Viva Mexico!!

So I just got done eating Mexican and was pretty impressed with the quality! And there's someone speaking Spanish in my hostel, so I got excited.

Today I returned to Christchurch and will be hanging out here the rest of today and tomorrow and then Saturday will begin my trek back home. I can't believe it! Traveling on my own has ended up being so much fun and I've met some incredible people!

I hopped on the bus to Milford Sound around 7 in the morning. I tried to get a good seat up front and ended up sitting by 3 other people that were traveling on their own. The bus ride wasn't TOO bad, but it was foggy the whole way which made me really nervous. I didn't want it to be foggy in the fjords! BUT, around 10:30 it all cleared up and by the time we got there (12:30), it was a perfectly clear and gorgeous (but cold) day.

The boat ride was pretty and for the whole first half I stood at the bow and just let the wind hit my face. We saw some awesome waterfalls and it was so calm and scenic. Then the captain of the boat announced that there were some dolphins. It was a mad rush of pushing and yelling for people to get out and get a video of them. It kind of ruined it for me :( It took all of the "peace" out of it and although I got a pretty good video, there were people pushing and elbowing and talking loud the whole time. So for the way home I just sat inside where it was quieter and enjoyed the scenery. While in line for the boat, I started talking to a girl that is here on her own from South Africa and we've pretty much been inseperable since. It's so nice to find someone that you're compatible with that is fun to travel around with! I'm finding more and more that I can distinguish between different English accents, so yay for me!

Whilst on this beautiful trip to Milford Sound, I spent half the trip there calling different places that I thought I might have left my flash drive. No one had heard about it or seen it and I was just gutted. Then, about halfway there, I realized that maybe I just left it in the computer that I was using to scan in my passport. BUT, I couldn't call to ask or anything because 1. no reception (like 98% of this country) and 2. I didn't have the number. SOOOO... I had to wait in anxious anticipation until we got back at 7 in the evening to verify that it was there. So Corinna and I were going to go have a Fergburger (huge as) together, but I asked if she would come with me to see if it was there. AND IT WAS! In a box with probably 10-12 other flash drives. NIIIICCCEEEEE. Then I decided that we got to devour our burger in celebration of recovering it. Now I just have to get all of the files backed up and I'll be a happy camper. So immediately when I got home, I emailed my passport to the place I had to email it to, which was such a relief.

I went back to the hostel and watched me some "Music and Lyrics" and decided that I'm probably going to have to buy the soundtrack because it's sweet as. I settled into bed to get ready for a bus trip to Dunedin (to see Phillipa!!!!)

I hopped off the bus and Pip was there to pick me up. We went to her house and I got to meet her mom and her little nephews. We had some yummy soup for lunch and then got in the car with her nephew Andre to go see some albatrosses (huge as seagulls with a 3 meter wingspan). They're only in the wild and the only place where they nest in New Zealand is at this nature preserve in Dunedin, so I got to see four baby albatross chicks (with a wingspan of 2.5 meters... yeah... not so "baby-like" if you ask me). Andre was super cute and on the way there he kept asking "Are we there yet?" and so Pip told him to count to 500 and then we'd be there. He's only 3. 1, 2, 3...16, 19, 20, 30, 50, 16, 19, 20, 19, 20, 19, 20 for a good 4 minutes. It was sooo cute. And then he sang "Mamma Mia" and Batman mashup for me. That was pretty sweet... I think we're going to try to market it.

After we saw the birds, we went back to the house and had some delish curry for dinner. Then Pip took me on a "tiki tour" where she showed me the town. She took me to the world's steepest street and we drove up it (I was feeling lazy). Then she showed me around the campus that she studied at, but also the first and most prestigious campus in NZ. That was really cool. It was incredibly beautiful. We headed back to the house and watched some Grey's Anatomy and then headed to bed. I slept in Andre's bed (he told me I could share with him... and that I could wear his gumboots. What a ladies' man!)

In the morning, Pip drove me so that I could hop on the long bus ride from Dunedin to Lake Tekapo, the coldest place in the South Island (I don't know if that's true, but it sure felt like it!) It was sad saying goodbye, but reassuring because I know I'll see her in Mexico in December!!

The bus ride was great. I spent most of it chatting with Andy and Carinna. It was her birthday, so I decided we just HAD to do something to make it special. She had been telling me that she was nervous that she'd end up alone all day long on her birthday... how sad! We chatted with the bus driver as well and the trip seemed to fly by. Once we got there, I got all settled and then the three of us went ice skating... in JULY.... outside!! It was Andy's first time ice skating (he's from Indonesia, so he hasn't even really seen snow before), so we taught him good. We only skated for probably 45 minutes but my feet were killing me by the end of it! I fell down trying to show off. Big surprise there!

On our way back to the hostels, Corinna asked if we could have a snowball fight. I decided to videotape (I've had my share of snowball fights). So her and Andy eat grabbed and chunk of snow and went "One, Two, Three, THROW!" COME ON.... that is NOT how you snowball fight! They just kept catching each other's snowballs! haha. It was really entertaining to see someone enjoy something that I think of as such a common occurrence (and often a nuisance).

We headed to dinner at a pizza place in town. On the way, I asked if we could stop by the supermarket (a little teeny tiny one). Andy distracted Corinna and I bought some candles and a little Sara Lee cheesecake. I hid it in my bag and we headed off for pizza. We ended up waiting an hour for a table and then played Jenga for a good 10 minutes while waiting for our pizza. After we were done eating, I snuck away, saying I had to use the restroom, got a lighter from the waitstaff, put the candles in, lit them, and came around the corner singing. Corinna was totally surprised (I honestly thought she HAD to know that SOMETHING was going on...) and then made us sing it again when she could videotape it. It was sweet and I was happy to do something for her birthday when she's so far away from home, friends, and family. We played some more Jenga after dinner and finally left so other people could eat.

I got back and Troy was just starting, so I watched that (ads included... it ended at midnight) and then headed to bed. I had some really trippy dreams that I did not like at all and then woke up, ready to go. I slept most of the way to Christchurch (it was raining anyway) and when we got here, Corinna and I got rooms in the "Sanctuary" (girls only and we get heated blankets and all kinds of nice stuff). We went for Mexican and had some stimulating conversation about past relationships and about financial stuff (she's an accountant, so she was giving me advice as to how to spend/save my money). Right now we're relaxing for a bit and then we're going to head to go see Boy. That's the same movie I saw the first week I was here (yes, 3 months later it's still in select theaters) and Corinna has never seen it. I think it's so fitting to go and see it again on my last leg of my trip here. I LOVED it, so it'll be worth every penny to go again.

Tomorrow I'm just going to chill around Christchurch. I think I'm going to try to finish the book I'm reading so that Margaret can have it when I get home. I might take a stop by the art gallery and do some gondola riding, but we'll see what the weather's like. And then Saturday, I'm closing up shop and heading back to Welly for lunch with the host 'rents. :) EXCITED!

Queenstown... really a town for a Queen!

So I've spent the past few days in the beautiful city of Queenstown and have honestly been blown away by its beauty.

I left Franz Josef early in the morning for a 10 hour bus ride down to Queenstown, but it really didn't feel that long. We stopped a bunch on the way down. Our first stop was at a mirror lake where I could see Mt. Cook (the tallest mountain in New Zealand) and Mount Tasman (second tallest) mirrored into the lake. Hence the mirror lake nickname. It was probably the most spiritual experience I've had in a long time. Traveling on my own has made me realize that I have a lot of insecurities and worry about what people will think when they see me on my own and it's been ridiculous. So that morning, it was a 20 minute walk out and a 20 minute walk back. I decided that I was not going to listen to my iPod, I was just going to listen to my own thoughts (which is usually a bad idea, but this time was really smart). I felt SO at peace by the time I got back, it was incredible. I am so lucky and so blessed to be on this trip.

We made another stop in Ross, a dinky little town that was booming during the gold rush, but now has a population of 300. Aww, poor little town. We made a stop for lunch, a stop for a bathroom break, and then straight on to Queenstown! We didn't get to stop at the bungee jumping bridge because we were running too late, but it looked ridiculously scary and I don't think I'll ever be able to do it. However, I'm thinking that when I get back to Madison (because it's just to flippin' cold here!), I'm going to skydive where Kayla, Jimmy, and Lynsey did. You guys keen to do it again with me?! Then when I come back to NZ, I'll be ready for a bigger challenge!

When I rolled into QT, I met up with Laura and her mom on the street to head to their incredibly gorgeous hotel room. It was so nice to kick my feet back and relax in a serene and relaxing atmosphere (nothing against backpackers...) I think my favorite part was getting ready with the lights on. I've left 2 things behind in the past 6 days because of getting ready in the dark. Boo. We just hung around and chilled until Chels got back from her day trip and then we went out for DELICIOUS Italian food. I've decided that I might ALMOST enjoy pumpkin just as much when it's savory as I do when it's sweet. And when I first got here, I hated savory pumpkin. Mmmmmmm. Then Chels, Laur, and I went for a few drinks and they were shocked to see that I could chug a beer. Thanks Adam and the Bone Haus for that. I didn't enjoy a second of it, but it's a nice entertainment/icebreaker to whip out with people that have been hanging out with me for so long without seeing that side of me!

Yesterday we woke up around 9 and had a late start to the day. That was nice since I've been up every morning around 7 to go do something (tomorrow morning is NO exception!) I read some of my book (Miriam, I finished it and it was really good. You just have to hang in there for the first 200/250 pages). Around 11, Chels, Laur, and I headed into town to get some breakfast. I was craving eggs, but when I saw the menu, of course I ordered muesli and yogurt, even though that's what I have EVERY morning for breakfast. Ah, well... it was still delectable. On our way to meet up with Laura's parents, we saw a store that had a really cute sweatshirt I wanted to buy. We walked in the store and found out that you could design your own shirts and before we knew it, we had a design for a hooded sweatshirt that we were all going to get. We couldn't commit right away, so we walked away for a bit and came back later.

