Auckland - June 28, 2013

I spent the day on Waiheke Island (why hee kee).  I took a ferry from Auckland over to the island, which is quite close.  It only took about a half an hour to get there.  At one point the island is only 5km off the coast of the North Island.  Here are some pictures from the ferry ride:

Philippa, the travel agent in the lobby of the hotel, booked a deal for me that included the ferry and a bus tour of the Island.   I am really glad that I had the bus tour, because if I had just walked off the ferry onto the island I would have had no idea what to do or where to go.  But the Bus tour showed us the main parts of the island.  The driver/tour guide was really great.  He is originally from Germany.  The geeky voice/theater speech teacher in me was fascinated by his accent.  It was definitely German but it did sound very New Zealand at times.

I spent quite a lot of time at Onetangi Beach (oh neh tayn gee).   I walked the length of it (about a mile),

climbed this tree and played on the swing,

 collected some pretty amazing seashells,

sat and ate lunch, prayed and meditated on these rocks.

The weather was so much better and warmer today than yesterday.  I even took off my coat for an hour or so after climbing these stairs.

At the top, looking down to the beach.

It was so lovely and peaceful.  Even the seagulls!  At other beaches as soon as you pull out your lunch the seagulls gather to scavenge or steal your lunch.  But the seagulls here just went about their own business and left me to mine.

The view of the sunset just before leaving the island.  It was a beautiful day.  

There was another girl traveling alone on our bus tour.  She was also from Germany.  I had the thought to invite her to join me at Onetangi Beach at the end of the tour, but didn't.  I'm not sure why, but wish that I had.  She was a lovely girl with a really beautiful countenance.  You could tell she had a beautiful heart and soul.  My loss.  I could have made a new friend, but instead, I spent the day alone.  It was still a lovely day, but I often thought of Katia and hoped that I would run into her again and have a second chance.  So the lesson I learned today is: listen to that voice inside telling you to open your heart and connect with people.  You can do it.  Being shy is really just self directed and prideful.   It parades as the innocent protection from others but is really just protecting yourself from you - from making a fool of yourself.  The truth is that if you approach people with an open and loving heart, especially people who also have open and giving hearts, there is nothing to fear.  There is nothing to lose and so much to gain.  I couldn't help but feel a little like the man in this video today: Your Potential, Your Privileges 

I think if I had been ever so slightly more bold, this day (while still amazing), could have been so much more.  Climbing that tree and playing on the swing would have been so much more fun with another person.  I have come a long way from that little Christy who would hide behind my mother and cling to her knees.  I have faith that the goodness in my heart will continue to grow and one day overpower that fear that steals my opportunities for even greater joy.  Maybe that day will be tomorrow...

Auckland - June 27, 2013

um…..I’M IN NEW ZEALAND!!! 

Whew!  That is so crazy to me.  But here I am!  I made it safe and sound.  I even slept quite a bit on that crazy long flight.   I must have slept 7 or 8 of the 13 hour flight.  I think I was awake for about 2 hours at the beginning of the flight and about 2 hours at the end.  Air New Zealand hands out a nice sized blanket.  I had my noise reduction headphones on, my neck brace pillow and was ready to sleep but the light from all the little TV screens on the backs of the seats was really bright.  I didn’t have any of those eye covers so I grabbed my coat and put the hood of it over my head and then let it drape down over my body.  It was a fantastic little cocoon!  Dark and warm.  And then with that amazing neck pillow, I was sleeping deeply enough to dream about crashing in a snowy and seriously wind blown New Zealand.  I have some vague memories turbulents.  They must have affected my dreams. 

So I landed, went through customs and found the bus that brought me to my hotel in Auckland at about 8:30 AM.  I showered and napped a little in the morning.  I did however, get out into Auckland this afternoon.  I first talked with Philippa, downstairs in the lobby.  She is like a travel agent that is housed in the hotel.  She was very helpful and got me all planned for my time in Auckland and in Rotorua. She has it all worked out so that I don’t have to rent a car.  And she figured out how to get me to the temple from Roturua.  She said that I am not the first person that she has helped figure out how to get to the Mormon Temple in Hamilton.  I told her that we Mormons love our temples.

