Day...i actually don't know what day it is...

How is it that I don't know what day it is? Well, there are 3 very good reasons.  Reason #1--when I am not at school, there is no bell to ring to tell me where to go and when.  As I am on summer break, no bells...I am a lost soul! Heehee.  Reason #2--we lost (or gained?? Seriously, I don't know which!!) a day when we crossed the International Date Line. We took off from Portland on Wednesday evening.  We landed in Australia (for a brief layover) and finally in New Zealand on Friday.  My Thursday MUST have been spent dreaming of Russell Crowe on Qantas Airlines, eating my cookies! And, finally, Reason #3--we are up before the sun everyday (partly because so far south, next to the South Pole, there is very little sun and partly because we are up early!!) and off doing, going, learning, experiencing New Zealand and all it has to offer.

We really don't have much time here.  We arrived June 28 and will be in Sydney July 2. We really have packed it all in.  For today's entry, I'm going to talk about Christchurch and our guide, Sarah.

We arrived in Christchurch on June 28, having lost that day as we crossed the international date line.  We were met by our "Kiwi" guide, Sarah.  I thought that her name was "Siera" (like one of my beautiful niece's name).  The way they say some words, letters, sounds here I hear a different word than what was said. I snuck a peek at her name tag and discovered that her name was, in fact, Sarah.  Whew. Got it!

She is such a great guide for many reasons.  Some of the things that I love about her are: she loves the tour guiding job; she is studying to be a sports message theist after taking many years abroad in Canada, Australia and having traveled the orient; she is from Christchurch, the place we started our journey and because of that, she has a lot of personal investment in the area; and finally, I over heard her (no...I wasn't eaves dropping!!) talking to our driver today about wanting "Kiwis" to know their own country.

I love a person who is passionate.  It doesn't matter a whole hill of beams what exactly they are passionate about, or if it is my passion as well.  I just love to know that someone else is passionate about SOMEthing, they way I am passionate about teaching, my children, or...I don't know...say...Russell Crowe (I mean I AM in his native land, for Pete's sake!!). So, it makes me like Sarah even more when I see that she is passionate about this job.  I met a Kiwi named Matthew the other day and he said that a man wrote a book about New Zealanders and it was called something like "The UNpassionate Kiwi".  He said that the book talked a lot about how Kiwis are just even-keeled, especially when it comes to good stuff.  I'm thinking that neither Emma nor myself would blend in well with these kinds of people.  Well, as much as I see Matthew's point with a lot of things, I still see a passion in Sarah for this job and her country, and I dig it:)

I love, love, love a person who sees the value of travel, of living and in just BEING outside your own country, however briefly OR however similar you imagine the cultures to be (I kind of thought that New Zealand would be a little mini USA, to a point.  It is quite obviously not.) At any rate, Sarah was able to spend a few years abroad (I said it before, but in case you've forgotten, "abroad" HAS to be said with an English old lady accent) She lived in other cultures...ok, I know you are thinking, "oh, come on! How different from New Zealand could Canada be? Or Australia?" We'll, I'll be able to tell you how different Australia is by the end of this trip, and I can verify that the Canada that I know is different from New Zealand, for sure.  Again, I over heard Sarah talking to Dennis, our driver, and she said that when she returned to New Zealand after working in Sydney for 5 years, she couldn't believe just how much more relaxed things are here in Kiwiland! It is so good to get a different perspective on life.  I often tell the story, and it still brings tears to my eyes, of when I returned to my little corner of the world with Emma and Caleb from Costa Rica the first time. I think Caleb may have been 5.  We were driving down the road and he asked me what a certain street sign was for.  I told him, he thought about it or a few seconds and then asked, "Is that how EVERYone does it?"  I was so happy!!! THAT should be the question we all ask.  The question should be more like the than the question that I more often hear, "Why do they do it wrong?" We don't often stop to think that there might be a different way of doing things.  I am guilty of this as well, but with more travel, I can be cured, I hope :)

In 2010 and 2011, there were a couple of earthquakes in New Zealand, with epic enters either very close to, or centering on downtown Christchurch. Sarah had just ended a tour the day before that February day when the world seemed to topple down around Christchurch.  She had some personal stories of people who she knows and how their businesses were ruined.  She also had the flip side of that, where strangers and friends worked alongside each other to restore businesses, homes, central meeting places. We were able to take a brief walk through what used to be a mall and were happy to see how people were able to continue selling clothes, perfumes and soaps and books after things were in such disarray. You can check out the pictures (hopefully you can see them!!) of the stores who "rebuilt" inside of a storage container outside. One of the things that made a giant impression on me was that there was still so much rubble in the form of buildings crashed down, barricades still up and roads still blocked off. We even saw a theater that was cut in half basically. You could see the seats still intact, wi the rest of the blading kind of crashed down. One of the main churches had A really tall spire that was literally bent to a 90 degree angle. It was pretty amazing.  The way that Sarah talked about the area was touching.  She was impressed by the way people worked together and the distance that the city had come. I could see that she really had high hopes  for the city and its people.

