I've found Paradise

It's Thursday evening here in New Zealand around 5:30pm, and because of my handy new Timex Ironman watch I can flip back to USA time with a click of a button - its 11:30pm yesterday for you guys! It has been a couple of days since my last post because time really does fly when you're having fun, and with all the daytime adrenaline pumping activities and the evenings festitivies there hasn't been much time to write. Thankfully my watch also tells me what day it is, or I might completely lose track of time here in paradise. I have spent a good majority of my first week here in NZ wondering why more people don't live here. Timmy was telling me that Washington DC has a larger population than the whole county of New Zealand. With amazing mountains, lush forrests, the MOST beautiful beaches I have ever seen, and some of the hottest, tannest, scruffiest, fun-loving and funny men I have met, I'm surprised there hasn't been a serious American emmigration. Although there are some things Americans (like myself) would hate; what I like to call "New Zeland time", everyone takes forever to do everything; the metric system, I never have any idea what temperature something is, how tall something is, nothing.
After my last post at the Maori camp, we headed early the next morning to Rotorua where I hopped off to white water raft. Six beautiful male instructors got us all suited up in flotations devices (they don't call them life jackets anymore because they will not save your life if you're too dumb to not swim when drowning), booties and helmets. Although the trip was brief we took the raft down the largest waterfall that commercial rafts can go down in the world. Our guide, Chunk, didn't seem to take anything too seriously as he was really hungover, but we all survived. Then we headed back into Rotorua to pick up the other bus members who didn't raft and then we all headed to a town called Taupo. While the others went skydiving (I didn't do it, since it costs $300 and I've already done it twice), I grabbed a coffee and went to the grocery store with a girl name Verina I met on the bus. When the rest of the crew came back that night we all headed to a Bar called Mulligans (because my new busmate shares the same last name), where we all wore different hats provided by the bar - I rocked the pink cowboy hat most of the night - and told the locals it was my bachelorette party as I was marrying a native Kiwi (what they called people from New Zealand) I had only known for two weeks.
Very early the next morning we hopped back on the bus which at this point is growing very smelly, and headed to National Park, where I had been hoping the weather would hold up to hike the Tongorria Crossing an 8 hour hike through three volcano craters, one of which was Mt. Doom from The Lord of the Rings. Luckily we got the OK to hike and headed up around 10am. The 500 steps in the second hour nearly killed me. Most of the first 3 hours was uphill which prompted the guides to create fast and slow groups so we all could go at appropriate paces, (of course Captain Competitive was at the front of the fast group), and after about 4 hours we arrived at the summit, which is about 2,000 meters high (as previously mentioned, I have no idea how high this is.) The views were breathtaking and of course, knowing that The Lord of the Rings was filmed there was pretty awesome. The last 3 hours we got caught up in a serious downpour where I got to test my brand new Marmot raincoat which held up perfectly, unfortunately my shoes and pants didn't. I arrived back at the hostel looking like a drowned rat, to my 5 other roomates, another load of laundry (that is the territory that comes with having only 3 pairs of underwear) and a hottub (which I got in immediately.)
Ok what day am I up to - Tuesday I think? It's a tough life out here, I can't even remember what I ate for lunch, nevermind what I did two days ago! So we left National Park and heading to Wellington. On our way we stopped at a beautiful waterfall and a hot spring hole that supposedly had natural healing powers. There were so many people crammed into this little hole that I think my healing power went to someone else. We arrived in Wellington, a city that reminded me of a combination of Denver and San Fransico, around 2:00pm. After getting set up in the hostel, headed straight to the National Museum. It was a really modern museum with a lot of touch screens and interactive exhibitis which certainly made it more fun than your typical museum. At 5:00 Tim, Emer, Liz and I did a little shopping so I could satisfy my desire to fit in with the other "fashionable" backpackers, but when I came out of the store and was asked what cute things I bought, I pulled out a pair of black running pants and two athletic shirts - I just can't get the practical thinking out of my head!! We then ate a delicious dinner at a Malaysian restaurant, and took the WEllington cable car up to the Botanical gardens to watch the "California Deamers", a 1960's cover band. At the end of the rivetting performance we walked through the gardens which are lit up amazingly by the city. In an failed attempt to catch the Cable Car back down to the city, we got lost in the dark part of the gardens, Liz fell in a hole, and we had to spend $25 on a cab to get us to the Cuba street bars. After a couple of bar hops, and no cute men to prowl on, I headed home for the evening.
Yesterday morning I caught the 7am ferry to the South Island. I sat outside for the 4 hour ride because the mountanious coastline was amazing to watch. We landed in Picton (to those of you who know me, you probably can guess why this town held a special significance), but only stayed there briefly on our bustrek to the Abel Tasman national park. After a long day on the bus and a quick grocery store stop, we arrived at Old MacDonald's farm in the Abel Tasman Natiional park last night around 6pm. Our busdriver, Metro, made us some mussels and we all hung out around a fire pit and ate our homemade dinners (I had a bowl of cereal and a roll with turkey on it.) Old MacDonalds is a little more rustik than some of the other hostels. This whole hostel jumping experience has been like one big camping trip - you never really feel clean, there are bugs in your room, the food is sparse, you are bunked up with lots of people - you get the idea. At 9am this morning I set out to do a 3 hour hike through the park, which was spectacular. The scenery is like paradise - white beaches, blue/green water, lush green jungles - and the best part is (as I previously mentioned) no one lives in New Zealand so it pretty much felt like our own private island. When we got to Anchorage bay we hopped on a catamaran and sailed around the island for another 4 hours. Even though I got a ridiculous sunburn on my stomach (which is still white and pasty from CT temperatures) it was overall an specatuclar day.

