kimmels invade New Zealand!!

Well, the reunion has taken place, and what a great reunion it was!  I picked up the Kimmel crew just a few days ago…they were delayed by the ash cloud but fortunately were able to be re-routed and only delayed by about 6 hours from the original time they were supposed to arrive in Dunedin.  We all drove back from the airport in our temporary Kimmel-mobile, a giant 10-seater silver van, and fam was immediately baffled at driving on the left side of the road.  The next morning we met up and all walked to the farmers’ market, my last time there : (  After the market I had to head back to the library and cram for my final that I had that afternoon.  But then I was done, woooooo hoooooo!  We just hung out for the rest of the evening until the jet-lagged crew went to bed and i went to Grace House for a farewell gathering with a bunch of friends, which was so much fun.  We ate lots of unhealthy food, took tons of pictures, and had multiple dance parties.  As much as I am SO excited to go home again I am really sad for this time abroad to be coming to a close.  I have been just so incredibly blessed with really amazing relationships here, people whom I will never forget and who have had some profound impacts on me and my faith journey.  I will be forever thankful for this time.

On Sunday we went to morning church, where my family got to meet many of my friends from this semester.  The sermon was preached on 2 Samuel 21 and it was very well done.  This is one of those passages that i have had trouble understanding why things happened the way that they did, why this situation was recorded in such detail, and the relevance of how it relates to us today.  I was pleased that the talk addressed all of these questions and explained how this ties right into the Gospel message.  After church we treated dad to Caper’s for fathers’ day and the family couldn’t get enough of it.  Then we went to Tunnel Beach, another place that they loved.  The weather hasn’t been too nice so far while they’ve been in NZ (surprise!) but we’ve been operating by the motto that my friends and I have lived by all semester: if you let the weather determine your travel plans you’ll never go anywhere or do anything.  So Tunnel Beach was great.  We came back and hung out at my flat for a while and did some laundry and then went for a pizza dinner at Filadelphios, a place I hadn’t tried yet.  And after that it was packing time…the process wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected, though I am fortunate to have my family and their willingness to bring an extra bag for some of the extra stuff I’ve accumulated.  This obviously came as no surprise, as they are well aware of my chronic over-packing-itis.  Though, that they are surprised by is the temperature and climate here.  They are utterly amazed at how sporadic the weather is here and how cold it is inside our flat and wonder at how we could stand living like that.  Well, it’s not like we had a whole lot of choice, but I have to say, I’m pretty proud of myself that I have not used a heater of any sort until about a week ago when I finally cracked because I couldn’t sleep due to the cold.  But I’ve acclimated well, if I do say so myself.  I don’t think mum has been warm the entire time she’s been in the country, with the exception of when she’s in the shower.

family at the train station/farmers' market

boys at tunnel beach

jaffa dumping!!

Monday was moveout day.  I said my goodbyes to my flatmates (though I will be meeting up with Asma in a few days in Queenstown) and left 43 Howe St.  It’s definitely been a bittersweet goodbye, that’s for sure.  But I keep coming back to knowing that I’m not meant to stay here; God is calling me to take what I’ve learned and experienced here and bring it back home with me, to my life there.  I have been so incredibly blessed over these last few months and I have grown so much and now it’s time to move onto the next chapter.  I took care of all of my last-minute errands, including paying 2 more parking tickets - gah, they are such sticklers here!  We got mom and dad venti coffees at Starbucks (they looked like such Americans carrying around those huge coffees!) and did some shopping and then headed to walk Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world.  Let me tell you, this was one steep street!  Interesting fact that I learned on the Cadbury Factory tour last week (which was sooooooo great by the way!  I love chocolate!!!): Each year in July Cadbury sponsors a huge event to raise money for charity. They manufacture 50,000 Jaffas (a Cadbury specialty, they are round, orange-coated chocolates, about the size of gobstoppers) and number them 1-50,000.  Anyone can buy numbers as sort of like a lottery thing, betting on particular Jaffas.  Then they haul all of them to the top of Baldwin Street and, I kid you not, dump all 50,000 down the street and the first few numbers to arrive at the bottom win cash prizes and all of the rest of the proceeds go to charity.  Pretty cool, eh?  Well, since I’m not going to be around for the annual Jaffa dumping, I decided it would be appropriate to buy myself a bag of Jaffas and dump them, and that’s exactly what I did, with the help of dad : )  After we finished our fun on Baldwin St. we headed to get some ice cream (of course) and then out for a drive on the peninsula.  And after that we embarked on our journey out of Dunedin.   We traveled a short distance north to stay in a place called Moeraki.  This is familiar, if you recall the sick picture of me upside down inside a round boulder on a beach (the Moeraki Boulders).  We came for the evening specifically to eat at a world-renowned seafood place called Fleur’s.  Well.  We got to Moeraki and couldn’t find it so we stopped at a local tavern to ask and they guy informed us that it was right nearby, but apparently during the winter season it’s only opened Wednesday-Sunday, and it was Monday.  Bummer.  But we decided to just stay and eat at the tavern, which was pretty good.

