Day Three: June 8th, 2011

          After a long plane ride, we met our tour guide, Alec, and bus driver, the awesome Lionel. We got straight into the coach and headed for Rotorua, about three hours outside of Auckland. Driving through the New Zealand countryside, I was wonderstruck by its beauty. The scenery out my window was too pretty to be caught on camera; it was amazing there. We stopped about halfway in Matamata, AKA Hobbiton. You guessed it, it's where the Lord of the Rings was filmed. After a lunch break and about another hour in the bus, we arrived in Rotoura. The town smelled of rotton eggs thanks to all of the sulfur in the geothermal area. Nonetheless, it was beautiful, with a layer of steam covering the mountains. Again, it was picture-perfect. We took a sky gondola up to a mountain overlooking Lake Rotorua, and had a blast trying out the scenic luge, which is like a go-kart down a cement path. It literally went halfway down the mountain, and I had the time of my life exploring with my friends.

Prompt: List your initial impressions of New Zealand, as well as three culture shocks and what else you are looking forward to.

                My initial impressions of the last 48 hours were absolutely scattered. Upon entering the school before departing, I could tell that this would be a great group of kids to travel with, seeing that we all fed off of each others’ excitement. Once we arrived at the airport and the computers started crashing, I felt like the trip could easily fall apart at any moment; I didn’t even have an actual seat on the plane! Once we got travel arrangements figured out and arrived in New Zealand, however, I felt as though I had arrived in an entirely new world. Driving on the left side of the street, gas prices at $205.9 per liter, and scenery that was straight out of Narnia cemented my thoughts. The beauty of the New Zealand countryside cannot be captured by a camera; everything here is just so spectacularly, magically different.

                The fact that the passenger’s side and driver’s side of cars are flip-flopped in New Zealand definitely shocked me. I caught a glimpse of a three year old sitting in what I instinctively thought to be the driver’s seat and I almost freaked out. My second shock would have to be the countryside. Like I said before, it is indescribable. No pictures do it justice, and the everglades found in between Auckland and Rotorua look almost artificial, as if they came straight out of a movie. I had no idea what to expect when we arrived in NZ, and the scenery definitely blew me away. My third shock is simply the kind nature of New Zealanders. Kiwis stopped us both on the streets and in stores to ask where we were from, what our trip entailed, how we got chosen to come; the list goes on. Bottom line is, if you walked into a café back home with no intention of buying anything, I doubt anyone would offer you water, a restroom, and a place to relax.

                For me, this trip is all about pushing my limits, so I can’t wait to do just that. Today I tried the luge, and later on I will attempt to conquer my fear of heights by climbing the Sydney Bridge. I will snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef, and I will make friends with both people from Grayslake as well as Down Under. So far, so good!