Travelling is a Fashion Show?

Granted I didn't do as much planning or reading prior to travelling as I could have, but I did do some. The travel books I read talked about small backpacks that hold just what you need: wickable shirts that can be worn several times and washed in the sink, convertible pants that zip off into shorts, resuable underwear with a tagline of "17 countires, 1 thong", sandals with criss-crossing cloth straps that look hideous but are practical, and I even decided to go "braless" after reading bras were not necessary. For a girl who has been told she NEVER wears the same outfit twice, coming to grips with the fact that I have to sacrifice my fashion for this trip was bearable, with the idea that everyone else would be unfashionable too. Well, I have been shocked to learn that this is not the case. 95% of the girls I have met so far (and they are from everywhere - US, Germany, Holland, Canada, etc.) have huge backpacks , filled with at least one pair of jeans, leggings, nice underwire bras, several bathing suits, necklaces, bracelets, cute shirts and jackets, hairdryers and one girl even had a small iron! Needless to say I have already gone out and bought a pair of flip flops because my "practical shoes" are hideous, and plan on buying a few more pairs of pants and shirts. 3 days in and I have already had to do laundry, which certainly makes me realize that only 3 pairs of underwear was never a good idea.



After I left Auckland two days ago our bus travelled to a small surf town called Hahei on the northeast coast of NZ. We arrived there in the early afternoon and I spent the next 3 hours Sea Kayaking along the Coromandel Penninsula. The instructor told me to pick a strong man to paddle with (as the kayaks were two seaters), but I was stuck with Timmy. He wasn't too strong, but he did let me sit in the back and steer. We paddled for about an hour, and then parked the kayaks at Cathedral Cove, got out took pictures. I swam out in the ocean and jumped off a large rock (and managed to scrape up my legs), and our instructors gave us some flat whites (coffee with milk) and biscuits (cookies) back on the beach. If you google Cathedral Cove you will get a glimpse into the beauty of these beaches - true paradise!! After kayaking we took a quick drive over to Hot Beach, which is a exactly as it sounds. Under the sand in particular spots there is volcanic activity which, if you dig just a litte, you get boiling hot water pools. Unfortunately I remain confused when trying to figure out celius and farrenheight degrees (so I won't even try to guess the exact degree), but this water is hot!!! That night we all went back to the dorm and ate a traditional New Zealand BBQ - sausage, lamb, pumpkin, (yes pumpkin is used for more than halloween carving here in NZ), white sweet potatoes, and ice cream!

I made a point on my first travel day to try and not fall asleep on the bus because I wanted to see the countryside. Besides a few slips today I have been pretty attentive to looking at my surroundings. The landscapes so far on the North Island have been California meets England, with a twist of the Amazon Jungle - large open fields with trees and hedges marking off the borders to different farms, and then a few minutes later huge baren hills roll out of the ground covered with dry brush and palm trees, and then the zig zag mountain roads take you through what appears to be an amazon jungle surrounded by a spectacular ocean view. In this case, even though the bus is cramped, hot and bumpy, it certainly is "about the journey, not the destination."