We saw the Moeraki Boulders the next morning and had a ton of fun taking pictures and climbing the rocks.  Mum and dad were set on getting coffees at the beachfront café that I had bragged about but it was closed for annual maintenance.  I don’t know what it is about this week but we have been striking out: Cadbury Factory was closed starting the day the family got into Dunedin, Fleur’s was closed on the day we tried to eat there, and now the Moeraki visitor’s center.  But all was well when we stopped back at the Starbuck’s for them to get their ventis, and no parking ticket this time.  After that we continued south, on our way to Alexandra for me to be reunited with Leonard!!  And they still had him!!  I rewarded the car mechanics with some American candy (thanks to Nick, who donated the Cowtails), and they were totally ok with that.  AND I did ask if there was any chance that the license plate was maybe still on the back of Lucille…as I desperately wanted to get it when we junked her but couldn’t manage to get it off.  And they did go and take it off for me, win win!  It was a good stop in Alexandra : )  Then we continued over to Te Anau and arrived at our pre-booked accommodation, which is super nice and Te Anau is just as nice of a town as I’d remembered it.  And tomorrow we head out for a Milford cruise!  This is the one day that I am hoping for rain, as I haven’t seen the fiord turn into the hundreds of waterfalls, as occurs when it’s wet.

It’s so good to be back together with the family : )

adventures in Queenstown with my best friend

Click this link for the whole album of our weekend fun.

Going back a few weeks to the third and final weekend that Spencer and i spent together in New Zealand...since we had left Lucille at Alexandra Auto Parts just days earlier we now had the issue of figuring out what we would do that weekend and how we were going to get there.  Ironically, the other group that was planning to hike the Routeburn Track with us had car issues as well and had to be towed, so they were out as well.  By this point we just laughed about it, what else is there to do?  But unfortunately, the Routeburn was just no longer going to be a possibility.  I found us reasonably-priced bus tickets to Queenstown and we decided to just spend a long weekend there, in hopes of finding some overnight hike to do and we would just stay in a hostel the other nights.  The bus left on a Thursday afternoon and as we were packing i realized that i was missing something important: Leonard.  A feeling of dread overcame me as i thought hard about where he could be.  Since my room was just an explosion with both my and Spencer's stuff everywhere i hadn't noticed that Leonard was missing until i was trying to find him, leaving a window of about 3 days when he could have been lost.  The first thing i thought was that i must have left him inside the car...but how in the world could i forget Leonard in the car?!  Of all things, i would have gotten Leonard out when i was cleaning it.  Anyways, i was pretty upset about it and this was actually the only time while Spencer was here that we fought...as i accused him of not caring about me when he looked at me and said "jenn. it's just your toy llama.  chill out".  i was not a happy girl.  But.  Acceptance had to come, Leonard was gone : (

to call it a large burger is an understatement

We headed to Queenstown and arrived in the evening.  After checking into our hostel we went out to eat at Fergburger, a Queenstown legacy.  This was specially for Spencer, obviously.  Upon looking at the menu he promptly suggested that since we were at Ferg we should just go all out and get the biggest one.  WELL, that is one big burger, let me tell you.  The menu reads:

BIG AL $17.00 Al delivers a double serving of prime New Zealand beef (1/2 lb), lashings of bacon, a whole lotta cheese, 2 eggs, beetroot, lettuce, tomato, red onion, relish, & a big wad of aioli. 

