Journey and Arrival Home

I departed Auckland on Thursday afternoon, Sept 15th, exactly one year after I had arrived.  My visa was expiring on Friday.  I flew on Air Tahiti from Auckland to Tahiti (where I arrived at about 9pm Wednesday night, confusing even for the airline employee who checked me in).  I was greeted by the tropical guitar player and hula-like dancers before going back through security and waiting in the half indoor/outdoor lounge before boarding the plan again to fly to LAX.  I arrived in LA Wednesday morning at about 10am...a day and a couple of hours before I even left Auckland (technically).  There I had to collect my bags, go through customs and luckily only walk up the sidewalk a slight distance to check back in with American Airlines.  With my cart full of my 4 huge bags, I nearly rolled back down the slight incline I was trying to go up.  And it was HOT in LA....people were looking at me like I was crazy for wearing Ugg boots!

I had plenty of time once I checked in, so I got some chips and dip for the flight to Dallas.  When going to pay, I had to think twice about the price, forgetting that I had to add in the tax to what I was expected to pay.  Soon I was on my way to Dallas, where I had another short layover before continuing on to Hartford.  There I decided to have another snack, cinnamon sugar Auntie Annie's pretzel will vanilla icing. It was delicious!  Already, I was exciting about all the yummy food I'd get to eat when I got home.  Feeling pretty tired at this point, standing up to board the plane I thought I saw someone I recognized, but thought maybe I was just imaging the similarity... just to be sure I walked around the line to get a better look and sure enough, I had been in the country less than 12 hours and I was about to get on the same plane home as Rose, a girl I swim with in high school!  Even crazier...she was in the seat directly behind mine!  So I had someone to have a little chat with, though we would have needed way more than a plane ride to REALLY catch up since it have been about 6 years since we'd last seen each other!

Finally, I arrived in Hartford just after midnight.  In the car waiting for me was another snack, a chocolate cream-filled donut from Atkins! Yum Yum!  We got home just after 1am where I proceeded to unpack all my things searching for things to show my parents.  I was up until after 4am and then slept until about 2pm Friday.  I didn't jump right back in to settling in to the time difference.

Friday night, Dani came and tried the new Mexican restaurant at the end of our street with use.  It was PACKED so we ended up bringing it back to my house, but it was pretty delicious!

Saturday, we headed for Fenway Park with Greg and met Auntie Diane and Uncle Jim to watch the Red Sox.  A nice little homecoming outing (apart from the fact that they lost and continued to lose the rest of the month....).  It was a successful day in all though, since I had Chipotle, which I had been missing for quite some time!

The next week we spent at Cape Cod visiting with Jack and Sandra before they drove back to Florida.  Although, I spent the majority of the time catching up on my Anatomy and Physiology w/lab course online.  I had 3 weeks of material to learn for the exam that weekend.

Now, I am all caught up on sleep, studying, eating, laundry, organizing and starting an Abnormal Psych course as well.  Soon I'll probably start applying to Occupational Therapy Master's programs and continue searching for some money-making opportunities so I can save up for when Jacques arrives Dec 22nd!

Tahiti Welcome Crew

FIJI

From Sept 3rd-Sept 12th, Jacques and I were in Fiji! It was a nice tropical holiday, and my little dose of "summer" before heading home for my second winter in a row.  We flew into Nadi and spent one night at a place on the beach near the airport there.  Our taxi driver that dropped us off, offered to pick us up in the morning and drive us down to the Coral Coast to the Hideaway Resort, where we'd spend our next 5 nights.  It was much prettier on the Coral Coast than where we stayed in Nadi, but there was NOTHING around, they obviously tried to keep you in the resort!  I was slightly disappointed that you could only go in the sea when the tide was high, since there was so much coral, the break was miles offshore and there was maybe a foot of water at low tide.  But when It was high, there was great snorkeling and kayaking.  We saw some Nemo fish right at the resort.

