10 Years Later

Hey look - who knew I still remembered that I had this blog and also that I could successfully log in. 

I went on a trip earlier this year and figured I would update anyone who happens to come across this place. The stats here says I still get a few views so I might as well. Back at the end of April I flew to New Zealand for 2 weeks. A solo trip as is most of my trips. 

The trip itself was amazing and I'm having a hard time not planning my next trip back to New Zealand this time to the south island. In the spring I just hit the north island and drove around myself. I was a little nervous, partially for the driving part but also just for the picking up the rental car. I was worried I'd get there and there'd be an issue with my license, or they wouldn't have a car for me. But when I landed after my 13 hour flight it all went super smoothly. 

The next part after I picked up the car was the driving, driving on the left side of the road was going to be different for sure. Google maps was a life saver, my first stop was just a coffee shop, it was a short 15 minute drive or so. If only I had recorded that first drive, not where I was driving but my commentary cause I spent the whole drive talking to myself. Repeating the directions from the maps, and talking myself through the road rules, and only a little bit of swearing. I successfully made it to that coffee shop and had a breakfast of eggs benedict and a flat white. After my long flight and landing at about 5:30am I only had 11 hours or so before I could check into my AirBNB. If only I had tracked how many steps I did that day, I spent hours just walking around a park in Auckland and the Auckland Botanic Gardens. I figured best way to stay awake was to keep moving and it worked pretty good. 

The rest of the trip when amazing, driving ended up being perfectly fine. I never once turned onto the wrong side of the road. Since you're sitting on the other side of the car it threw everything else out of wack that driving on the other side of the road made sense. 

My favourite part of the trip? That changes depending on the day, my answer sometimes is the tour in the evening of the glow worm caves was memorable, it ended on a little boat ride to see the glow worms in complete silence (except for the one baby who was crying, no fault of the parents though). Some days it's the tour of Hobbiton including the lunch buffet. I had to remind myself about halfway through the tour that this was a movie set tour and not a historical tour. It was exactly what I wanted from the tour and I highly recommend. Other days it was day I spent up around Mount Doom, or at least what they call Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. I drove up a ways and had cell service so I facetime'd my parents from up there which was super cool. There are a few other things I could think of as the possible favourite part too. 

It was an amazing trip, and 2 full weeks away from work, where it didn't really matter what time I got up in the morning. Or what time I went to bed. I've been on a few trips and highly recommend travelling by yourself if you can swing it. For someone like me who has a good amount of anxiety somehow it doesn't get me as much while travelling. Like at work making a phone call? Not a fan and have to work up to it. Put me in an airport by myself halfway across the world? No problem, I can find my rental car and jump in and drive. Stay alone at AirBNB's, go on tours, go to restaurants alone. The day I landed in Auckland after I spent the day at the park & botanical gardens it was finally time to head to my AirBNB just outside the city I found myself cruising down this like 4 lane highway, near construction, driving on the other side of the road. You'd thing oh - this is probably stressful right? Somehow nope, I had the music cranked and was singing along to my music at the top of my lungs. Don't ask me how it's different but it is. 

That's all I'll leave you with, who knows. Now that I've found this thing again maybe I'll come back and update again.