Early the next morning we woke up and went to the Department of Conservation center right away to ask for any suggestions on hikes and the woman proceeded to recommend Routeburn, which is about an hour from Qt.  I was like yeah, yeah, yeah, i've done all the research and we've tried to figure out how to do it but we're carless and poor and it's not a loop track so i don't think it's going to work.  Fortunately she recommended going to Info&Track, a local transportation company, to check on rates for transporting to the start of the track.  We went across the street and inquired and it turns out that they happened to be taking a group out that day at 1:30 - what?!  And further, Kailey and her bf Tony were also hanging in Qt that weekend and were planning on just doing a day hike on the Routeburn. Things couldn't have worked out much better after we worked it out so that Spencer and i could hike a day in and then back out on the same end that we started at, catching a ride back with Kailey/Tony.

The Routeburn was AWESOME.  It was just what Spence and I wanted for our overnight hike.  The views were absolutely spectacular and we woke up to snow the second day.  It was a good decently challenging tramp and we just so enjoyed experiencing God’s glory through creation together.  Here are a few of our favorites:

Spence leading us to the ridge on day 2

us at the ridge, the highest point on Routeburn

Spencer's pretty epic picture of me, if i do say so myself.

at the summit of Ben Lomond!

We got back to Qt and cleaned up and found a great pizza spot and then had the best gelato I’ve ever tasted, by far.  The next morning we headed out for a full day hike that I’d heard about, called Ben Lomond.  We began with hiking up the skyline gondola hill, because we definitely weren’t going to pay $25 each to ride it to the top, where the Ben Lomond Track officially begins.  The skyline gondola track is an established hike, but it’s pretty steep.  We got going and it was a nice start, then we were off to do the real deal.  I didn’t realize until we were on the track that Ben Lomond is actually a peak that we would summit, pretty cool, eh?  It is actually a really challenging hike, especially with Spencer’s blood sugar deciding it was going to be too low.  But it was well worth it and we experienced some of the most spectacular views I’ve seen yet, which is pretty good considering all I’ve seen this semester.  Coming back down was a bit of a fiasco, as we somehow ended up in a field of sheep below the gondola, quite the adventure, as always!

on our way...

not a bad view of Queenstown

my favorite one

So…our Qt weekend was quite an active one with the two tracks we hiked and just experiencing some of what Qt has to offer.  I am glad to say that it is on the itinerary for my family and I’ve finally found someone to bungee jump with!!  (not that this was an issue in nz…but I’ve been nagging Matt to agree to do it and he has!)  Before Spence and I left I fed him his first meat pie, a Speight’s no less, and then we went to Starbucks, which was such an experience for me.  You see, Starbucks in nz serves coffee in the same size cups as at home, which seems so incredibly foreign to me now.  I am not exaggerating when I say that coffee portion sizes are literally at least half of what America serves.  So I ordered a small and it was, no joke, twice the size of the large lattes I get at school.  Crazy.

So after our adventures in Qt we headed back to Dunedin, which was a bit sad because we both knew that Spence was heading out the following morning. The time that he spent here went by so so so fast.  It was very difficult to say goodbye again.  I didn’t think that it would be easy but I didn’t think it would be that tough.  I was pretty homesick for the next day or so and have been so ready to get home since then, but it’s been a really good last few weeks here and reminding myself to be content in my situation right now and make the most of my time left.  And I’m obviously so excited about my family coming – they get here in less than one day!!  I think I’m going to experience about every emotion under the sun over these next few days!  But God is so good and has been so faithful in reminding me constantly of how incredibly blessed I am.  Looking forward to sharing more of what I’ve learned in the upcoming posts!

Oh and one more really exciting, totally important, urgent message: a few days ago i decided i should just put my thoughts to rest and call Alexandra Auto Parts, just in the very unlikely event that they might have seen Leonard and that maybe if that was the case they had for some reason decided to keep my stuffed llama...i know, this is quite pathetic, isn't it?  But regardless i called.  Now you will laugh in imagining me calling to speak to a car mechanic and trying to explain to him that i have this very important toy llama and i think i may have left him in Lucille, my car, and i'm wondering if he knows anything about this llama that i am missing.  He told me to call back in 5 minutes and when i did he asked "oh yeah...is it like a furry creature thing?" I pretty much exploded with joy and was soooo excited.  So, Leonard and i shall be reunited in a few days, when i drag my family a few hours west to stop by Alexandra to retrieve him : )

i've been so incredibly blessed!

