Sorry for the delay!

August 21st

Life has completely turned upside down in the last month with my return to the States, road trip to Montana, life on the reservation, and weekend trips (I’m currently in Canada as I write this). I still feel strange hearing an American accent (or Canadian is close enough) everywhere I go and it being summer. My trip with Emily up to Montana was amazing. We spent our first night in Vegas (not on the strip, just crashing at a friend’s house), and left at noon and drove the whole way through Utah and stayed in Idaho the second night. It was a great time... Relaxed in the jacuzzi and enjoyed the stars. Next day we were off through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone and stayed in Bozeman, Montana on the third night. Yes, that’s 6 states in 3 days.

But back to Yellowstone... The geothermal activity in Yellowstone is amazing. Driving through and seeing the steam rising from ground was mystical to say the least. We stopped by Old Faithful, of course, as well as some of the mud pots. The sound of the bubbling mud was awesome. From Bozeman, we went up to Whitefish and stayed there a few nights, did a day trip to some Canadian hot springs, an evening on Flathead lake, and a hike/raft trip in Glacier. I got completely soaked on one of the rapids, as in a huge wave of water came crashing down on top of me and I almost lost a contact. So much fun! Our drive along the Going to the Sun road was spectacular. Absolutely stunning. It’s beyond words and photos will never do it justice.I’ll fast forward to our current rotation. We are living in Wolf Point, Montana and working mostly at the Indian Health Service clinic in Poplar. We do have a grocery store here in Wolf Point, so that’s convenient, but there’s not much else. We had heard about Doc Z’s, a local microbrewery owned by the surgeon. We happened to stop by last Monday when they were closed, but they let us in since they were there with some friends having a beer. So we have a beer, chat a bit and then head out. The next day, the woman who we are staying with came downstairs to let us know that Doc Z had just called to let us know that they were open. I don’t think I’ve ever had a phone call from a bar wondering where I was.

I’ll leave you with a photo of the wide open sky I enjoy daily. Cheers!

14 days until I get sunburned

So I officially have 2 weeks left until I fly out from New Zealand. It feels strange to say that, but at the same time I can't wait to be home to see everyone for 10 days before I leave again. This has been an amazing time learning about New Zealand and seeing the country, but it has given me a different outlook on traveling extended periods of time. Considering the longest I have been out of the country is 3 weeks, this has been quite different. The common thought about the stages of emotionally reacting to travel and culture shock are in 4 stages. The length of stages for emotionally dealing with travel depend largely on whether one speaks the language, traveling companions, amount of communication from home, and who you are.

The first stage is the honeymoon phase. You love everything about this new place. The sights, sounds, smells, weather (maybe), and the food. This new place is the best thing since sliced bread. This is an easy stage to stay in New Zealand because it is so beautiful here. The people are lovely and there are very few things that you can't get at home.

The second stage is culture shock. This may come quickly when one does not speak the local language, but here in New Zealand is not a problem if you can hear through the accent. Culture shock doesn't have to be some big event or extremely stressful situation. It can creep up on you. It's a sly little monster.

The third and fourth stages are adjustment and acceptance. Then the whole cycle starts again when you return home. For each traveler there are differences in the stage when returning home and the best memories usually come from the honeymoon phase. The world just looks better through rose-colored glasses.

If you haven't guessed by now, I'm not exactly in the honeymoon phase. One of the aspects I think changes my outlook is that I'm not really coming home when I leave New Zealand. Arizona will be a quick stopover on my way up to Montana for my next rotation. One week in Arizona over 5 months. Yet another reason I am so excited my mom is traveling down here for my last week. It will be a great ending to an amazing trip.

I am looking forward to seeing as many people as possible during my short time at home!

Sickly few days :(

Unfortunately, I got sick and have been resting the past few days. I guess that is a price you pay for staying in a hostel and depending on people who are sick to clean their dishes properly. Oh well, it was a good excuse to relax all day and allow my body to heal.

The countdown has begun for my mom to arrive in 9 days! My time here the next week will be less interesting to people back home since I will just be doing some school work. I'm working out the details for my mom and I to see as much of the South Island in 6 days as possible. It will be a crazy trip, but tons of fun and lots of pictures.

Boulders, bikes, and birds

On our way up to Christchurch, we stopped by the Moeraki boulders to take a few pics. These boulders are perfectly round and just in this one location. We missed the entrance through the bushes to get back to the car and ended up walking through the sand for an extra 45 minutes. The first night we stayed in Oamaru and spent some time walking around the historical district. There is a bicycle group there with some old bikes on display as well as some other random displays courtesy of the town. The motorcycle pic is in honor of Brian's truck!
After exploring around Oamaru, we ventured out to find some penguins. The yellow-eyed penguin spot had been closed for several weeks because of some slips. Amie heard from her German friends that they had been out there to see the penguins just the week before and they had mentioned nothing about the path being closed. We decided that since they had done it and not even mentioned it was closed that it would be no big deal to make it out there . We hopped the fence and turn around the corner to find this:We thought that it would've been worth mentioning, but apparently this did not make an impression on the Germans. The viewing deck was close enough to see, but my camera does not make the photos very worthwhile. The penguin is waddling up the beach through the water in this photo. Good times in Oamaru!