We were meeting up with Laura's parents to go on a jetboat. Not just any jetboat... one that can ride in 10 cm of water and do 360 degree turns in the middle of a canyon. It was SWEET AS. We had so much fun and I laughed so much. What a blast! Laura's parents graciously took Chelsea and I along and I am still blown away by their generosity. What wonderful people! We got to see some BEAUTIFUL sights (we were in a river surrounded by canyons and then when we'd break from those, there'd be the Remarkables, a mountain range in the skyline of Queenstown. One of two mountain ranges in the world that runs directly north to south. Crazaayyyy!

When we were done jet-boating, we headed back into town, put in the order for our shirts, and meandered for some time. We went to a bar where you can get cocktails in a teapot (we went at like, 430 and it was pretty nasty in there. BUT, there was a pretty cool band playing!). Experience... not regretted! We headed back to the hotel and I got a LOT more reading done. Around 930 we headed down to Lone Star (a Texan restaurant) to get some munchies and we ordered some steak fajitas. I've always had this thing that I've never been pleased with the steak that I've ordered in a restaurant. I think I'm really picky about how it should be cooked. Well, anyway, after we got some appetizers and a random bowl of boiling water with lemons in it (still perplexed as to what that was for), Chels cut up some meat and put it on my fajita for me. I bit into it and just about threw up because the meat wasn't cooked at all. I swear to God when I bit it, it moooooed a cry of agony. YUCK. So we sent that cow back to get done up a little more. After dinner, we ordered some pavlova (a traditional Kiwi dessert) for Laura's parents to try. DELICIOUS!!! But I was still feeling a little queezy from the steak, so I was keen on just going home and reading until I fell asleep. We decided to go back and see if the hotel bar was open, but it wasn't, so we got some beer from the room to drink down in the lobby. We had some good conversation in front of the fire and cheered together when the clock struck midnight and it was the 4th (and I accidentally sang a phrase of the New Years Song...whoops!) I read for a good long while and then got to bed.

This morning, Chels, Laura, and her parents had to be gone by 9. After they left, I stayed back, did some reading, called the family, took a shower, packed up, and headed to my new hostel. I threw my stuff in a storage room and I was out the door with my flash drive in tow to scan in my passport for the school I'll be working at in Mexico. That was first on my list and then I went to finish my book at a cafe. I grabbed a panini to go on my way out and headed up the hill to take a ride on the gondola. The view was spectacular. Once I got to the top, I made my way to the zipline. It was SO much fun and the people that I went with were so cool. There were two cute little girls and I just wanted them for my very own! I headed back down afterwards and headed to the spa and got a ONE HOUR massage. Ahhhh. Experience... worth it! Then I had to decide what to do to fill my evening and thought that a movie was probably my best choice. I went to rent Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but it's been taken off the shelves here because they're changing the rating on it or something from R-16 to R-18. So that was a bust.

I finally checked in to the hostel and went to grab my flash drive from my bag so that I could email my passport to the school in Mexico when I realized that it was GONE. Disappeared. Poof. And I'm still freaking out. I'm trying hard not to think about it too much, but I'm absolutely gutted because everything from this semester of student teaching is on there. I was able to keep track of this one for 3 years. I spent a good hour calling every place I had been today, but half the places were closed by the time I called. I tried to get my mind off of it and found out that Toy Story 3 was playing at the movie theater around the corner, so I HAD to go. I went and got some fudge and then laughed and cried and got moved all over again by Woody and Buzz!!

Tomorrow I'm going to Milford Sound where there are tons of fjords. It's a 5 hour bus trip one way. Ooooooh boy. So I need to get some rest so that I can read the next book in the series on the bus! ha :). Hopefully someone will have discovered my flash drive somewhere in Queenstown and will graciously get in contact with me somehow. Le sigh.

I climbed a glacier!

Yesterday was such an incredible day. We headed out on the bus and our first stop was in a little town where we could look at a store full of jade. I saw a photo store on the corner so I ran over there and asked if they could charge up my battery for a little while for me.. and they did! I only got 15 minutes of battery charge, but it's lasted me this far!

We then stopped in Ross, another little town that was pretty hoppin' during the gold rush of the 1840s, but now only 300 people live there and it's a really quiet town. It was cool to read about the history of the town and see one that went from booming to next to nothing in such a short time.

Then we arrived in Franz Josef! We had half an hour to eat and get back to the bus to go to our orientation for the glacier hike. I scarfed down some ramen noodles (I felt like a true backpacker) and headed out. I was kind of nervous about the whole thing because of my knee, but I knew that I wouldn't get an opportunity like this for another long while. The view was STUNNING. I ended up going with the "fast" group and had lots of lovely conversations with my tour guide about his drunken escapades and his piercings and all kinds of wonderful stuff. My knee held in there, although sometimes I had to walk up and down the ice stairs one at a time (love you, Gramma! Well.. and Dad for that matter!) BUT, I'm alive to tell the tale and it was an INCREDIBLE experience. However, since glaciers are a think of the past in Wisconsin, and we learned all about what they did when they still existed in the States, I really didn't know that there were that many glaciers in the world. So I was asking really stupid questions about them. Ah, well.

When we got back, we had some dinner and then went to some hot pools. What a perfect ending to such a lovely day. I went with two girls from Korea and one from Vietnam. Now I want to go to Asia so bad. I had some awesome conversations with them about their lives back home and gave them some really good English practice :) After that, I just came back to the hostel and tried desperately to try to get into the book that Miriam and I are reading, but it became more of a time-filler, so I just headed to bed.

Today we're off to Queenstown! I think we're making a bunch of stops along the way, but when I get there, Laura will be waiting for me and we're going to head to the hotel her parents and Chelsea are staying at. I'm excited to see them for our last night together in New Zealand! They're going to Milford Sound today (I'll be doing that on Sunday) so that's exciting!

I'm coming home in 8 days (well, 9 for back home.. I technically have a 48 hour July 10th..) I can't believe I'm in single digits, and almost less than a week away!!

Greymouth... the friendliest people around!

It's incredible how much can happen in two days! I just said goodbye to Chelsea until tomorrow and the friend that we made on the way here... and I'll probably never see her again, so that's sad!

So on Tuesday when I left you all, I was off to Antarctica (well, not really, but the station that ALL people that go to Antarctica have to go to before they actually go). The place I went to was an "Antarctic Experience" something or other. It was pretty sweet! I caught the "Penguin Express" bus from Cathedral Square (it even has a bunch of penguin statues on top). I'm pretty sure that was what I was most excited about. I got to go and see little blue penguins being fed and they were super adorable. Then there was this storm room where you can go in and see what it feels like to live there. There's snow and everything. So I put on a jacket that they provide, walked in there, and thought, "Huh.. feels like Wisconsin." Then the storm came abrewing and it got down to a whopping -8 degrees Fahrenheit (with the windchill). Really??? Come on now! I was pretty disappointed ;-). So I paid a bunch of money to get the kind of weather that I get 4 months out of the year, ha. It was admittingly really cute hearing the kids come out and saying that it was the coldest they'd ever been or the first time they'd seen snow and stuff. So you gotta appreciate that. Then I read about life on Scott Base, which was probably my favorite part. My cousin Susannah lived in Antarctica for some time and it got me really interested in her life there! (Thank goodness I'm going to be seeing her in a few short weeks so she can tell me all about it!) Finally, I did a Hagglund ride, the vehicle they drive throughout Antarctica. It was hilarious. The guy that was driving it was really monotone, so he'd say something like, "Well... black flags mean danger...somewhere we shouldn't go. As you can see, to either side of us we have black flags. Let's see what will happen." (all monotone. He really got me revved up! haha)

So then I took the awesome Penguin Express back to town and walked back to the hostel and chilled for a bit (talked to Miriam!) waiting for Chelsea. She showed up about 20 minutes later and we went for a lovely stroll through downtown Christchurch. We were trying to find things to do and saw a city map, so we went and looked and there was a thing on there that said "City Mall", so we went in that direction. There was a huge department store on the corner, so we went in and were walking around, trying to find a door that led to the other stores, but couldn't, so I asked one of the employees. I said, "Yeah... so we saw on the map that there should be a city mall around here?" and he goes, "Oh, a mall? Yeah, I've seen those on TV!" hahaha. He was most definitely making fun of us. Come to find out it was just a strip mall along the street. So we were still trying to find something to do... and decided to go see Shrek. Best decision EVER. It was hilarious, I loved it!

So then Chels and I headed back to the hostel to chill for a while waiting for the shuttle that would take us grocery shopping. That was so nice and fun! The staff at the hostel we stayed at were awesome. They're all internationals and were there working for the bed they slept on every night. Chels and I ate dinner while they were all eating together and it made us laugh!

Yesterday morning we woke up bright and early to catch a shuttle bus to the train station to go on our TranzAlpine experience! It was INCREDIBLE. We got seats next to one another and were sitting there and then this girl came and sat across from us. And then we didn't leave each other's side until this morning when they left! She was so much fun and hilarious.

The sights on the train were incredible. They had an observation deck, so we went out there for a while and that was a blast. It was freezing cold, though! There was this guy taking pictures right over my shoulder in the cabin and that was driving me nuts, haha. We all slept for a little bit and then finally arrived in the booming metropolis of Greymouth.

Our hostel is incredible. I'm going to be sad to leave. They give each person a hot water bottle and free food in the afternoon and the morning. The owner is awesome, he's such a cool guy! He's also driven Magic Bus (the tour I'm leaving on today) so that's cool. He gave me some good tips.

Yesterday we just walked around and chilled most of the afternoon and then went to a brewery tour for Monteith's Brewery (my fav beer, the cider, is made there!) That was great fun, but while we were there, my camera battery died. We got home and I went to look for my battery charger, and what do you know? It's not with me. I packed it away into my other suitcase. Stupid! We settled in for the night and I slept SOOO well!

