I miss NZ terribly. I miss walking down the main street, George Street, and just watching people. I miss hearing the kiwi accent everywhere I go. I miss singing with the Cantores choir. I miss my friends - all the kiwis I met and the Americans!
Re-adjusting to life in the US has been a lot simpler than I thought it would be. It was so hard to adjust to life and culture in NZ. I grew accsutomed to living there and thought it would be weird re-adjusting to life back home, but it hasn't been. A couple of things that had me confused for a while were light switchs and traffic. In the US, you flip a light switch up to turn it on and down to turn it off. In NZ, it's the complete opposite! This definitely confuses me at times. Also, sometimes I forget what side traffic is supposed to be on. I actually made a turn onto the left side of the road once. Lol, I know, I just wasn't thinking! Also, when i'm walking on the sidewalk, I want to move to the left when I pass someone instead of moving to the right.
I still find myself saying NZ things like 'aye' and 'keen' and 'uni' and 'did you?' And whenever I hear or read something about NZ, I immediately tune myself into that. I'm so alert and aware about anything having to do with NZ.
Some photoes from my last weeks in NZ:
Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world!
Me and Anna at the topp of Baldwin Street.
My last dawn in NZ.
Lighthouse at Nugget Point in the Catlins.
Rocks at Nugget Point.
Damian with the petrified forest at Curio Bay.
Me with Niagara Falls.
McClean Falls. It was amazing.
Me and the flatties (plus Tiffany) at Velvet Burger.
Me, Anna, & Jess. My last Saturday in Dunedin. We went out dancing.
I woke up in the morning for my second final exam, and this was outside! We had a snowball fight. In the middle of June.
Lighthouse at Nugget Point.
Me with the lighthouse.
Me and Damian.
Pourakanui Bay.
I wrote this while on my flight back to the US. It's a reflection of my semester in NZ. It's really long, but I hope you enjoy it:
When I tell myself that I just spent four months in New Zealand, I almost don’t believe it. The past semester went by so quickly. Too quickly.
I’m sitting on an airplane, on my way home to Hawaii. We’re going to be crossing the equator soon, and it will be a significant moment for me - leaving behind the southern hemisphere and returning to the north. I wanted to write a big blog before I left the country, but I didn’t have the time. I was too busy - studying for exams, taking exams, packing my things, volunteering at the Red Cross Shop, hanging out with my friends. I’m still amazed at how I managed to squeeze so many things into my last couple weeks in New Zealand.
When I think about my experience abroad, I think about the things I’ve learned and the ways I’ve changed. The changes and the lessons vary from simple to significant - from improving my cooking skills exponentially and learning to read music to discovering a profound sense of strength and bravery as well as finally losing my age self-conscious-ness.
New Zealand made me learn how to cook. Prior to New Zealand, I’d only cook the simplest things - basic variations of pasta. Because my flatmates and I came up with a cooking schedule that required each of us to cook dinner one night a week, I had the chance to practice. My three flatmates are amazing cooks! I was so impressed with their ability to come up with such delicious and creative things. I had to keep up with their level of awesomeness, and so I pushed myself to step outside of my tiny cooking box and try out different things. Trust me, it was awkward at first, especially when having to convert non-metric units into metric-units (Lol) - and onions (oh onions, how they make me cry). But really, practice does make perfect. This semester, I’ve made seafood chowder, corn chowder, shepherd’s pie, chimichangas, quesadillas, vegetarian chili, my own alfredo sauce (NZ doesn’t have alfredo!!), pizza, vegetarian lasagna, etc. I’ve realised that I can actually cook and that I enjoy cooking. It’s relaxing and it’s fun. I like looking for recipes online, and then changing them and adding my own touch :]. Awww, Christina’s growing up.
New Zealand made me learn to read music. When I first started singing with Cantores, it was incredibly difficult. I remember the very first practice I ever went to - Greg kept throwing song after song after song at us and didn’t take the time to go through each part. Everyone was sight reading and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I suck’. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what I should even sing. It was that same day that Greg announced that we had two weeks to learn the second half of Handel’s Messiah. Yeah. That was so intense. After that first practice, I remember contemplating whether I’d even go back. For some reason, I decided to tough it out and just do it. It was one of the best choices I made in NZ. Singing with Cantores has been the main reason why my time in NZ was so amazing. It was where I got the opportunity to do what I love to do - sing :]. It’s also where I met amazing people and made friends. The Cantores social life is unbeatable, I think :D. Kimberly and I started hanging out all the time and when I told her I had no idea how to read music, she started giving me little lessons on the piano. Over time, I could sense the change in myself and my singing. I was starting to match the sound of a note with the actual note itself. I was starting to pick up on the songs quicker. I was more confident in my singing. I wouldn’t go so far to say that I’m good at reading music because I’m really not. I have so much more progress to make before I can feel satisfied, but I’m happy with the fact that if you were to give me a simple sheet of music, I’d probably be able to figure it out and play it on piano for you….eventually :].
New Zealand made me realise that I am so much stronger and braver than I think. Tramping the Rockburn Track during Easter was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. It drove me to the edge, physically and mentally. In my lowest point during the tramp when I just broke down and said, ‘Screw this, I can’t finish’, I was still able to find the strength to push myself, somehow. Out there in the crazy, intense wilderness of NZ’s southern alps, I discovered a whole side of myself that I never even knew existed. When we finished and got to the end of the track, I was so proud of myself; I felt like I could do anything. And then in May I went bungy jumping and it was the craziest, most insane, most spontaneous, and the most financially irresponsible thing I’ve ever done. It was amazing. It’s indescribable how it feels to fall like that. These are things that I never, ever would have imagined myself doing. I’m not normally a crazy risk-taker, but NZ made me realise I was tired of leading a boring, risk-less life :]. I remember telling Eric I jumped and him saying, ‘What? You just never seemed like the bungy-jumping type, Christina’. I think his comment bothered me at first, but then I realised he was probably right. Would you have thought I’d ever do something insane like throw myself 142 feet off of a bridge? NZ has changed me. I feel this need to constantly push myself, to test myself, to discover myself in completely new ways, and most of all, to surprise you.
Finally, NZ made me love my age. I used to feel uncomfortable with my age, especially when I was around anyone who was significantly older than me - my parents’ friends, my professors, co-workers, etc. I always felt like I was so young - anyone older than me would look at me like I was just a silly, naïve, little kid. Singing with the Cantores Choir allowed me to meet people whose ages ranged from 18 to 60. These people became some of my closest friends in NZ. We hung out together often. We travelled together. We watched movies together. We had drinks at the pub together. We sang together. We laughed and cried together. It made me realize that a person’s age really doesn’t matter. If we can have fun together and connect on a really profound level, why should age matter at all? It really opened me up to a lot of amazing experiences, and I’m so thankful for that.
When I think back to NZ, all I can do is smile. There were good and bad experiences. All of these experiences have changed me and helped shaped me into a smarter, stronger, and wiser person. Living in NZ has changed my life in so many ways. I’m going to be connected to this country forever and I know this is not the end; I’ll be back someday.
