New Zealand and Home

After 10 days of touring around New Zealand with the AAT Kings tour group I saw the highlights of the north island. It was a 4-5 star tour group which taught me to read the website closer before booking a tour. Hopefully you guys got my postcard from the Cape. By the end I was desiring some company younger than 50 but the nice part was having amazing single rooms to myself. The tour ended in Wellington on the same day as an All Blacks Rugby try. After much hassle I finally got my wishes: Cheap food, a bed, and Christian fellowship. Since all the hostels and cheapish hotels were booked Kaitlyn through a few people hooked me up with some girls in Wellington. I got picked up at the museum, joined an English learning bible study for their meal of dim sum (?), then got a tour of the city from locals. Real New Zealand (and Christian) hospitality, unlike the farm stay where they got paid to host a few of us for the night, happened with a free meal, bed, and company at a flat of Arise Church youth. We watched lots of movies even though my official host and a few others had to get up to set up church at 5am. I got picked up to go to the airport before realizing that my flight was at 9 in the evening. Good part was my bag was already checked so I could head to church, post lunch, more movie time, evening church, and post dinner with them. One of them also dropped me off at the airport for a trip to Auckland. Sadly I lost the 12 hours in Auckland that I was going to tour the city and hang out with my contact there.

Monday morning I woke up, packed and got my luggage back from my contact then headed downtown for bungy jumping! Even though I was late they waited for a bit and I got to talk to Trisha from Wisconsin for the whole time. It was great fun jumping off the bridge in the morning. Even cooler was the fact that because it was winter and the 1st jump of the day we all got a second jump for free. This time I tried backwards!

When jumping ended I raced back up the hills of Auckland to get my luggage and rush to the airport. Sadly, I only had $10 in cash so I had to make another trip up and down the hill to get more cash for the taxi ride. It was expensive but the only way I knew I could make my flight and it was less transporting my 70kgs of stuff.
The trip home paired me with some really awesome seatmates so we talked for over an hour of the 12 hour trip to LAX before picking up luggage to go through customs etc. I also received a message to call my mom but thankfully it was just that I missed my JFK-home flight cause I booked it for the morning. The rest of the flights went well but I was so sore at the end from moving my luggage around so much at every airport. Finally I arrived at my semi-local airport to see my parents and start the hour and a half trip home.
I spent four days at home which gave me enough time to unpack most of my Australia stuff, hang out with a few friends, and pack up for camp. I also went shopping for a day and slept in my own bed. I'll write about staff training and camp in a few hours. Plus I have super detailed notes about Sydney and New Zealand which I hopefully will have time to type up eventually.