I was quite nervous as I was preparing to leave on Tuesday morning.   I asked my Father to give me a blessing where I was promised peace and safety in my traveling and I felt better.  Then as we got in the truck to go to the airport I said to my parents, “You know, one of the things that I love about being Mormon is knowing that I can go almost anywhere in the world and if I need anything there are other Mormons  just a phone call away who will come running to my aid.  Complete strangers and yet they will be so willing to help me.”  And my Dad replied, “But they aren’t really strangers.  Once we have made our baptismal covenants we “are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).  And my dad is right.  It is true that I haven’t met any of the Latter-day Saints in New Zealand but I already know what kind of people they are and I know that they are willing to help me, should I need it.  And that is what gives me the courage to get on an airplane and travel to the other side of the world all by myself.  And in light of that conversation it is so appropriate that when I walked out of my hotel and stepped out onto the streets of Auckland this is the first thing that I saw. 

I am staying next door to the LDS Family Services in Auckland, New Zealand.

I got out and walked down Queen Street, the main street in Auckland from my hotel to the ocean.  On the way I stopped and had some lamb kebabs and rice, bought a scarf because I managed to pack hat and gloves but not scarf and this is scarf weather.  I also found a grocery store and bought a few snack items. That is pretty much it.  I did take a few pictures. 

I fell in love with this tree.  It is MASSIVE!

Modern day Saloon.

I was just amazed that "suckies" is a real word! And it took me a minute to figure out what I would be getting if I bought "Bouncing Berry Suckies" I think they are like those yogurt tubes you put in the freezer and eat like popsicles.

Why build a new building?  Or tear down an old colonial building?  Just build a new building around the front of the old one.  Don't worry about matching or anything.

 It is now dark and only about 6PM but I am going to bed.  It feels like midnight – actually in Utah it is midnight and in Pennsylvania it is 2 AM. 

Oceania or Bust!

Ok.  I know I am not a great blogger, but I was very consistent last summer while I was in Europe so I am going to give it another go this summer while I am in New Zealand and Australia.

One of the great things about my program at Penn State is that someone donated money to the School of Theater to allocate to graduate students for international travel.  So, thank you Penn State for helping to support me on this adventure!!!!

I leave a week from today and my adventures will begin in Auckland.  Stay tuned....

France Day 12: Bike Tour (June 28, 2012)

We did it!  We biked 61 kilometers today!  I am so proud of us for deciding to buck up and finish the bike tour.  While today was long the biking was not difficult.  There were no hills really to speak of and it rained last night and so it was cooler today by quite a bit than it was yesterday.  We were on our bikes and going before 9AM.  Angela woke up feeling poorly this morning.  Her stomach was not feeling well.  So we waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to be well enough to do this.  We started a little later than we had planned but it was still our earliest day.  We had planned to leave by 8 AM and arrive in Avignon by 2PM.  We arrived at about 3PM.  We would have met our goal but we spent an hour trying to figure out the directions.  There was a loop that took you into a little town that was optional.  We decided not to go on that loop but the directions for not taking the loop were wrong.  After we had biked up and down the road a couple of times trying to find the right way we finally decided to do the loop which then put us back on track and made the directions make sense.  Unfortunately by that time we had lost an hour of morning coolness and had biked an extra 5 or 6 km.  But we did glimpse a couple of great vistas in the village.  Unfortunately we were so worried about getting back on track that we didn’t stop to enjoy them or take pictures.  We just glanced that way as we biked on.

Other than that the day was pretty uneventful.  The directions took us on to what they called a “dirt track” but it was actually a grass road.  It didn’t look like it was driven on often enough to be a dirt road.    We were blessed because it wasn’t as hot.  We had plenty of water.  We started earlier. And we didn’t have any stops longer than 15 or 20 minutes.  It was good and we both have a great sense of accomplishment.  It was a triumphal way to end our 3 week vacation.

So we arrived in Avignon at about 3 PM but our luggage didn’t arrive in Avignon until about 5:30 PM.  We were expecting it at 5PM.  After we turned in our bikes and equipment we went and used the restroom and then walked to the train station to get our tickets to Marseilles.  We then sat in the shade talking and drinking our victory Orangina until it was time to go get our luggage.  