Breakfasts were AMAZING! Buffett of anything you could ever want at breakfast time and a guy making  any kind of egg you asked for, showing off his cooking talents.  We often walked down the road to this little "restaurant" I guess you could call it, where we made friends with some locals and got advice about the local bus (since it was SO cheap) and at out of the resort sometimes since it was much cheaper.  We asked at the resort how much a taxi would be to the closest town, Sikatoka...they told us $50 return.  So we just stood out front of the resort with some of the locals that worked there and waiting for the next local bus.  It was $1.90 each to get there and a slightly fancier bus was about $2.00 each back!  And either the buses were frequent or we just hit the schedule perfectly without knowing it!  Each time we wandered out front of the resort to catch a bus, one appeared in less than 5 minutes!  We even caught one to another resort up the road for dinner one night and then found out that they had stopped running.  The security people at the Warwick (the resort we ate at) told us to stand and flag down one of the shuttle vans and they would take us back to Hideaway.  But being dark, you pretty much have to try and flag down every car that comes by.  Lots just kept driving, but the first one to stop was not a van, but a man in his pickup.  Turns out his job was basically to drive this girl back and forth from Nadi to Suva all the time and he was just on his way to back from a trip so he gave us a ride for $5.  A couple days later, we saw the same man making a pit stop in Pacific Harbor (about 1.5 hrs down the coast from where he'd picked us up)!

Our last day at Hideaway, we did horse trek along the beach, through a village and into the forrest up to a pretty waterfall.  It was really pretty scenery and nice to see something away from the beach.  Then we caught the bus along the coast, headed toward Suva, to Pacific Harbor, where we'd spend out final 3 nights in the Treehouse dormitory of the Uprising Resort.  It was nice to be a little closer to a town (not quite as big or touristy as Sigatoka and walking distance from the Resort).  We had many more eating options with much cheaper prices.  And we found a place showing the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony (in Auckland) on a huge screen.  They had even just brought in a solid hardwood table to complete their furniture earlier that day.  We watched about 20 people unload this table weighing 1.5 metric ton.  It was quite a process!  It was nice that Fijians were so into their Rugby so we didn't feel too far away from the action, but we felt a little silly seeing it on TV when we could have easily been there in person!

Our second to last day in Fiji we took a jet-ski safari tour out to Yanuca Island in Beqa Lagoon.  The ride out was a lot of fun, plus we had a lot of extra play-time on the jet-skis while we waiting for them to  find one with a good battery for the guide to ride.  I drove on the way out and since we were the closest to the guide (in our formation) he kept trying to spray us by swerving, so I decided I'd try to get him back...only I sort of forgot how how such a sharp turn could affect a passenger on the back...oops! Luckily, Jacques had a good grip and avoided being thrown off.  He said it was close though!  At Yanuca Island, we had lunch and there was AMAZING snorkeling.  We saw many more kinds of fish of all different shapes, sizes and colors.  The water was easily 20-25 deep in places but crystal clear right to the bottom.  Driving back on the jet-ski, Jacques was a much nicer driver to me than I was to him, fortunately, I didn't need to worry too much about getting thrown off :)

Monday, we got a taxi from the Uprising back up to Nadi and actually right to Denarau Resort Island to check out all the high class resorts, restaurants and shopping before heading to the airport.  We ended up paying half of what we did to get to Hideaway (which was only about a 90 min trip) and this was closer to a 3 hour trip!  Crazy how prices differ so much.  Local transportation was the best way to go!  Getting from Denarau to the airport, a Taxi wanted to charge us $30 for the 10 min trip....we had only just paid about $40 for our 3 hour one, so we waited for the bus to come around, where we'd take it to the station in Nadi and switch to one going past the airport.  The bus we rode to the airport was mostly full of school children on their way home.  It stopped outside and we walked from the road into the airport, I can't say that I'd even walked up to the airport before!  But it was easy and worth it since it only cost us about $5 to get there versus $30 by taxi!  In general, Fiji was beautiful and nice and warm! Although, we only saw a bit of the southern coast of the main island.  I would love to go touring all the little island groups just north of that island, I'm sure it would be a whole different experience!

Coral Coast, Hideaway Resort

There goes a nemo fish!

Happy hour torch lighting ceremony

The Wicked Walu restaurant

Moving the huge table!

Table finally in place

Pacific Harbor, Uprising Resort

Hold on tight!

most of the shells on the beach walked

Staring competition with Nemo

our final local bus to the airport

Playing Catch Up...

So, as you all probably already know, or may have figured out by now, I am back home :(  I can't believe my year-long, exciting adventure is over! Anyway, there are few other exciting things I did before I left that I haven't yet discussed yet...