Yesterday we arrived in the mid afternoon at Raglan, a true surfer town as it boasts the longest left break in the world. I am not entirely sure what that is, but I think its just a really long wave. We checked into a really neat surfer hostel where there aren't even locks on the doors; "no worries!" I went down to the beach although the weather wasn't fantastic and took a long walk. Later that night I went back to the hostel where we had to make our own dinner (that seems to be the best way backpackers save money.) We left Raglan early this morning (8am departure) and headed to the Waitomo Caves. I decided to book the "Haggas Honking Holes" tour which was an action adventure tour, where I was told I would get wet! Even after I put on the full wet suit and wellington boots, I still didn't expect the type of adventure I got. The only thing we weren't allowed to do is pee in the wetsuit (which of course I asked.) After you learn a little about ropes and repelling you walk down a field and single file enter a creepy looking hole in the ground. I spent most of my day wondering what crazy person decided to enter these caves in the first place, but I guess in the 60's this became a sport and now most of the thousands of caves are actually mapped out, and some people treat is as an afternoon "hike." The caves were dark, wet, slippery, and when I looked up there were huge black spiders above my head. We repelled down dark caverns, into waterfalls and large pools. Most of the spaces we had to climb through were ridiculously tiny, we even had to do the army crawl a couple of times. I kept my flirty antics with the instructor high, and even the darkest crevasses remained light and fun. Three hours later we popped back out of the earth, and after emptying the water out of my boots and taking a hot shower we headed back to pick up the rest of the crew. Needless to say, it was an amazing (but WET) experience.

We headed from there to where I am now - a small town called Marae. We are staying at a Maori meeting house, which houses the native Maori tribe of New Zealand. We got to eat their traditional meal, and watch a traditional Maoiri performance, and then had to perform ourselves. It was interesting. The best part is watching these young tribe members go from grass skirts and long wooden spears to leaving the performance in their beaten up hondas wearing billabong shorts and american baseball caps. Now we are all in one big room with about 40 mattreses on the floor while I steal native Maori internet. Definitely makes for rough sleeping conditions. Thank God for ear plugs and face masks.

Tomorrow I am going white water rafting in Rotorua. I'll check in when I can!! In the meantime, I gotta buy some more clothes to keep up with the "backpacker fashion trends!"

Patience is a virture (I'm working on!)

I've realized in just the short 24 hours I've been travelling that this trip is going to teach me patience whether I like it or not. Buses, figuring out transfers, waiting in lines (and I swear I am cursed with being in the eternal slow lane), sleeping in crooked positions on planes, not knowing where you are or where you are going, having 7 other roomates to deal with -- all of these things, in my normal life, would irriate me. I'm doing my best to force my brain to reboot and switch from "normal mode" to "travel mode" as soon as possible or I may have to drop a couple thousand on a room at the nearest Ritz and a couple of hours at a day spa! I have a feeling, like any new situation, that this is going to only get better as I go along.
The flight from JFK to LA was really productive - I watched 2 movies, 3 episodes of Californication, ate about 7 bags of free pretzels and peanuts and slept for 0 hours. The flight from LA to Tahiti (Tim only told me on our way to the plane that we had a layover in Tahiti) started the irritation process - in the one hour layover we had to leave our terminal, catch a bus to the other terminal, then run through crowds of people who had the MOST luggage I have ever seen, and eventually sat and waited for our flight (which without any announcement took off 45 minutes later than scheduled.) I had already jumped the gun at this point on taking my first sleeping pill, and after boarding I was asleep before we even took off. The Tahitian airline, Air Tahiti, is a little "ghetto" - they only offer about 5 movies (real quality ones, like Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and some movie starring Bruce Willis where he's trying to kill human looking robots) that played on a loop, so you'd have to hope you caught one of these classics at the beginning. About 10 hours later we landed in Tahiti and had to exit the plane so they could clean it, which was neat because now I can actually say I have been to Tahiti. It was hot.. that's all I know about Tahiti. 5 hours later we landed in New Zealand and I finally felt like this trip had begun.
We met this little old man on our plane name Warren, who was 90 years old and going to live with his son in NZ for his "last days." He liked Timmy and I enough, well at least me, to offer us to come up to his son's house on the Bay of Islands and sail with them for a day, which I thought was pretty nice. But I've always said "never go sailing with someone" because its the BEST way to kill them without anyone knowing, so we decided to stick to the beaten path instead. We arrived at our hostel around 2:00 local time and got settled into our room - 4 sets of bunk beds filled with two other Americans who are also blogging www.danandjon.com, two Canadians, one Swedish guy and a random asian guy no one has seen since we got here. Tim and I walked around New Zealand, a busy city that seems to me to be a complete mish mash of architecture, from brick to stone, to glass to concrete jungles with sprouting palm trees next to a Dunkin Donuts and Prada stores. We decided not to stay here long, and booked a 21 day bus excursion through both islands starting at 7:50am tomorrow morning. It's with a company called Stray, which focuses on getting New Zealand visitors "off the beaten path" and does a lot of hiking and nature related excursions (which of course, I am excited about.) We ate at a Medterranian restaurant we found in Tim's guide book, which was delicious and cheap because we just didn't think eating at Subway or the 24 Wendy's would really be imersing ourself in the New Zealand culture.
Although they have free fruity punch and a "battle of the sexes"at the Globe bar downstairs, I think it's time for me to hit the hay (I mean, it is 3:20am CT time!) I'm sure I'll hear all about the crazy bar happenings from one of my seven roomates at 2:00 this morning. And don't worry, I'm trying to work on my patience for Timmy's sake.

