Happy New Year everyone! Wishing everyone a great and happy 2011. What a wild ride this has been the past 6 months, I am sure looking forward to the next year to see what else is in store.
So I started our writing this blog by giving a detailed summary of what I did over my Christmas vacation but it started to get to long so I will just highlight the best parts. I spent about 9 days in New Zealand with 4 other WorldTeach volunteers.
We spent 2 nights in Auckland, 2 night in Wellington, 2 nights in Turangi, 1 night in Rotorua, New Years Eve Part 1 in Wellington and then New Years Eve Part 2 back in Apia, Samoa.
It was a great trip. Auckland was not my favorite for a couple reasons. One the city is too big. You may ask how a former New Yorker could say that but I guess being away from such a big city for 6 months as made me less inclined to enjoy a sprawling city. We were also there for Christmas and unfortunately most of the city was shut down so we didn't get to see as much as we would have liked. Auckland highlight: Going to the top of the SkyTower (the highest building in the Southern Hemisphere) at sunset and seeing the whole city from a Birdseye view.
Wellington was a much smaller and in my opinion better city. It had the charm of an artistic community and the nightlife of a college town. However, they don't call in Windy Wellington for nothing. Highlight in Wellington: staying in my first ever hostel and slightly enjoying it, even if it was invested with 18-20 year olds.
Turangi was great. Small town. Awesome cozy hostel. We climbed the Tongariro Alpine Cross. It took 7 hours in the blazing sun. As a very white palagi, I got burned. No fried.
In Rotorua, I went bungy jumping. I was petrified. Like omg, did I scream like a little school girl. But it was absolutely worth it. I even got to jump down into an awesome looking river. What a great experience!?
After spending New Years Eve part 1 in Auckland, due to some tricky time traveling and the international dateline, we were able to celebrate New Years Eve part 2 in Apia. It was a wonderful 24 (or more) hours. When will I ever get to experience that again?
It was overall a great vacation. So nice to get away. So nice to see different people. So nice to see a beautiful country. But it felt nice to come back "home" to American Samoa. As strange as it is to say, I've created a home here and I kinda like it.
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