Recapping my last day in Auckland (and New Zealand!!)

Well folks, it's my last night in New Zealand! I spent yesterday just chilling out with Jude, then stayed at Aidyn's place last night. Aidyn and I spent the day together today - it was SO good to see him again after 3 years apart! It was totally like nothing had changed.

While we were out on Queen Street getting my last-minute souvenirs and gifts, Aidyn made some comment in passing about how there was some huge high school choir thing going on here this week. I was like, "Wait a second, there IS a huge choir thing here this week... it's The Big Sing! STEPHEN IS HERE TODAY!!!!!" So I texted Stephen right away, he called me, and we made plans to meet for literally a 10-15 minute visit at the town hall before his choir went in to listen to some other choirs perform. What an awesome little reunion!!!!

After our Queen Street adventures, Aidyn and I went to the Auckland War Memorial Museum where, strangely enough, we ran into one of the girls I had met on the Kiwi bus in Kaikoura. The three of us checked out the museum together for a couple hours; the most amazing thing for me was to see all of the incredible ornate Maori carvings. The highlight was definitely the Marae in the Maori court area of the museum (I took my shoes off and went in for a few pictures):

I also got a ton of pictures of the various tiki statues around the museum. It was really cool to see the full-sized ones, as their eyes are made of full paua shells (as opposed to the tiny paua shell pieces that the eyes in the souvenir-sized statues are made of):

So now I'm at Jude's place again, where I will spend the night before starting my journey back across the Pacific at 7am. We're going to aim for 4am as a drop-off time so I can get comfortably checked in before my flight to Sydney. In my journey home, I first fly to Sydney (3 1/2 hours), then to Vancouver (14 hours, 5 minutes), then to Calgary (1 hour, 18 minutes), and finally Saskatoon (1 hour, 4 minutes). Total estimated flying time = 19 hours, 57 minutes. Total estimated layover time = 5 hours, 32 minutes. Total time between take-off in Auckland and landing in Saskatoon = 25 hours, 29 minutes. 28 1/2 hours if you count the 3 hours I'll be spending at the Auckland airport before take-off. So, long story short, it's a long journey home but it will be well worth it.

In no particular order, here are some of the things I'm excited for about coming home:

- Jeff

- mom and dad

- Karyn's belly and the musical beans

- summer weather

- my room

- no backpack!!!!

- different clothes (living in the same ones for 5 weeks gets old)

- giving Jeff, his parents, Karyn and Nook, and mom and dad their NZ presents :o)

- taking my braids out and getting a proper haircut

- going to Waskesiu with Jeff

- the chair and a half!!!!

- ketchup that tastes normal

- my bed

- a quiet sleep that's not on a bunk bed with strangers as roommates (and no drunk people making lots of noise in the hallways after the bars close at 3am)

- my sewing machine

- a proper shower (no more hostels!)

- not having to carry my groceries around in a bag from city to city

- my car!!!

- payday (soon!)

- scheduling viewings for some of the cute starter homes I've been checking out online

- going to the gym

- taking a trip to Winnipeg to see the family at Scott and Jenn's wedding social

- unpacking and doing laundry without having to pay $8 per wash and dry cycle

- cooking proper food in my own kitchen, and eating with dishes that haven't been shared by backpackers around the world

- hearing the Canadian accent again :o)

I could go on... but that's it for now. It's 9pm, so I'll be heading to the airport in less than 7 hours. It has been an amazing month, but I'm very ready to come home. :o) See you soon, everyone!

Pics from Kaikoura

Hello from the lovely little east coast town of Kaikoura! In Maori, "kai" means food and "koura" means crayfish. Dad will remember this fondly as the place that he enjoyed a $100 crayfish dinner at the White Morph restaurant in 2004. I walked past the restaurant twice today and did take a photo, although sadly it's not making an appearance on the blog tonight (sorry dad).

I went with a couple new people I met on the bus today to the seal colony, or "kaimokehu" in Maori. It was about a 3-hour return journey so I was pretty exhausted when I got back, as I didn't get much sleep last night due to our 7:25am departure from our hostel in Christchurch.

