Each day passes me by more quickly. I’m sure I sound like a broken record but the thought goes through my head each day that I’ve been here. I’ve done so many great things, and by the end of each week I always ask myself, “Where did the time go this week?” If there were a way to slow down time, believe me, I would. It has been nice staying around Auckland the past few weeks after travelling for so long. It gave us all a chance to plan the rest of our semester and catch up/begin our work for the remainder of the semester.
Last week was the “Air New Zealand Fashion Week” her e in Auckland and I found myself with a front row ticket to a runway fashion show. Now I’m sure most of you already starting laughing because the thought of me at a fashion show is quite comical. I never thought I’d be stressed over what to wear, but even I didn’t want to show up to a fashion show looking like an idiot, so the girls and I went shopping and I bought some “ cute wedges” to go with the outfit we salvaged from the clothes I brought with me. I did, however, walk there in my flip flops while carrying the ‘shoes of death’ in my bag :o) I wasn’t about to injure myself walking in heels…that phone call home would have been all too humiliating… All in all it was a fun day out with the girls—and now I can say 2 things.. 1. I really know nothing about fashion. And 2. I’ve done it once; I don’t need to do it again!
Last week Sunday was my beautiful roommate Sarah’s 21st birthday! Being the party animals that we are, we all made some food or dessert and sat around and talked all night. The night before we made our big trip to Foodtown to get all the food we needed –always a good time. Other than that the weekend was just filled with homework and relaxing- the weather wasn’t so great!
Tuesday evening Kate took all of us Arcadia students to see a play on campus called “The Pohutukawa Tree.” It was long and a little slow at times, but I still enjoyed it. It was good to see the other members of our group and as always, it was great to see Kate and get a “mom hug.” Plus a free night out beats out staying in and studying any day….
Mariel’s friend, Jillian (who we stayed with in Australia) is here visiting for a week! We’ve had a fun time hosting someone and have had some pretty legit dinners, too Saturday we rented our sweet 8 passenger van, and after a few problems with the rental company, we were on the road to Coromandel Peninsula to go to Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach! It’s about 2.5 hours away and of course, we had to stop because I got sick.. (NO more road trips for me) It rained on and off the whole day, but we still saw some sunshine. First we had lunch and a café and then headed over to hike about 35 minutes down to Cathedral Cove. We hung out down there for about an hour and hiked back up and drove over to Hot Water Beach. We rented a few shovels and headed over to the area where you’re allowed to dig! There are natural hot springs under the sand on some areas of the beach so when the tide is out, you can dig a hold and presto!..you’re own natural spa! Unfortunately we were extremely early for low tide so we didn’t end up actually digging a real hole, but I went in the freezing cold ocean and we dug our feet in the sand to feel the hot springs.. Very cool. We left about 6:30 pm and stopped in a little town for takeaways and headed back to Auckland. We took advantage of having the van and stopped at Foodtown to buy groceries! It was a long day and a late night, but it was a fun time!
Saturday night was also daylight savings here, so we “sprung ahead” an hour. Of course we all had it written down in our calendars but that doesn’t mean we were going to remember about it…so Mariel and I were a few minutes late in returning the rental van Sunday morning—and if we would have been on time we probably wouldn’t have had to walk back in the rain… We got back, made some coffee and changed for church! The Watomo Children’s Choir from Uganda, Africa was there to lead the service! We definitely enjoyed their ministry!
I do have a bit of bad news to share with you all. You know that delicious cup of coffee I mentioned earlier? Well, I was unable to enjoy most of it because it had an unfortunate run in with my laptop…..needless to say, I’ve switched to chai tea lattes for the time being.. I’m took up all the liquid as best I could, got some advice on how to save it, so now we’ll see if the repair people can do anything for me. At this point I’d just like the pictures from my hard drive. I can live without a computer, but those pictures are special Everything I’ve taken is backed up online—at least most of them! I’m staying positive about it tho—just means spending more time at the library and on campus using those computers! I’m finding it hard to freak out a ton over it because 1. It happened and I can’t make it un- happen and 2. I’m just so lucky to be here having this experience, I’m finding it hard to complain about the bad things. .. God has provided all my needs and then some, so I’m not worried! This same lap top survived the great candle wax incident of '07 so maybe I'll be just as fortunate this time :)
I continue to ask for your prayers as we finish up! Our coursework overall has proved to be a bit more of a challenge than we first anticipated and most of our classes have a final exam worth about 50% or more of our semester grades! Right now I feel great about all my classes besides stats. It’s just not clicking and I have to spend a ton of extra time on it.. So prayers for clarity and focus would be much appreciated!
