Longest week EVER! This week has been
an eternity but it’s been a good one!
Monday was our last day in Dunedin, and I had a ton of random
things I needed to do. So I just got myself organized, cleaned all my stuff up,
laundry, ran errands – post office, one last stop at Cadbury World, Cotton On,
and one last eat at Velvet Burger. And of course staying there for a few hours
on wifi to FaceTime J
We packed up that night, got up at 4:30
am once again on Tuesday morning,
and flew to Christchurch. Tuesday kinda ended up being an unfortunate and
stressful day. But I’ll start with the beginning, which wasn’t too bad.
When we arrived at our hostel, it was
still 10:30 am but we couldn’t check in until 2:00 pm, so we went out and about
to explore a little and find food. As
many of you know, Christchurch had a huge earthquake 5 years ago (exactly on
Feb 21) that demolished the city. They are still rebuilding. And as some of you
know, there was a 5.7 earthquake here one week ago. So they are still feeling
aftershocks. It’s kinda a weird feeling walking around. It is literally a city
just under construction. Lots of construction and lots of (incredible) street
art. Apartments advertise ‘Grade A seismic rating’ under ‘free wifi’. There are
still buildings crumbled to the ground and it is so sad. It feels like it
should be a ghost town, but they still have a functional community! We stumbled
across a mall made out of big colorful shipping crates! It has a food truck
type of feel, and it is actually really cute. (http://restart.org.nz/gallery)
Apparently after the earthquake, the
community didn’t really care as much about the businesses. They focused more on
the communities, but even with their focus there, there are still houses
needing work done to this day. Anyways we found some amazing pizza and did some
shopping there until we could check in. We got to just relax once we got there,
and we are SO grateful we have free wifi! That afternoon, tension with one of
the professors became very heated. We appreciated the other
professor and his wife so much. They were very helpful through the ordeal in calming
people down, and trying to help us figure it out. I just want to say I am so
impressed with the girls I am with and I am grateful for their amazing constant
examples. On the student end, a difficult meeting was handled with maturity and
led by the Spirit. Anyways, it was very emotional and a little scary. We all
had some time to relax and recover afterwards and just went to the store to
prepare for our big adventure the next day!
On Wednesday
we were so excited to have happy vibes and get on a bus that would take us far,
far away to a beautiful land hahaha. We had previously been promised that we’d
be able to go to Queenstown as a whole group (21 students), but that wasn’t
able to happen as a group because they didn’t book far enough in advance. Therefore
each student was given$250 out of the funds we paid to come here. So 17 of the
21 of us did research, bookings, and figured it out on our own to be able to go
to Queenstown! Wednesday consisted of a bus ride from 10:30 AM to 7:45 PM on a bus called the Naked Bus. Once there
we got some pizza, had a girls night, and squished our group of 17 girls into
hotel rooms big enough for ten.
Queenstown reminds me a little of home.
It has the Park City feel, just bigger and with a lake. It also reminds me of
what I would imagine Tahoe to be like in the summer. I’d really like to go
there someday!
Thursday was an incredible day. Queenstown is SO BEAUTIFUL. Eleven
of the 17 people went on a tour to Milford Sound- which is an incredible opportunity
that may only come once in one’s life and is one of the most amazing landscapes
in the world. However I did not get a ticket for that so I was one of the six
who had a different once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We had a great day. We headed up the gondola
to the top of the mountain and had a nice day up there looking at the most spectacular
view of the lake and all the trees and incredible mountains. We went to the
lookout, explored a bit, watched some bungee jumping, took pictures, and then
we did a luge type ride quite a few times! It’s not real luge, but is more like
an alpine slide on pavement. It was so much fun, but it started pouring rain
and it got cold and foggy but it was still incredible. We tried to dry off
while we drank some hot chocolate, then headed back down to town. Later on, we
met the whole group at a place called Fern Burger’s which is the MUST place to
eat when you go to Queenstown. And there is always a crazy line that goes down
the sidewalk. And it was worth it! We all rode a 10:30 pm bus we had reserved to
the lodge in Wanaka where we stayed the next two nights. The bus ride was
filled with singing, dancing, rap battles, and fresh prince jam sessions.
Friday we finally got to sleep in and we had a very relaxed day in
Wanaka. We went down to the tiny town, ate lunch by the lake and did a little
shopping. We all made a big meal and ate together then showed each other our
prom pictures haha. Yet another great girls night!
Saturday we packed up and got back on the Naked Bus back to Christchurch.
On Sunday
we walked to the church building for a regional broadcast for Australia and
New Zealand, which was really cool to hear and be part of right now. Elder Cook
was among those that spoke. Later that day, quite a few YSAs came over to meet
and hang out with us. There was some food, and a game or two. Even though no
one will be our Auckland YSA friends “the crew”, they were so kind and generous
and genuinely wanting to get to know us. What sweethearts. Then we all headed
over to the park for a lantern festival for Chinese New Year! We had barely
missed the ones in Auckland and Dunedin and we were sooo happy to catch this
one! I love summertime fairs and festival type of things so I was happy. We got
some really cool lanterns, authentic and deep fried food, and watched some
fireworks over the lake. It was a great time and got me so excited for county
fairs, rodeos, and fireworks this summer.
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