford is so popular though is because of the drive out there. Read the rest of this entry »

(Happy Belated Birthday to my friend Vicki. Sorry I’m a little late! Hope you had a good day.)

The past few days have again flown by, as I’ve been going at a pretty fast pace trying to get everything done that I had on my “list.” After my awesome experience with the dolphins, I was picked up in Kaikoura by two complete strangers. Sam and Chris are friends with my Australian friend Denika, and I was spending the weekend at their home in Blenheim to attend the Marlborough Wine Festival. They picked me up around 8pm, after having spent a week in Christchurch at a wine convention. The awkwardness of getting into a car with two random people quickly abated and we chatted the whole two hours up to Blenheim. It was still raining pretty heavily, so I wasn’t able to see a lot of the coast that we were driving along. We arrived at their house pretty tired and we quickly got ready for bed to rest up for the next day.
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As most people have experienced at some point while traveling, the weather can have a huge impact on your time spent in a certain place; what activities you do, how much a city appeals to you, etc. A much needed beach holiday can basically ruined by rain, as much as a skiing holiday can be a waste of money by lack of snow. Since it is an uncontrollable aspect of any day, traveling or not, you have to have some sort of back-up plan if the weather doesn’t cooperate. Unfortunately, if you’ve already paid for a certain tour or activity, and they do not factor in weather conditions, how much you enjoy that experience is really up to you.

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Warning: This is my first PUI (Posting Under the Influence), as I’ve just spent 4 hours in an English pub watching the Super Bowl. Not really the same without the commercials, and sort of sacriligious to see ads for soccer while you are watching American football. Iit’s really bizarre, the announcers are American, but from time to time will explain the rules to the international viewers. I tried to find a place that served buffalo wings and chili, but had to settle for fish and chips. Also Happy Birthday to Lisa and Stephanie, hope you guys had a great day!

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So I’ve been traveling a little over a month now and while I’m sure some things are different depending on the country you are in, it is becoming apparent on how things work in the travelers world. In the States when you meet someone, the first thing you do is introduce yourself. Not so while you are traveling. In fact, it really makes no sense to introduce yourself or ask someone’s name. They will never remember it and you will probably never see this person again. You begin the conversations usually with some small talk about where you are going, or about the place you are staying at. You ask about where they have been, where they are going next, how long they are traveling for. You might get advice on your next destination or hostel to stay at and somewhere in there you ask where they are from. Never in there do you ask the persons name or give yours. You meet so many people that it would make it impossible to remember everyone’s name, and just wastes everyone’s time. Once you know you really like a person and maybe want to continue to travel with them, or even just spend the day with them, then you ask their name. It is an unwritten rule somehow that once you ask the name, then you know you will keep in touch or at the very least spend the next hour or so together.

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I am in Wellington right now, the capital of New Zealand. Today was a nice day. The weather was good, I saw a lot in my short time here, and am getting some things done. My time in Wellington did not start off so great yesterday, and I had what was probably my first “bad” day. When you travel for an extended period of time, you come to expect some bad days here and there; a bad meal, a missed train etc. I think that is the main reason many Americans don’t travel overseas for vacation. Since we don’t get a lot of time, we want to go somewhere easy, where they speak English, they have food we like, they pick us up at the airport and all that. We don’t have the time or energy to try and figure out the language or the public transport. So we go to resorts in Mexico or someplace similar so we don’t have to worry about anything. Which is perfectly understandable if you just want some rest and relaxation. However, since I am traveling for a long time overseas, I was sort of surprised everything was going so smoothly, until yesterday.

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When I started to research my trip to New Zealand, I managed to watch a television show on the Travel channel in the States called A Royal Tour of New Zealand. The Prime Minister Helen Clark took an American journalist around on a helicopter and they did all these cool and exciting things all over the country. There was one thing they did that I specifically remember, called The Lost World. They abseiled, or rappeled down into this canyon deep into the ground, and walked through the underground caves. I remember thinking that I wanted to do that while I was in New Zealand, and was happily surprised when my guidebook fully recommended a full day activity in the town of Waitomo called The Lost World. I assumed that was the same activity as on the show, and after calling from Auckland this past weekend, booked myself on a 7 hour tour for Tuesday, January 24th. The tour included a 100 meter abseil into a canyon and plenty of caving activities.

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