so long, NZ

It was just over one month ago that i stepped onto the plane that would take me back across the vast expanse between New Zealand and America.  Not knowing quite what to expect, i did my best to emotionally prepare for the transition back to life in the states, at home, at camp, at school...with family and friends and Spencer and other camp counselors, and with myself, knowing that my growth during my time abroad has been deep.

Now that i have been back for a while i can say that the transition hasn't been as tough as I'd anticipated.  There have been challenges, but overall it's been good.  This is what i have been able to consistently report to everyone that i've talked to about my experience - it was just so good.  And this isn't just something to say as a quick answer to "Sooooo, how was New Zealand?" (as i've been asked at least 1,000 times now); i really mean that these past 6 months were really good.  Writing that i am so thankful for the opportunity of traveling to and living in NZ is the most drastic understatement.  My time living abroad, meeting some absolutely amazing friends, and being challenged by separation from all that i know back home are things that have truly changed my life, and will continue to impact me until i meet Jesus someday.  And for this i am eternally grateful.

As i've rcounted to many of you, i went to NZ prepared to be challenged by living in a largely secular environment.  I expected little to no christian fellowship.  I was finally stepping out of the bubble - the bubble of high school, which moved to the camp bubble, which led to the grove city bubble.  These things have been great in my life but they are so sheltered and i was looking forward to experiencing more of what's outside in the world.  But what's amazing is that God provided some of the most inspiring friends - Christian friends - to love and push me during this time.  He reminded me that He can (and will) challenge me, and that He will also provide the things i need at the same time, and during this time i did really need fellowship.  As i look back on my time in Dunedin i am blown away by how evident was God's provision in my life and in those around me.

I was given the gift of being able to travel to see so much of beautiful New Zealand, and with people who are now so dear to my heart.  I was reminded of the importance of relationships, as the Lord blessed me with people who loved me like they'd known me for years.  I had the great opportunity to attend classes that aren't offered at home, with professors who are so wise (i only learned at the end of the semester that my Marine 302 prof is one of the world's leading conservation biologists - WHAT), to take courses that stretched me and made me really think harder about why i believe what i believe and do what i do.  I lived in a city, learned the culture, grew to appreciate differences rather than ask why they don't do things "our way", and came full circle to reestablish within myself that i am so glad to be an American.  I had the privilege of living and traveling with people from countries all around the world.  I found a solid Bible-teaching church, sweet community of believers, a weekly college-student Bible-study.  I was challenged to reconsider my purpose in this world as a Christian and reminded of the call to tell others about Jesus.  I experienced the huge blessing of loved ones coming to visit me and was again reminded of God's perfect timing when, in a state of deep homesickness, i still had a month left and learned that it was absolutely the Lord's plan for me to be staying longer.  I shared my heart for the Lord with the three awesome girls that i lived with and convicted to think deeper about what it means to share the gospel with non-believers, learning that it's much more than having a conversation about what the Bible says; it's about a long-term commitment to pray for their hearts and trust in God's plan.  I've learned to be motivated to pursue people, not just their religious status.

I was overwhelmed by the continual display of God's grace in my life and in those around me.  His blessings are simply innumerable.  Being back in Somerset for some of the summer has been sweet...being able to reconnect with old friends and family and camp relationships.  But the best way i can describe being back from NZ is surreal.  I don't think that anyone can fully relate to this feeling unless you've spent a large amount of time far away.  I think it feels like this because my world in NZ and my world back home aren't connected; they are not only far away in literal distance, but also in experience, culture, expectation.  As i've described above, the impact of my time in NZ is incredible.  But while i was there for a long time, not much has changed at home; things feel are largely the same.  So it all sort of feels like a dream, or something that happened a long, long time ago.  I don't quite know what to take from this aspect of the transition, but i'm sure that i will grow to understand more over time.  One thing that i have come to more fully understand is that my time in New Zealand, as amazing as it was, was meant to come to a close.  I parallel this with the terms at camp.  I have often heard campers say that they just wish that they could stay at camp forever and never have to leave, and i remember feelins this way as a camper too.  But where would our purpose be in that?  We go for this short amount of time in order to learn and grow and try to positively impact others, but if we stayed forever that growth would not be able to continue, at least in the same situation in which we began.  Instead, just like those two weeks at camp are meant to end, so was my time abroad.  This time in my life was meant to only be temporary, a time removed from what i'd always deemed "normal" and into something new.  And now i've been sent back - back to this life and these relationships, to share what i've learned and continue to spread what i've grown to understand to be the purpose of our lives.  And you know what?  I'm excited about it.