Today I'm off to hike a glacier. That'll be AWESOME! I'm off on my own for the next two days, so I'm looking forward to meeting some new travelers. Tomorrow I'm meeting up with Laura and her family and Chelsea for dinner and then her parents are getting us a room in a hotel for our last night together! Then they'll be off and I'm going to miss them :( But I'm going to Milford Sound and then to Dunedin to meet up with Pip and her family, so that'll be fun!

Peace out, dudes!

When all is said and done

My life in good ol' Welly is now over. I'm gutted. It was such a sad parting, even though I have so much to look forward to. I'm in Christchurch right now, but so much has happened leading up to this point!

My last week of teaching went really well. The kids were great and we had lots of fun. I wanted to get the kids' perspectives on the US, so we dedicated one whole afternoon to having them write down their thoughts and then do skits about the US through their eyes. I'm pretty sure every group had "Supersize" somewhere in their skit.

We did some really good work with their business unit at the beginning of the week and we got to see what they think makes a business successful. And for most of the week, the kids were working on writing their short stories, so I didn't do a whole lot of teaching points during literacy. Math got cancelled two days, so we didn't get far with those guys, either. It's too bad!

Thursday afternoon, I gave the kids the same eval to fill out as I did my first class. The ones from this class were a lot nicer and I feel like I worked a lot on the things that my first class told me I needed to work on. I am realizing more and more, like Kathy Blomker said, that I need to give them an eval halfway through so that I know what I can improve for THOSE kids in THAT classroom.

Friday for lunch we had a "shared lunch". The kids were super adorable and they all brought something chocolately or something with chips. Yum. I made them PB&J sandwiches and made them all at least try one. Then this one girl said, "OOOOooo, that's why they say PB&J otter!" So we started singing the noodle dance song. I'm pretty sure when that cartoon came out I was like, 14, so that's kind of embarrassing, but ya know. When you gotta do the noodle dance, you gotta do the noodle dance.

Friday afternoon was "Raroa's Got Talent" so we just watched some of the kids do their talents. I was blown away. The acts were all so different.. I wouldn't have been able to choose a winner. BUT, the violinist got first place, so that was great! Then the talent show ended really early, so we headed back to the classroom, desperate for something to do. When I got back, the kids were all sitting in a circle with a spot for me and each person said their highlight of the term and then one comment for Ms. Cram. I definitely had to grab the kleenex. The kids were so cute and it made me feel so appreciated. One of my students painted a picture of me and that made me bawl. You can see it on my profile pic on Facebook. That girl is only 11 years old and she made that!! Incredible...

So the end to Friday was real sad. I gave each of the kids a class picture of all of us together and then wrote a message to each one of them on the back. I did that for the first class as well. I gave Phillipa a blown up picture of some pretty leaves we had seen the weekend before so that she could frame it (when we saw them, she said 'I would love to have a picture of that to frame and put on my wall'). I went for a drink in the staff lounge after school and then met up with Laura for a celebratory drink as well.

Friday night some of the girls we've gotten to know threw a little get together to say goodbye to us. That was really nice, but I went home early (had to prepare for my half!)

Saturday I went and volunteered for 6 hours handing out registration packs to people involved in the marathon on Sunday. It was great and was an awesome way to get me excited about the whole thing. Then I went home and made spaghetti in my microwave (we didn't have any gas in our house for about 2 weeks). I have to say, I was pretty skilled and it was delicious. Then I had to head to bed to get ready for Sunday!

Sunday, SUNDAY! (I say that like Al Roker on the Today Show) I woke up REAL early, I couldn't sleep anymore I was so nervous. Right before I left for the half, I found out that Adam, my ex, got engaged. Whoa, Mama! That's a pretty big deal. So congrats to him! I figured that when I went to run my half, I'd reflect on my trip here and by the end, I'd be to the end of my trip and cry because it was all over. Yeah.. I pretty much don't remember most of the run. So I videotaped parts. If you want to see, let me know. They're too cheesy to put on facebook. I do remember a plane landing a few hundred feet from where I was running, so it flew right overhead. I kept up with the 2:00 pacer until halfway, which I was pretty impressed with. Around mile 11, my knee finally had had enough and I limped pretty much until the finish line. I was almost there when I saw Pip fiddling around with her camera!!!!! She came to see me finish! It was sooo nice and gave me the energy I needed to get to the finish line. It was so wonderful. I didn't cry when I got to the end, I just felt really good. Finally! Something I'd wanted to do for SO long, DONE. And now I'm going to have to run another... when I can walk again!

Alright, I need to get out of bed and enjoy Christchurch. I'll write more soon!

Cha-cha now y'all

Today has been great! I'm kinda bored at school right now, but am too lazy to go outside. The kids are having a sports exchange day with the kids from another Intermediate school, so pretty much all day there have been all kinds of sports going on that the kids have been a part of. Right now is the rugby game, so my whole class is down there with the art teacher and then heading to art in a little while. I figured I'd use this time for planning, but Pip has disappeared somewhere and I kind of need her to help me! The kids are going to be on Tech next week, which means less planning for me! haha.

So that awesome lesson that I had planned for my kids unfortunately crashed and burned... partly because of the fire drill that happened and took away a good 10 minutes, but partly because the kids didn't know how to convert fractions to decimals. Not even 1/2. Yikes. So, tomorrow we're going to have to have a conference about all of that. Oh, brother.

My knees are still killing me. I'm starting to get really nervous. We'll see how my run goes tomorrow morning. My time is up now for my membership at City Fitness, so it's going to have to be a full out run outside in the morning since I'm leaving right after school to go to Palmerston North with Pip. I'm really looking forward to it! I have no idea what she has planned, but she told me to bring hiking shoes. I hope my knees can deal with that!

I'm trying to get a lot of my planning done before we leave for the weekend so that next week will go smoother, but I unfortunately just don't know where the kids are going. It's hard because it's the end of the term, so we have so much we want to get done.

So anyway, like I said our school had a guest intermediate school for a day of sports games. We dominated pretty much. It was nice because whenever the kids got done with their other activities, they got to go and watch the games. It was a good incentive for them to get things done. So after math, it was time for fitness, but Pip said I could let kids that want to go go, so there were only about 5 kids left afterwards. We did fitness stations for a while and then I put on jock jams for them to do it all, haha. All of a sudden I heard Cha Cha Slide and got into the groove and made all of the kids cha cha with me. It was hilarious! Then we did the Chicken Dance and Tequila (is that school appropriate?? haha). I had such a good time and started sweating like I normally do. One of the kids goes, "Oh my gosh.... you really ARE sweating!!" Whatdja think, kid?! Of COURSE I am!

After I while I went down to watch the rugby and realized that half the team is made up of boys from my room. WHOOHOO! We kicked butt. I chatted with some of the girls in my class while we were watching and they said, "Ms. Cram, when do you become a real teacher?" And I said, "Well, next Friday, at the end of the day, I'll be done with everything!" And one of the girls goes, "Let's have a shared lunch (potluck) for her to celebrate her being a real teacher!" How sweet! I love those kids.

Well, I have lots of planning to do for next week, so I'm going to get down to it. Night!

Taking a day off

Sometimes God grants women with lovely pain so that they get to miss school for a day. And in that day, they have an excuse to watch movies, cry hysterically, take pills like it's no one's business, do laundry, and EVEN get other things done that they've been meaning to get done for hmmm... 2 months! Today was one of those lovely days.

Last night I followed the NZ soccer game online and fell asleep right before they scored a goal to tie up the game. I heard that it was an awful game to watch, but then an incredible game to watch because of that goal. Whoohoo. I rolled out of bed around 930 and got some laundry done (since I only have one outfit to work out it and I've worked out so far every day this week and last week, my workout clothes were getting ripe. I've now figured out why no one would work out on a machine next to me at the gym. TMI?) I went and hung it up outside. I still can't get over how much I feel like my Gramma when I do that, and I LOVE it. It's like we're connected in some silly way. Except I don't let my skiddies hang out for all the neighbors to see like Gramma.

Then I watched a movie called Dorian Gray. It was one of the first novels that I remember reading and I saw it at the movie shop yesterday and just had to have it. I definitely wasn't disappointed. It even had Colin Firth in it with lots of facial hair... mmmm.

My new favorite lunch food is toast with avocado on top. MMMMmmmm. Luckily I could eat it. My host parents are getting their kitchen redone and we won't have gas back in the house until Saturday (and they disconnected it last Friday), so our meals are all microwaveable. Feels like my childhood, haha (love you, Mom!)

Then I proceeded to finally write to people that were due letters, gather together presents to send home (since there won't be room for them in my suitcases), and write checks that were WAY overdue (sorry Pilgrim Center!). I showered around 4 PM and carried it all down to the post shop. On my way, I picked up a Father's Day card for my dad. I had two choices in a tiny area labeled "UK Father's Day". One choice was a card that I suppose is supposed to be from a 5 year old that had all kinds of bright colors and huge writing and opened up into a huge poster thing. I figured it would probably give my dad a heart attack, so I settled for the "Miss you. A hug just isn't the same over the phone" or something equally cheesy. Ah, well. I still cried in the middle of the post shop when I personalized it. Go figure.

I returned home to an empty house, but a lot of work to get done for tomorrow. My maths group is now working on a mini business that they're going to put into action next week. This is what I LOVE about academia here... we do what we want and what we think is best for the kids at the level they're at! So, for these kids, who scored lowest on the pretest, we decided that real-life situations would be the best for them. SO, we thought the best idea would be to give them a real-life task: to throw a bake sale. BUT, we pulled in a lot of academia into it that for us seem so easy, but for them could be really complicated. The students are in groups of three where they have to choose a recipe, look up the cost of the ingredients at a supermarket in town, have to calculate how much they'll charge per bar depending on how much profit they want, including the fact (possibly) that part of the profit needs to go to Pip (since she's taking all of the money out of her pocket). The kids are all selling on the same day as well, so that'll be interesting. So I've spent the evening planning for tomorrow morning (I'm teaching the whole morning) getting ready to throw all KINDS of math at these kids (the biggest issue is that on the supermarket website, it gives all the measurements in grams whereas most recipes are in cups/tsp/tbsp etc).