Lastly, she was talking about her classes and her fellow students. She was amazed that very few of them actually knew their own country.  I think that is pretty common, but still. Her desire for them to experience New Zealand was really great.  She said that she wanted them to get on a tour bus and check it out! "Come on, people! Get to know your own country!" ...and,  ouch! Getting to know my own country has been a challenge, but after hearing her talk, I can see now that it should've more of a priority.

We did a short driving tour of Christchurch, followed by our overnight.  The hotel we stayed at was a Tudor-style place.  It had a very old-world feel to it.  We ate heartily, of course.  We enjoyed the conversation of our fellow travelers and tried to get to know each other as best we could, with eyelids drooping from exhaustion!

I'm hopefully able to attach some pictures to this update so that you can see where we are and have been.  We are having such a great time. It's more than I could have imagined, and to be able to share it with my daughter is even more fabulous!

Until next time (what that really means it, "until I'm able to get reliable Internet again.")...
Angi

Day 1--travel

Here we are hours into our journey and still not to our destination. I think that Brady at Discovery Student Adventures told me that we would basically be traveling 24 hours before we reach New Zealand for our first day of science exploration! And, there will be no rest for the weary.  We arrive, drop our stuff, eat lunch and get to work!

On this trip with me are students.  Is this really what my break is supposed to be all about? Traveling with students? Well, as much as it has never sounded like a good idea, I'm kinda diggin' it so far. Granted, we have only had contact with each other maybe a total of 5 hours, with 4 of those being sitting in the airport, everyone on their respective mobile devices updating Facebook, checking up on friends at home, sending texts "reminding " them that we will be abroad (say that in an English old lady accent!) or geeking out by reading about our first destination. Ok, yes, I was the one doing "homework" on our trip.  Actually, I don't know what the rest of the gang was up to, but I'm pretty sure I was the only one in nerd mode...I can't seem to get out of nerd mode and I'm just going to have to accept that that is me:)

So, who do we have on this trip? I am so lucky to have a really, really great group.  Well, they are a great-looking group, at least. They seem smart. They seem eager to learn.  Mostly, so far I believe that they are a diverse group.  I don't know these kids, with the exception of my own (duh, I guess) but have seen all of them at school randomly in the halls. We have had a few meetings that were not well-attended just by the nature of student life at CC.  Kids are always doing something club related, sport related, arts related, service related, class related etc, etc.  So although we are only a group of 4 (plus me), our lunch-time meetings didn't give us much time to get to know each other.  

Here's the brief information that I have gathered on each kiddo from my interactions with them:

Katelyn is a senior in the fall.  She is a musician and doesn't take Spanish. She has an older brother, who she seems to adore and who attends university in California.  She is a little bit quiet, as of now, but I suspect that she has some loud, craziness under her reserved exterior.

Nick will also be a senior in the fall.  He is a soccer player and I remember that when I met him, he had his jaw wired shut because of a soccer injury!! Holy crap! I guess I didn't realize that you could get your face hurt in soccer! He seems like a fairly independent kid.  He has his scuba certification, so he is going to actually scuba dive at The Great Barrier Reef while the rest of us snorkel.

Will is the one I think I know the best (besides Emma) just because I have had more interactions with him. He is about to be a junior..  He is so eager to know all of the details about what we are doing and what and who we are going to come into contact with.  He has checked out the hotels in each of the cities where we will be. He is a lover of travel, it seems. He is the one who seems the most excited, or maybe he is just the one showing his excitement.  

Emma is the youngest of the group.  She is about to be a sophomore.  She is athletic, as she reminds me often ("I've got your body, except I'M athletic and you're not."  I may need to remind her of who finished first at the Zombie 5k!!!!!) and on varsity cheer.  Truthfully, she could kick my butt, but let's not let her know that! She's excited about this trip because she LOVES travel (like me) and wants to see the world, sooner rather than later.  I was just telling my sister the other day that we've probably only got 3 years left with her before she's gone to the 4 corners of the world!