New Zealand, you've been good to me : )

recap of Kimmel invasion!!

[This one’s going to be a long one, as it recaps the remainder of our travels throughout NZ.  It's a bit old (i wrote it during my travels back to the states), as it took me a while to sift through the enormous amount of pictures, but here it is!]

After our first night in Te Anau we drove the 2 hours to Milford Sound and did a cruise out to where the sound meets the ocean.  This was a really neat experience for me after having kayaked part of Milford earlier in the semester.  The family loved it and they were so impressed.  It was a really cool time to spend together appreciating the vastness and magnitude of God’s glory as revealed in creation.  Something that still awed me about Milford was the sheer size of it – it’s one of those places where you really can’t accurately judge size or distance by looking at it, like an optical illusion.  It’s just so big.  The Milford road is also great (there’s only one road that goes to Milford); driving there is a big part of the cool experience of visiting the area.  At about the halfway part of the journey is a long tunnel that goes through one of the mountains.  We stopped along the way back a few times and dad and nick spotted some fish in the streams along the road, average size for this area but about 4 times the size of most trout back home.  We went back to stay a second night in Te Anau and mum and dad tried their first NZ-style fish & chips, complete with newspaper packaging.

Milford Sound

From there we headed to Queenstown, known as the adventure capital of the world.  Also known (by me) as the most touristy and money-sucking place in New Zealand.  It really is a cool town and there are so many unique places to shop and eat and see, but it’s just so expensive and there are so many people everywhere.  We happened to be there during Winterfest, an annual festival celebrating…winter!  There was ice-skating and a stage set up with live music and fireworks.  We got there earlier in the afternoon and it was a nice day out, so we decided that it was time to go and do one of my long-awaited plans: bungee jump.  I have been talking to Matt about bungee all semester now and wasn’t sure if he was going to commit to do it with me or not.  I wanted to jump tandem, where we are both hooked to the same cord, because I wanted to share the experience with him.  We drove out to the AJ Hackett bridge, the first commercialized bungee bridge in the world, and opted to get our heads dunked in the river.  Man was it an awesome experience.  It wasn’t nearly as scary as I’d expected and over so much faster than I wanted it to be.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat, if it weren’t for the excessive price.

In addition to our adrenaline high we also did a lot of shopping, as Queenstown has a whole lot of stores and ski stuff, to Matt and Nick’s pleasure.  The next day Dad and Nick went on a fishing  day-trip and Mom and Matt and I shopped more – good for the shopping beast inside of me, bad for our wallets.  My most exciting purchase was at Lulu Lemon, a yoga store that just opened in Queenstown.  Paula works at a Lulu at home, and has been wearing the attire throughout the whole semester and it’s really cool stuff.  There isn’t a location opened close to PA, so I figured I’d have to wait until I visit her in Canada to go to a store, but I got lucky.  Though now that I’ve shopped there I’m officially broke.  But I’m a happy broke girl!  Also that afternoon I was reminded of what a small world we live in – while eating lunch Matt spotted a guy who works at the park at Seven Springs and went over to talk to him (he was here to work at the Remarkables, a local ski report, for the NZ winter season).  That night was the opening of Winterfest and we watched the fireworks and then had a delicious spaghetti meal whilst watching the sky movie: Bounty Hunter.  Later on I took mum to Patagonia, that amazing chocolate place, for some gelato.  She was pretty much in her element, as any chocolate-lover would be in that place.