Also, a prayer request from home.. My cousins Mike and Jenna Sluiter’s little guy, Jake is being hospitalized right now for a possible shunt infection. I haven’t heard any details or updates yet (some of you might know more than I do at this point) but if you could remember them and the doctors in your prayers, that would be great too!!
Well, I thin that’s about enough for now.. sorry (CORINNA) that it took me so long to update! Hopefully I can use a friend’s computer to put up some pictures and liven up this post and hopefully I’ll have another post after this coming weekend! Because I don’t have a computer accessible to me at all times anymore, communication might be down.. the best way to reach me might be via post or carrier pigeon.. Whichever you prefer I’ll try to stay as connected as possible with everyone back home! Have a great week! Until next time….
Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
things i've learned and some favorite pictures
It's been a long week of homework and class after a fabulous 2 weeks off! We've decided to stay here and do more work this weekend instead of going anywhere.. we need a break from traveling too :) So, I decided to post some of my thoughts and things I've learned now that my time here is over halfway finished..
1. museli > granola :)
2. road construction is everywhere in the world. there's no escape from it!
3. coffee "plungers" over normal filter kind
4. God is faithful in providing good friendships.. new ones here and continuing ones from home and school. I can't begin to explain what a blessing it is.
5. A.J. Hacktt is the MAN. (invented bungy jumping)
6. postcards and pictures of this place don't even begin to describe it's beauty
7. there's an opportunity everyday to witness.. something i've always known but has become more apparent to me living outside of a Christian community.
8. never walk across a wet surface in flip flops unless you want to fall
9. sounds cliche, but some risks really are worth taking.
10.my family absolutely rocks! I've received nothing but love and support from them! Thank you all :)
11. the Cubs are bad both when I am home and when I am not there...
12. I have to start thinking about grad school. prayers are appreciated!
13. SKYPE was a pretty sweet invention
14. A favorite verse from the past few weeks:
" Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:12
15. I've been learning to rest in the comfort of Christ. He knows my life, my thoughts, my actions, my fears, my joys.. He knows _____. Fill in the blank. The future has a tendency to make me nervous, however I know I will be taken care of. God's timing is perfect and each day I live has a purpose. I continue to find joy in each day and to seek out my purpose in it.
Now, here are a few of my favorite pictures from the past few weeks... enjoy!
1. museli > granola :)
2. road construction is everywhere in the world. there's no escape from it!
3. coffee "plungers" over normal filter kind
4. God is faithful in providing good friendships.. new ones here and continuing ones from home and school. I can't begin to explain what a blessing it is.
5. A.J. Hacktt is the MAN. (invented bungy jumping)
6. postcards and pictures of this place don't even begin to describe it's beauty
7. there's an opportunity everyday to witness.. something i've always known but has become more apparent to me living outside of a Christian community.
8. never walk across a wet surface in flip flops unless you want to fall
9. sounds cliche, but some risks really are worth taking.
10.my family absolutely rocks! I've received nothing but love and support from them! Thank you all :)
11. the Cubs are bad both when I am home and when I am not there...
12. I have to start thinking about grad school. prayers are appreciated!
13. SKYPE was a pretty sweet invention
14. A favorite verse from the past few weeks:
" Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:12
15. I've been learning to rest in the comfort of Christ. He knows my life, my thoughts, my actions, my fears, my joys.. He knows _____. Fill in the blank. The future has a tendency to make me nervous, however I know I will be taken care of. God's timing is perfect and each day I live has a purpose. I continue to find joy in each day and to seek out my purpose in it.
Now, here are a few of my favorite pictures from the past few weeks... enjoy!
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Australia/South Island Adventures
I hope you're comfortable where you are sitting because this could be a long post :) Surely I won't be able to write about everything we did over break, but I will do my best to hit the high points! My jaw dropped more than once on this trip. Even as I'm sitting here thinking about my trip, it's hard for me to even believe that I've been experiencing all these awesome things and visiting different places in the world.
I guess I'll just start at the beginning... Mariel and I flew into Sydney where here friend Jillian met us at the airport. We spent the afternoon walking to the Opera House where we had a great view of the harbor bridge and we also walked to the botanical gardens. We stayed the night at Jillian's friend Emma's apartment. She made us a roast lamb dinner that was delicious. The next day we took the ferry to the zoo and caught an early afternoon train up to New Castle where Jillian goes to school.