A couple pics from the walk to the peninsula seal colony:

These seals (see picture below) were having a bit of a quarrel at one point, which was quite interesting to watch. I don't think I had ever really heard seal noises before, but the one on the left sounded like it was about to vomit every time it opened its mouth, while the one on the right whinnied like a horse a couple times. Very strange, but entertaining nonetheless. The one on the right was pretty much top dog due to his size, I think.

My favourite part? This adorable little seal pup who was hanging out for ages right next to the boardwalk. If he wasn't so stinky and potentially dangerous, I would have just scooped him up for a good cuddle. :op

Tonight we went out to a pub quiz at a little place called "The Whaler." My team came in 4th, but we held 2nd place for quite a while, until the photo round in which we mistook CoCo Chanel for the Queen Mother and a young Hillary Clinton for Shannon Doherty. It was pretty brutal actually, haha. We rocked the general knowledge and history rounds but couldn't manage to pull ahead after the last 2 rounds. Still a ton of fun though, and I met some more cool people on my bus and at quiz night today so it's all good. :o)

Now it's almost 11:30pm and I've just had the BEST HOSTEL SHOWER in the world (so warm!) and I'm in a crazy comfy bed, and generally loving life. Toasty warm and cozy, and ready for a good sleep! Our bus departs tomorrow for Picton, then I catch the ferry to Wellington and arrive mid-afternoon. Tomorrow night we're having tea (supper) at Sam's parents' place, which I'm super excited about! I can't wait to see them after 3 years. On Saturday night we're doing tea at Fiona's mom's house. Yay, family reunions! :o)

Catch you back on the north island! Arohanui!

Photo updates from Christchurch

Hello from Christchurch! Today was a long day on the bus, but I'm here safely and have just gotten back (about an hour and a half ago) from an awesome reunion dinner with one of my former HVHS students who's here in ChCh studying music at university. It was so great to see her again! Now it's just after 11pm and I'm checking in with the blog before having a (hopefully warm) shower and then heading to bed. Our last hostel had crappy lukewarm/coolish showers and it was almost painful to stay in long enough to get clean.... crossing my fingers that these ones are better!

Anyway, here's what I've been up to for the last couple days (click to enlarge the pictures):

I posed for a self-portrait at Lake Pukaki today on our lunch break. It's SO beautiful there, and we were really lucky to have very clear and sunny (but still chilly) weather!

I love Christchurch at night. These pics were taken on my walk home from dinner with Alex (former student).

Cathedral Square in ChCh = beautiful

This is the sign on the ladies' washroom at the Nevis bungy yesterday. Too funny!

Mid-bungy! SO COOL!

(Screaming my head off at this point, FYI)

Here's how I felt before and after the jump! Heh.

And for good measure, here are a couple pics from the Swoop in Rotorua! We did the Swoop about 2 weeks ago but I didn't get the pics until last night in Queenstown, as the girl in the middle had the picture CD and we left each other in Taupo before I could remember to snag them from her. We ran into each other last night so that was perfect timing!

So fun!

And there you have it! Not much else to report tonight, as all I did today was sit on the bus from 8:30am-4:15pm, writing postcards like my life depended on it (I think I wrote 30-35 postcards to my students today?!), visiting with the people in the seats around me about our bungy jumping/canyon swinging/glowworm caving/white water rafting etc. experiences, and taking pics at the various "Kodak moment" spots we stopped at en route. The end. A very long day on the bus but am glad to be having a relaxing night in Christchurch before heading off to Kaikoura in the morning. It's an early start tomorrow, 7:15am, but I think the drive is pretty focused, with not too many stops on the way, so that should be alright. I'm sure I will sleep well tonight.

Hope all is well at home or wherever you are reading this from! Arohanui!

NEVIS!!!!!

I DID IT!!!!!! I FREAKING DID IT!!!!!!

Ok, UNREAL. The biggest thrill of my life. Beats the crap out of jumping out of a plane at 15,000 feet, even. I was terrified for I'm sure at least 30 minutes before I even jumped. I was pacing around and figuratively bouncing off the walls of the jump pod. I wasn't the only one though - there were quite a few people out there with me who were completely paralyzed with fear as well. There was a whole lot of nervous laughter out there as well, but without fail, every time somebody would come back up from their jump, they'd be all smiles (and nervous/exhiliarated giggles). SO AMAZING! I had to pull my foot release cord 3 times before it worked, but was glad that I was able to turn myself upright, as at least 3 or 4 people before me ended up coming back up upside down.