Off to Christchurch

After sending off Andrea to go to her next rotation in Seattle, I've been organizing and packing to move out of my place in St. Clair. It is such a cute little place, but I will be up in Christchurch for a few days and then I'll be staying at a hostel when I get back to Dunedin. I'll update more when I'm back from Christchurch, but here are a few photos from Te Anau...

Milford Sound

Sunday afternoon we ventured out to Te Anau which is the closest town to Milford Sound to stay overnight. It was a 4 and a half four drive with a couple short stops in Gore and Mossburn. Apparently Gore is the place to be though, because it holds the title for New Zealand’s capital of country music and the world capital of brown trout fishing.
Milford Sound is actually misnamed... technically it is not a sound, but a fiord. When it was first named, fiord was not yet in the English vocabulary so hence it was named a sound. Here is a little vocab lesson for those of you, like me until yesterday, who have no idea what either of the two words mean. A sound is carved out by a river while a fiord is carved out by a glacier. Either way you call it, it’s gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. I almost feel ashamed to put up photos because it will never do it justice. We did a nature cruise around Milford Sound and even though you may not believe it, the tiny white spot just to the left of the bottom of the waterfall is actually another tour boat. It’s just amazing the sheer cliffs and how vegetation can actually grow. We happened to be there on a great day as the skipper said it was the first time in a week he had to put on his sunglasses. Words cannot describe how beautiful this place is... enjoy the pics!Sweet as...

The castle and All Blacks!

We started our Saturday out with visiting the Dunedin farmer’s market held at the Railway station. It’s a cute little market with local bakeries, farmers, and cheeseries. We had some chocolate crepes for breakfast, but they didn’t quite compare to the heavenly crepes in Arrowtown from our trip to Queenstown. We then spent the afternoon at the Larnach Castle on the Otago Peninsula. Such an amazing view!But the biggest news of the day is the night watching the All Blacks play Wales for the last time in Carisbrook. I went with some of the girls from the pharmacy school who happened to have an extra ticket and it was tons of fun! The rugby game started out a little slow, but the All Blacks came through with a great win. An official shout-out is due to Cori Friezen for the great suggestion of the hand and feet warmers. It was a clear night and it actually turned out to not be too cold, but I had already put on the feet warmers. It felt like a had an electric blanket in my shoes and I stayed nice and toasty all night! It was amazing how quiet the stadium was unless the All Blacks had just scored. So different from American football! I know it's a little hard to see, but the All Blacks just got a try (like a touchdown).

I know that there has been quite a delay, but my internet is not always reliable or lightning-quick. So this past week has been a slow wrap-up of my rotation. We went back to the university to finish up some data collection as well as finish our paper. The sun has been shining and the weather hasn’t been too chilly this week. One evening during a light rain, we witnessed a car hitting a pedestrian 5 feet in front of us. This poor guy had no shoes on and had his pants rolled up to his knees from the rain. It was surreal and completely in slow-motion. He turned out to be alright, but quite shaken up. I have made a resolution to carry my camera with me anytime I run. Andrea and I took a 2 hour walk around the city and out to the harbor. It just happened to be an amazingly sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. Dunedin is the home to New Zealand’s only dental school and also home to what I like to call Molarhenge. Quite a masterpiece, eh?
At lunch today, one of the New Zealand dental students asked Andrea what would happen if she became a sir. I figured I would do some interpreting since I was the only one aware that they had two very different paths for the question. Andrea was trying to decide if she should be offended since she was asked what she would be called if she had a sex-change, while he meant to ask what she would be called if she was dubbed by the Queen. It made for quite the laugh though.

This is the final countdown for Andrea’s last week here and we are trying to fit in as much as we can before she leaves. On the agenda are the local farmer’s market, our favorite breakfast place, and one more trip around the south island. I am so excited about having a ticket for the All Blacks rugby game on Saturday. Apparently rugby is quite the deal down here, so it will make for an amazing night!