 

The next morning we got up early and drove the 3.5 hours to Mt. Cook National Park, where we hiked the Hooker Valley Track.  This was a really cool experience for the family, who hadn’t yet seen the tallest mountain in NZ (Mt. Cook), and it was also great for me too because this was the first big hike we got to do as a family in NZ and this was also the track that we had planned to do earlier in the semester but didn’t have enough time (or energy) after climbing the Mueller Hut Route.  We had fantastic weather for the hike and it went right up to the Hooker Glacier (I think that is the name of it).   

Hooker Valley Track

Hooker Valley swingbridge

Hooker Glacier (lake)

dad and i at the top of Mt. John

Then that night we stayed at Lake Tekapo and enjoyed time at the Tekapo hotpools.  This was also the first time we stayed in a budget room (like a hostel) and it went really well, and saved us a bunch of money.  The next morning we drove about a half hour east and met up with Maxine at a café called Eat…original, I know.  It was actually a neat little place though.  Maxine had gotten her wisdom teeth out about a few days earlier and my family missed meeting her by just a few hours, as she headed back to her hometown (Geraldine) earlier on the day that they arrived in Dunedin.  It was great to see her again and get to hang out one more time before saying goodbye for the long-term.  She also suggested a good hike for us to do in the Tekapo area, which we would be driving back through on our way over to Wanaka.  So after parting ways with Maxine we went back and hiked up Mt. John, which led us to the top of stunning views and an observatory/café.  Then our treat after the hike was going back to the hotpools, for which we had a return pass since we got there late the evening before.  Then to top it all off we drove the few hours to Wanaka and Matt/Nick/I enjoyed an evening at the cinemas, as we had encouraged mom and dad to take the evening to themselves and go out to a nice dinner.  Well.  The cinema was cool, as we’d expected, because it’s a dinner & a movie place – you buy a ticket and then sit to watch the movie on really comfy couches with pillows and eat your food during the movie.  The one bad thing was that we lied to get Nick in to see the Hangover II (which was foul…funny, but foul; first one was way better) and I really regret choosing to lie, it was plainly wrong.  Hah, and the idea of giving mom and dad a nice evening to themselves was sort of a flop too, since nothing nice was opened when they tried to go and eat dinner and they just ended up having Subway.  That is actually a fairly normal thing here in NZ, outside of big cities at least; even though it was only about 8:45 all of the regular restaurants had already finished serving dinner, it’s just not common for places to stay opened late (not that I would even consider 8:45 late).

Tekapo Hotpools

accidental (but so good!) rainbow shot

Church of the Good Shepherd, on Lake Tekapo

The next morning before heading out of Wanaka we shopped a bit and then headed to Puzzling World, a local Wanaka attraction.  This place was COOL.  It’s all about optical illusions and messing with your brain.  The coolest part, I think, was the room with the following faces…it was a great big semi-circular room with tons of faces indented into the walls and when you covered one eye and walked around the room it looked like the faces were extended from the walls and it appeared as though they were moving with you as you walked around the room.  After we finished inside PW we went out into the maze, a really elaborate labyrinth with 4 colored towers, one at each corner.  We decided to make it a race: me and mom versus dad, Matt, and Nick.  The challenge was to find the towers in order: yellow, green, blue, red.  This maze was insane and we quickly realized that it was somehow created with human psychology in mind (no pun intended)…we found that the turns that made sense were rarely the ones that led to where we wanted to go.  It was definitely the most difficult maze I’ve ever done.  For the majority of the time mom and I were really losing; dad and the boys found both the yellow and green towers before we even got to yellow.  But the tables turned when we found the blue one really fast and they were still looking for red we somehow found it in like 2 minutes time!  But, it’s never that easy, because finding the finish was the hardest part of all and the guys ended up exiting and waiting for at least a half hour before we decided to just give up and go out an emergency exit, as we needed to get moving down the road to the west coast.  Mom and I like to think that we all won, since she and I found all four towers first but the guys got out before we did…but the men hold to the fact that we are the losers and they won, obviously.  Anyways, we drove to the west coast that afternoon and stayed the night at a really nice place called Sunset Hotel at Fox and saw an incredible rainbow just as we arrived, right before sunset.