Well, more planning needs to be done and then it'll be time for bed!

Funny how I write more about what I did on a day off than I do about things that are actually Kiwi. So I guess I'll include something more "Kiwi" like.

So yesterday I went to work out. I got to the train station about 20 minutes before a train was going to come. I was sitting there, too lazy and tired to take out my ipod or my book. I was piled in bags (workout bag, takeout bag, grocery bag, bookbag) and was taking up a decent amount of space on a bench. A guy came up, looking like he really wanted a place to sit. I squished all my stuff close to me and he said, "Cheers" (love it!) and sat down. I said to him, "Jeez.. with all this stuff, you'd think I'm moving or something." His response: "Are you American or Canadian?" So I guess I can't really hide it, can I? haha. We proceeded to talk and I think my favorite quote that he said was, "Yeah... I like America. I like the people there--all of the people I've interacted with have been incredibly nice." GO AMERICA!!! That was the first time I've EVER been abroad and heard someone say that. We chatted the whole way til my stop. I popped off the train and went to the video store to get some movies. The guy working there asked me if I was from America and I said I was and he said, "Oh, cool! My uncle lives in Connecticut and I've gone to see him a few times. It's nice." Two awesome interactions with Kiwis within half an hour of each other. THEN I stopped at the local dairy (what they call pretty much our equivalent to a gas station without the gas) to get some chocolate because, let's face it, who can watch a movie without some chocolate? The guy there and I had a nice chat about the miserable weather. It made me smile because everywhere I went, people were just so chipper and eager to chat. I LOVE that! :) Thanks, New Zealand, for making me feel SO at home!!

Tired.

Phew! The last few days have left me feeling incredibly exhausted. The weather is also so easily dragging me down. Yesterday morning on my run out the door to school, I ever so gracefully slipped on the tiniest patch of ice on my porch. I then proceeded to slide down the two stairs down to the pavement like I was on a sled.... sans sled. My knees (which have been killing for about a week now from doing too much too soon with my training) broke my fall on the cold and wet pavement. Lovely. How does that happen in June??? It was an incredible start to a pretty poopoo day at school as well.

It was my first day teaching the whole day... Pip was out sick and it was quite a struggle at times. I've found that one of my favorite reasons for having another adult in the classroom is so that I can have someone to laugh with about the stupid/silly things that kids do. And she wasn't there to laugh, so I had to just move on, haha.

I've spent the past few days planning my trip to the South Island. I'm SOOO excited! I'm going to be traveling with Kiwi Experience. I bought my flight to Christchurch last night and I'm getting pretty stoked! The return flight was only 100 NZD, which is about 80 USD. Sweet! The trip will be a bit expensive, but it'll be fun because most people that do it are younger and it'll be a great way to meet new people!

Over the weekend, I ran 11.2 miles on the elliptical trainer... that was a joy! That's the farthest I've ever "run" and although I guess I kind of cheated by not really running, my knees thanked me for it. Yesterday I RAN ran for the first time in about a week and that was not SO bad, but it kind of hurt since I fell on my knee earlier. Ah, well.. I cut it short so I wouldn't do any more harm.

I'm being incredibly reflective about the culture shock cycle that I learned about before I went to Mexico. I definitely went through a stage where everything was simply incredible, and then I went through a stage where I found out a few things about the schooling (as awesome as it is) that I didn't like, and I feel like now I'm approaching the acceptance stage. I'd say that if NZ wasn't so far from home or so expensive, I would definitely make the move here. People are great, the country is beautiful, and the schooling is pretty top notch. I'm finding myself getting to the regret stage. When I first came, I thought that I'd want to get involved with some volunteering. I looked into it, but with my training and all of that, I just didn't think I'd have enough time. Now I'm realizing that once I learned how to manage my time, I had all sorts of it and now it's been wasted. SO, the first thing I did this morning was sign up to volunteer to hand out registration packets for the half marathon next weekend. That'll be great!

Over the weekend, I went to a country western band concert with my host parents. Hilarious! It was absolutely freezing outside and rainy. It was pretty miserable. So I had like, 4 hot chocolates at lunch. The people that we went to lunch with were really friendly and we chatted a lot about our travels and that's always fun! Other than that, I just hung around the house over the weekend, recuperating (which hasn't seemed to do the trick since I still feel pretty crummy!)

My kids back home graduated from middle school. They're all grown up!!! I can't believe it... my first class, off to high school!

I'm still working on my journal entry about our incredible trip to the Rotorua, so that'll be coming. I thought I'd just write something since it's been so long! :) Off to work out!

Success never felt so gooooood!

So this past week of school just flew by and I felt that I should write a separate entry just about how fantastic things are going in my new classroom.

The amount of support I've been getting from Phillipa has been incredible. She gets a sub every once in a while for a block of the day so that she and I can just go and do some planning and get some things figured out. I LOVE that. I also love how much we laugh with our kids... they're so funny and they deserve appreciation for their awesome senses of humor!

So when I was in Katy's social studies methods course fall semester, we did this activity with M&Ms where they were actually money and we had to trade with other people in our class to see who could become richest. You got bonuses for three of a kinds as well. After each round, whoever was considered "upper class" (it was a certain number of M&M dollars that determined that) got to make up a rule for the next round. I thought that it was an incredible exercise and when we did it, I felt like everyone hated me by the end because I stole M&Ms from people. No one said I couldn't! And then when Celia and I won and tried to share our M&Ms with everyone, no one wanted to. It was kind of sad.

So anyway.... we are starting our financial literacy unit for math with the kids. Pip and I have the "lowest" group (they scored lowest on their assessment sheets). We assumed that these are the kids that have no interest in money and absolutely no interest in math. So I thought this would be a great way to get the ball rolling. However, I was kind of nervous because, even with all of the planning I did for it, I wasn't sure how it would go. I felt like there was enough confusion in our SS class with all college kids, I didn't know how these 11 and 12 year olds would do... the hours leading up to when I introduced this to the students (who, mind you, I had never met before because this was their first day in this class), I was almost shaking I was so nervous. I really didn't want it to fail.

The students came in and all sat down and we got attendance done. And then, out of nowhere, the kids got to meet the queen of M&M world (ME!) It was the best hour of my life! I really did feel like a queen (kids were actually bowing down to me... how's that for my ego?) The first round of the game was a little rough just because the kids had to fully understand what was required of them and all of that. They had to make sure they knew how to fill out the charts and understood the 3 of a kind deal. After that, though, we were on our way! The kids finished their first day SO excited (and since we have kids from the whole team, I heard them talking with their homerooms about the game and how much fun it was!) I was so proud to be a teacher in that moment, but knew that tomorrow, the kids would all hate me. Because that's when I turned on the wicked witch of the west....

The second day, I decided I should probably have some kind of way to get the kids' attention (and of course, my penalty for not complying was taking one of their M&Ms, mwahahaha). So, by the time I got to the end of "They melt in your mouth, not in your hand" the kids had to be completely quiet or I'd take an M&M. After a while, one of the students made the very good point that they WERE melting in his hand. The truth of the matter is that 1. Yeah, they do, haha. and 2. They were SMARTIES, a completely inferior type of M&M. No WONDER they were so upset! So anyway... after the 3rd round, the group that was the richest in the whole class got to make a rule. They decided to take an M&M from every group in the classroom. All HELL broke lose. The kids were SO mad and upset and "It's not fair"ing and it was funny to me, but they had real frustrations that I really wanted to link with real life!

We had a lot of really good conversations about real life and money and how it's distributed. The kids made some fantastic observations and I was just so impressed with their level of thinking. Today I think I'm going to just have them fill out a little reflection just to have on file so I remember just how powerful it was. Oh, AND 3 teachers have asked me for the lesson so that they can do it in the future! AWESOME!

For literacy, I've been doing some Sci Fi reading with some of the students (War of the Worlds, baby). We're going to start tearing it apart this week to see what makes up a Sci Fi story and hopefully the kids will come up with some awesome stories by the end of the week (if we get that far). Yesterday was the Queen's birthday, so we had a day off (which I'll write about in the next entry!), so we only have a four day week this week. Hip hip, hooray!

Today starts the first day of my last three weeks teaching. Where the heck did the time go? I got a gym membership (20 days for $20, awesome!), so I've been monitoring how fast I've been running (or should I say, how slow), so I've been kicking my butt trying to run faster (when I actually run... I was kind of slack this weekend). Although it's been a good boost for my morale because I've realized that I can run a lot faster than I thought, it's been KILLER on my knees. NO fun. Today I'm going to go buy some joint something or other Celia told me about. Yes!

Alright, I have to go buy all the kids M&Ms for all being guinea pigs in my little game...

The Incredible South Island

So as I was saying in the last post, Margaret was waiting for us outside the gate. It was raining out, so she went and got the car from us (a car sized minivan from some Finnish people they bought two weeks ago) and we all piled in. We headed to her home where she lives with her husband, Orm, and her son, David. David married a woman from Japan named Yuri and they have two boys, Mana (4) and Aki (2). They were SUPER adorable. We slept in what Margaret calls the "dormitory". It's actually their garage, but there are four beds set up in it because they often take in travelers in their home.

For dinner, we had make your own sushi, which was interesting. It was the first time I had ever had it, so it was an experience. The family was SUPER cute and we got to know them really fast. We spent a lot of time playing with the boys because they were so friendly and fun to hang around! My only embarrassment of the day was when we first got there, I saw the two kids with their long hair and cute little features, so I said, "Hi, girls!" And their dad goes, "Um... believe it or not, they're both boys." OOps!!! That evening I was still in a drunken stupor from the two dramamine I took on the ferry, so I went to bed really early.

The next morning, I woke up and read for a while (I actually read a whole book over the weekend... "A Thousand Splendid Suns" I'd recommend it!). We had some delicious breakfast (homemade granola which they call muesli) and then we were off for a day in Nelson! Margaret drove us there (2 hour drive) and we got to see some incredible sights. I took a TON of pictures, and luckily the rain more or less held off. We stopped on the way at this little country store where you could buy ice cream mixed with different fruits and the machine actually combined them.. so we got frozen yogurt w/ fruit flavors. Yum!

