Where Have I Been? There and Back Again.

I’m back. I’ve actually been back since last Wednesday, but it’s been a crazy time since then. I still don’t feel oriented back into “States life”. When I returned I had work, and then a bridal shower/bachelorette party, and I tried to organize my stuff, do my laundry, and catch up on sleep from the trip. Monday was work again, and also the start of summer classes (online). Hence, the not quite real feelings of being back.

The Trip
If I wrote down everything about my trip, I would be writing a novel. Rachel and I had more than our share of Adventures on this particular adventure. Somehow, we always manage to do that, even if it’s just camping at the property. I had my share of Adventure too, even before I got to New Zealand…

California: I had a great time there. The conference was overwhelming, huge and too much to choose from. I did manage to see a few presentations, walk the expo for a few days, and have a fairly extensive look at the posters – both professional and graduate. I saw most of the people from the U of M there, though I never did make it to lunch with them. I met a bunch of other students from UBC and UW (Washington, not Wisconsin) and chilled with them at night. I did manage to make it to the beach and the Aquarium at Long Beach one day, and to Disneyland another day…so the trip wasn’t all work and no fun. I also managed to get a bit of a tan, and almost avoided the strap-lines. The first night I was there Sabrina, Tim, and myself also enjoyed the pleasures of ‘drunken skeeball’. (In parenthesis because I wasn’t drunk, but it was amusing to drink alcohol whilst enjoying a game.)

NZ: I left for Auckland at 11:30 Wednesday night, and arrived Friday morning, their time. I would say I lost Thursday completely, but my blog has a post that day saying I arrived…so obviously that was a trick. Auckland played home base, but we spent as little time there as we could. We started out by going south on the train to National Park – base camp for excellent trekking. Unfortunately, this time of year, the excellent days for trekking are few and far between, and we couldn’t get up high enough (because of gale force winds) to climb Mt. Doom. We still did some excellent treks, through the rain, but had a great time. We left there in a snowstorm to head to Rotorua. Rotorua has thermal stuff, along with spas, Maori cultural stuff, Kiwi birds, and rugby (or at least it did whilst we were there). It was also our jump-off point for going to Hobbiton. Since we didn’t get to go climb Mt. Doom, we went there instead, and it was a great tour. I’ll have to talk more about it when I download my pictures. From Rotorua we went to Waitomo Caves, and went abseiling (rapelling), caving, blackwater rafting (tubing in a cave), and climbing. After that it was back to Auckland for a brief stopover to check email, see the war memorial museum, and get rained on some more before heading to the Cormandel Peninsula. There we went Sea Kayaking, Biking (and they get to be capitalized because they were Adventures), and walking on the beach. We also went to Hot Water Beach, a place where you can dig your own spa. After that it was back to Auckland again for some souvenir shopping and to catch a plane. Catching my ride home was also an Adventure, but I made it back on time, and here I am in the states, taking classes, working, and playing softball. Oh, and joining a rugby team…I think.