Fantastic New Zealand

The fun of being in NZ starts when you get in to the plane to get to NZ. Everyone knows the boring video in the plane when the flight attendents explain what to do when you crash and so on, well not in a NZ plane. They made a hobbit themed video and everyone in the plane looks like a figure from the movie, just too hilarious! Thats the moment when I decided that I liked New Zealand and its people.

I arrived in Auckland, not very special just another big city. Dont understand me wrong it is a really fun city but its just like all the others. I think cities are so much more interesting in Europe just because they have existed for so much longer, Thats also why they are all so different. But where Auckland and by the way Wellington are much better in then any other cities is creating free activities for its citizens. I saw Mulan in an open air theater, i went to the chinese lantern festival, and i could have done so much more of these things if only I had a little more time!

I was so lucky that my parents again had friends who were inviting me to their home. But these friends not only decided to take me in but also to plan a whole roadtrip around me! Hannah and Julius came to pick me up in Auckland and are first stop was Waihi Beach where Gigi had arranged a house for us all to stay in. Waihi beach was so beautiful, we had such nice swims and played so many games! My new favorite: monopoly deal! Finally a version that my family might want to play with me caus it doesnt take too long! Woehoeeee

We visited Katikati and had Fush and Chups wrapped in newspapers, thats how Kiwi's do it! Katikati is known as the mural town, so we had a look at those.

Then we went on to Rotorua, where we visited a Maori thermal village.
We had an awesome Maori guide who showed us their village where geisers are under the earth and make the water on the surface up to 100 degrees! The people from the tribe cook everything in those hot pools, we ate a millie straight from the pool and it was deliciouuuuus!
The whole town smells like sulfer but
You get used to it quite quickly. It was so cool to see how they live such a simple lifestyle and how they handle the tourism so well. They also gave a Maori dance show and i finally got to see a real Hakka, it was so intimidating!

After the village we went to a thermal wonderland, and this was one of the most interesting things. It is really hard to describe but it looks like you are on the moon and everywhere are the craters where steam comes out. The water/mud in the crater is so hot that its boiling and bubbeling. You walk through this wonderland and everything has these extreme weird colours because of the sulfer. I probably could have stayed there the whole day caus it was so interesting! For pictures see my facebook!

We spent the next night in a lovely appartment right on Lake Taupo, which is so big that most of the time you cant even see the other side. We swam in our thermal pools and played games and ate camembert and avocado all night, thanks Hannah for this new addiction!

The next day we went to the Huka falls which is probably the waterfall where the most water fall down every second, it goes so fast its unbelievable. After that we went swimming in a river where just on the side a hot stream came down so the water was supeeeerr hot.
That evening we had the best prawns on the bbq eveeeeer , Layla you would have been so happy that evening!

Sadly that was the end of our roadtrip, and i just spent the next week to explore Wellington and take lots of baths haha.

After a week staying with, what now feels like a spare family, i had to leave caus i had booked a tour for the Bay of Islands. Dear Gigi, Dirk, Hannah and Ruth, thanks so much
For your hospitality and for everything else! I had the best time and I hope to see you very very soon!

So my adventure went on as i went on a day trip to the Bay of Islands to do some dolphin spotting. I went on a huge katamaran with about 50 other people and i think that maybe 30 of them were Dutch! I could immidiatly tell they were Dutch by there loud voices and their moaning way of talking. (Het waren allemaal Sjonnies en Annita's, met paarse mascara en al, hoe ze in NZ terecht waren gekomen is mij een raadsel)
So there we were in the most beautiful bay and we saw a group of dolphins and everyone went wild trying to get that one perfect shot for the family back home. It looked like a group of hyenas trying to catch their pray. When one Dutch man by the end of the day still hadnt got a decent shot he yelled to his family; 'as soon as we are home we are going to the Dolphin Aquarium (Dolfinarium in Harderwijk) to get some good pictures, this is bullshit!' What a great image of the Dutch!

The trip was, besides the people on the boat, amazing and it is definetly
One of the most beautiful places in the world!

Time is going fast, only one more month to travel, tonight i'll catch my flight to San Fransisco for my last adventure! Cant wait to live the American Dream for a month!

Still miss all of youuuu!

Lots of love from The land under the big white Cloud. ( the meaning of the Maori word for NZ)