We stayed there for the remainder of the week. We went to trivia night at a local Chinese food restaurant/bar, spent an afternoon at the beach, went to a wildlife preserve, and walked around Jillian's campus. The afternoon we went to the beach, we actually ended up having quite an adventure! Mariel's cell phone ran out of credit and we couldn't find a pay phone that worked so we had no way of contacting Jillian (who was supposed to meet up with us after she was finished with her day at school) We ended up catching a bus ( longest ride ever) back near campus and walked the rest of the way to her house. When we go there we found out that Jillian had gone out looking for us.. Her roommate called her and in the end we all made it home safely. We were pretty proud of ourselves for making it back in one piece.. a little cold, but we made it!
Not only did we see kangaroos, we bought some kangaroo meat from the grocery store and ate it on pizza :) It tasted kind of like beef. In fear of getting sick, I of course cooked mine til it was basically black, but it was still delicious! We made homemade dough and had a fun night making the pizzas all together.
We spent our last day back in Sydney. We paid 7 bucks to store our luggage and decided to do a 'hop on hop off' bus tour. For 35 Australian dollars we were able to tour the whole city and get on an off wherever we wanted. A bus comes to each stop every 10-15 minutes, so it was a great way for us to see what we wanted in the short amount of time we had. We went to the Wildlife world where we were able to actually pet koala bears and get our picture with them :) They're not as soft as they look. It was still an experience tho! We also went to a place called Pancakes on the Rocks. This was recommended to us by our friend from Geneva who studied there last semester. We had a delicious lunch of the best pancakes!! I of course, got the chocolate lovers one..complete with ice cream! We had an absolutely gorgeous day to tour around the city, and fabulous weather all week! We had an evening flight out of Sydney to Christchurch where we met up with the rest of our friends.
We got to our hostel pretty late that night and were up early the next morning to catch our shuttle bus to where we'd be picked up by the STRAY bus that we traveled on for the remainder of the week. The ride everywhere was simply gorgeous! There was always things to look at and see and the land is just breathtaking down there! All of my photos just don't do it justice. The first day consisted of traveling and we stayed in a backpackers near the Franz Josef glacier for 2 nights. The second full day of our trip, we spent 8.5 hours hiking the glacier. Only guided tours are allowed on the glacier, and I can honestly say this was one of the coolest experiences of my life so far. I feel like I keep saying that, but this is something you can't experience everyday!
We arrived at the glacier guide place at 8am. We were suited up in boots, dry coats and bum bags with our crampons (fanny packs- but you're not allowed to call them that here) We dressed in plenty of layers that we actually didn't end up needing- it was an absolutely perfect day for hiking! When i pictured a glacier, I didn't exactly have the right image in my mind. I was picturing a giant flat floating piece of ice.. this is not the case! This was one of the most challenging hikes I've ever been on, but the most rewarding, and I would definitely do it again. It's hard to describe in words, so you'll have to just flip through all my pictures and see for yourselves! By the end of the hike, I had only fallen and slid down one "wave" and I had 2 blisters from the hiking boots they gave us, but that was the worst of the injuries. We were all COMPLETELY exhausted and we spent the next 2 days being sore and achy- but again, well worth it!!
The next morning, we got on the bus again and traveled to Makarora. This is a SMALL town. And by small I mean small. Population = less than 70 people. We went to the bar that night because there was supposed to be karaoke, however, being the nerds that we are, we had one drink and went back to our little triangle shaped hostel house and went to bed... the karaoke ended up starting way later than we thought and we we had to be up early the next morning for out jet boat ride down some rivers! This was quite the experience! We were frozen from the start, and got sprayed lots of times from doing 360s and it actually started to rain on our trip back to the "dock" -- it was actually anchored to the edge of the river by a big old tractor! We had lots of fun gliding along at top speeds and the boat was less than 6 inches in the water while moving!
Right when we got back from this the bus was again leaving to travel to Queenstown! We spent the whole day riding in the bus but we made plenty of stops for breakfast, lunch and photo opportunities! I should tell you a little bit about our bus driver, Tyke. He was awesome! He made the trip such a blast. He was actually in the army not too long ago and learned to drive a bus there. He took a job with STRAY and he tours the country full time: arranging hostiles and guiding trips on the north and the south island! He took very good care of us and kept us laughing! We made one stop that we were particularly excited about.. a waterfall used in the 2nd LOTR movie.
