I can’t believe the last time I blogged it was Halloween. Time flies, my friends! Can you believe I’ve been in NZ for about two months now!!?! I am currently on the Interislander to the South Island, which is apparently notorious for being quite a rowdy little boat ride. It’s like 4 hours long as well, which I was completely unprepared for. Hence the blogging. Also note- I should be writing my UW entrance essay right now. But I’m not. I have no good reason other than that I can’t decide on a format... or content… which I fully recognize is [View Full Entry]

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I love Halloween. I was a little worried because the kiwis don't really celebrate Halloween but was actually very pleased with how the day went. I carved pumpkins with my Scottish roomie, Kat, who had NEVER done that before! The pumpkins in NZ in the spring are very small and white, not like pumpkins much at all, but they made pretty good Jack-O-Lanterns. After dinner Kat and I dressed up and went to the late night ((double feature!!!! Picture show! In the back row---f* the back row!!)) showing of Rocky Horror, complete with stage performance, encore Time Warp, and lots of [View Full Entry]

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So I was very skeptical of Thames at first, I'm not gonna lie (actually "skeptical" is a little soft, I HATED Thames at first haha). However, things have picked up quite a bit! I got here a few days ago, and am committed to two weeks of work here. The work is really not bad- it's cleaning and making beds and such, which I'm actually quite good at if I do say so myself. I know it's a dumb thing to be good at, but it's nice to do something well, even if it is just making beds and washing dishes [View Full Entry]

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So much to say... WWOOFing was definitely an experience. It was the most labor-intensive week!! Sorting nuts was one thing, but raking them off the ground was so hard! Fortunately there was a lot of good food to make up for our sore arms and aching backs and the weather was pretty cooperative. After work yesterday we had a party, which was a lot of fun, but I am certainly paying for it today. Still. At 7:30 at night. UGGGGGHHHHH. Im trying to think food-settling thoughts. Despite my ridiculous hangover, today has actually been a very good and productive day. I [View Full Entry]

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Let’s see…. Where did I leave off? Janelle and I spent two nights at that awesome hostel in Waitomo. On Saturday we walked the Waitomo Walkway. But don’t let the name mislead you- there is no “walkway” involved. It had been pouring the night before, and the trail was not much of one. It was the muddiest thing, and the path was hard to follow as some parts were under huge puddles of water and other parts were through cow pasture. It was beautiful, and totally worth it ((see pics on the fbook page)) but by the time we were done [View Full Entry]

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It has been a very eventful last couple of days! Sunday night I had a change of plans, and instead of going straight to Wellington like I thought, I decided to grab a ride with two of my new homies (one of whom owns a van) to the region North of Auckland. We were planning on leaving Monday night but neither Will or Janelle could break their reservation at our hostel, Bamber House, so we couldn’t leave until Tuesday morning. Monday night was miserable- there wasn’t enough room in Bamber House for me to stay, so I ended up at a [View Full Entry]

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September 23rd So after 6 months of planning, a crapton of saving, and a ridiculously long flight, I am finally here in New Zealand! Yay! The flight was actually not half as bad as I expected (margaritas are my savior). There was very little turbulence and I was sitting next to the sweetest couple in the world- they looked like they were both in their seventies or so, and Ken was taking Arnie(?) to New Zealand for a week because he’d never been off of the North American continent. After the flight Arnie told me “Well, next time Ken’ll just have [View Full Entry]

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