On the subject of walking around Wellington, where there are a great many hills... "I like walking.. until I get to the top of the hill, then I hate it" (Abi)

Well, it has been quite a long stretch of time since I last wrote. There have been a number of significant things that have happened since the end of June. Unfortunately, since I've left this post so long, I may have to cut the stories short, and just proceed to list them. Fortunately though, I do have a great number of pictures to go along with the list.

First things first, I finished my exams- woot woot! June 30th took forever to get here, but when it did, I wrote my last exam and it felt wonderful to finally have them all done with. As you can imagine, things were very hectic in the weeks preceding exams and such, so having all that wrapped up was a big relief.

During this time period, however, I still managed to get some fun in.

I got to see Ian Mckellan perform a one man show at the Wellington Opera House with Sara (Team Awesome strikes again!). For those of you who don't know, he played Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, he also played Magnito in X-Men. The First Act was about his movie acting career, the second about his Shakespeare acting career. He was just as phenomenal in real life. The show was made even more amazing by the fact that all of the proceeds made from the entire production were going towards rebuilding the Christchurch theatre (which was severely damaged during the earthquakes last year).

At the end of the show, he called up the entire cast of 'The Hobbit' (coming out this fall!!) to help collect donations. Sara and I both bought programs and got him to sign them (he charged $5 for autographs, but at least it all went to charity). We also managed to get Peter Jackson (director of the Lord of the Rings movies) to sign them as well! It was very exciting for nerds like us!

The next big thing- the third and final photo shoot. The shoot ended up being quite different from what was originally planned- in that less than half the dancers showed up who had actually confirmed attendance, and then we ended up having, at one point, more photographers than photographees. But no matter, it was a great time, and photo cred goes to Big Mark Photography, Rob Wilson Photography, Kate Griffiths Photography, and Wild Kiwi Photography. Also, a shout out to Abigail Helsby for being a volunteer make up artist- though the zombie theme didn't work out (long story), we still appreciated your help and presence! Love ya girl!

This is the beginning- when our original photoshoot location was jacked by a large group of ukulele players, we moved on to this spot. This was an action shot of Mark and I being photo dictators... 

I trust Ahmed... mostly. Though I have to say, this jump came close to changing that- and the shape of my fingers.

Nanmie doing his thang.

Uh huh...

Ummm... I was tired- and cold!

Eddie- first time dancing with this guy, too bad he couldn't stay in Wellington longer!

Jeck dancing away- action shot!

We moved to a new location for the next 10 shots or so- pretty neat spot.

This next series of photos is at a new location again- the one we were originally supposed to shoot at on Cuba Street. Ahmed, Eddie, Jeck and I had a little dance battle and these composite shots are taken from that. We gathered a little audience too- and I was actually recognized the following day in a cafe by a woman who had watched us and took her own pictures- crazy!

The gang!

The next big thing that happened was my trip up the east coast of the North Island. I visited: Hastings, Matamata, Tauranga and Rotorua. Here are the photos from the trip!

I stayed with my good friend, Stephen, and his family in their home in Hastings. Stephen and I spent an afternoon in Napier and these are a sampling of the photos- and foolishness- that ensued!

MINI-PUTT!!! So awesome! (P.S. I really suck at mini-putt).

Lunch time! Very good food! I got eggs benedict.

It started to rain that night, so Stephen's dad picked us up and we drove to the top of a ridge/mountain whose name I can't actually recall, but there was a mural on top of it, and this ^^ is a picture of the world's longest place name. With the crappy weather we couldn't actually see the real thing from our viewpoint, but we were close by.

Being the super awesome people that we are- we spent an evening putting together this three-dimensional Hobbiton puzzle while watching the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring- and proceeding to make fun of the characters as we did so. Though we spent more time rehearsing everyone's movie lines with varying degrees of success.

Hobbiton photos! Hobbiton is located close by Matamata, which is this cute little town, full of friendly people. I was just standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the tour bus, and a guy on his skateboard skated by and said 'Hey bro' as he passed- this is a popular greeting in New Zealand. Anyways, so Hobbiton was amazing and I was... very excited as we walked through the site, as you will see...

Fun Fact: They made hobbit holes of varying size, depending on the character who would be filmed by the holes i.e. if the hobbits were being filmed, the holes were fairly large, big enough for a normal sized person to stand in, but if a human (or a wizard) was filmed by a hole, it would be a much smaller replica to make them seem taller.

This oak tree above Bilbo Baggins' house is made entirely of fibre glass- our guide told us that many a cut was had when the leaves had to be put on!

Tauranga- arguably the best beaches in New Zealand, it reminded me of a tropical island. The mountain on the right is Mount Maunganui.

Sheep! There are 7 sheep for every 1 person in New Zealand.

Rotorua! Well known for its smell- because of the geysers around (and in) the city, it has a strong sulphur smell (volcano lava heats up the water above and creates water spouts, known as geysers- my geology terminology and knowledge of the process is very sparse, so please excuse me if this is not the exact process). The geyser(s) I visited were at a place called 'Te Puia'.

It was at Te Puia where I met a lovely German couple (Nadine and Michael) who have been traveling for the past 3 years- we ended up driving over to the redwood forest nearby. They were amazing people- with equally amazing stories! I was recommended to visit the redwood forest by a man I met in Tauranga while climbing down Mount Maunganui- and I was glad for the suggestion!

Here's the redwood forest.

My week up the coast was very packed- I arrived in Rotorua mid-morning on a Thursday, and was scheduled to leave that night around 11:30pm. I went into a nice cafe/restaurant to get dinner and noticed that black ice had made the front page news (these are the winter months in NZ, but their winter is far from the winter we get in Canada!). I kinda thought it was funny, so I took a photo. I made friends with the people who worked in the cafe and we went to a local dive after they closed up the cafe and we had a drink before one of them took me to the bus station. They were so great to help out a stranger!

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As I wrote this blog post 2 years ago, I cannot exactly tell you what happened next, except that I: visited Abel Tasman park for a tramping trip, and spent a few memorable days in Queenstown (but couldn't go skydiving because of the weather *stomps foot in frustration* and had a couple days in Dunedin as well with a lovely woman who I met in Pahia, and her daughter.. cried an exorbitant amount in the Wellington airport when I said goodbye to Tali and my other kiwi friends, and travelled back to Canada.


BUT all that was 2 years ago... when I forgot to hit the "publish" button.

Why is the blog now re-surfacing, you may ask?

Stay tuned for my trip updates to...

PANAMA!

A 4 month graduate course/ masters' research adventure beginning on January 6th 2015.

Photos and more consistent blog posts coming soon!