Alright, so the moment you've all been waiting for...... watch me bungy jump here! (Turn up your speakers for full screaming effect)

And now, just out of curiosity, in a word or two, how did you feel watching that? Impressions? Comment away! I want to know how that was for you viewers at home! I remember watching my first Nevis bungy video (posted by my friend Maddie on her facebook profile) and I literally felt weak in the legs just sitting at my computer. :op

I DID THE FREAKING NEVIS!!!!!!!!

Nevis bungy in 45 minutes and counting....

I have just paid for my Nevis bungy jump here in Queenstown and am going to be boarding a bus in 45 minutes to take me out to the jump site. This is by far the most insane thing I've done, and I'm totally terrified! I've heard great things about the bungy though, and I'm sure I'll love it, especially once it's over! Haha.

Yep, breathing shallow already in anticipation! 134 metres above the Nevis River, 8.5 seconds of freefall......... HOLY....... CRAP.

A week in the Hutt (photo edition)

It's hard to believe, but my week in Lower Hutt is over as of tomorrow at 10:20am when I catch a flight to Queenstown. The week has absolutely flown by, and I've seen some people who are really important to me, whether from 3 years ago or from much more recently in my life. It has been a full week, a fun week, and after Kirsten's and my all-day shopping trip today I think I can say an expensive week! Haha. Here are a few of the things I've been up to this week in a photo montage:

Visiting Te Papa museum in Wellington with some friends from Kiwi Experience (me, Marlin, Kate, Victoria, and Dipesh)

Chillin' with miss Charlotte on Tuesday night (Muppet Show movie night)

The gang together again! Fish and Charlotte, Kirsten, Sam, Rich, and me :o)

A visit to Hutt Valley High School! So wonderful. :o)

Taking the train into Wellington from the Woburn station (right by HVHS - this was the station I caught the train at every Tuesday for Wellington Youth Choir rehearsal in '07)

Out for dinner with some WYC friends (Evie, Imogen, Isaac)

Rockin' out at karaoke (Emily and Evie)

Hanging out at karaoke with Dom

Reuniting with some of my former HVHS students (all of whom have graduated and are now at uni, 2 studying music, 1 in photographic design, 1 in English literature, and 1 in media productions)

OH! And these next pictures require some further explanation.... last night, Kirsten, Rich, and I went out for dinner. We had initially tried to go to the Hog's Breath Cafe, which turned out to be closed down. So, the backup plan was to head to the Cadillac Diner, a nice little 50s themed American diner.

We ordered a couple 50s diner-type drinks, in the spirit of the evening:

Shortly after our arrival to the diner, we realized that they were filming a restaurant make-over show there that night, and we were asked if we would be willing to appear in some of the footage. We agreed, thinking that we'd be in background scenes, like extras, etc. As it turns out, they had cameras and mics and everything right at our table when we were ordering, and they even interviewed us after our meals. The show will be airing on TV-3 (I think?) in September or October. Stay tuned to see whether my super articulate comment about the "thematically appropriate" decor of the restaurant makes the cut (how embarrassing). Haha. I was quite awkward about it all... while I was on camera, they said they thought they could detect an accent, and I said "Yes, but it's not American! I'm Canadian." The lady interviewing proceeded immediately to ask me how the diner stacked up to the American diners at home, to which I awkwardly replied, "I don't know.... I haven't been to many American diners.... I live in CANADA...." Oh geez. Haha. Here's to hoping I don't make it on TV in a couple months. :op

Today Kirsten and I spent the whole day shopping. I spent about $350, although to be fair, $117 of that was spent on international postcard stamps. Haha. I also bought 2 pairs of jeans (one full-length and one pair of cute cuffed capris), a new dress shirt, a pair of hot pink peep-toe heels with a bow on the toe (SO cute), a pair of black boots with a bit of a heel on them (that make me feel somewhat sassy when I wear them, even under jeans), and a duffel bag that I can check on the flight home because I can't fit everything in my backpack anymore. Haha. Busy day at the mall for sure!

