Kia ora, Aotearoa

I am not quite sure I can really capture all of what has happened since my last entry.  It was my original intention to write a full post just about the things I did on my next day in Seattle.  That much alone would have been enough for an entire blog post.  However, I’ve just got so much running around in my head that I don’t quite know where to start.  I’ll try my best to capture what’s been going on…

My next day in Seattle was quite awesome.  I started the day with Henry telling me it was time to get up and get going!  We all got dressed and sorted and headed out for the day.  We went all over!  We started the day off by taking Audrey to her dance lesson.  While Em watched her primadonna, Henry and I made some awesome rock hills outside the studio.  After Audrey had finished her ballet/tap combo, we headed into town.  Driving over a “floating bridge” is quite a feat.  On one side we had what I would call Defcon 5 water rapids and on the other side it was quite calm.  Mind you, we were being blown all about by the wind the whole time!  We saw and did some cool things once we got into town.  I took LOTS of pictures of the Space Needle, it was so tall!  We also went down to the Public Market where they do the fish throwing!  There were loads of vendors for all sorts of things ranging from honey to jerky to expensive wood carvings.  My mom would have loved it!  Almost immediately as we stepped into the market, however, Seattle showed her true nature.  The wind and the rain had come.  Trying to wait out the weather, we stepped into a cool restaurant that has some fame; the Athenian.  The place, aside from having delicious food, was also a spot for a scene from “Sleepless in Seattle”.  We eventually decided to brave the rain and headed back home.  The night concluded with an impromptu dance party by the kids…they still had some energy, I guess!  All in all, Seattle was so much fun.  I had a great time getting to know Emilie’s kids and also really enjoyed getting to catch up with her!

I am going to skip a lot of the stuff about my flights out of Seattle to Dunedin to save some space in this post.  I do want to mention one cool thing from my Air New Zealand flight from LA to Auckland.  Since we were missing Valentine’s Day due to our crossing of the date line, the flight staff handed out postcards and let us fill them out to send back home!  The Kiwis were already proving to be quite a nice bunch of people.  Fast forward a few flights and some small layovers and I made it!  I landed in Dunedin with no trouble and met the most fantastic host counselor ever, Claire Ramsay.  Claire is the President of her Rotary Club here in Dunedin and is also serving as my host counselor.  Once I landed, she was there to pick me up and we set off to Dunedin!  Despite the long flights, I still had enough energy to just be completely blown away by the landscape.  What we call mountains, they call hills.  These things were touching the clouds and they still only call them hills!  Nevertheless, we made it into Dunedin and I got settled at Claire’s place with her partner Barry.  The house has an amazing view of the harbor and the “hills” and it was such a welcome sight after being on a plane for so long.  Before we set off for dinner, I decided it was time to wash the “flight grime” off and headed for a good shower.  We drove down the road a bit and ate at the little café where I had my first taste of true Kiwi cuisine: fish ‘n chips.  It was delicious, for the record.  The night ended with us just chatting a bit and me finally not being able to keep my eyes open past 9:00pm.  Just before I sign off here, I wanted to let you all in on something you may not know.  The sun sets MUCH later here than it does in KY, at least in the NZ summer season.  In fact, when I went to bed at 9:30pm the sun had only just set 2 minutes before and the twilight was still pretty early on in it’s going!  It is really quite shocking just how long the days are, but I am grateful for the extra sun.  I immediately passed out upon hitting the bed, but it was good because my next adventure was coming bright and early in the morning.  I was headed to Queenstown!