I know i promised i would get another post up about the tail end of Spencer's trip here, and trust me, i would rather be blogging than studying, but it's had to wait.  On the note of studying though, i have been doing it quite a lot and i've completed two of my three finals, which went shockingly well.  I expected to do well on my adventure education one but i was very nervous about marine science.  It's a pretty difficult course and expectations were high.  I didn't do well on the midterm and so my final grade really was riding completely on this exam.  After i got my grade back from the midterm earlier this semester i went to speak to the Steve (professor) about how i can improve and he explained how i need to read his questions a bit differently and adjust how i answer them and also suggested that i study with a group for the final. I did both of these things, which was a little out of my comfort zone because all of the people i studied with just seem to operate at a higher level of intelligence...really, not to put myself down (i'm really ok with it : ) but it just was a little overwhelming because they are just smarter than i am.  But this was actually really good, it challenged me to work even harder.  I studied my butt off, and it really did get me somewhere!  I think i did very well on the final, so i will pass marine science, wooo!  It's interesting though, how i've come to better understand this professor's method of teaching and testing.  When i took the midterm i was frustrated by what i considered to be far too detailed and in-depth questions to be fairly asking on an exam.  But for the final i knew more what to expect and studied accordingly, even though i still felt like this testing style is a bit unreasonable.  But my perspective changed as i walked out of the final exam session and it occurred to me that i really really know this information; i know pretty much the bulk of the entire course.  And even though the course is done, i still have that knowledge.  What i had previously considered to be unreasonably in-depth questions i now see as Steve's method of requiring us to know the content inside and out, because if i hadn't studied the information to that ridiculously detailed level i wouldn't have been able to answer most of the exam questions.  I think this is just one example of how high expectations really do make a huge difference in how well we learn.  What was frustration towards my professor has now turned into respect for challenging and pushing me.

I now just have one more final and 77 hours (until my family lands in NZ...but who's counting?) standing in between myself and educational freedom.  And boy, i can't tell you how excited i am to come home to so many things, but especially being warm again!!  Anyways, on to my main point in writing this morning.  I woke up early today in order to get myself to the library at 8:30 so that i could get a good spot and get working right away.  Go Jenn, right?!  Well, it's nearly 11 am and i still have not started on my work.  But you know what?  Some things are just more important than school, and i love when i am reminded of that in the life-is-bigger-than-today way, not the i-just-want-to-waste-my-time-on-facebook-procrastinating way.  This morning was one of those times.

As i am getting ready to leave this semester abroad and preparing to move on to the next stage of my life my mind has been busy with many emotions and God has been teaching me so much these last few weeks - i am excited to be able to share more of that with you over these next few weeks.  But this morning i was particularly stunned by some news that i received.  I found out that a friend and former co-counselor from last summer, Mike, has been diagnosed with cancer.  Obviously, this is really sad and difficult news, which does make my heart ache.  But that's not what has caused me to spend my morning in a renewed perspective, wanting to share this story with everyone i talk to.  I got an email with the news that also said that Mike is keeping a blog.  I got on his facebook page and found a link to an article about his situation.  I encourage you to take a few minutes and read it.  I was so encouraged by this story and i clicked the link to his blog.  First of all, i love that he started the blog before he knew any of this would happen - to me that reflects even more how he is genuinely and wholeheartedly taking what God is placing in his life and just running with it.  It is obvious that Mike was blindsided by this drastic change in the course of his life, and how inspiring that this has led to a vast network of acceptance, hope, and glory to the Lord.  I was brought to tears several times in reading his posts and i consider myself blessed to have the opportunity to read about and share Mike's situation, and more importantly, his response to what most people will readily argue is an absolutely terrible situation. 

I am so encouraged.

I ask that you read his blog.  If you don't want to or don't have a lot of time or whatever, at least allow me to ask you to read just one post.  I have recently been challenged to think harder about suffering and all of the tough questions that we all wonder, like "how can a loving God allow suffering?"  Mike's story has been such an inspiration to me and a reflection of what our perspective needs to be as Christians.  This is such a great reminder that we so need to adjust our perspectives and see this world and our lives as larger than us and about more than just today.

I am so blessed.  I have been realizing this more and more each day and i'm just overwhelmed by how i will never be able to fully appreciate or even understand the extent of my blessings.  Really looking forward to sharing more about the many ways that God has continued to reveal His faithfulness to me over these last few months!

copland track and the death of Lucille

Click here for the full album of our Copland Track weekend.