I then went to St. James Church to sing with Fiona and her mom in the church choir for a farewell to Ros, their pastor (I'm assuming?) who has been there since 1983 and is now moving from Lower Hutt. It was a total fluke that the timing of it worked out like it did; I didn't think I was going to have the chance to sing in the choir again, as I'm not catching any Sunday mornings in the Hutt during this entire trip. Anyway, it was great to see the choir/church people and to sing with Fish again. And a nice little added bonus to the afternoon was when I got to spend some time with Charlotte as she plunked away at the piano. So cute!

So tomorrow morning it's off to Queenstown for some more crazy adventure travels. I'm doing the Nevis bungy on Tuesday, which is actually quite terrifying. My legs feel weak when I think about it. Haha. Now THAT will be an impressive DVD to show when I get home, I'm sure. Stay tuned for more updates from my travels around the south island! I'll be in Q-town until Wednesday, then it's off to Christchurch for Wed. night, off to Kaikoura on Thursday, then back to Wellington again on Friday! I'll spend Fri/Sat with Fish and Sam, then I'll be off on my tour of the east cape before heading back to Auckland. I'm over half way through my trip now, and as always, I'm having lots of amazing times but still missing Jeff and mom and dad, and of course Karyn and the musical beans. I will be happy to get back when it's time to head home. :o)

See you on the south island!

A bit of business, plus updates from the Hutt!

Hey guys at home. I need a bit of help. I keep trying to pay my Sasktel cell phone bill but every time I try to load the e-bill page it times out (this has happened from a few different cities in NZ now). Is there any way that one of you (mom, dad, Karyn, etc?) could sign in to my account for me and pay my bill with my credit card? I can call you and give you the card info. But yeah, I'm still not home for another 3 weeks and I want to get that sorted before I get home.

Also, if you happened to do the calculations on what I just said there ("I'm still not home for another 3 weeks"), you would notice that I changed my flights coming home to August 10th instead of the 16th. Basically I am having an insane fun time here, but I already did the Kiwi Experience tour of the south island 3 years ago so I'm cutting that part short (just flying to Q-town, bussing to Christchurch, Kaikoura, and back up to Wellington rather than doing the whole west coast again), still doing everything else that I had planned, but coming home nearly a week early. Call me crazy for leaving NZ early, but I just really, really miss Jeff. Also, I definitely like the fact that now I will have almost a week extra of ACTUAL summer holidays with (YAY!) warm weather!!!! Anyway, I changed my flights yesterday and am quite happy about the new plan. I also booked a flight to Queenstown so I will still get the ol' bungy and Canyon Swing adventures in.

Yesterday I took the bus to HVHS to pop a surprise visit on the teachers I worked with 3 years ago. It was so fantastic to see them! I had a good catch up with Katriona and said a quick hello to Gary, but tomorrow I'm going back in in the afternoon to say hi to the Year 12 music class, who were my students when they were in Year 9 (grade 8). I saw a couple of them yesterday, and one of them walked in the room and was like, "Miss Campbell?!" Definitely not expecting to see me, that's for sure. It was great to see her, although the students that I saw yesterday looked so grown up - when I had them they were about 13, and now they're 16, so they've definitely changed. It's so neat to see them again, and I'm really looking forward to the visit to the whole class tomorrow!

Last night we had Fish, Sam, Charlotte, and Richard over for pizza and a movie night of "The Muppet Show" (just like the "good old days"). It was SO good to have everyone together again. We Skyped Jeff (it was his birthday yesterday!) and Charlotte was very enthralled with the computer screen and seeing Jeff there. She kept pointing to it saying "What's that?" and at one point she got really excited when she noticed Sam's face in the little video window. She kept pointing at it and saying "DAD!" when Sam was trying to have a conversation about rugby with Jeff. Pretty funny actually. She's so cute!

Anyway, it's 4:46am here and I technically was just getting up from the couch, where I had fallen asleep hours earlier, and was just heading off to bed. So this has been your middle-of-the-night update from NZ. It's quarter to 11am back home, so if you're reading this, good morning! Hope you had a good sleep. :o)

Picture updates to come. :o)

Bungy video!

B-U-N-G- WHY? Cause we GOTTA!

