Backpacking....

..... the image.....

.... and the reality!

Very excited to unpack when I get home in a few days. :op

A rainy evening in Taupo....

.... is the perfect time to update the blog about the past week in the Hutt. :o)

Lazy holiday mornings... ahhhh, how beautiful they are. I spent lots of time in my pyjamas this week - in fact, on 2 separate occasions I spent the better part of the day in them, and I make absolutely no apologies for this fact. It was fantastic. I watched daytime TV (Dr. Phil, Oprah, Rachael Ray, and even a cheesy kiwi teen soap called "Home and Away", which is embarrassingly addictive when you're lazing around in pjs on the couch...), made an iMovie of my Kiwi Experience trip, wrote a few postcards, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed that sort of holiday mode time, and am looking forward to more of it when I get home next week (only next week I get to laze around with Jeff which makes it that much better!!!!).

I wasn't lazy ALL week though. I did go to Fiona's school to visit on Tuesday, then I borrowed the car for the day which was fun. I did turn the windshield wipers on instead of the signal twice, and I reached for the seatbelt on the wrong side once, but I was definitely better than I was last time! Success! Haha. I also borrowed the car on Friday and went to visit Vicky and Danielle, Aidyn's mom and youngest sister. It was so good to see them again!

Now I'm in Taupo for the night, and tomorrow I'll be off to Auckland to spend the day with Jude, then with Aidyn on Monday. Then I fly home on Tuesday! Unreal. In a sense I feel like the time has absolutely flown by, and yet in some ways I feel very ready to come home, and like these last few days are taking ages.... in any case, I've had a great holiday and am looking forward to capping it off with a visit to some more great friends in Auckland. I'm even seeing friends from home along the way - Rayne in Vancouver and Danny in Calgary! Yay for layovers! (I never thought I'd say that!) :o)

Here are a few photos to sum up the week in the Hutt:

Little Miss silly Charlotte being a goof at suppertime

Introducing Kelly! (Fiona's youngest neice)

Miss Megan had a great time bouncing around on the big yellow ball at grandma's house... can you guess what happened right after this picture was taken? HILARIOUS!

With Fish and Carol :o)

A reunion with (half of) the Rasmussen clan!

Molly and Eleanor (2 of Sam's neices)

And then, finally, the sight that made me cry as I was leaving Fiona and Sam's house one last time so that Richard could drive me in to Wellington.....

AROHANUI, Halls!!!!!!!!

Back in the Hood... erm, I mean Hutt! :o)

Here I am, safely back at Fiona and Sam's. I spent 10 hours in transit yesterday to get back exactly where I started from, which was definitely frustrating (counterproductive doesn't even begin to explain it). In any case, I'm back, I'm warm, and I'm in the company of good friends. Life goes on.

8 more days until I head back home to Canada. I've had an amazing time over here for the most part (minor glitches along the way, but SO many amazing moments, people, experiences, etc.), but I have to admit that I never really realized how much I would miss Jeff, being away from him for over a month. It's time to come home. :o)

I'll be in the Hutt for most of this week, if not all of it, and then I'll hop a bus to Taupo likely on Saturday morning, stay the night, then head up to Auckland to spend the day with Jude on Sunday and Aidyn on Monday. My flight home leaves from Auckland early Tuesday morning.

I can't believe how fast this summer has flown by!

A bummer of a 200th post

Sigh. Hello from Taihape. What a day it has been. This also marks my 200th post, and what a bummer of an entry it will be... oh well. Long story short, here's the deal.

I was in Lower Hutt this weekend (Friday/Saturday). This morning, I got up at 6:30am and packed my bags, ready to head out to Taupo and then on to travel the east cape of the north island, which is supposed to be just an awesome, scenic, cultural experience. Fish and Sam both got up early with me and drove me to my bus pick-up point in Wellington for 7:45am. We said our goodbyes and I got on the bus. We drove 2 hours down the road to a small town called Bulls, at which point my driver got a phone call from the office in Auckland to tell him that my East As trip had been cancelled. AWESOME. So now I'm 2 hours down the road, going in the wrong direction, I have nowhere to go, I have 9 days left in the country, and I've just left my friends in Wellington/the Hutt.

Gutted. So we try to figure some alternative plan out (I even temporarily contemplated flying to Fiji or Australia for a week, but realized that financially that would be quite difficult). Instead I decide I'm going to hop a bus back to Wellington tomorrow. Fine, I'll stay on the bus for 4 hours to Taupo, then catch a public bus to Welly.

We get back on the road and not 10km out of Bulls we hear this huge BANG! .....The emergency exit panel on the roof has just ripped off in the wind, and it's freezing out there and about to rain. The driver pulls over, we get delayed by about an hour altogether with all the stops he had to make to call the Kiwi Experience office, pick up screwdrivers from gas stations to try to temporarily fix this gaping hole in the roof of the bus, etc. In the end, we drove all the way with the emergency exit dangling from the roof, freezing cold winter air coming in, yadda yadda. Just the icing on the cake after I've just found out that I got up early after only a few hours of sleep for nothing, found out my trip was cancelled, etc. On the bright side, my driver and I come up with the idea to just drop me off in Taihape so that the next Kiwi Experience bus coming south can pick me up and take me RIGHT BACK TO WELLINGTON, where I started at 7:45 this morning (only I won't get there until 6pm, so essentially it has been a totally wasted day).