The weekend began with us waking up to go to Tunnel Beach to watch the sunrise.  This was part of a plan that Alex has wanted to do all semester: watch the sun rise on the east coast and set on the west coast.  Six thirty am came around way too quickly, especially since we had gone out the night before to show Spencer some Dunedin nightlife.  But we got up and went anyways and it was worth it, even though we just watched the sky get lighter and didn't actually get to see the sun rise over anything because it was cloudy.  But we decided it still counts.  We got going later that morning and headed out for our trip to the west coast to hike part of the Copland Track.  This track is actually really neat because it used to be the main pass to be able to get from the west coast over to the east coast of the south island.  Click on the map to the right to maximize the image to see the arrows i've inserted to show how much we had to drive to get from Dunedin to the west coast side of the track (about 7 hours driving)...so you can imagine why it would have been much more efficient back in the day to travel the track (where the red circle is) before roads were built.  And to add some more perspective, this track ends about where Mt. Cook is, which is right near where we hiked the Mueller Hut Route at the beginning of the semester.  Anyways, we drove through Wanaka on the way, which will be significant later in our weekend adventure.  In Wanaka we picked up one more passenger: Sarina from Switzerland.  Long story short, we met her on the ferry ride back from Wellington back during break and she'd been around Dunedin the previous few days and was keen on coming with us.  So Lucille was now hauling me, Spencer, Alex, Paula (first tramping trip for her - woot!), and Sarina.  And we were meeting a few other friends who drove separately.  We made it to the west coast around dusk and stopped by Haast Beach around sunset-time, where we watched the clouds grow dimmer as the sun set behind them, once again counting this as seeing the sun set on the west coast.  For the rest of that evening we hung around Haast waiting to find Alex's parents, who were flying back to the States the following day and wanted to say goodbye to him.  Turns out that communication gets interesting when one party doesn't have a cell phone (parents) and the plan was just to meet in the town of Haast at sunset.  We made tacos for dinner in a random parking lot.  We watched Paula dump tack powder mix all over herself on accident, which was really hilarious.  We waited for a while longer and then just decided that we would need to continue on to Copland since we didn't know where the Moores were and had no way of getting a hold of them.  But fortunately we did end up running into Alex's family at a gas station just up the road...New Zealand feels huge sometimes but can be a pretty small world.  After that i drove us to the base of the Copland Track, where we camped and woke the next morning to a clear day and the sun rising on a nearby mountain peak.  After a breakfast of oatmeal (which i am very sick of after this semester, it has been our camping staple) we started out on our tramp.

our campsite at the base of the Copland Track

my tired feet and the view from the pools

Our first task, about 3 minutes into the day, was to cross a river, which obviously made us all feel pretty legitimate as trampers.  The hike up to the hut was really phenomenal, a great choice to take Spencer on, as we saw mountains nearly the whole time we hiked.  We crossed many a stream and several rivers and i now consider myself a talented swing-bridge-crosser.  There were a few active landslide areas which added a bit of danger to our tramping expedition.  After about 6-7 hours we arrived at Welcome Hut.  It was about as happy as it sounds and a really nice hut.  The best part: natural hotsprings just a few minutes walk from the site.  We had heard about these before coming on the trip and they definitely provided some motivation : )  Water naturally bubbles up from underneath the earth's surface at 54 degrees C, which is about 130 degrees F.  The water runs in little routes into 3 different pools of varying temperatures.  The hotpools were sooooooo neat, i loved chilling (no pun intended) in them after our many hours of hiking; it was a great end to our day.  The hut ended up being totally full that evening, and we got there right before it filled up, whew.  There was a crew of Uni students that also hiked it that weekend and they spent the whole evening at the pools drinking like fish.  Now, i'm no fan of abusing alcohol, but is anybody else just impressed that these guys and girls hauled that much booze on the track??  I mean, Copland isn't a ridiculously difficult hike, but hard enough that i wouldn't want to add any extra weight to my pack.  I was pretty amazed, but they were Otago students, so no shock there.

On Sunday morning we got up to see the sun shine on the mountains and then got moving to head back down the track.  We could have continued on to the east end of the track and ended up in Mt. Cook National Park but didn't have that much time and weren't sure about weather farther up, as it becomes more technical and exposed.  Everything was even more beautiful in the morning: the mountains and the rivers and the hotpools.  Check out some pictures of the track:

note the intense blue of the glaciated river water! 