Check another one off the bucket list! I did my first bungy jump today in Taupo with a friend I made on the Kiwi Experience bus, Jade from England. We were both keen to try a bungy, so we decided to do the tandem jump, which was actually called "Couples Therapy." We definitely got a laugh out of the name. The laughter soon turned to nervous giggles and quivery-voiced profanities as we shuffled our feet over to the edge of the bungy platform. I can't really tell you how crazy it looks when you're actually up there and looking down, knowing that you're about to (willingly!) jump off. It sure seems a lot higher looking down than it would if you were just standing on the bank across the river watching somebody jump. I also wore one of Brent's "Badd Habbits" band t-shirts, which he gave me when we met up in Vancouver on my layover en route to NZ. I promised him I'd do some advertising in NZ for him! Voila! :o)

Smiling for the camera before taking the plunge off the platform

Screaming madly as we jumped off

Mid-jump shot from across the river

I've been waiting for a whopping 2 1/2 hours for the video to upload to my blog, but I really can't be bothered to sit here any longer so I've canceled the upload and will try again later! It's so painfully slow... and my patience has run out! Peace out until next time! Love you guys!

Photo updates from Taupo

Kia ora from Taupo! We're actually working backwards in time with these photos, but that's how they uploaded and these pictures are taking AGES to upload on these slow hostel computers.

So, I did my first sky dive today and lived to tell the tale! Here I am jumping out of the plane, 15,000 feet above Lake Taupo.



The whole experience was surprisingly less scary (but WAY more painful) than I had expected. The freefall really hurt my ears to the point that I didn't really enjoy the first minute of the jump, save for the first few seconds where I screamed bloody murder with adrenaline and the realization that I had just jumped out of a perfectly good plane from well above the clouds. The view was amazing though!!!!


And here are a couple more photos from the past couple days. I had intended to upload one of us in the Waitomo Ruakuri cave, but for some reason it didn't show up and I can't be bothered to spend any more time trying to get it on here at the moment, as it is 11pm at home and I'd like to call Jeff before he goes to bed. In any case, here are a few pics for you viewers at home!:

Tamaki Tours Maori cultural show in Rotorua (2 night ago)

A tiki statue in Tamaki Maori village - Rotorua

A scenic walk at the Karangahake Gorge - 2-3 days ago (?)

More pictures and updates later! I will write a good post on the black water caving tomorrow or even later tonight. It has been the highlight of my trip so far for sure!!! I hope all is well back home. I will check in again soon!

A chilly hello from Paihia!

I wanted to update with a few more pictures from my day in Paihia today but the computer here was having issues and freezing up so I'm going to save that for a bit later on down the road (literally).

I hopped on the Kiwi Experience bus today at 7:00am in Auckland and headed up to Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. It's gorgeous here, although chilly with the wind coming off of the ocean. We got checked into our hostel (the "Pipi Patch" Base Backpackers) and I picked up a few groceries from the Four Square a few streets over, then I headed out on a cruise to the famous "hole in the rock" with a few friends I met earlier today on the bus. It was really neat, but very cold! There were a few funny moments on the trip, too - like when a little boy silently befriended me on the boat. He kept coming to see me and he'd look up at me with these big eyes, I'd say hi, and he'd carry on. Finally he came back and pointed to my purse. His mom saw this happening and explained to me that she keeps her cookies in her handbag and so her son thinks that every purse should have cookies in it for him. So cute and funny! I had another good laugh watching a man hold a granola bar above his head on the front end of the boat to tempt a seagull that had been hanging around. It kept diving down toward him and taking quick snaps at the granola bar. He had drawn quite a crowd, and after he had held it for a while, he passed it to his teenage daughter. She held it up and the seagull took only 2 snaps at it before he pulled the entire thing out of its wrapper and flew away with it! Clever bird!

Now I'm back in the hostel warming up, and I might actually top that off with a visit to the hot tub before supper (SO tempting!). They're cooking a BBQ supper here tonight and then we're all watching the rugby match on the big screen in our hostel's bar. All Blacks vs. South Africa. Keep your fingers crossed for NZ! I think they're the underdogs, but hey, you've gotta have a little faith!

Thanks for keeping up with the blog and for commenting. It's fun to know that people at home are reading this. I will post more pics when I can get them off my camera!

Minus 5 = So cool!

Voila! Here are the 2 pictures we could get inside the Minus 5 ice bar. We paid $16 NZD for these - big ol' tourist rip off, but we weren't allowed to take cameras inside so the bartender took our pics and we bought them on the way out! Check it out - even our glasses were made from solid ice!