We got on the 6:23 PM train to the Marseilles Airport station.  It took about an hour and a half to get there.  We didn’t see nearly as lovely as countryside on the train as we did on our bike tour until we got closer to Marseilles and then we saw a few beautiful glimpses of what looked like a bay.

When we got off the train, we knew our hotel was very close by, but we weren’t sure how to begin walking there.  We were standing looking at the tiered parking lot and all of the stairs that we would most likely have to  carry our luggage down when a man came and spoke to us in French.  I’m sure he asked us where we were going.  Angela told him where our hotel was.  He pointed and talked somemore and then said that he would take us to the bottom of the parking lot.  Somehow I understood that last bit.  He is the driver of the shuttle that goes from the train station to the airport and he took us to the bottom of the train station and to a sign with our hotel on it and an arrow pointing in the right direction.  I managed to say, “Mercy bouque, Monsieur.”  And we got off of the shuttle.  As we began to walk we said how kind that was of him and how grateful we are.  I hope that God will bless him for his kindness. 

First thing in the morning.  We saw lots of sun flower fields today.

This is the "dirt track" we biked on for about 5 km. It was pretty rough.

This is the bridge that took us off of the dirt track.

This was the last sun flower field of the day and it was finally a field where the flowers were facing us. All day we had been seeing field of sun flowers but we could only really see the backs of the flowers.

Drinking our Victory Orangina.

We found our hotel room and it was almost 9PM.  We went into hurry mode.  We needed to shower and repack our bags for our journeys home.  We are showered, packed, have downloaded and looked at our pictures and are ready for bed and it is only a few minutes after 11PM.  We have our alarms set for 3:30 AM.  My flight leaves at 6:30 in the morning and it is always suggested that you arrive 2 hours before an international flight.  We have a cab coming at 4:30 to come and get us in the morning. 

France Day 11: Bike Tour (June 27, 2012)

Well, we almost died on our bike tour today, but we pressed on and made it all 46 km.  We biked over the Alpilles Mountains.  That was the part that almost killed us.  We actually walked up the Alpilles Mountains and rode our bikes down the other side.  I think this is considered an easy bike ride because the hill up over the mountain never got very steep, it wasn’t even ever as steep as a 45 degrees but it was a long slow incline, that was what was killing me.  I think I could have handled a few sharper but shorter inclines, but not the long ones.  We also biked for a while on a dirt road.  Well it started out as a dirt road and then became gravel.  We could ride through the dirt, but the gravel was too slippery so we had to get off and walk through that as well.  It was also incredibly hot today.  So all of those things combined together made me think that I might die.  All of this happened in the first 20 km of our ride.  

But I do have to say that riding down the other side of the mountain was joyous!  The last half of our ride was either down hill or flat so it was much better.  After we got back down into the valley and were in a little town we found a bench where we stopped to rest for a few minutes and there just happened to be a tap there with cold water!  That was a blessing and a bit of a life saver.  Also, when we were shopping for food the night before I suggested we buy so me potato chips so that we had something salty.  As we were sitting there eating our chips Angela said that I was inspired.  We had other things to eat but the chips were tasting really good. 

We did see some very lovely scenery!  It really is amazing to be here doing this.

I have to confess that as I was sweating to death and walking my bike up the mountain I was wondering if this was such a good idea and if trying to go on an even longer day tomorrow would be possible.  But after a shower and a little nap I no longer felt like I was going to die and could probably attempt to go 55 km tomorrow if we started earlier, had more water.  So we have resolved to start earlier in the morning.  Our goal is 8 AM.  And we bought some more water so we should have plenty of water, but it won’t be frozen or even refrigerated when we leave in the morning.  But hopefully we won’t be biking during the hottest part of the day like we were today.  I am really proud of us deciding to finish it out.

Angela walking her bike down the dirt road.

Vineyards and the Alpilles Mountains, before we crossed them.

Our first view of the valley!  We were so excited.

 

Down in the valley after coming down the mountain.

The valley...

By the looks on our faces this has to have been taken before we crossed the mountains...

We had a great French dinner tonight.  I would tell you what we had but the menu was all in French so I am not really sure.  But it was fabulous.