When we got to Nelson, we went to the visitor center and a gift shop and then just walked around the town for a bit. We found a place to have lunch and had fish and chips (my new favorite combo... with garlic mayo for the fries). Afterwards, we did a little more walking, then hopped in the car and went a beautifully huge beach. The sand stretched on forever toward the ocean... it was crazy!

Then we came back home and had some delicious dinner (ice cream included!) We relaxed for the night, did some reading, and got to bed early.

Sunday, Margaret let us borrow the car for the day (our first time driving in New Zealand!!) We just drove to a nearby town called Blenheim by way of some beautiful vineyards and then stopped at a park in Blenheim and read for about an hour and a half. Then we headed back towards Picton and visited Margaret at the shop that she volunteers at that is all fair trade items. It was really cool. We got some pizza for lunch (Chelsea about had a heart attack she was so excited). We chilled for a little while and then had to head to the ferry! The whole family came with us... it was so incredible. They saw us off at the ferry (David, Yuri, Mana, Aki, and Margaret) and I most definitely cried. It was so hard to leave such kind and loving people!

The ferry ride back we just took a bunch of dramamine and parked ourselves in the corner in some comfy chairs. Before we knew it, the whole Wellington Community Choir (like, 50 of them, I swear) made a huge as (Kiwi term), blocking us into the corner. Of course, because I'm so afraid of the dang ferry, I was panicking about not being able to get out if there was an emergency. Chelsea and I were getting SOOOO angry, haha. It was legit though. So after a few minutes, I was so tired that I just passed out on the floor and slept most of the way home. Annabel and Nisha were there to meet us when we got there and drove us home. It was so nice! I most definitely wasn't ready to teach again!...

Two weeks is TOO much to write about!

So I tried to write about a week ago and then my browser froze up (for one of the first times since I got my mac) and I lost it all. No fun!

I am now in a new classroom with a teacher that has a LOT of the same personality traits as me which is nice. Her kids are fun, she's fun, and she even let me go out to lunch with her and some other teachers for her birthday last week! She makes me feel right at home and volunteered to take Chels, Laur, and I somewhere in a few weekends just for another adventure!

My last week in my first class went great.. the kids were SUPER sweet and we had a ton of fun. I had some trials and tribulations as well, but they ended up throwing me a party, which was cute. A few of the girls made me really sweet cards and there was cake and balloons and writing all over the boards and everything. They filled out evals for me and actually told me EVERYTHING I bulletpointed on my last entry. Go figure! I'm SPOT on with my reflecting, so that's good!

I've been reading some REALLY good books, but am officially run dry, so any recommendations would be gratefully accepted! I just finished Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns and then watched the movie of Kite Runner tonight... it was GREAT!

Last weekend (like, 9 days ago), we pretty much just bummed around town. Saturday I went for my 8 mile run and then Annabel's friend was in town, so she, Nisha, Chelsea, Laura, and I hopped in her car and drove to Eastbourne (across the bay... about 30 min) to get some CHEAP fish and chips wrapped in paper and ate it on the beach. It was so relaxing and wonderful. That night, Laura and I went to a movie (it was really bad... I slept through most of it) with John.

Sunday, Laura and I took an adventure to Lower Hutt to find this Mexican restaurant I found out about at the Food Show and had been salivating over ever since. After about half an hour of walking, we finally found it. It was REAL Mexican. Expensive, but real. Delish!

Last week absolutely flew by. I don't know how but all of a sudden it was over! I love my new sydicate, but I every so often walk past my old classroom to see my old kids and it just warms my heart. They're too sweet!

On Friday, we left class early so that we could catch the 2 PM ferry to the South Island. Chelsea's teacher drove us down there and I binge ate because I was so nervous about it. The last time I was on a ferry, I was with Morten in Denmark and I got so sick that I had to drink alcohol and mix it with Benadryl just to get myself to pass out so I wouldn't have to think about it. Well, as luck would have it, the Cook Strait is one of the rockiest and roughest water passages in the world since the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meet there. We sat at the front of the boat (my first mistake) and about 20 min into the ride I was feeling sick. I had to move myself to the back of the boat (even though I took two dramamine) and in between streams of consciousness, I saw people puking and smelled it as well. It was disgusting. And rough... to say the least. BUT, we finally got there and Margaret, a woman that my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Steve stayed with over two decades ago when THEY came to New Zealand, was waiting for us outside the gate.

More on this tomorrow... I'm getting tired!

First placement... CHECK!

Phew. Tomorrow stars a whole new adventure, a whole new placement, and the second half of my experience here in New Zealand. I just calculated it out.. and we just past the halfway mark of our trip. Time has been flying by and there were so many moments this week where I found myself thinking, "Wow... yeah.. I could live here. I could do this." What an awesome realization to have. Since the first couple weeks were so hard, it was hard to see myself here, but especially yesterday I had a glorified moment where I just couldn't see myself anywhere but here. But more on that later :)

My kids didn't really "excel" persay in the cross country. Our best runner decided to run slow in his race because he "wanted to get 100th place". What an achievement. Especially since he could have gotten somewhere in the top 20 if he had tried, haha. I yelled and cheered a LOT for my kids.. they did a really good job. I taught them the "bunny bunny" game while we were waiting for the group that was running to show up at the finish line. I took lots of pictures and some video as well and made a movie for my students out of it. It was super cute and I think that they really liked it.

On Tuesday, my kids TRASHED the room during morning tea and lunch, so I told them Wednesday morning that they were kicked out of the room for morning tea and lunch for the rest of the week. We talked about why, but they were still INCREDIBLY angry at me. Like, so angry that they couldn't wait until I was out of the classroom, haha.

Tuesday night I emailed my teacher just to let her know that it's not fair that the school put me in the position of "teacher" instead of "student teacher" for my kids. She wrote me back with some pointers of what I could have the kids do and all that, so that was really nice. Then she said she'd make sure that I had a reliever until she came back on Friday, just to give me feedback since it was my lead week anyway. During assembly on Wednesday morning, one of the teachers in our team pulled me aside and asked what she could do to help support me because she felt bad at it wasn't fair. I just told her I needed feedback, so she pulled the substitute that was there for my teacher that day out as well and asked her if she could do that. And she did! I actually didn't teach until Wednesday afternoon (because morning is Enrichment), but when I did, she asked me for something that she could watch for, which was really nice.

During Enrichment, I went to the primary school that Laura and Chelsea were at just to check it out. I observed our friend John's classroom and it was super funny. When he kids are sitting on the carpet, he makes them sit with their legs folded and their arms folded as well. SUPER ADOR. He taught a swimming lesson which was cute, too. He runs a tight ship, that's for sure. He was incredibly organized, however, and the kids knew what they were doing at any given time, which was really nice. Then I biked back to my school in the pouring rain, almost got hit by a car (biking on the other side of the road causes difficulties sometimes...) and got back to my classroom to find all of my students (who had been kicked out) hanging around inside. I got SOOOOO angry and kicked them all out (we had some whiners... but none of them actually came up to me to talk to me about it), so I finished their little cross country video in that time.

An incredible weekend in NZ...

This past week has just been a whirlwind of emotions. Things have been a little tough at my school because my teacher has been sick, so I pretty much taught most of last week on my own. It was good, it was bad, it was ugly, but all in all, I learned a lot from it. Most of all I learned:

• I have to be clearer with my instructions
• I can have fun and still be strict
• I have a long way to go, and that's the "beautiful" thing about teaching
• I won't be perfect right away (which is frustrating.... but I have to accept that)
• Kids are incredibly forgiving
• When I want to get mad at the kids for a good day, most of the time I realize that they were bad because of something that I did (or didn't) do.
• My supervisor is incredible because she has all kinds of good things to say!!

My supervisor came in on Thursday afternoon and everything went BEAUTIFULLY. I felt so comfortable and confident and had really planned a great afternoon. Friday didn't go as well, but all of the kids are working on computers and there just weren't enough computers to go around. It was stressful.

This past week I've been working on applying for my teaching

license. It's been a real pain in the butt because I have to get it notarized and then sent back to the UW. It wouldn't be a problem, but the US doesn't recognize notarization without authentication from the US Embassy. Which ALSO wouldn't be a problem, but the Wellington embassy (Wellington IS the capital by the way...) doesn't have the service I need... so I have to send it to the Auckland Embassy. What a pain in the butt!!!! So now it's going to cost a lot of money and unneeded hassle, but at least it's all figured out now.

Friday was Quiz Night at my school. Laura and Chelsea came, but it turns out that 6 people that had signed up didn't end up coming... so there was a small crowd of us.. maybe about 15? It was still TONS of fun and I had a blast. And it was all at the school (which, by the way, has a beer fridge that they use on Friday afternoons after school is over... LOVE it!) That evening, I was finally able to pinpoint why I was so sad here, even though I should be happy every moment of every day... and it's because there are so many BIG things happening back home (aka graduation, emails from my students back home, my sister's and cousin's graduations, my parents' new house getting built, etc...) that I had to miss and it was making me feel really lonely! I decided I needed to start filling the time with adventures, so that's what I did!!!

Saturday, I went for my 7.5 mile run. I thou

ght it was going to be super cold, so I took a hat and layered up (it was also supposed to rain). Turns out it was one of the nicest days we've had here, so I was sweating, dehydrated, and my muscles all tensed up big time. I was pretty miserable. So I took two days off (whoops!!) Ah, well.... my body isn't used to all this stress on it!!!! From here on in, everything but the BIG runs (still have 8, 9, and 10 mile runs left on my training schedule) should be a breeze because I'm FINALLY in shape. Let this be a lesson to me: DON'T STOP RUNNING. IT'S TOO HARD TO GET BACK INTO IT!!!