(Me, Jude, and her brother Peter)

Post-Sky Jump updates!

Well folks, we did it! Jude and I jumped off the Auckland Sky Tower and survived! It was a really neat experience, and the nerves definitely got going when I stepped out onto the platform! The view was incredible, and the first couple seconds of freefall were pretty scary, but to tell you the truth I bet it'll actually prove to be pretty tame in comparison to some of the other things I have planned for this trip (sky diving, bungy jumping, etc.). I guess that remains to be seen! It was really neat, though, that after we finished our first jump they let us go back up for a free 2nd jump because they weren't busy and they wanted to keep the viewers in the observation deck entertained! Heh. 2 jumps for the price of one (or 4 for the price of 2, I suppose)! I will try to post videos later when I have a bit more time.

After the Sky Tower jump, Jude, her boyfriend Scott, and I went out for lunch with Jude's sister-in-law at a cute little coffee shop just down the road from the Sky Tower. We then went shopping a bit on Queen Street before heading out to Tauranga to visit Roger Stevenson, our former Wellington Youth Choir director. It was SO wonderful to see him again. His wife Denise cooked us an amazing meal, and we stayed over there for about 4-5 hours just visiting, singing, playing piano, and catching up after 3 years apart. It was just awesome.

Now I'm sitting at Jude's sister's place in Tauranga, FREEEEEZING my butt off (how could I forget the uber low temperatures inside New Zealand houses in the winter?!) and am about ready to head to bed. We've had the heater and electric blankets warming up in the bedroom for a couple hours, so it's just about time to climb in there and drift off for the night. I've had an amazing first day in New Zealand and can't wait for more adventures to come! I even fit in a pub quiz at Cardrona Ale House with Jude and Scott on the first night here (although I fell asleep on the table at about 9pm, as it would have been 3am back at home - still just adjusting to the time change!).

Here are a couple pics from our day!

Suited up and getting ready to jump

The view from the bottom

Posing in Paeroa with the giant Lemon & Paeroa bottle en route to visit Roger

A journey of misadventures

.... it can only go up from here, right?

Here, in point form, is how my past 24 hours has panned out:

- enjoyed an uneventful (although somewhat uncomfortable) flight from Saskatoon to Calgary
- flight to Vancouver was comfy and all was well
- met up with Brent in Vancouver and enjoyed an evening out on my 4-hour layover - had supper and drinks, and met a member of his band at the Foggy Dew pub in Richmond
- Brent gets turned around on the would-be 10-minute drive to the airport, which turns into 30 minutes (don't worry, Brent, I don't blame you!  Richmond looked confusing - thanks for the ride and the good company!).  I make it just in time to board, but still 40 minutes before departure (I know you are cringing, mom).  At this point, things are all good.
- I get stopped by Canada Customs in a "randomly selected" process of questioning, making me more rushed to get on that plane
- I take off for Australia, and only realize 2 hours into the flight that I left my MacBook in security in Vancouver.  Woop de freaking doo.  This is awesome.
- I sit for 16 uncomfortable hours on a plane in which I have no working reading light nor TV screen.  I switch to a seat further back that is open and attempt to watch "Alice in Wonderland" but the man beside me is burly so his arms are touching me and his reading light is shining directly into my eyes.  The blasting air conditioning isn't awesome either.  I return to my original seat.
- a flight attendant tries to reset my TV/reading light 3 times but to no avail.  I move to another seat further back in the plane, watch one episode of "30 Rock" on TV, then get booted out by the woman who had moved from that seat hours earlier to sit closer to her husband.  Apparently her seat doesn't recline and she doesn't like to watch TV sitting up.  I move back to my original seat again.
- Realizing that I still have 6 hours on this plane, with no TV and now no computer, nor anyone I know to talk to to pass the time, I start crying.   A caring young mother offers me chocolate, which I refuse (with a teary laugh).  An even more caring flight attendant talks to the crew, tells them about my crappy day, and offers the crew seats at the back of the plane to me so I can at least try to get some sleep or watch a movie.  I accept, and enjoy a couple hours of sleep.
- the aforementioned caring flight attendant (named Yvonne) wakes me up, and guiltily tells me that another crew member is going on break and needs to try to sleep, but I'm in her seat.  I move yet again, to the 5th seat I've attempted on this flight.  I watch a couple TV shows, sleep a bit, and then the announcement comes over the intercom that we are preparing to begin our descent into Sydney after 16 fairly ridiculous hours.
- I take off my seat belt to try to get a picture of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House out the window and get chewed out by a member of the flight crew.  Bitterly, I buckle my seatbelt and sit still for the last 10 minutes of descent into Australia.  What a freaking day!  At least I got the picture! :o)