Stupid, stupid, stupid day. I am freezing, I'm gutted that I'm not going to do the east cape trip, and I've wasted a day on a cold and windy bus with no roof in the middle of New Zealand winter.

The southbound bus from River Valley should be pulling into Taihape to pick me up soon so with that I'll sign off. Better moods ahead once I get back to Wellington and get to see more friends.

Ka pai.

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.

When life hands you lemons (aka a missed bus to Milford Sound).....

..... cry for 5 minutes, then say F*%&@ it, go spend $200 buying a lift pass and a new pair of goggles, and renting skis, boots, poles, ski pants and a ski jacket, and GO SKIING!

* Editor's note:

To make a long story short, Kiwi Experience printed the wrong pick-up time for my departure this morning to Milford Sound, and I missed the bus. I called the office, and while they were stumped as to how the wrong pick-up time could be printed on my itinerary (they did acknowledge that it had been printed in error), they were still unable to do anything about it as there would be no more busses leaving Queenstown today for Milford. I was super gutted, as Mangee, my bus driver from 3 years ago, was going to be driving and I was really stoked to be able to catch up with him. Anyway, hopefully we will manage to get together to party tonight or tomorrow, as that's all I was excited for anyway - I've already seen Milford so that's not a huge deal.

Anyway, so I was standing there with the realization that I had missed my bus (frustrating, since I was up at 7am and could have easily made the earlier pick-up time), and I had no plans for the day. Another friend was already up the mountain snowboarding for the day, so I decided to follow and try to find him. I never did end up running into him on the hill, but I got a day of skiing in by myself and it was all good. Budget schmudget... I'm spending lots of money but having a great time doing it. :oD A great (and unexpected) day at Coronet Peak in Queenstown!

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!

3D ultrasound and lots of happy tears

What a day! Where do I begin?

Last night I went out with a group of WYC friends (Evie, Dom, Emily, Isaac, and Imogen) and had a great time. We went for dinner at La Casa Pasta, then hit up some karaoke at Club K across the street. Dom and I went out dancing after everyone else went home, and I finally called it a night around 1am. I stayed at a backpackers hostel in the city last night, as the buses don't run back to the Hutt late enough for me to get home. Anyway, I set my alarm for 8am so that I'd have lots of time to get up, check out of my hostel, take the train back to the Hutt, and take the bus back to Kelson and to Kirsten's house where I could comfortably watch Karyn's 3D ultrasound broadcast, which was scheduled for 6pm Wednesday night (noon Thursday here).

The whole morning was a comedy of errors, really. I walked half an hour from my hostel to the train station, only to find out that I had missed the train by 5 minutes. The trains only come every half hour, so I had to wait until 11:05am for the next train to Lower Hutt. No worries, I can still make it home on time, I'm thinking. I catch the train, and as soon as it pulls up to Waterloo Station I get out and run to catch the bus to Kelson... which came and went only TWO MINUTES before the train got to the station. The next bus to Kelson comes at 11:59am, and takes about 20 minutes to get home. This won't do.

(It's raining, by the way.)

I decide to walk to Queensgate, the mall in Lower Hutt, to catch some wireless from Gloria Jean's Coffee (they MUST have wireless, right?). I'm walking through the rain with my backpack, I can feel my socks getting wet through my shoes, and I'm stepping all over the bottom of my jeans..... but I HAVE to get to somewhere with internet access for noon so I can see Karyn's live ultrasound broadcast. Period.

After walking in the rain for 15 more minutes, I get to Queensgate to find out that Gloria Jean's doesn't have wireless. It's now 10 to 12. I try another coffee shop in Queensgate, no luck. By this point I'm in tears, thinking that I'm going to miss this whole thing after a nearly 2-hour attempt to get home to the internet, and 2 missed public transit attempts. I'm frustrated, I'm soggy, and I JUST NEED WIRELESS ACCESS!!!!

I finally make it to Starbucks across from Queensgate. They have internet! Hallelujia! I pay for an internet code, and I sit down at 12:05 thinking I'll tune in a bit late, but much to my delight, the broadcast is late in starting. Perfect! I ended up catching the whole thing from start to finish. It was AMAZING. I took a bunch of screen shots while I was watching, and here are a few of my favourites:

Head on! I heard Karyn laugh out loud when she saw this view (I think I heard her say "AWWWW!" too).

BIIIIIIIG YAWN! :o)

K let's be honest here.... this one looks like the killer mask from the movie "Scream." (Am I right???) (Check it out here for comparison)

Yay! The babies have ribs! Haha.

A lovely little profile. :o)

Cute little face! :o)

And how did Auntie Lauren hold up through all of this, you may wonder? Well, let's put it this way: I had only been watching for about 5 minutes when one of the guys who works at Starbucks came over and gave me some napkins to dry my eyes and nose and everything else that was watering as I sobbed at my computer. They even turned off the music so I could hear what they were saying during the ultrasound. :o)

(Are you crying yet, mom?) :o)

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!