We made it to Queenstown and went right to book our adventures for the next 2 days! We were going to take a LOTR tour, however it didn't fit into the time we had put aside to go. In the morning we got on a bus, drove for 40 minutes and reached our destination. THE SECOND HIGHEST BUNGY JUMP IN THE WORLD. THE NEVIS BUNGY JUMP!! We all booked our NON REFUNDABLE tickets the day before, so there was no backing out! We were all pretty excited, but obviously terrified! I was the lucky one who had to jump first!! I'm kind of glad though! Here's the link to the video of me jumping. I'll just add that I was nervous deep down, but didn't want to show it so apparently it came out in the form of dancing..hahaha. It was an experience of a lifetime and I would do it again in a heartbeat!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024404&id=151101508&saved#/profile.php?id=151101508&v=app_2392950137&ref=profile
After this we went back to town and went to Fergberger: one of THE best burgers I've ever had- but not better than yours, Daddy-o! It probably tasted so good because we were so hungry. None of us ate anything that morning for fear of getting sick before bungy jumping! After that we went back to the hostel and got ready to ride the gondola up the mountain to ride a luge. This brought us back to our youths but it was still great fun! We had 6 rides with our tickets so we spent a good couple of hours riding down in the luges and riding back up the ski lift! It was a fun day!
The next day we spent 5 hours on an Eco Bus tour that took us to the Milford Sound. The weather was pretty nasty, but it was still a beautiful place to visit; absolutely breathtaking! We had some rough waters and a few of us felt a little sick-- then we got back on the bus for a 4 hour ride back to Queenstown and I did get sick. The roads were windy and narrow and I was miserable. I still felt sick the next morning and got sick again as we headed out of Queenstown back to Christchurch. At our first stop i got a bottle of sprite and drank it with some tylenol pm- i then slept in the fetal position on the bus for the next 6 hours. I did feel better once we reached our hostel.
The bar attached to the hostel we stayed at just happened to be having a free pig roast that night so we got a free meal! It was delicious and reminded me of home :) We went to bed early and caught our shuttle to the airport in the morning and were back in Auckland in the afternoon! We had SUCH a great trip- no major problems, and were blessed with great weather and safe travels! This description of my trip doesn't do it justice, but I hope the pictures help! Here's the links to all my pictures that I've put up on facebook. I hope they work so let me know if they don't!
65 Days left. So much yet to do!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024404&id=151101508&l=5f45a7fada
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024405&id=151101508&l=66157a0012
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024424&id=151101508&l=fc6c60a4c4
I guess I'll just start at the beginning... Mariel and I flew into Sydney where here friend Jillian met us at the airport. We spent the afternoon walking to the Opera House where we had a great view of the harbor bridge and we also walked to the botanical gardens. We stayed the night at Jillian's friend Emma's apartment. She made us a roast lamb dinner that was delicious. The next day we took the ferry to the zoo and caught an early afternoon train up to New Castle where Jillian goes to school.
We stayed there for the remainder of the week. We went to trivia night at a local Chinese food restaurant/bar, spent an afternoon at the beach, went to a wildlife preserve, and walked around Jillian's campus. The afternoon we went to the beach, we actually ended up having quite an adventure! Mariel's cell phone ran out of credit and we couldn't find a pay phone that worked so we had no way of contacting Jillian (who was supposed to meet up with us after she was finished with her day at school) We ended up catching a bus ( longest ride ever) back near campus and walked the rest of the way to her house. When we go there we found out that Jillian had gone out looking for us.. Her roommate called her and in the end we all made it home safely. We were pretty proud of ourselves for making it back in one piece.. a little cold, but we made it!
Not only did we see kangaroos, we bought some kangaroo meat from the grocery store and ate it on pizza :) It tasted kind of like beef. In fear of getting sick, I of course cooked mine til it was basically black, but it was still delicious! We made homemade dough and had a fun night making the pizzas all together.
We spent our last day back in Sydney. We paid 7 bucks to store our luggage and decided to do a 'hop on hop off' bus tour. For 35 Australian dollars we were able to tour the whole city and get on an off wherever we wanted. A bus comes to each stop every 10-15 minutes, so it was a great way for us to see what we wanted in the short amount of time we had. We went to the Wildlife world where we were able to actually pet koala bears and get our picture with them :) They're not as soft as they look. It was still an experience tho! We also went to a place called Pancakes on the Rocks. This was recommended to us by our friend from Geneva who studied there last semester. We had a delicious lunch of the best pancakes!! I of course, got the chocolate lovers one..complete with ice cream! We had an absolutely gorgeous day to tour around the city, and fabulous weather all week! We had an evening flight out of Sydney to Christchurch where we met up with the rest of our friends.
We got to our hostel pretty late that night and were up early the next morning to catch our shuttle bus to where we'd be picked up by the STRAY bus that we traveled on for the remainder of the week. The ride everywhere was simply gorgeous! There was always things to look at and see and the land is just breathtaking down there! All of my photos just don't do it justice. The first day consisted of traveling and we stayed in a backpackers near the Franz Josef glacier for 2 nights. The second full day of our trip, we spent 8.5 hours hiking the glacier. Only guided tours are allowed on the glacier, and I can honestly say this was one of the coolest experiences of my life so far. I feel like I keep saying that, but this is something you can't experience everyday!
