New Zealand

Finals! Packing! Goodbyes! After finishing my finals last Wednesday, I started packing up for New Zealand. Initially I wanted to go to Queenstown and Kristina was going to go with me, but StudentUniverse could only get flights to Christchurch and Kristina couldn’t get her flight switched. So there I was by myself booked to go to Christchurch. I was super close to just switching to an earlier flight back home. Everybody kept talking about how dead Christchurch was because of the earthquakes and I didn’t really have any idea what I’d do while I was there. The flight was also a forced overnight so I’d be spending the night in the Auckland airport by myself. Not super appetizing. I had it in my mind that I would switch my flight back to the US but for some reason I just couldn’t do it. Thank goodness I didn’t! Christchurch has been amazing. Saturday after checking into the Around the World Backpackers hostel I spent the day wandering around Christchurch. It’s such a strange vibe going on here. I’ve never felt anything like it. Actually seeing the aftermath of a city hit by a natural disaster has given me a new perspective. I walked around the city centre. Many of the beautiful gothic buildings were destroyed by the September earthquake. Next to the destroyed buildings they’ve set up a city centre using large storage boxes for stores! It actually looks really modern and cool not to mention it’s a creative way of bouncing back after the earthquake. Right next to the shops there’s a walk along where you can look at all the damage that happened to the heart of the city and watch them rebuilding it. I could here snippets of people’s conversations, sometimes recalling memories and pointing to the areas where beloved buildings used to stand. Other conversations were about what the plans were to rebuild. The juxtaposition of the new shops with the old destroyed buildings was really strange to experience, but overall there was a sense of connectedness. There were carolers and street shows in the shopping centre and everybody was really kind to each other. After exploring the town centre I walked over to Hagley Park. I walked along a path by the stream. There were cotton fibers from the trees swirling all around. It almost looked like it was snowing! The path took me to the botanic gardens. I wandered through all of them until I got to the rose garden. I sat and read there for a while and ended up taking a bit of a catnap. As I was about to leave I ended up taking to a lady from Christchurch for about an hour. She talked about the earthquakes and what it’s like to have that happen to your home. I could tell how deeply sad she was, but also how connected she was to the city. It really made me think about what actually connects us to a place and whether it’s the buildings or if it goes deeper than that. After I had dinner back at the hostel I went to a hostel down the street I had met some friends at and we hung out and drank beers. We had people from France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and the US all at the same table. I then headed back to my hostel. It was pretty late, but I ended up playing Clue (or Cluedo as it’s called here) with some friends.

On Sunday I went to Hanmer Springs. It was a couple hours by shuttle. The scenery on the way up was amazing! There were large luscious green mountains and sheep everywhere! I spent the first part of my time at Hanmer exploring the shops. It’s a little alpine town and reminded me a lot of Sonora. I got some of the best fish and chips of my life for lunch and then went to the hot springs. I spent most of my time in the natural pools. The water has sulfur in it so it didn’t smell the best but the water supposedly has healing properties. The hot springs was just what I needed to melt off the any residual stress from finals and traveling. I slept on the shuttle ride back and then had a relaxing evening at the hostel.

On Monday I took a tour to the small coastal town of Akaroa. It’s a cute little French town and the perfect place to be for my last day in New Zealand. I took a tour through the harbor and got to see the world’s smallest and rarest dolphins, the Hector dolphin. There was a dog on board named Murphy who could sense the dolphins before the humans. He would suddenly run to the edge of the boat and all the people would follow and there would be dolphins! When I was trying to describe the trip to my family they teased me that I was making it all up with “Murph Murph the Dolphin Dog” (that’s actually a kid’s book written about it), and it does sound kind of ridiculous. It was the perfect way to spend my last day in New Zealand.