A little glimpse at this weekend...
Saturday, we took the Ferry to Waiheke Island with Frankie’s mom to check out some vineyards and zip line. We got off the ferry and asked the AT Transport lady where the nearest winery was for us to check out and she told us just right up the road, about a 15-minute walk. How perfect right? Well…. That 15-minute walk was definitely not a 15-minute walk; it was a good 40-minute walk uphill…in heels…. In dresses… We learned our lesson and were definitely taxing around the island the rest of the time. When we finally arrived at Mudbrick Vineyard we were very excited. It was absolutely beautiful! The view was like no other. It was a very popular day for visiting vineyards because both of the ones we went to were super busy. People even fly private helicopters to the vineyards and casually land right in the grass (not us though, we're just poor college students). Later in the afternoon we went zip lining, something we have been looking forward to since the very beginning of this trip. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun. Poor Kelly had to listen to me scream the whole time because the first round of zip lining scared me.Really I had no idea what I was getting myself into, I just thought I enjoyed the ride down gliding, but you actually hold onto an above the head handle bar and can twist yourself around to get a 360 degree view and then when you come to the stop at the end, you have to grab the rope from the guide and pull yourself in so she could unharness us. It was super cool because we went on three different zip lines all with different views. After I got the first round jitters out I could enjoy the views. The scariest part was on the last zip line because I didn’t make it all the way down so she had to grab a metal pole and drag me in. I was convinced I was going to be stranded. Our tour guides were amazing and were saints for putting up with us.
Sunday, Kelly & I went to Mission Bay to hangout at the beach. Even though we have been warned multiple times about the New
Zealand sun, we thought it was a great idea to lie out for 4 hours. We may have gotten a little burnt. Whoops, it was so worth soaking up all the sun. I wish I could lie out everyday back at home, so I have to take in every bit of sun that I can while I am here. It was so relaxing listening to music on the beach and tanning. The sand here is amazing. Even though there are shells all over, it is so so soft!!! After the beach we took the bus back into the city to meet up with Frankie and her mom. Little did we know all the streets into Britomart were closed because of the Santa Parade that afternoon, so the bus dropped us off right by the University and we had no idea where we were. However, we saw the Skytower in sight and knew as long as we kept walking towards it we would get downtown. Turns out we know the city way better than we thought we did and made it downtown in a 10 minute walk and ended up walking right into Frankie and her mom as they were coming out of a restaurant. It was so funny because not having any wifi all day we had no idea where they were and conveniently happened to run into each other to meet up! We found a new Mexican restaurant for dinner which was super yummy. It reminded us a lot of the Mexican restaurants at home because we actually got chips and salsa when we sat down and that doesn’t happen at the Mexican restaurants here, you pay for chips and salsa if you want it. Even with being burnt from the sun, of course we wanted to sit outside on their patio because it was such a pretty view of the city. It was a nice relaxing day/night and a perfect Sunday!!
AND GUESS WHAT!!!! Our professor, Dr. Kirst is here to visit us until Thursday! I am so excited that he traveled all the way here to come visit us and check out the schools. I cannot wait for him to see our classrooms and meet the amazing staff at Swanson. Check back later this week for updates about our time with him and this weeks chaos of moving into a new classroom!!