Paula and I on the way in

yet another swingbridge, the longest one

the crew L-R: Sarina, Spencer, myself, Alex, Paula, Ruby, and Dana, at Welcome Hut

So we finished the hike and re-crossed the river and arrived back at the car.  It wasn't long until we all began to be eaten by the sandflies.  I did feel bad for Spencer, who had not yet experienced the satanic creatures, but a small part of me was glad that he could no longer think that i was exaggerating how miserable they are.  And we had another situation of needing to drive fast down the road with all the windows down while we massacred so many of the buggers.  At least this time we better knew how to handle it though, as we weren't taken by surprise...they had all gotten in the car while we were packing all of our junk into the back.  We dealt with them and continued on our way to Wanaka, where we planned on finding a good spot to camp and go to a really cool dinner-and-a-movie place that evening.  WELL, that didn't end up happening.  We were about 40 kilometers outside of Wanaka when Lucille started making an odd sound under the hood.  We turned down the music and listened more carefully but there were no warning lights and the temperature showed as normal.  We had made sure to check the oil and coolant before we left the base of Copland, so we knew that should be fine.  A few minutes went by and then, all of a sudden, the temperature spiked from just below halfway on the gauge, where it usually sits, to above the red, totally off the scale...and this change on the gauge happened in about 5 seconds.  It was a 'crap we need to pull over right now' moment, that's for sure.  Alex pulled off the side of the road right away and Lucille took the liberty of shutting herself off.  Now before i explain any further, let me just say how thankful i am that after this big problem with Lucille pretty much everything seemed to work in our favor...well all except for the car herself.  God was most certainly watching over us real closely that night.  So it was Sunday evening about 8 o'clock at this point and i hadn't had service at all since the last time we left Wanaka several days prior.  Alex and Spencer let Lucille cool down because she was REALLY hot and then they checked the oil...which was nonexistent.  Yep, no oil.  So that would explain the odd noise earlier, which was the oil-less engine still trying to run.  We were so perplexed at how in the world Lucille had no oil, as we had topped it up just hours before.  The coolant chamber was still too hot to check.  During this time of being broken down on the side of the road i was amazed at how many people stopped to check that we were ok...car after car pulled off to see if they could help us out.  Alex hopped in with a nice indian guy to go to Wanaka where he planned on getting some more oil and finding Esther, who is Sarina's friend, and the two of them would come back and meet us in Esther's van.  It was a huge blessing to have Spencer around (for more than one reason : ), as it made the situation a whole lot better having 2 guys and him to stay with Sarina and i while Alex went to find Esther.  While he was gone Spencer continued to try and figure out where all of the oil had gone; he spent a lot of time laying on the ground watching for the oil that we just dumped in to be leaking out onto the ground below the car, but nothing.  Eventually it was cool enough for us to open the radiator (it too was empty) and put more water in.  We periodically turned Lucille back on and watched for the temperature to rise, which it did each time.  We recognized that this meant we couldn't try driving her until we got it checked out by a mechanic.  It was about 45 minutes from there to Wanaka, so we figured we might as well try to save some time and arrange a tow-truck before Alex and Esther came back.  Another great blessing was that Spencer is a AAA member back in the states and apparently that carries over to AA (the NZ version) here.  Another thing to be thankful for: if we stood in this one particular spot along the road i could get one bar of service on my phone, enough to have a patchy conversation with the AA man and get the tow-truck to come meet us, and for free because of Spencer's AAA.  Not too long after that Alex and Esther arrived in Esther's van and then the tow-truck came.  The mechanic was friendly and nice but didn't give us any false hope when we told him about the engine knock and the overheating and lack of oil.  He told us that he would haul it back that night and then look at it the next morning.

We got into Wanaka around 11 pm and hung out in the hostel where Sarina and Esther were staying.  Then Alex and Spencer and i opted to go and sleep in the van because we really didn't want to spend money to stay anywhere.  Any type of camping, including car camping, is illegal pretty much everywhere in Wanaka because they want you to stay in the accommodation.  We basically just drove across the road though and slept in the van in the public carpark near the hostel and came back over to meet the girls in the morning.  We were severely scolded by two hostel guys when they found that we weren't guests staying there.  While i want to make excuses to defend myself by considering our circumstances and the fact that we ate all of our own food, etc., i do get why they were irritated, i would be too if it was my facility.  ANYways, we left shortly after that and went back to car mechanic man, who told us the solemn news: Lucille was toast.  In a nutshell, there was a fluid leak at one of the piston heads (which we were obviously unaware of) and the leak caused a lot of pressure, which busted the coolant hose, probably sometime shortly before we started hearing the engine knock the night before.  The hose issue drained all of the coolant out of the chamber and the engine started overheating, which then got hot enough to burn off all of the oil, which explains why there was none left when we checked, and thus the intense overheating.  The guy told us that we would basically need a new engine if we wanted to keep the car, which is just a little out of our price range.  I sure wish that the warning system would have been functional though, as we might have been able to salvage her had we known the issues earlier.  But we are all convinced that Lucille committed suicide, so it makes sense that she didn't warn us.

our memorial service for Lucille.  cross dedicated by Sarina.

