Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Vacation within a Vacation?

Oops, I mean a Vacation in between my studies not a vacation within a vacation :). This is not a vacation at ALL. I am strictly here to learn and I have been hitting the books for 10 hours a day 7 days a week ;). So I get a break from this school thing. Its called a two week Easter break, I think it is equivalent to a spring break plus another week, pshhh.. HA! I sure came to the right country to do my studies! Alright so I am so excited for what this New Zealand trip is going to bring. It is going to be such an amazing experience and I can't even wait.

Starting Friday (today is Tuesday) I will be flying out to Auckland, New Zealand. For those of you who are not good at Geography (Me, Me!) I will explain this to you. New Zealand is separated into two different Islands. These islands are known as the North Island and the South Island. Okay, got it? Good. So Friday I will fly to Auckland, New Zealand which is in the North Island. I am going to be staying one week with an older couple who live in Auckland. This couple has been actively involved with Habitat for Humanity for over 15 years and they are going to let me stay at there house while I am volunteering in Auckland.

Near Auckland in a small town on the out skirts is the poorest community in the whole country. In this area it is normal for about 3-5 families to all share one house because that is the cheapest and the last thing before living on the streets. So Habitat for Humanity is a Christian non-profit organization that works on projects around the world to help different areas with whatever is most needed. Habitat for Humanity was attracted to this site because it is the poorest part of the country and most of the population here live with severe asthma. Asthma in this area is so common because of the humidity. And all of the houses that are being shared by many families are pretty much all rotted out and infected because they were not built right to protect the house from the humidity. The project that I will be working on in the first week of my two week break will be building houses in the community to make more room for the families that are sharing. I will be working on this for about 5 days and in my down time I will be working in the 2nd had store doing jobs that need to be done there.

This is going to be a lot of work but I am so excited and happy to have this opportunity. I think I will learn a lot and it will make me appreciate life more than I already do. I am so excited to meet all of the people I will be working with and I have a feeling I will be in good company the whole time I am there. I cant wait to meet the couple I will be staying with while I am working on this project. All I know is that they have been involved with Habitat for Humanity for over 15 years, they live in a beautiful house and they have raised 9 children. I am assuming all of their children are around my mom's age (that's young of course) :). And I know that they enjoy a glass of wine. That is all of the juice I have on them, haha! I can't wait to meet them. They will be picking me up from the airport on Friday around 5pm.

So after this big adventure I will be flying to the South Island to Christchurch, this may sound familiar because they just had the big earthquake. I think their rebuilding is going really good though, but I am not sure; I'll have to let ya know. So when I get there I will be meeting one of my best friends that I have met in Australia, his name is Anas. Although we have only known each other for 2 months it seems like a lot longer. He is from Germany and we pretty much met right when we got here. He is still working on his English and learning new words but for the most part I think we just learned how to communicate with each other really well. Sometimes it takes him a long time to explain things but I understand almost everything he is going to say and if he is missing a word I can fill it in for him. And I just have to slow down a little bit but he can put everything together that I say (for the most part). When he first got here he said he could not understand me at all and now we talk back and fourth pretty fast, just not as fast as I would with my English speaking friends, haha! But anyway, we will meet in Christchurch, New Zealand on April 20th. He will get there late night on the 19th but I will work on the 19th in Auckland and I will fly out of Auckland on the 20th and be to Christchurch late morning around 10:30am on the 20th. We will then meet up and plan what we will do for 3 days before we start our one week tour.

During our time in the South Island we will be covering a lot of ground. We will start and end in Christchurch but we will go in a circle around the South Island. We will hit Lake Ohau, check out the West Coast of the South Island, Go to Fox Glacier, go to Fiordland, and spend a couple days in the famous Queenstown. This is not all that we will see and do in this time but I don't want to ruin everything, and I have to keep you guys reading my blog somehow so there has to be some surprises :).

Because I will be spending time in one of the most beautiful countries in the world and I will be seeing so much in such a short time I am going to try my VERY hardest to update my blog everyday with pictures so that I don't get behind and have hours of blogging when I get back because I wont have time to blog when I get back. So please hold me to this, haha!

Once I get back I will have one week of school and 3 projects to work on and try and finish before IAN GETS HERE! I am so excited to show him everything and introduce him to all of my friends, except Hayley, Lucy, Alice, Seppy, and Anas because he has already met all of those guys plenty of times. I think he has met a few more people too but I just cant remember.

Well, that is my blog for today so I hope you guys can go on my adventure to New Zealand with me! I will be sure to post so many pictures of both weeks I am there. Hope you guys enjoy !!

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