Soooo, long story short, I'm here in Sydney safely, I don't have a computer but the airport officials have all of my information and should be able to get the computer back to me.  Whether that means I will have to wait for 6 weeks and pick it up in Vancouver, or if they can ship it to Wellington and have it waiting there for me, I have no idea.  I will have to wait to find that much out.

Also, when attempting to watch TV, my iPod headphones broke right inside my ear.  Just to add to the ridiculousness of the day.

The most ironic part of this whole ordeal?  I had JUST been reading my "Smart Traveller's Passport" book of travel tips en route to Vancouver, and one of them was along the lines of "Airport security officials say that they have several laptop computers left in security screening areas.  Tape a business card to the bottom of your computer so it can be sent back to you if such a thing should happen in your travels."  I remember reading that and thinking, "That's a good idea.  I will put an address label on my computer when I get to Auckland.  But really, who would forget their COMPUTER at security?!"  Hah.  Guess I know now.  It had been in my backpack all day, but I had to take it out for screening and was in such a rush what with the little detour en route to the airport, the Canada Customs dealio, etc.  Ahh well.  Internet cafes, it is.  For now.  Hopefully temporarily.

On the bright side, I'm almost finding this funny now.  It should be a comedy skit or something.  "Baby Griswold Goes to New Zealand."  At least tomorrow I will be jumping off the Auckland Sky Tower with Jude and heading to Tauranga for supper with Roger from WYC!  Life is good, and this trip HAS to get better from here.

(*crosses fingers*)

Let the (good) adventures begin!  (The bad ones are getting old already!)

Hello from Calgary!

Here I am in the Calgary airport, ready to board for Vancouver. I will be meeting Brent in Vancouver for supper, as I have a 4-hour layover and am already checked in for my flight to Sydney. I unfortunately got booked into a middle seat for the 15 1/2 hour flight from Vancouver to Sydney, even though I requested an aisle seat. Hopefully the flight won't be full and I'll be able to snag an open aisle seat.

I can't believe I'm actually on my way! It hasn't sunk in yet. In fact, leaving Jeff for 6 weeks didn't sink in until we were looking for a parking spot outside the restaurant last night (we went for supper with mom, dad, and Karyn), when I unexpectedly burst into tears. We had a nice evening and a good day today, and then I cried again before we went to the airport. Fortunately, we saw a teacher he works with in the Saskatoon airport (on her way to London) so we chatted with her until it was time for me to go through security, which was a really nice distraction, so there were no tears at the gate.

Just heard my boarding call! Better run. More updates asap.

IMC pics and NZ on Monday!

Here are a few photo highlights from the week at IMC so far. I am having an awesome time here (as always), working with some crazy fantastic people, and really enjoying having 3 of my own band students with me. I'd post pics of them in their super cute matching Canadian shirts, but privacy laws don't allow it. Ah well! Here are a few other pics from the week in any case:

It hasn't actually hit me yet that in only 3 days I will be heading over to New Zealand. I'm still in such an IMC mode - and, in fact, the reality of heading to IMC didn't hit me until we were half an hour from camp! Prior to this week I was so focussed on finishing report cards, marking final exams, doing band instrument inventory, etc. that I barely even had time to get excited. So now, on a logical level, I know that I'm going to New Zealand soon, but it probably won't hit me until I'm boarding the plane in Saskatoon! Or maybe even Vancouver. :op

I booked my Auckland Sky Jump for next Thursday morning (Wednesday afternoon in our time zone), so Jude and I will be doing that together very soon! Then it's off to visit Roger in Tauranga - SO EXCITED! Will update lots from NZ. Crazy to think that the next blog post might be from across the Pacific! Or more realistically, from an airport when I'm crazy bored. :op Til then!