The next morning we got up to hike as close as we could get to Fox Glacier.  Man those glaciers are so much bigger than they look from far away.  The road there was really neat because it had signs on the way up to it saying “in 1750 the glacier was here”, so that gave an idea of how really massive they used to be, and they still look so so big.  We also stopped and hiked up to Franz Joseph Glacier, which is the other big one about 40 minutes north and that one was also impressive.  After that we drove farther up the west coast to Punakaiki, where we explored the pancake rocks – these huge rock towers coming up out of the sea.  Then that night we stayed in a west coast town called Westport and the next morning continued in our travels, this time heading over to the east coast.  We were going to try to make it up to Golden Bay to kayak and see some beaches but thought that it would be cramming too much into too little time, and since we really wanted to be able to go dolphin watching/swimming in Kaikoura we just decided to head down that way.  The night before our dolphin excursion we stayed at a motel called the White Morph and it was the nicest place we’d stayed at yet and for a pretty decent price.  We went out to eat and the evening special was steak dinners, so can’t complain about that : )  Then we all relaxed and watched movies and since it was Wednesday night my two tv shows were on: Drop Dead Diva (be proud Maxine!) and The Mentalist.  Funny thing is that they are both American shows, even though I’d never heard of them til I got here to study in NZ.  OH yeah, that was also the night when matt and nick ganged up on me so that matt could hold me down while nick farted on my face.  Talk about gross.  But I’ve got to say, despite those moments when I wanted to punch Nick (whom we’ve nicknamed ‘farticus’) I have one pretty cool family.

dusk view, opposite Fox Glacier

the 3 kids at Pancake Rocks

On Thursday we had the Dolphin Encounter booked for 8:30 am.  At 8:15 we got a call informing us that it was cancelled due to rough seas, but that they could reschedule us for the 12:30 tour.  Nice of them to let us know so far in advance…we went ahead and rebooked and then spent the morning just hanging around Kaikoura, which is a neat little town.  This is the place where we had camped along the side of the ocean earlier in the semester, where I got to sleep in my hammock right above the sea.  Mom and Dad went for a walk and Matt and Nick played on the beach and I journaled and then we all shopped for a bit and hung out at a café until it was time for our tour, which was again cancelled, still because of the waves.  Although it was disappointing there was nothing we could have done about it and so no point in being upset (it’s a pretty good method to live by, actually).  But, as sometimes happens, a really great thing came of this tour not happening.  In our shopping one of the clerks recommended we drive a little way out of town and find this waterfall off the side of the road where baby seals have been found playing.  We figured why not, we aren’t in a hurry.  We were told that it’s about 15 minutes north along the coastal road, about 12 kilometers.  So we set out to find this waterfall but when we had been driving for over 20 minutes and well over 12 kilometers and still hadn’t found anything remotely like what was described we turned back.  Back in Kaikoura dad wanted to stop at a hunting and fishing outfitter and while there we chatted with the guy working and I asked him where we went wrong…he explained in more detail where this place is and gave us the name of the stream that we needed to park directly after, but his instructions didn’t make complete sense either because the little town that he described as ‘you’ve gone too far when…’ was the one we did pass.  [we’ve found in asking for guidance that many kiwis, while so friendly, don’t give the best directions]  We told the guy thanks but that we probably would just forget it anyways, since Hanmer (our next destination) was in the opposite direction.  But he strongly encouraged that we try again, saying that it would be well worth it.  So again we drove north, passed through the ‘too far’ town and went past our initial turn-around point.  And not even 2 minutes past where we had earlier given up the search we found Ohau Stream and the carpark.  It was funny though, because the first lady who had told us of the seals ensured us that there is a sign to mark where to go, and as we got out of the car we saw no such sign.  But anyways, we were there.  Excited, we went over to the entrance of the path and passed by two men digging holes in the ground, doing something related to the Department of Conservation, and we made sure we were where we wanted to be.  The path walked right beside the stream, which we now understood flows underneath the road bridge and down to the ocean.  Almost immediately we spotted a few small seals playing in the stream, making their way upstream, the same direction in which we were walking.  All the way up we saw seals, all babies, in small groupings; it was so neat!  The path continued onto where I knew should be this supposed waterfall.  I ran on ahead, expecting something amazing.  And boy was it amazing.  I came to the base of the waterfall, maybe 15-20 meters high, and falling into a shallow pool where there were TONS of baby seals everywhere – in the water, on the rocks, sometimes a little bit into the woods…words can’t describe how neat this was.  And they were all babies…the one volunteer explained that during the winter months the little ones make their way the whole way up the stream to the pool to socialize and play, while the mamas stay down in the ocean.  Then every few days the babies go back down to the ocean to feed.  It was really cool to have then come up to sniff you out, which they would sometimes do if you stood really still.  And I also really appreciated that the volunteers were there for the well-being of the seals but they weren’t uptight or anything, just overseers.  If a seal came up to one of the visitors it was fine, and they didn’t make you move or scold you for being too close or anything.  I think sometimes that America needs to be a bit more relaxed about things like this.  Apparently this area is on private property and the owner just wants to keep it as natural as possible for the seals – another unlikely thing to see back home, where the area would be fenced-off and visitors would be charged a fee to see this wonder of nature.  Anyways, this was SUCH as cool experience, one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen.  God’s creativity was so evident here.  Oh and after we got back out into the carpark we noticed something that wasn’t there before: a sign marking the seal viewing area.  Apparently that’s what the guys were doing, so at least the lady’s directions weren’t totally wrong : )