First of all, I took a solo ski trip (since Thursday and Friday 25th and 26th of August were going to be such good weather, and no one could come with me)!  I left Auckland around 4:30am Thursday morning and arrived at Turoa, at the base to get my ski's 4 hours later.  I was delighted to find out that my car actually made it up the mountain road!  However, I ended up leaving my lights on...since it had become light out, and they don't beep at me...so my battery was completely dead by the time I went to drive back down to Station Lodge.  Fortunately, they had someone come and jump it and it was fine from then on.  I guess that happens to lots of people, just because their cars aren't used to the cold weather!

It was absolutely gorgeous weather and a great day of skiing.  Friday, I drove around the mountain because I wanted to try out the Whakapapa side before leaving NZ.  That turned out to be another beautiful day full of really nice ski runs.  But the trails weren't quite as connected as they were at Turoa, and I found out the hard way, that if you want to stay up on the nice snow you stick to the T-Bars and avoid going back down to any of the chairlifts where all the kids and traffic and slushy snow are.  Here are a few photos from my 2 days....

Turoa

Whakapapa

Koalas and Kangaroos!

I had a fabulous weekend in Sydney with Fiona Davidson!

Friday was a busy day.  First, I dropped off the kids at school.  Then I grabbed a coffee down in Devonport while I waited for the 9:30 Kimax class to start.  The class was pretty hard but a good workout to start the morning, then at 10:30 I rushed home, showered and caught the 11:25 ferry over to the city to meet Jacques for lunch in the new Viaduct section before catching the bus to the airport.

I was off to Sydney at 4pm.  When I landed, Fi was there waiting for me, and I was the first one out because I was fairly close to the front of the plane and didn't have any checked baggage.  It was windy and then on the car journey back to Epping started raining pretty badly.  There was also a ton of rush hour traffic, but we went across the harbor bridge getting a tiny bit of a view through all the rain.  The forecast was for rain all weekend and it seemed like it had begun already.

We didn't get up to much that night, just had the traditional Kenny's take-away, apparently a treat all foreign visitors have experienced.  Then we had a skype chat with Nathan...who was still up at 4:50 am...and then in an attempt to try out the group hang out on google +, we were greeted by his sleeping face when the plugin finally loaded and the chat opened.  It was actually quite hilarious and we couldn't wake him up!

Saturday morning we were in for a pleasant surprise!!  It was SUNNY! And remained that way the entire day until we were in Jersey Boys that night.  We took the train into Circular Quay and The Rocks and wandered around for a bit, making sure to check out the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House.  I really liked the Rocks Market, lots of neat stalls and crafts and things.  I even found myself a nice ring!  We ate at Pancakes on the Rocks for lunch...it was delicious!!  Then we took a ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbor, had another wander around and went to Blackbird for happy hour.  Then we moved to Nick's restaurant, also overlooking the harbor and had a delicious rib dinner!! A rack and a half to share...the waitress definitely should have stopped up from getting that many! They were massive!! We only had 3 left in the end though...but were very full and had to get to Jersey Boys!  We were in the second row on the edge, much cheaper seats than the people next to us...exact same view.  The show was great.

After the show we walked back and took the train home.  Oh and on the train, the seats are little cushioned benches, but the back flip around to either side, so that you can always face the way the train is going....people just got on and flipped the seats and sat down, I sat going backwards and Fi was like, you want to ride that way?  She flipped her seat and sat down, I wouldn't have known you could do it if I didn't see her do it, then everyone else that go on the train!  I ended up being the only one facing backwards (it was easier to have a conversation that way) and everyone was looking at me, like why are you facing the wrong way?

Sunday, we went to the Koala park where we got to pet a Koala and feed the Kangaroos, both very soft and cute.  Much better experience than the zoo, we could get up close and personal for a lot cheaper and it was right around the corner from Fi's house in Epping.  Then we went to the shopping center so I could get a few cheap souvenirs and ate lunch, once again at a Nick's (diner this time).  I flew home at 7pm and the rain started again on the way to the airport.  it ONLY rained when we were inside, after being forecast for the whole weekend.  Pretty lucky!

Lunch at Pancakes

Amazingly delicious huge ribs at Nick's

Mama and her Joey