We arrived at the glacier guide place at 8am. We were suited up in boots, dry coats and bum bags with our crampons (fanny packs- but you're not allowed to call them that here) We dressed in plenty of layers that we actually didn't end up needing- it was an absolutely perfect day for hiking! When i pictured a glacier, I didn't exactly have the right image in my mind. I was picturing a giant flat floating piece of ice.. this is not the case! This was one of the most challenging hikes I've ever been on, but the most rewarding, and I would definitely do it again. It's hard to describe in words, so you'll have to just flip through all my pictures and see for yourselves! By the end of the hike, I had only fallen and slid down one "wave" and I had 2 blisters from the hiking boots they gave us, but that was the worst of the injuries. We were all COMPLETELY exhausted and we spent the next 2 days being sore and achy- but again, well worth it!!
The next morning, we got on the bus again and traveled to Makarora. This is a SMALL town. And by small I mean small. Population = less than 70 people. We went to the bar that night because there was supposed to be karaoke, however, being the nerds that we are, we had one drink and went back to our little triangle shaped hostel house and went to bed... the karaoke ended up starting way later than we thought and we we had to be up early the next morning for out jet boat ride down some rivers! This was quite the experience! We were frozen from the start, and got sprayed lots of times from doing 360s and it actually started to rain on our trip back to the "dock" -- it was actually anchored to the edge of the river by a big old tractor! We had lots of fun gliding along at top speeds and the boat was less than 6 inches in the water while moving!
Right when we got back from this the bus was again leaving to travel to Queenstown! We spent the whole day riding in the bus but we made plenty of stops for breakfast, lunch and photo opportunities! I should tell you a little bit about our bus driver, Tyke. He was awesome! He made the trip such a blast. He was actually in the army not too long ago and learned to drive a bus there. He took a job with STRAY and he tours the country full time: arranging hostiles and guiding trips on the north and the south island! He took very good care of us and kept us laughing! We made one stop that we were particularly excited about.. a waterfall used in the 2nd LOTR movie.
We made it to Queenstown and went right to book our adventures for the next 2 days! We were going to take a LOTR tour, however it didn't fit into the time we had put aside to go. In the morning we got on a bus, drove for 40 minutes and reached our destination. THE SECOND HIGHEST BUNGY JUMP IN THE WORLD. THE NEVIS BUNGY JUMP!! We all booked our NON REFUNDABLE tickets the day before, so there was no backing out! We were all pretty excited, but obviously terrified! I was the lucky one who had to jump first!! I'm kind of glad though! Here's the link to the video of me jumping. I'll just add that I was nervous deep down, but didn't want to show it so apparently it came out in the form of dancing..hahaha. It was an experience of a lifetime and I would do it again in a heartbeat!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024404&id=151101508&saved#/profile.php?id=151101508&v=app_2392950137&ref=profile
After this we went back to town and went to Fergberger: one of THE best burgers I've ever had- but not better than yours, Daddy-o! It probably tasted so good because we were so hungry. None of us ate anything that morning for fear of getting sick before bungy jumping! After that we went back to the hostel and got ready to ride the gondola up the mountain to ride a luge. This brought us back to our youths but it was still great fun! We had 6 rides with our tickets so we spent a good couple of hours riding down in the luges and riding back up the ski lift! It was a fun day!
The next day we spent 5 hours on an Eco Bus tour that took us to the Milford Sound. The weather was pretty nasty, but it was still a beautiful place to visit; absolutely breathtaking! We had some rough waters and a few of us felt a little sick-- then we got back on the bus for a 4 hour ride back to Queenstown and I did get sick. The roads were windy and narrow and I was miserable. I still felt sick the next morning and got sick again as we headed out of Queenstown back to Christchurch. At our first stop i got a bottle of sprite and drank it with some tylenol pm- i then slept in the fetal position on the bus for the next 6 hours. I did feel better once we reached our hostel.
The bar attached to the hostel we stayed at just happened to be having a free pig roast that night so we got a free meal! It was delicious and reminded me of home :) We went to bed early and caught our shuttle to the airport in the morning and were back in Auckland in the afternoon! We had SUCH a great trip- no major problems, and were blessed with great weather and safe travels! This description of my trip doesn't do it justice, but I hope the pictures help! Here's the links to all my pictures that I've put up on facebook. I hope they work so let me know if they don't!
65 Days left. So much yet to do!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024404&id=151101508&l=5f45a7fada
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024405&id=151101508&l=66157a0012
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024424&id=151101508&l=fc6c60a4c4
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