First month survived!

Kia Ora!

Damn, it is already over a month since I left home (I am in NZ for a month today!) I have met so many great people here and I have already done so much, I could not have asked for a better start of my internship/adventure abroad.

I know I haven't spoken to a lot of you lately, since I'm pretty busy (partying of course and sometimes some work as well). That is also why I haven't written another blog yet. But here is the long story of my first month.

The first weeks flew by. The second week of my internship there was a small party at the neighbors’ house, I thought yeh, let’s go drink a beer. But that ended up with drinking games and way too late to bed. And yeh, I had work the next morning. That was great yeh XD but I managed! It actually went better than I expected.
But anyway, this week I went to Tauranga with work for the Annual HUI. This was an action/learning/fun filled 3 days with colleagues in a beautiful area in Tauranga (next to the sea and near the mount).
I came back home friday evening, was tired so did not go to bed late, because we had a roadtrip planned for saturday! We were going to the most north point of New Zealand! So Saturday morning everybody got up early to leave for this long drive. It was raining all morning, so we were happy we were in the car the whole time... When we got to the 90-mile beach, the weather was clearing up, so we got out of the car and walked a bit. We even drove the car onto the beach, that was pretty sweet aye. After that we still had a couple of hours to drive to Cape Reinga, a beautiful lighthouse at the edge of New Zealand. We met some people from Europe, made beautiful pictures and went to the sand dunes, though, it was pretty late already, and we still had some hours to drive to our hostel in Paihia and we still had to eat as well.. Hungry like hell we ended up at a sportsbar near Paihia, while the All Blacks were playing! So we ate a pizza and watched the game. After that we went to the hostel, had a drink at a bar and went to bed, since we were going to the glowworm caves and the Bay of Islands the next day.
The next day we went to the glowworm caves, which was pretty cool to see (could not make any pictures, bummer). After that we went for a boat trip in the Bay of Islands. This is a beautiful place! The weather was great again this afternoon. In the morning the boat could not go to the whole in the rock, because the sea was too rough, but we could! Yay! We even saw some seals :D when we were on our way back, the boat broke down, nothing bad luckily! Something was wrong with the steering wheel? Idk. So we had to stop at an island, where another boat had stopped as well, so we could join that boat back to Paihia. The Island was beautiful as well. Everything in New Zealand is beautiful XD When we finally got back, we went to grab some food and drove home again. That was the second week in NZ haha.

The third week also started with some drinking games on Monday evening becauseeee, it was Rhodé’s birthday! We invited only two of our neighbors, because we did not want a wrecked house and we all had to work the next day.
This week was a bit more productive at work for me, had to finish my Plan of Action, which was a bit of a challenge to write it all in English and after the busy first two weeks. The rest of the week was pretty calm. On Thursday Maud, Rhodé and I were working out, when all of a sudden Ferdinand (one of the neighbors) walked in and was watching at us like wtf are you doing? Rhodé and I were lying on the ground in the Livingroom with workout gear on, all sweaty and stuff.. But he asked if we wanted to come over for a drink. We said we didn’t know yet (still had to shower and all). But after the shower we got ready and went there anyway (he was so not expecting us to do so). Fun evening again, with too much alcohol. Damn I don’t even want to know how much money these people spend on alcohol, because alcohol is so damn expensive over here…
Anyway, Friday evening we went out for a drink as well, went to the Albany pub, which was closing really early (like before midnight). So we wanted to go to another bar, which sadly had a private party… So we went to G1 (neighbors) again and drank there. I didn’t make it too late, because the next day Rhodé and I were going to the glowworm caves again (other caves of course) with other interns.

So, Saturday was an early morning again, because we had to be in Auckland city at 9AM for the bus. We were going there with other interns, so I was pretty excited to meet some new people! We went there with some others from Lucas Creek. In the bus we already met some new people (Kenneth, Janco, Kai) and chatted the whole way. First stop was Sunset beach. This is a black sand beach with nice waves to surf on! I had never seen a black sand beach before, this was a bit strange, but it was amazing. We ate something and got onto the bus again, because we still had some way to go. When we got to the caves we sat down near a creek, beautiful surroundings (as always) and ate something. After a few minutes the first group could start with the tour. So Rhodé, Kenneth, Janco, Kai and I said we didn’t mind going first. Someone from the USA joined us as well and we met a couple from Germany, who were there on a working holiday visa. The caves were very cool. They said we would get wet, but they did not tell us we would end up in the water to over our knees. We walked through the water inside the cave. I was so happy it was not cold inside, nor was the water. We even had to crawl through the water xD everybody was completely soaked (I think I was still the driest of everybody). After an hour in the cave we still had to walk back to the café where we started. With beautiful views and no rain, this was not really a punishment. When we got back we ate something and went to a waterfall. We had to walk through a bit of a jungle to get there, but it was nice, we had some music and were with 15-20 people. When we got to the waterfall, we got under it straight away. It was pretty cold aye! Damn. Nice experience though. Most people didn’t want to go into the water, but a few did anyway! Made some pictures and had to walk back again, because we had to go back to Auckland. When we got to the road again the bus was there. Though not everybody brought their dry cloths with them (still at the café). So Kenneth and I had the brilliant idea to run back (about 1km or something). With almost no clothes on, completely wet, we ran back and jumped into the creek to wash off the mud. Then we still had to wait for the bus, because most of us left our clothes in the bus… like I did. When the bus finally got there, I changed, put on some nice warm clothes and we could start our ride back home again.
At home we made dinner, ate, took a shower and after that we went to the neighbors house again. We were going to Auckland City in the evening to go out. Kenneth and Janco would also go to the City in the evening, so we saw each other at the club again. Around 5.30AM we arrived back home again and went to bed.
The next day was pretty calm. Went to the supermarket and to the cinema. I was so damn tired. Went to bed when we got back from the movies, since I had to work again on Monday.

The next week was just another workweek at my internship. Though, on Friday we were going to Hunua Ranger. We had an event there on Sunday, so we started to mark the course on Friday. This was pretty fun, had a short run with my colleague, Steve, while we were marking the course (through the mud, some climbing and rain). We also went to Hunua falls, pretty nice waterfall ö. In the evening, we had some drinks and started a 1000 pieces puzzle. Alex (the French intern) chose a French puzzle, which was really hard.
The next day Mark (colleague) and I got up pretty early to go to Raglan (Mark wanted to go surfing). After a few hours in Raglan we wanted to go back again, since the waves weren’t as good anymore. After a while of driving we took a wrong turn (oops). But we ended up on a beautiful road, awesome scenery, almost no cars to be found. We were on our way to Kawhia. There is one road from Raglan straight to Kawhia, and we took it. Took us over 4 hours to get back to Hunua. We also went to the beach for a few minutes and drove through kawhia, since Mark had never been there either. Nice roadtrip it was .
On Sunday we had our XTERRA event. This is a trial running event. Started pretty early with work (around 5/6ish in the morning). The weather was not that good, that was a bit of a bummer, but after all we had a good day and it was fun and muddy. After the event we had a BBQ at the house we stayed in for the weekend and had some drinks. Later in the evening we tried to get as far as possible with the puzzle. Sadly, we did not finish it, though we got to over 50%.
Monday morning we left the house to go back to Albany. After some rest, I could get ready for another week at work.

This is the story of my first month in NZ. Did not expect to write this much, haha. When I started typing I had so much inspiration, it ended with almost 2000 words. Probably not gonna write as much the next time. But as you can read I am enjoying my time here. We’ll be in touch!

Cheers, Do