seal colonies along the Kaikoura highway

the waterfall!!

We traveled southwest to a place called Hanmer, where the infamous Hanmer Springs hotpools are.  These are the most popular hotpools on the south island, and I would say totally worth stopping by.  Although not natural (though some pools did bring in natural water) the resort is really big and a cool place to spend an afternoon or evening to relax.  The pools are all different shapes, sizes, and temperatures and you can just hop from one to the next.  We stayed the night in Hanmer and then headed back to the west coast the next morning to catch a train from Greymouth to Christchurch.  The TranzAlpine Train is a popular ride and it travels a scenic route through Arthur’s Pass and on to the east coast.  It was especially cool because the mountains are snowcapped at this time of winter.  And the situation couldn’t have worked out much more perfectly – Alex wanted to ride the train as well but didn’t want to do round trip, and neither did we.  So he rode from Christchurch to Greymouth in the morning and then we gave him the keys to our Kimmel-mobile (now named Bernard) and he drove Arthur’s Pass back to chc while we rode the train in the afternoon, and we all arrived back in chc within a half hour of each other, not too shabby.  Our hotel in chc (Central Park Motor Lodge) was nice and we all went out to eat at Hell Pizza, as my family hadn’t yet ‘gone to Hell’.  Oh if you only knew the amount of puns we have enjoyed with that this semester.

For our last full day in NZ the fam had planned to ski at Mt. Hutt, a resort about an hour away from chc.  We had been following conditions on Hutt for the duration of my family’s time here because so far the season has been really dry and all of the resorts opened later than expected.  Hutt actually opened just a few days ago; it had been originally scheduled to open at the beginning of June.  This is the resort that Alex will be spending much of his time at, working with the Snowboarders for Christ crew and ministering on the slopes.  Since it just opened the conditions weren’t too favorable and my parents and I decided to save the cost of renting and ~$90/each lift passes and just let the guys go up, since most of what they would do was park stuff anyways.  So we got them on their way and then mum and dad and I found a café in Methven (which wasn’t very good) and then hung out for a while at McDonald’s in Ashburton, where the mochachinos are actually really really good AND McD’s also offers free wifi – win win!  Then we headed back near Hutt and did some hiking before meeting back up with the guys.  Yesterday was another beautiful day too…we have lucked out with fantastic weather for most of this trip, a rarity for the winter season on the south island.  The evening was a blur of packing up and trying to get to bed early since mom/dad/matt/nick’s flight left on Sunday at 6 am to fly to Sydney before continuing on to LA.  I got up to drive them to the airport at 3 am…at least there wasn’t much traffic.  I was even able to park and stay in the drop-off zone without getting a ticket.  I slept for a few more hours before getting on with my morning of checking out of our motel and dropping Bernard off at the Rent-a Dent place.  Alex and I met up and he took me for coffee before the airport and it was really good to get to hang out one more time before leaving…he’s been such a blessing in my life and I’m excited to meet back up again this fall at school. 