Our flight on Qantas Airlines...wow.  I think I may have gained 10 pounds just on the airplane.  We were greeted with dinner, which we had already kind of eaten in LAX because we didn't think we'd have food until morning.  (Our sandwiches at LAX were ok, but cost 15$!!! What the heck?!) After dinner, we were given a "goodie bag" for "in case you get hungry later on" that consisted of water, chips, cookies and chocolate. Most of us napped, watched free movies, or played games.  I just want


to say that this is quite OBVIOUSLY a quality airline for many reasons, the LEAST of which is that there were no fewer than 5 Russell Crowe movies to choose from on the in flight entertainment movie options, including "Les Miserables", "Gladiator" and "A Beautiful Mind" just to name a few of the tops. I am a happy, happy girl:)

I am so looking forward to getting to know each of these kids and seeing the sights in the foreign lands that are at our first stop at New Zealand and then on to Australia.  I have a feeling that we will be greeted with many different sights, hopefully NOT too many of the 2000 different species of spiders that reside here. I'd love to see them, actually...just behind a glass...and NOT up close and personal, like in my bed!!!  We will be arriving in Christchurch within a few hours.  We have yet to really meet the other groups, except random people who kinda seem like they are with us--we can tell by the fabulous grey t-shirts and bright orange (construction worker orange) lanyards.  However, we aren't completely sure because when we tried to introduce ourselves, we got some blank looks.  

Awesome/strange things so far--a pilot saying "shhhed-ule". :) that gave me a tickle (like my grandma D used to say)

Emma's blog

australianhippie1.wordpress.com

Emma and Angi Pre-Australia and New Zealand!! About to go on the adventure of a lifetime!!

Off to Australia and New Zealand with Discovery Student Adentures

Did I just say "Australia and New Zealand"?? With a travel company?! With a bunch of students?! In matching t-shirts and lanyards?! Totally NOT our usual bag.  But, here we are, literally days from departure to the land "Down Under" and we are beyond excited for a couple of reasons. NOTHING about this trip is our usual.  We are not going without an itinerary.  We are not uncertain of where we will sleep, eat or how we will get there.  We are not going to "have to" switch to "Spanish-mode".  We are not going to be in language school or surf school.

However, what we will be doing is traveling with a pre-set schedule. We will be seeing so much of both countries in our 12 days.  We start out in New Zealand at Christchurch.  Then we go on to Greymouth, Cardona and Queenstown before heading to Australia.  There, we will experience Sydney (I hope, hope, hope Russell Crowe is waiting there for me!!! Fingers crossed!),  the Sunshine Coast, Lady Elliott Island and finally, Brisbane.  We will be certain of where we sleep, eat and our modes of transportation. We will be staying in some pretty great hotels, eating typical foods (even a threat of eating kangaroo!!!) and traveling via per-arranged flights, boats, cars and (gulp) hiking. We will stay "in" English, although both of us will probably need subtitles with the accents, like we do at home with movies where the actors don't speak "American" English. I think we both concentrate on the accents so much that we can't pay attention to the actual words!! We will be immersed in science and learning (now, THAT'S this nerdy family's bag!!) about biology, arctic survival (eeeek!), experiencing the southern Alps and the Franz Joseph glacier (oh, no...that sounds chilly!!),  the Maori tribe, helping with conservation efforts at The Great Barrier Reef and hearing spooky stories of haunted Sydney (ok...I'm out. No chance!! Too late for that!).  All of these out-of-the-ordinary reasons are what make this different kind of trip so exciting! It'll be an adventure of a different kind! As you know, we love, love, love adventure of any kind!

The strange journey to this place was eventful and at times stressful. Emma worked her buns off trying to raise money. It was a lot to earn.  Our resources are quite limited, so we called on many of you to help us where you could and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. The joy that I saw in her face when she realized that, with days left before take-off, she was actually paid off--was priceless.  Apparently, my face reflected hers because she said, "Mom, you should have SEEN your face!" I was thinking the same thing about her! Shout outs to so many of you that I'm not sure that I can remember all.  I'm going to give it a try.

To Emma's dad who is maybe the most financially generous person with this kind of stuff. He has never NOT stepped up to help these kids financially when called upon. When we were married we 

talked about never wanting our kids to go without life experiences and no matter our differences, he has been faithful to that.  We all appreciate his support!

To my family who let her "Flamingo" their yards, bought her raffle tickets (and then donated the winnings!!!! Aunt K--You rock!!), supported our 4 garage sales and donated bottles and cans for the grueling and nasty task of returning them--all to the end of helping her go and experience the Southern Hemisphere for the first time.

To the faculty and staff at our school who did the same as my family--which is why we love CC so much.  I am especially grateful for JH and Monsignor Murphy for pointing us in the direction of a very, very generous donor who really had a gigantic hand in helping us!!  Thank you, Mr. L!!!!    We are Ramily!!

To my friends who told me that we'd make it and to stop stressing about it AND did all of the family stuff--again why I love you all!!

As for now, a week before take off, we need to get our bags packed or at the very least prepared--also not our usual method...I prefer the last minute scramble.  It's winter in Australia and New Zealand, so gloves, scarves, stocking caps (also NOT our usual--we are followers of the sun!!) are in order.
I ask of you yet another favor.  Please send us positive vibes, mojo, energy and/or prayers for safe travels and a happy return to the boy we leave behind!