Hello dear loved ones! I've been a blogging hiatus but the Internet in New Zealand is nearly non-existent. I'll just do a little catch up quickly; if I spell something wrong or the grammar has a few mistakes you'll have to cut me some slack, blogging on my phone is hard.
On the 26th Steph and I left Australia to begin our adventures in New Zealand. Our flight didn't leave until the evening so we went around Sydney and celebrated Australia day for a bit. Our last day didn't give us any breaks though. The elevator in our hotel was broken so if you can imagine two girls carrying over 100lbs of luggage in a stairwell I'm sure you'll get a laugh. Needless to say we were absolutely dripping when we made it to the bottom. It was raining, again, in Sydney when we left so genius me didn't wear any sunscreen that morning. But just my luck, it stopped raining and I naturally got fried. Luckily it wasn't a farmers tan though. We toured Darling Harbour for the morning and had some more gelato, that will be a weakness for me.
When we finally made it to the airport that evening it was one of my most pleasant airport experiences ever, weird. We must've looked absolutely lost and confused because a pilot stopped and showed us where the gate we needed was and helped us put quite a bit. While checking in we spotted some dashing guys and to our surprise and luck, they sat right next to us. ;) If you've ever been to an international airport you know about the duty free zones-my new favorite places. All of the duty free locations sell alcohol at a tax-free price so they're not extremely expensive. While going through duty free a vendor stopped us and there we were taking shots in the airport-it was nasty gin but hey I'll take anything free! We also discovered there's no bologna over here, so no cold cut trios at Subway! Shoot.
We landed in Christchurch around 11:30 that evening so we didn't get to our hostel until late. Unfortunately we had to wake up at 6 am the next morning. :( Last summer there was a massive earthquake in Christchurch so on our taxi to the hostel we learned a bit about it and saw a lot of the devastation. Our taxi driver was actually caught in the middle of the street during the earthquake so he told us a bit about it.
Needless to say our first hostel experience was a success. We left our hostel and caught a shuttle to the train station. On our shuttle we met an engineer from Afghanistan and she old us different stories about working there. She has 8 body guards with her at all times because the Taliban is consistently trying to attack her, terrifying right?
We took a train called the tranzalpine so it took us from one side of the country to the other basically, and right across the alps. I cannot even begin to describe how gorgeous that train ride was. New Zealand is just beautiful. I took so many photos on the train. As soon as I get back to school I'll upload my photos and you can all be jealous of the gorgeous views.
After we got off the train we began our adventure on the Kiwi Experience bus. All I have to say about the bus is that it is definitely the most interesting thing I have ever done. There's people from all over the world on the bus and they're just all characters. Most of the people weve met are from the UK though and the more and more time I spend with them the more I find myself saying weird UK phrases and small words.
Our first night on the bus we stayed at the poo pub, the second hostel experience was not as good as the first. We stayed a very small cabin and the bathrooms were out away from our cabin in a little trailer. And everything is co-Ed an boys are just SO gross and smell awful. But on the plus side the place we stayed was right on the Tasman Sea and it was SO pretty.
We left there early the next morning for Franz Josef. Steph and I signed up to do a full day glacier hike in Franz Josef, 9 hours of straight hiking. We stayed in Franz for two days and it was a fun little town. I was dying for a burger and fries and the ones they had at the bar were just delicious. I think the ketchup over here is different and it tastes much better. The room Steph and I ended up with had a bathroom attached and we actually ended up having a room to ourselves, so nice.
So yes you did read that right, I hiked a glacier. And yes it nearly killed me. Ha. We had to report to the office at 9 and get dressed for the glacier. They gave us boots, pants, crampons, and a raincoat. I absolutely ended up loving the hike on the way up, died about twice but it was all fine once I decided to start eating the glacier. It is a big ice block after all. We ended up hiking up about 16,000 feet. Insane. It was gorgeous though, also more pictures to follow. After the glacier we went into the hot springs, which was so nice and relaxing.
This post is getting a bit long so I'll have to update you on the rest of the trip later!
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