mum & dad : )

back on US soil, but not without challenge!

I'm back in the states!!  Right now i'm in the San Francisco airport waiting to board my flight to Denver, where i'll meet up with the rest of the Kimmel clan, and then we will all fly into Pgh together this evening.  I have another long blog post written about our time spent in NZ but that will have to wait until i get back so i can add pictures to it, as i haven't yet begun looking through or editing the mass of photos and videos from our last few weeks.  But i wanted to get this post up about my latest travels.

[written before my first flight yesterday]

Here I am in the chc airport, waiting on my flight to Auckland.  I am already delayed due to fog in chc but I’m told that the plane should be arriving soon and that estimated departure time is 2 pm (I was originally supposed to leave at 12:20).  I am really hoping that we aren’t further delayed, as my international flight to San Fran is scheduled for 5:15.  But these things are totally out of my control and it will be what it will be and I know that God will use it all for good : )  One thing I can say for sure is that I am looking forward to my return to the states, Somerset, my home, family&friends, CAMP, Spencer, warm weather, and character macaroni and cheese.

[later the same day]

SO.  What an interesting afternoon it’s been!  Right now it’s 8:30 pm NZ time, so 4:30 am home time, and I am on the flight from Auckland to San Francisco, but not without some really close calls, that’s for sure.  We all continued to wait for updates on the flight from Christchurch and the just kept coming onto the system and telling us that it was going to be just a bit later than expected.  It started with a 40 minute delay, telling us that they apologize but that the plane should arrive shortly and we could board around 1 pm.  Then it was 1:30, then 2.  At 2:30 they changed our boarding gate and I started to worry when we moved and the plane still wasn’t there.  We boarded at about 3 pm with many apologies from the staff…the fog had held up the plane and it had to stay longer in Wellington and then just took that long to get down to chc with refueling and everything, I guess.  It’s about 1 hour 20 minute flight and close to the landing time I asked one of the flight attendants what I should do about my other flight, as I realized that the likelihood of me making it at this point was slim – it was 4:30 pm when I got off of the plane and my international flight was scheduled for 5:15.  The flight attendant told me that they were planning on holding the flight; I guess there were a few others on that flight who needed to get the same plane to San Fran.  But the thing was that I booked this leg of my trip separately from my other flights, so I don’t think I was one of the ones that they were waiting for.  I got off and thought maybe there would be someone waiting to help me out but once again, I don’t think they knew that I was one of those in this predicament.  Because it was an international flight I needed to get my bag and recheck it again AND make my way to an entirely different terminal; fortunately I didn’t have to wait long for a shuttle.  I was a little exasperated by this point, as you can imagine.  I practically ran into the international terminal only to find several sizable lines between myself and all Air New Zealand check-in stations.  I didn’t even try to wait, as by this point it was near 5 pm and I knew if I didn’t do something quick I was not going to get on that flight.  I basically interrupted one of the Air New Zealand attendants talking to a lady and she immediately came to my rescue.  She made a phone call to the gate (because check-in for my flight had closed long ago) and then proceeded to bump me to the front of every line and then escorted me to my gate (which I would have never found that quickly by myself) and got me there just as they were boarding the back rows.  I literally had enough time to go to the bathroom and then got on the plane and we left.  I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to just be on this plane right now.  Wow.  More to come later.

So excited to be home later TONIGHT!!

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 : )