After the run I spent most of the day laying around doing nothing. I was in SUCH pain, lol. But later that night, our friend Nisha bought us tickets to SAVAGE (let me see your hips SWING!! yeah... he's a Kiwi!!!) vs. Scribe (also Kiwi) concert. It wasn't really my type of music, but beforehand, we went to Annabel's friend's house. I am such a dork and probably sounded like a complete idiot, but the second we walked into the house, from what I saw (and smelled), I felt like I was a character on That 70's Show (which was right at home since it took place in WI!) There was this huge circle of chairs, couches, and love seats in this huge open room with a table in the middle with people dressed like Eric from the show. haha. It was TOOOOO funny and we spent the night laughing at the things these guys said. They're good people, but I don't think I could ever live life day to day like t

hey do. Luckily, I have the choice not to live that way and, Lord willing, I won't have to be in a crunch for money or food in my life. Of course, they CHOSE to live that way, so it brought a little bit of comic relief to the situation, but now that I think about it, it was quite humbling. I'm really lucky...

The concert was LOUD and I was exhausted still, so I went home early (after some lovely BK, of course). I woke up Sunday morning and went to the Food Show 2010 at the stadium. It was incredible and

BEST of all, I got a picture with MasterChef New Zealand (he's a school teacher in the South Island at an Intermediate school who went on the show just to see how far he'd get and he won!!!) I was so star-struck and felt like such a dork, but HAD to get my picture with him and the runner up. It was UNREAL!!!

So I ate my face off for a good hour and a half and walked away spending way more money than I thought I would on stupid things like MAGICAL SHAMMYS (ooooooooo), but that's alright! I took the train to Johnsonville to meet up with Chels, Laura, and Annabel, and then we hopped in Annabel's car and drove up the west coast!

The weather yesterday wasn't so great, but we listened to some tunes and took some fabulous pictures of the Tasman Sea and the mountains on the west side of the country. I FINALLY saw sheep (I know.. how did I last this long without seeing any!?). We went to a beach for a bit, but it wasn't what I think a beach is... so it was a cool experience for me to have. It was covered in twigs, branches, black sand, bricks, tires, all KINDS of stuff. It was just really interesting. It almost made it feel more real.... there's some kind of beauty of a beach just being what it is... without any changes from us. (Well... I guess maybe the bricks and tires were from us...) We found a hostel and took a pretty long nap and then headed off to some delicious dinner (Just talking about all this food is making me feel sick! haha).

This morning we woke up, ate (surprise surprise!), went to a beach for a bit for some pics, then drove to an "outlet mall" (so... just a bunch of stores on the same strip of a street that all just happened to be outlet stores) where I got some running clothes and a headband... whoohoo!! I'm getting awfully excited for my next weekend adventure. The people we met this weekend were incredibly friendly and all wanted to hear our story and how we ended up here, which is so sweet. I feel so loved and important here and it makes me want to be a friendlier person back home! (However, I guess back home it's hard to tell who's vacationing and who's living.. here, our accent pretty much gives away that we're 'vacationers').

Today when I got home, I had so many awesome emails from an ex-boyfriend, some wonderful friends, and my cooperating teacher from the States (thank you, Susan!) and it just put me in the BEST mood. It's always nice to know that even though I've far away, I haven't been forgotten :)

Tomorrow starts my last week in this classroom. My teacher will be gone until Friday so I'll be taking "sole charge" most of the week. However, sole charge includes the cross country run tomorrow (which will most likely take all morning) and then the kids have technology in the afternoon, so I won't see them most of the day. Then Wednesday morning, they do Enrichment, so I'm going to go see Laura and Chelsea's classrooms, which will be fun! So I'll really only have Wednesday afternoon (where they're going to be doing artwork) and Thursday with my kids... but we'll figure out something for them to do! Then next week, it's on to a whole new teacher, a whole new group of kids, and a whole new experience.

Time goes by...

So every day when I get home, I think about writing in here, but then I prefer watching a few episodes of Scrubs so that I don't actually have to think. I've gotten pretty busy at school pretty quickly (which is good because I can't sit there and just watch anymore). I planned for and am teaching this whole week and next week I think. I'm getting observed on Thursday, so that'll be good. Things at school have been kind of nuts and all over the place and right now I'm just trying to keep my head above water. I'm struggling with a lot of things educationally-wise... like the fact that I want to have fun at school and make jokes and make sure my kids are having fun, but I also need them to do what they're supposed to be doing.

Last weekend we hung out in Wellington. I did a whole lot of nothing. While reflecting on it, I realize that that was probably the best thing I could have done. The weekend before that, Laura, Chelsea, and I went to wine country (this dinky little town, it was totally cute). We stayed at a little campground in a tiny little cabin and it was totally cute. We spent Saturday sleeping and then went to the town's movie theatre to see Nowhere Boy, which was good and fun. We loved the little town. Sunday, the weather was better, so we went biking through wine country and actually spent most of the day at an olive oil place. It was delllliiiccciooouusss.

Last night we went to a restaurant here in New Zealand called "Burger Wisconsin". Yeah... that's right. We were so stoked. Chelsea and I wore Wisconsin gear and everything. The food wasn't so good, however. To eat it, we went to the top of Mount Victoria and sang some songs in good company with some of our new friends here. It was so fun!

Yesterday at school, my teacher went home sick, so I got to teach all day. A lot about it was really good... I was pretty much thrown into the deep end, and I at least kept my head above water. It was really the best way to learn. I started out the day with one kid getting a wire stuck in his mouth. Like, REALLY stuck. So stuck that I had to get in there with a pliers to get it out. Meanwhile, he was crying because "we were never going to get it out" and he'd "be stuck like this forever!". The second I got it out, he started laughing and was all happy. And I was covered in his drool and blood. Yeah... as you may suspect I was NOT laughing. In fact, that's about the time that I brought out the dreaded behaviour (yeah, behaviour, haha) book. It was awesome. Mean Ms. Cram was on a rampage. But then the kids impressed me with their teamwork during fitness and during lunchtime rec where they won their nuke 'em ball game (kind of like volleyball but easier). But... once we got back into the classroom, it was rough. Maybe Mondays are always rough? It was quite the struggle. Ugh.

I'm hoping today will be better. The kids didn't get a whole lot done the whole afternoon yesterday, which upset me. We'll see how today goes....

Homesickness can hit pretty hard..

Today was the first really hard day since I've came here. And I realized that in the moments that I'm really sad and upset and can't call my mommy, that it makes it that much worse. Who'd have thunk that at 23 years of age, I'd still depend on my mom to cheer me up when things go bad? Well.. yeah.. I guess I would.. and I always will. Sometimes the time difference is tough! And then watching this week's Glee, which was all about the concept of home, I just wanted to be in my own bed, even for just a little bit!!

So, to make a long story short, we had a sub in the class today that kind of made me feel like crap about myself as a teacher by budding in when I was working with groups, making everything I just did with the group invalid. It was too bad.... and kind of hurt. But we talked about it and cleared the air and we've moved on, which is reassuring.

On the brighter side of things, I've been hanging out with the girls volleyball team a lot during their practices and I've been working with a few girls during morning recess to improve their skills. It's a blast! I love that I can share my love for the sport (even if I may not be especially good at it myself). I'm hoping that the coach will give me more of a role and I can run drills and things. And I know that next week, I'm going to be running the drills.

Today at school we had a staff meeting all about fitness. Since the school teachers here teach all subjects (including art, music, and PE), we have to learn how to incorporate all of it. It was really interesting listening to the teacher's thoughts on things and the way they run their classrooms. My teacher is having two of the kids in our class plan fitness from now on, which is so great to see. They planned the first session today and set up four stations. One of them was called the ring road (it's the circle of pavement that goes around the buildings in the school) and it takes the average person maybe like, 1:45/2 minutes to run in. I ran it twice in a row at one of the stations. The way they set it up is that one of the kids that planned it gave us a 20 second head start and then tried to catch as many of us as possible. HOW CUTE! Definitely didn't catch me. In fact, I came in first one of the times! Finally getting my ass in gear!

Hahaha... funny thing.. the little 10 year olds say "hell" and "dammit" all the time and it's acceptable. Nice.

So the past week has been an incredible whirlwind of activity. Last Friday night was really fun for me... we went to the only bar in my town and actually ran into a bunch of the teachers at my school, which was so fun! Then I went to bed, as I was getting up super duper early to go running and talk to my PDS cohort via Skype. I got to talk to them, which was sooooo special and meant a lot to me, and then I went and ran 6 miles down where I'm going to actually be running it in June. That's what I've decided to run every Saturday (that I'm here) now, so that I can see exactly what they real course will be like. It'll be nice!

After running and coming home to take a nap, Laura, Chelsea, and I went to the Lower Hutt (a town that has a really bad rap, for reasons we can't really understand) to go shopping. We spent the whole day there in the mall and I finally got some more clothes (I left way too much behind...) Then we went into town and caught a movie with some friends of Laura and Chelsea's. I slept through some of it (cinemanarcolepcy, whatcha gunna do?)

The girls ended up coming back to my place and we had a sleepover in my room and then got up BEFORE the buttcrack of dawn to go to the ANZAC day memorial service. It's pretty much the equivalent of our Memorial Day, but theirs especially commemorates the day that the ANZACs landed at Gallipoli in 1915 (I learned a lot!)

Then I came back home and slept until 1:30.. NNIIICCEEE! The rest of the day was pretty chill.. I just hung around the house and got ready for school!

This week has been incredible. I've learned so much and when I look around the room at all of the programming that my teacher has going out, and find out that SHE designed it, I honestly feel like I'm working with someone who could make millions if she published her material. I've observed a few other teachers in the school as well, which has been incredibly interesting. Some of the teachers have befriended me and taken me under their wing to teach me what they're doing, which I love.

Tuesday we had a team meeting and I learned a lot about different models of literacy programs, what works for the kids, what skills they're working towards and everything.... and they were all so friendly! And they even let me throw some thoughts out there.

