My second summer in New Zealand!

If you had told me when I wrote my last New Zealand blog 10 months ago that I’d be spending my entire summer back in Christchurch I would have been in a state of disbelief, excitement, and gratitude. That's how I still feel now and I’ve been back from my second stay down under for a month! I have been incredibly lucky to spend 9 months of the last 15 abroad and I can only wonder what the next entry on this blog will be considering I graduate in only 5 short months!

My second stay in New Zealand was completely different than the first. I was working (unpaid of course) in an internship at Habitat for Humanity instead of studying at the University of Canterbury. I was living with my lovely boyfriend Bernard instead of living in student housing with all of my study abroad friends. I was completely surrounded by Kiwis instead of hanging out with Americans a lot. Essentially, it was real life instead of study abroad fantasy travel life, and it was awesome!

I thought it would be fun to do a recap with some pictures of what I did in my 3 months of NZ “summer” (remember, their seasons are opposite ours, so this was actually my 4^th winter in a row)! First of all, we did some awesome trips.

About a week after I arrived Bernard and I hopped on a plane and went up to the amazing capital city Wellington for the weekend. We had a lot of fun out on the town with his friends but the most significant thing that happened is that I ran my first half marathon! 

Welcome Flats - the group

Welcome Flats - one of the most awesome hikes! 

Welcome Flats is an overnight hike to incredible hot pools in the mountains that we did last year. It was so awesome we had to do it again! It was unfortunately the only overnight hike of my summer because Bernard sprained his ankle and other things took priority but we packed a lot of fun into one trip - road trip across the island, great company, amazing scenery, and of course you can't beat the hot pools! 

Hanmer Springs

For our one year anniversary (woohoo!) Bernard and I drove up to a nearby resort town with natural hot pools with our friends Greg and Suyi. An excellent celebration! 

 Queenstown

Probably the best weekend trip Bernard and I made was to the beautiful tourist destination of Queenstown. He hadn't been since he was a kid and I only spent one day there last time so we really enjoyed the amazing scenery, the nightlife, and the gondola and luge despite our bad luck with weather! 

Arthur's Pass - Foggy Peak

Arthur's Pass - Castle Hill

Arthur's Pass - Lake Coleridge

Bernard and I got a good deal on a hotel in the middle of Arthur's Pass National Park so we had a great time on this weekend getaway - one of my favorite weekends. We had a lot of fun exploring various gorgeous (and I mean GORGEOUS) spots along the way and the best part is that all of this is within 2 hours of Christchurch! These Kiwis take their backyard for granted.

Mt. Somers

We spent one of our last weekends doing a day hike around the very pretty Mt. Somers. There are so many beautiful spots in NZ, I still haven't even come close to seeing everything I want to see! 

New Zealand is stunning, obviously, and all of these trips were ‘heaps’ of fun (sweet as, mate!) but what I really loved about my second stay in NZ was that I was actually living normal life. I was going to work every day, going to the grocery store and the movies, enjoying the highs and lows of living with a boyfriend for the first time, and just hanging out with Bernard and his friends and making the most of the crazy experience of assimilating into his life. It was really cool to get to a point where Christchurch just became home and I stopped noticing all the little differences so much (accents, money, driving on the left). Some snapshots of my normal Christchurch life: 

The Habitat for Humanity office where I worked for 20 hours a week - a great way to fill my time and build my resume while still getting to spend my summer where I wanted! 

Many a weekend spent watching the All Blacks kick butt at rugby :)

Our extremely successful pub quiz team, Team Boom, where we spent every Monday evening! 

Silliness at Suyi's birthday party

Exploring the city - there's been some rebuilding over the year I've known Christchurch so that continued to be something that interested me. Lots of cool art and shows and cafes popped up during the summer that weren't there last year! 

More city exploring - the coastline in Christchurch is beautiful and I wish I'd spent more time out there! On this lovely sunny day I went for a walk/wander after work and it was probably one of my favorite days because it reminded me of first exploring this area a year ago and how much things had changed and how happy I was to be there again. 

Surprise birthday brunch for Bernard at the awesome restaurant across the street from our house

Hanging out at home - lovely normal life! 

All in all, an incredible summer. I loved what a fun and unique (and yes, sometimes challenging) experience it was to settle in to real, normal daily life in another country and those little moments of novelty that still persist. Most of all (cheesiness alert!) I am so thankful that I had the chance to spend 3 months with Bernard actually getting to be together in semi-normal circumstances and how fun and easy that turned out to be. Bernard - thank you for some of the best months I can remember. All this madness has been worth it and I hope we manage to keep riding this roller coaster together a little longer so I can have more amazing NZ photos to put on this blog! :) It has been a crazy year but I've also had more fun and learned more about myself this year than in the rest of my life combined. Coming home has been rough, just like last time, but I'm excited to see what the future holds for me once I graduate in March and I'm hoping that New Zealand will be seeing me in 2013! 

x