As you may have noticed, I did not get this blog entry published before I left for my holiday travels. Though the week before holiday was not very interesting, I will post this anyway. Internet was sometimes hard to come by in the backpackers (hostels) Bev and I stayed in, so I have not posted for quite some time. Over the next few days, look for my recounts of all our amazing adventures!
Sunday, August 14
Today turned out to be a pretty busy day. After lunch, I met my friend from linguistics class at the rec centre, and we played table tennis for an hour. It was a fun activity to do since it was raining outside. When we were done playing, we walked to Lambton Quay to a sushi place, but it ended up being closed. I planned to go to St. John’s, but when I got there, at the same time as Rayce, we realised that there was not a service tonight. So I walked back up to my hostel (in the wind and rain) and went to Te Puni choir practice instead. The traditional song we are doing is ‘Adiemus.’ I haven’t heard of it, but so far, I really like it. We still don’t know what our modern song is going to be.
Monday, August 15
After a week of really nice weather, winter came back with a vengeance. The temperature dropped, and it rained off and on during the day. In the afternoon, it snowed, which a very rare occurrence in Wellington. By dinnertime, the weather was truly foul: windy with a wintry mix pelting the windows of the dining hall. The gas shut down, so dinner was late and the rooms were left with no heat for a period of time. Throughout the night, the lights flickered every so often, but the power never went out completely.
Tuesday, August 16-Thursday, August 18
The weather continues to be more like winter than I have experienced so far in Wellington. It’s cold, the wind has picked up, and it rains off and on all day. I’ve been using my electric blanket every night. Though it isn’t fun walking to lectures with the wind blowing rain in your face, the Arizonan part of me still enjoys watching and listening to the rain from my window. However, now that holiday is only a few days away, I am fervently hoping that the weather will turn agreeable again.
On Thursday, we had another choir practice, our last until after holiday. We worked through about half of ‘Adiemus,’ and we decided to do ‘Grease is the Word’ for our modern song.
Friday, August 19
Bev is finally here! Today was spent getting ready to leave on our holiday travels through both North and South islands.
After my class tango class, I waited for Bev to arrive. She was going to take the bus from the airport to uni and hopefully get here about the time I was done with tango, but her plane was late. She made it to Wellington Station on the bus, and then decided to walk the rest of the way instead of wait 25 minutes for the next bus. I started walking toward her, and we met somewhere in between the two points. It was so good to see her again!
We had planned to meet Rayce for milkshakes, partly to celebrate the end of tango, but getting Bev and her things to my room ended up taking longer than we anticipated. We met Rayce and ended up joining him and a few of his friends from his program for dinner. We ate at an Indian restaurant, and it was very good food. We went for the milkshakes after, but Bev and I couldn’t finish ours because we were so full.
Bev and I spent the night in my floor’s common room playing games and listening to music. We played five games of Set in a row, which is a new record. A couple people from my floor came by and played for a bit. It was a great start to our two-week holiday together.