Tuesday I also got to teach for the first time. I taught morning meeting and then took a maths (yeah... math is plural here, haha) group. I LOVED it! The kids are so incredibly respectful. Some of them were kind of talking under me about some different things, but I've just learned to adjust to that and I honestly really don't mind it since I feel like in my experience, that's kind of been the least of my problems. My teacher told me afterwards that that kind of behavior (or behaviour, if you will) is not acceptable at their school. She then showed me their "bad behavior" book. "Mucking around on the carpet" was the most popular entry. It just made me giggle. I then proceeded to have a nightmare about saying to kids, "I wouldn't expect that type of behavior from you. You know better. Excuse me. You're being rude. Run the ring road." The kids all hated me by the end of my dream, haha. BUT, I tried some of the strategies out today and they really do respond to it. Especially the ring road run... mwahahaha.

Yesterday was Enrichment Day, so I went to Production Dance and Chorus. They were both super adorable. In the afternoon, the kids had winter sport, so I decided to go to rugby so I could learn how and play. However, when I got out there I discovered that it was almost ALL kids that are planning on teams... and it was all guys. So I decided to observe instead. After 10 minutes of the wind whipping in my ear (I think I went deaf for a few moments) I decided that table tennis (they don't call it ping pong) was more to my liking. The kids that thought they were the worst still kicked my butt. That was a shame!!! I did morning meeting with them before we went to our morning assembly (which was absolutely adorable because they sang their school song which was in Maori, the native language, and it was BEAUTIFUL... I think I might have cried a little bit) and we were playing a game where we had to toss small balls around. A lot of people were dropping them, so I walked myself right into one by saying, "Careful! Balls are slippery!" ALL the boys started giggling. Give me a break! haha. They're super cute, though!

This weekend I think we're considering a wine country tour, which should be fun and relaxing. We're trying to break up the traveling so we don't get too exhausted, but we've been here almost 3 weeks now, so it's about time we did another mini adventure. I've been slacking on my long runs here because 1. I can't run every day (which is what my training wants me to do) and 2. There are too many dang hills. It kills me... every time. It's like running up Observatory by College Library for 10 minutes straight.... or Congress St. hill in Ripon for 10 minutes. It's gross! Down by the harbour, it's nice and flat and I swear that after my 25 min. run the other day, I felt more exhausted (because of the hills) than I did in my 60 min. run last weekend!!

Alright... I'm going to try to be better at this :) No whole week updates anymore.. it takes too long! If you're reading this, I miss you :) And the wonderful Wisconsin spring...

Week One is already over!

I can't believe it's already Friday. This week has simply flown by. Tonight I'm staying in to rest my heel, which I injured on Tuesday while running and has been killing me ever since, but Laura and Chelsea are coming in to Khandallah in a little bit just for a beer and "chips" or something at the local pub before they go out.

I am SO excited about the classroom I am in. I'm having such a blast with the kids. My CT already pointed out to me that the second you become buddy buddy with your kids, that's the same moment you lose credibility. I'm glad she told me that up front because I find that that's my biggest struggle. I think part of it is because, especially here, I don't know a lot of people, so I hand around the kids, haha.

I DID in fact go to the teacher's lounge for lunch on Wednesday and had a good time and met some nice people. Yesterday I went to a "team meeting" before school and learned more in those 50 minutes about accountability and how we can keep each other on track with our learning goals and all that than I have in a long time. Well, I guess I've learned about it but never seen it in action as well as it is here. So that's awesome!

This morning before school, I was searching for a gym that I could work out in on the days that it's gross out. I filled out one of those "inquiry" things on their website, giving them my home phone, telling them to call me between 5 and 9, and stating in the comments section where I work, that I'm a student, and that I only will be staying for a few months. Before I knew it, I had a message from the office that this stupid place had called me at work. Who does that?! When I got home, Maggie told me that they had actually called me at home right away as well, and she told them to email me or call back after 4. Still no email... no other call. What crazy people!

I love laughing at all of the differences between here and there. The kids laughed at me forever the other day when I called "morning tea" RECESS. Let's take a vote... "morning tea" to them is going outside, having a little snack (which never consists of tea). Yeah... RECESS, people! I followed some of my kids to one of their enrichments called "Fun, funky fitness" or something of the sort. The leaders of it do A LOT of the sports activities at the school. One of the teachers (cough cute cough) was doing an example of the flamingo balance stance or whatever you call it, and he was telling the kids to focus on something and then said "Like I'm going to focus on Ms. Cram". Then I said, "Yeah, kids, you can ALL focus on me if you want."....... You could have heard grasshoppers chirping. "Sorry, kids, that was a little bit of American humor. Tough crowd." Yeah, the teachers were the only ones that laughed. haha.

I'm finding it incredibly difficult to get around here. The train is the obvious mode of transportation, but I have been attempting (with no avail) to find a flippin' nice water bottle. WHERE IS ONE??? My kids told me about a place I could go to find one, but I couldn't find the shop they told me about.

I LOVE how the kids dress here. Most of them just wear workout clothes to school. Canterbury of New Zealand is a really popular brand.

Ha, just remembered some other words that make me laugh. "Rubber" means eraser. "Footstop" means period. They always say "I reckon" instead of "I think". It's so adorable. Love it!

Well, I'm waking up at 5:40 so I can be there to say hi to my PDS cohort (HOLLA!!!!) I can't believe they're almost done with the semester! It seems unreal. My sister is about to graduate, too! AHH! Alright, anyway, goodnight!!!

Opposite ends of the world... in more than one way.

So I walked to school my first day, thinking it would take about 10 minutes. 25 minutes later, in my heels, I finally arrived, sweating something fierce, and the deputy principal came and found me. He gave me a little tour of the school and all that and then said, "So.. you play trombone in the band, huh?" and I responded "Yup!" thinking that I must have said something about it when I introduced myself to the school. He then said, "Yeah... I definitely googled you. And I found your picture on the band website." HA! At least he's honest about it...

I met up with my teacher, who does a lot of work with inquiry, and she took me to her room. I saw MAYBE ten chairs and asked how many students she had and she told me THIRTY. Where did they all sit? On the floor, on the couches, in the padded bathtub, pretty much anywhere they wanted! I was absolutely flabbergasted by their respect for their teacher as well as their good behavior. She did not have to scold ONE student all day long. Whoa... it blew me away! Some of my favorite questions from my kids so far:

• So, you're from America? Because you sound a lot like some people on an American show I watch. (hahaha)
• Do you know Miley Cyrus?
• Can you please tell me some jokes?? I don't think Kiwis are funny AT ALL.

A few minutes before school was over on Monday, the principal pulled me out again just to have a chat about what I want to get out of my experiences here and all that.. it was incredible. He made me feel so important and that my opinions and learning are so valued. THANK YOU!

Then I came home and began my training with a whopping 20 minute run. It was a pretty nice run and I'm going to be doing the same one again today. Then I did some grocery shopping, had some dinner, watched Pacific with my family, and by then I was so beat, that I went to bed!

Yesterday was a lot of the same. The kids are so cute and are willing to talk to me and include me. Today I'm going to be brave and bold and march right into the teacher's lounge during lunch and introduce myself to some people. It should be a good time! I'm also just about ready to start teaching some. However, today is a little different. There's an assembly in the morning, and then the students spend the rest of the morning doing "enrichment" (They get to choose whatever topic is offered that they want and then go and do it!) I can't remember if it lasts all day or just the morning.... but there's a Spanish enrichment, which I pretty much am obligated to go to, haha.

My favorite quote of this week so far came from my principal when he was chatting with me:

"We teach to IMPROVE, we don't teach to PROVE." That pretty much explains everything in my classroom. Teachers, you know how we have 6+1 Traits? My teacher didn't know that that existed, so by simply doing TONS of research, she came up with her OWN assessment tool for writing. BINOCulars. I was blown away... She does SO much for those kids, it's simply incredible. I can't wait to see more and learn exactly how she does it all!

Although this new classroom is new and different and exciting, I am feeling a little bit out of my element, which is good to acknowledge, but is also kind of hard! We'll see how it all goes :) Over and out!

A week in the life of a Kiwi!

I can't believe that I'm going to start teaching in the morning... it seems unreal! This week has just flown by and I'm WAY too OK with just hanging out all day and sleeping. But I guess that that's not allowed, haha.

We filled this week pretty well with lots of activities. I can't get over how awesome the Te Papa museum was here in Wellington... and it was free! We went walking on Wednesday, and although the weather was gorgeous, we just stumbled upon the museum and decided to take advantage of it. They had a whole exhibition on immigrants to New Zealand, most of them young adults and many of them refugees. It was really touching.

The next day, Chelsea's host sister Annabel (23) took us down to Cuba Street, the "hippie" street here in Wellington. We walked up and down there for a while, she showed us some of the bars, we got some essentials (straightener... hello!) and then headed back home. Earlier that day we saw a movie called "Boy" about a Maori (natives of New Zealand) boy in the 1980s. I learned that calling someone "an egg" is a putdown... huh. Go figure.

Friday, the highlight was that we went out with Annabel and some of her friends for our first night out on the town. She organized a dinner with a bunch of her friends as well as some clubbing out on Courteney Place (where are the college kids go out... well, and some high schoolers). I met SO many nice people, including one girl who taught last year at the school I'll be working at here, so she filled me in on ALL of the stuff I need to know about the school. Alright! We went dancing for a while, but since we met up with Annabel at 530, by 130 we were ready to come home. It was a fun night!

Yesterday, I spent the day with my host family, which was soooo great. We drove around, went to the mall (which I could spend a day in, it's so sweet), and then went grocery shopping. My host mom gave my host dad and me a list that was 3 1/2 pages long (she had to stay in the car since her foot is broken), and we went during Saturday rush hour, so it ended up taking us an hour and a half!! We got home and I made my host family TACOS!! It was the first time my host dad had eaten a TACO! Oh my gosh! They all seemed to like it, but I think the whole eating with your fingers and getting all full of your food thing was kinda gross, haha.