So now what, we asked.  The mechanic told us that there is an autowrecker in Cromwell, which is about 50 km away, that will take the car but wouldn't give us anything for it.  But, he said, there is another place in Alexendra, which is about 100 km away, that will junk it and also give us some money.  Obviously we wanted to get her to the latter option, so we went with that.  It would cost money to have her towed so we inquired about driving Lucille there.  The guy said that it would be possible, but that basically as soon as we refill the radiator with fluid it begins leaking out.  We could drive her as far as possible until we saw the temperature spike and then pull off the side of the road and let her cool and then refill again.  It was quite hilarious, really, driving towards our destination and having to stop about every 15 minutes and let her calm down.  Spencer got to drive her a lot of the way and we stopped for Alex to jump off a big bridge into the water (obviously) and we did eventually make it to Alexandra.  We talked to a guy and he offered us $400 for her, which was more than i'd expected for having a shot engine...we accepted immediately.  It was hard to walk away from our dear Lucille but she lived a good life.  And i have known this whole time that i wasn't guaranteed to to have her last the whole time; it's always been a possibility that i wouldn't get my money back.  I still hold firm, though, that it was the right decision to buy her and have her for most of the semester.  I have no regrets in our decision to invest in Lucille.  We had a good time with our farewell to Lucille photo shoot too.  After we left the junkers Spencer and i caught a bus back to Dunedin and Alex hitched back the next day.  And thus concludes our first big weekend adventure together : )

Spencer and I at the hotpools in the morning

best friends together again

My goodness, do i have a whole lot to write about, this should keep me busy for the next few days!  Spencer left New Zealand yesterday morning.  As we were on our way to the airport it truly felt as if i had just driven there the day before to pick him up for his first day in Dunedin; the time went by so quickly.  I knew that leaving each other would be difficult, but it was even harder than i thought.  I held it together until i left the airport but i had a tough time yesterday and just wanted to be back home.  I haven't really been homesick this semester but i can definitely say that i am now and that i am ready to be back in the states again.  I've loved my time in NZ but Spencer leaving just triggered an intense longing for home and i am so so excited to see everyone again and be back in Somerset.  But for the time being, i am working on being content with where i am now...and only a few more weeks until the Kimmels invade NZ!  And i definitely have enough studying for my upcoming finals to keep me occupied until then.

tunnel beach

So i'm going to attempt to recap a lot of what Spence and i did while he was visiting.  One of the first things was going to Tunnel Beach, which i've written about in an earlier blog.  It was super muddy but a really good time and beautiful as usual.  We stopped by the art museum while waiting for the bus (anybody else surprised that i talked Spencer Brougher into spending time inside an art museum??).  Needless to say, he enjoyed making many cracks about the art, but i quite enjoyed the exhibits.  I also took him to the botanic gardens and to the grocery store, where he was wide-eyed at the portion sizes and prices of food.  This was actually a really entertaining part of Spence being here (other than the fact that i sort of like him...), seeing what he was surprised about and what is very different from home.  Some things are still obvious to me, like prices and portion sizes, but i have gotten used to much of what NZ is about.  Hah, and in about a month i get to have reverse culture shock : )  Anyways, in the following few days we hiked Mt. Cargill, which is a big hill in Dunedin and from the top it feels as if you can see all of NZ.   We also went out and explored the peninsula, where we saw some beaches and i chased a herd of sheep while Spence took many pictures of this endeavor.  I took him to jazz night at the Robert Burns pub on Thursday and then we were off on Friday for our first weekend adventure.  Destination: Copland Track.  Our weekend was quite eventful, full with one of the best hikes i've ever experienced, an amazing scenic drive there and back, watching the sunrise on the east coast and the sun set on the west coast in the same day, and the unfortunate death of our dear car Lucille.  And i shall be posting about all of these stories tomorrow : )

sheep chase!!