And They're off!

Guest post from Caitlin's sister.

I dropped them off at JFK -- and as of 615 tonight they are in the air on the way to LA.

Best of luck to you Caitlin -- we miss you already!!

Creature Comforts

January 18th - Martin Luther King Day, but not to be overshadowed by my D-Day!! Flight leaves tonight from JFK at 6:00, and I get to New Zealand Wednesday at 1:30pm. A combined 20 hours of flying and an 18 hour time difference makes for a long 2 days. My travel buddy Tim arrived yesterday afternoon.
I, of course, woke up at 4am this morning and was awake for a couple of hours. I had a nightmare that I had been sitting around chatting it up with my family and forgot about my flight, then had to do the mad dash through the airport to find that I had already missed the plane anyway. Woke up a little angry at my brain - what are you doing to me!? As I lay there listening to my “running river” noise machine and thinking about the episode of Desperate Housewives I had watched hours earlier from my warm comfy bed, I began to realize that I am going to have to live without a lot of “creature comforts” over the next year. I have planned for this trip, anticipated this trip, gotten totally excited for this trip, but for some reason, never really thought about some of the things I would have to give up. So as I embark on my first day of travel, I’ve decided to make a list of those things I will miss, those things I am not looking forward to, and those things that I am most excited about.

The things I will miss the most:
* Morning iced coffees from Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks - It a headache preventing ritual.
* Driving my car - Although I sometimes drive like a crazy “Goos girl” (known for their high rates of speed, lane changing without a signal, and an overwhelming sense of entitlement), I will still miss the fun of it!
* Hugs from family and friends - I have the best people in my life.
* Free samples at Stew Leonard's - It makes for a free lunch on Saturdays and Sundays!
* My job - yes I know I say in my heading that life isn’t all about working 9 to 5, but I worked 8 to 6. Haha. Either way, I had a great job which I miss already!
* The birth of my niece or nephew (my sister is due in July, again!)
* Lots of hair product - not sure what I will do with my fro while I am away. Just like a beautiful garden it needs daily watering or in this case daily gelling, which I am not sure it is going to get. Maybe I’ll cut it all off?
* Home cooked meals - My sister made me my favorite dish last night (chicken pot pie) as my “last supper”, and it doesn’t get much better than that!!

The things I am NOT looking forward to:
* Listening to Timmy snore and speak to people in his sleep (which I just learned about last night)
* Wearing shower shoes - I haven’t done this since college!
* Possibly being the hairy girl - I am just not sure how often I’m going to get to shave!
* Very large bugs - My friend Andrea, usually at lunch, likes to tell me about all the large bugs she sees on the discovery channel, which inhabit the places I am traveling to. Did I mention I hate spiders?
* 3 pairs of underwear - No explanation needed
* Knowing who has slept in my bed before me - I bought a “sleep sheet” or as my mother likes to call it a “bed condom”, but I will still wonder where my bed has been!
* Pooping into holes in the ground - Well, I had to include it! Not only does it sound really gross, but it certainly begs the questions of how good my aim is, and how long my quads can hold me in a squat position!!
* Possibly getting sick in a foreign country - getting sick in the USA is tough enough, but at least I have my mom there to take care of me!

The things I am most looking forward to:
* New Zealand men - I hear they are like the Bounty Paper Towel Lumberjack Man who I love (hairy, rustic, chop wood, wear flannel)
* Knowing exactly what to wear everyday. With only 1 pair of pants and 2 shirts this should be a given. - I haven’t had this luxury since I lived in England when I was 12 and had to wear a uniform everyday to school!
* Bungee jumping, skydiving, white water rafting, repelling into caves - All the crazy action adventure sports!
* Beaches, beaches, and more beaches - Scuba diving in Thailand, the barrier reef and Fiji.
* Seeing and experiencing different cultures
* Food sampling - Yes I plan on eating bugs!! Or whatever the locals are serving up!
* Freedom from society’s constraints - Yes I am 27. No I am not married. Yes I just quit my job in this economy! Yes I am traveling around the world. AND yes I will be just fine!!

Well I am off to New Zealand. I’ll write when I get there!