After dinner, I quick got ready and my host dad took me over to Laura's house. I got to meet her family, and then we walked to Chelsea's and I met her family! Her mom then drove us all into town to go to a little house party. We met some more fabulous people there and then it was time to head into town! Annabel, in her state, thought it would be about a 20 minute walk downtown. An hour and a half later! (with a detour to Parliament, a gas station, and a huge slide down by the water) we got downtown, just in time for me to catch Wellington's version of the "drunk bus". Annabel made sure the driver knew exactly where I needed to get off and made sure that he told me when we arrived close to my home. It was so cute. And inspired me to make a list of everything I love about Kiwis (coming soon).

Today, we woke up early (haha, 830) to go hike Mount KauKau. My host dad took Laura, the other guy that lives with me, and I. The views from up there of all of Wellington and beyond were INCREDIBLE. We also got to see a Tui bird (native to NZ, also a beer named after it). It was a great walk. Laura and I came back to my house and had some coffee. Then we went into town to go to the Visitor's Center to find information about how to get to the shopping mall (I'm a little obsessive over it... I guess I probably COULD be spending my weekends enjoying the scenery, but I've never felt like I had so little clothes-wise as I do right now... and my mom isn't around to help me be rational). We got some delish lunch and then headed back home on the train, both exhausted (she stayed out a lot later than I did last night and was still up and raring to go for a 9 AM hike!) I got home and tried to stay awake, but ended up taking a two hour nap. I just introduced my family to the masterful television show Modern Family (I'm not sure if they enjoyed it as much as I did, haha. And I've seen that episode twice already). Pretty soon it'll be time for bed and get ready for my first day at Raroa Intermediate School!!!

No better way to get to know your host family than....

Hanging up their clothes on the clothesline!!! Since my poor host mom has a hard time walking, I hung up her personals on the line yesterday, hehe. I'm glad I can be of help and I'm glad she isn't too shy to ask me to help her out... it feels like I'm really at home! They are sooooo wonderful!

Yesterday I walked to Johnsonville to meet up with Laura and Chelsea to do a little shopping for some essentials. It took about 25 minutes and on the way I passed (and took pictures through the fence of) the school I'll be teaching at. I also had to grab onto the railing on one occasion so that the wind wouldn't blow me over. You know how Chicago is dubbed the "Windy City" but it's really not so bad? Well, Windy Wellington gets its name for good reason. Even now the wind is gusting through my windows!!

That's about all I did yesterday... it was nothing too exciting. The weather got creepy... like, scary movie creepy last night so I just stayed in the house. Which was ok with me. We're playing around with the idea of going to the South Island for a long weekend, so we'll have to see if that actually pans out.

Right now, Chelsea and Laura are on their way into Khandallah to meet my host family and see my house and then we're going to head into Wellington for the day, maybe go to some museums, see some sights, all that jazz. It should be good!

Hello, Windy Wellington!

Here I am, in my amazingly comfortable bed (you don't really realize how much you miss having a comfy bed until you sleep in one...), writing from Wellington, New Zealand, this place that I've been waiting to arrive in for TWO years now. It still doesn't seem real!

On Saturday night, Chelsea, Laura, and I went to an AFL Sydney Swans game. It's a sport that I have NEVER heard of before, but it's football, but with Australian rules. It was INTENSE. 8-10 miles of running per game. The field is round and it took us forever to understand even how the game was scored. We had such a great time and after the game was over, we actually SAW the guy from the jersey shop that told us about it. What a small world. I got a beautiful red and white sweatshirt, so now it can be multipurpose.

Sunday, nothing too eventful happened... just the fact that we couldn't get internet anywhere. Grrr. We went to a huge park in Sydney where I got to use one of those bathrooms that you pay for that has the sliding door... whoa. It was pretty sweet. And I found 20 cents in there, so that was pretty nice. We saw a flock of pigeons attack an unsuspecting family, listened to an old man play scales on his trombone for money, and I failed miserably at solving a few Sudoku puzzles. Then we had the famous Australian pie (pretty much beef stew in a pot pie) so we could be more Australian. It left us feeling pretty blah.

Then we caught the bus back to the airport... kept all of our luggage for the shortest amount of time possible, then just chilled in the airport. Included in "chilling": buying a book, a smoothie, and a camera. Yeah... that's pretty much how I roll. It's a cool camera, even if I didn't really need it. I can drop it without it breaking.. AND take pictures underwater.

We finally landed in Wellington around 11 PM, but had to go through customs and all that jazz. Carolyn, the coordinator from the university was waiting for us there and we all hugged her, haha. We were SO happy to finally be here. I got to my homestay close to 1 in the morning. I was the last to get dropped off. The host families met us in their robes, which was interesting and fun and I knew I'd love it here!

As far as host families go, mine is pretty top notch. I have a couple that are not married, but are both in their second relationship, and are in their upper 60s. They're incredibly wonderful and sweet to one another and me and the Chinese student that is here studying English. They have a 22 year old cat (TWENTY TWO).

I got up around 9 and got ready for the day, as a taxi was coming to pick us up to take us to the university for our little intro meeting thing. We got a tour of the school and learned what teachers we will be with and got to ask some questions. Then we went downtown by bus (that's run on cables) to get phones. We walked back and forth between stores a zillion times and finally invested in some prepaid phones. We then took the train home. By now, I had a migraine and was struggling to keep my head up. When I got back, I chatted with my host mom for a bit, but then went to bed and ended up sleeping for 2 1/2 hours. It got rid of my headache, so that's good! We had a delicious dinner and then I watched Pacific with them, we chatted, I gave my host mom the Wisconsin Snuggie I got for them (it looks FABULOUS on her) as well as the Rippin Good Cookies!!

Today we're planning on another relaxed day. I couldn't sleep early this morning, so I mapped out a few runs since I'm going to start training for a half marathon soon!

It's almost time to leave!?

So I'm actually surprised at the impossibility of finding internet around here. I pretty much pass out as soon as my head hits the pillow every night, which doesn't do me so well when I wake up in the morning at 6 and can't fall back asleep...

Thursday we went to wine country with good ol' Smoky. He's the same guy that took us through the Blue Mountains. We had no real mishaps in the morning... we ran to the train station again. The mishaps happened more the night before. We were going to be changing rooms on Thursday, but since we were going to be gone before reception was open and we weren't going to get back until like, 9 at night, we needed to put all of our stuff in storage and get a locker for all of our overnight stuff... it was such a pain in the butt, but ended up working ok. Thursday morning, we even had time to order breakfast at Wakeup (my new favorite breakfast is toasted muesli (granola) with fruit, yogurt, and honey on top).

I read Water for Elephants, which Miriam gave me, most of the way and finished it up. Such a good book.. you should all check it out. Especially Grandma and Grandpa! I just found out it's going to be a movie in 2011... I am freaking out right now. Thanks, Miriam! :-)

Before we went to wine tasting, we went to a few national parks, which was fun. We walked around and I got some good pictures. When we stopped to listen to Smoky inspire us all with his amazing wisdom of anything and everything, I felt something on my leg. I looked down. THREE BLOOD SUCKING PARASITES ON MY LEG. OMG. I freaked out. Smoky had a hay-day and turned it into a teaching moment. Big surprise there, haha.

We went to the first wine tasting place and I tried all of the wines, but I really didn't enjoy any of them too much. I started to feel really exhausted (I guess the last few days caught up with me). The next two places we went to, I decided not to drink, which was good because I got to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather and take some great pictures of wine country (even though I don't enjoy wine too much, I LOVED the scenery). The third (and last place) we went to, I was laying out in the grass, when I hurt Smoky inside saying, "Typical American, passed out in the grass. First one down!" Way to fulfill a stereotype there, Smoky. I do, however, believe that Laura, Chelsea, and I are breaking through a LOT of American stereotypes. We may have a very obese country, but in the Blue Mountains, we were at the front of the pack. I almost feel like it's required to do so just to show others that we really aren't what everyone says we are... I haven't decided yet if that's good or bad.

Anyway... we got back, hopped off the bus, and asked Smoky if he knew of any good places to eat. He took us to, you've guessed it, Wakeup! He got us a 6 dollar meal, though, so who can argue with that? A free drink, too! (I miss free refills).

So yesterday, when we woke up in the morning, had to haul all of our stuff to ANOTHER hostel. I however, woke up again at like, 630 and since I'd run out of internet on my phone, didn't have anything to do, so I made the ever so wise decision to go running (not!) Since I was so sore, it was the worst run of my life.. and it's so hot out. Ick. I probably could have walked faster than I was running, haha. Anyway... I'm a big obsessive with travel itineraries (right, Katy?) so it was only two trains to get there, which was nice. It's not as nice as our last place, but it's only 20 bucks a night, and as of right now, we're not sharing with anyone. We got settled and then went walking to meet up with Mijke. We shopped for a while on Oxford Street, but when we realized that we were too poor for that business, we hopped a bus to George Street (Main St. here in Sydney) and ate at a sushi bar and then shopped for some time more. While we were in a jersey store, trying to find something for Chelsea's uncle, our favorite orange shirt guy made his second appearance (totally creepy). He walked through with his CD player and we all couldn't help but laugh.

In other news, I gave in and finally bought my first pair of leggings. I was so excited about my new outfit that I changed into it right after I bought it. Smoky (darn that Smoky) gave us tickets the day before to a place called Gaff here in Sydney where his good friend owns the joint or something. It was a free food voucher. Thank GOD it was free, cause that food was NAST. We were all pretty ticked off. So I ate two heaping plate fulls of pineapple chunks instead. Yum yum.

We got back to the hostel to get ready to go out, but of course, because of my narcoleptic nature, I dropped to sleep right on the spot. Ugh. I need to work on that. The other girls ended up just hanging out and chatting since Mijke had to get up early. And now she's gone :-(. Making new friends is hard sometimes since you have to say goodbye....

Today we're just going to chill. We're hoping to go to a beach/park, but it looks like rain, so maybe we'll go to the aquarium instead. Whoohoo.

If you're reading this right now, email me at sarbabe05@gmail.com or cram@wisc.edu or write me a message on facebook to tell me what you've been up to, please :-)