Alex in New Zealand: Arrival and Rotorua

We arrived in NZ at 4:45 am yesterday, July 3^rd. Here, it doesn’t get light out until about 7:30 am, which was definitely a shock. After everybody had made it through customs and got there luggage, it was about 8:00 am. We all hoped onto the bus with our hilarious driver Lefty and our two AustraLearn leaders Bob (who is British), and Eleanor (who is Canadian!). We did the tourist thing and saw boiling pots of mud, Lake Rotorua, some old buildings, and a little bit of downtown. After that, we headed back to our hostile Kiwi Paka, and just hung out in the bar there. Outside the bar is a geothermally heated pool; which we all obviously spent a little time in before heading off to bed.

Today we went to Rainbow Springs and saw some awesome local wild life, like the kiwi birds. The afternoon me and 4 other people went to downtown Rotorua and explored the city while shopping for a few things that we had left at home. While on of my friends went to change some money over, I found a bike shop a couple stores away. I got to talk to a guy there who told me all about the bike scene there and in Auckland. I also a got a catalogue for company that is local to New Zealand called EMC2. The also have the NZ version of “bike” magazine. Yay bikes!

After visiting a local museum we headed outside to go home but it had started pouring! So we all went over to a local coffee shop called Zippy’s (it’s a bike themed coffee shop!!) and had some of the most beautiful and delicious cappuccinos.

Here are some pics!