Wanna go back to Wanaka

As we left Queenstown and headed for Wanaka, we had a few stops in Arrowtown, a bungy jump, and another vineyard along the way. Arrowtown was originally a gold rush town, so it’s not exactly the busiest place in the world anymore. But we had brunch at this amazing creperie run by a French family that had moved there about a year ago. Fantastic! Nutella and bananas make the perfect pair. We didn’t do the bungy jump, but got to see some jumpers. At this bridge, you can tell them exactly how much to dunk you in the river below. It would be quite the rush to get your head dunked in when it was so chilly and with the wind. The vineyard was beautiful with a fog just lifting out of the valley and frost on the leaves. We travelled the Crown Range road that is a shortcut between Q-town and Wanaka and saw some amazing scenery. It sometimes closes when the weather is bad, but luckily the weather had cleared up from the constant rain of the week before. I was especially thankful for the clear skies because of the hairpin turns and the odd aspect of driving on the left side of the road. Wanaka is a beautiful town right on the lake and quite a bit quieter than Q-town. There is this great place called Puzzling World in Wanaka that shows some of the tricks used in filming Lord of the Rings. It was quite fun to look around this place and try out their maze. We did fine at finding all the towers but getting back to the beginning took longer than we would like to admit! There are also some Roman-style restrooms that we thought we should try out. On our way back we decided to take the scenic route that goes the north way back to Dunedin through Ranfurly and out to Palmerston. It was absolutely amazing and we even stopped to play in the snow for a bit. I think Andrea was a bit confused on what that white stuff could be. On our drive back, there was a motorcycle rally that I was told is called Brass Monkey and occurs over the Queen’s Birthday holiday weekend every year. We saw hundreds of motorcycles everywhere we went going all directions. Andrea kept saying that maybe Saturday was a big day for motorcycles, but I think every motorcycle owner on the south island turned out for this thing. Ray, you would have loved it! It would have been a bit on the chilly side, but the views totally make up for it. All in all, this was an amazing little getaway!

Out to Queenstown...

The past week has been incredible! We started out at a local pharmacy in Caversham for a few days and then we rented a car to drive around Central Otago. I was the full-time driver since it’s cheaper for insurance because I’m 25. It took a little while to get used to the whole driving on the left thing, and they have this crazy right of way (give way) rule where if you are turning left, you must yield to other people turning into the lane you are about to turn into. I know that was kind of wordy, but pretty much it’s equivalent (back to the correct way of driving on the right hand side) to yielding to a person in oncoming traffic making a left-hand turn when you are making a right-hand turn. Absolutely insane. They are the only country in the world that does it this way and they are working on changing it because they realize it is so not the best way to drive. So after every stop or when we were driving in the city, Andrea would remind me which way I was going. Sometimes I would just talk out loud what I was doing and to whom I needed to give way just to make sure I was thinking like a Kiwi driver. Rather amusing at times, otherwise I got the hang of it. The roads are pretty windy and there are often times when there is no guard rail along a cliff. We drove out to Queenstown and stopped by a vineyard and cheesery on the way. We did the tour of their cave cellar and we timed it perfectly since they were filling up the barrels during our tour. Quite interesting.
We made it out to Queenstown pretty late in the day so we got a place to stay for the night and went walking around downtown. It is nice in New Zealand for walking around town because the town centers are very compact. They next morning we drove around the lake to Glenorchy which is the gateway to where some of the filming for Lord of the Rings took place (for those that would like to know, a little town, named Paradise, past Glenorchy is the setting for Isengard). I realized that I need to watch the Lord of the Rings movies again, because I don’t remember the movie names of any of the places on the map where they say filming was done. I know I keep saying this, but it is beautiful here. That was the hardest part about driving was that I didn’t get to take in all the scenery along the way. Once we made our way back to Q-town, we took a gondola ride to take in the incredible views. The Remarkables mountain range is gorgeous! While at the top of the mountain, we did the luge track and even though Andrea and I have both luged some pretty phenomenal places, we had a blast on this track. Cheers!

Tramping through the bush with torches

The internet has been down at our apartment for a few days, but there has been plenty going on down here. We spent Thursday and Friday at the Urgent Pharmacy. They have extended hours (10am-10pm) and are located right next to the Urgent Doctors. With the socialized healthcare, it is difficult to keep non-emergencies out of the emergency room, so the urgent doctors can treat you faster than the local emergency room for an extra fee. Andrea and I are trying to convince her sister to stay out here a little bit longer. It’s been nice to have her out here and we enjoy coming home to a meal on the table.

On Saturday, a local couple, Trev and Bernie, took us out to explore the southern coast. It was quite chilly with a morning temp in the high 30‘s and getting up in the 40‘s in the afternoon. We hiked 7 different trails, saw 3 waterfalls, a blowhole, tons of lava rocks, a lighthouse, and lots and lots of sheep and 6 penguins. Yes that's what I said, we saw penguins in the wild. They were so cute waddling out of the ocean and hopping up in the bushes to feed their babies. This is my token tourist sheep photo which he kindly smiled for.The lava rocks were intriguing as the ocean had worn away at some of them and revealed this beautiful design inside. The beach where we found the lava rocks was deserted except for the lone surfer. It was so beautiful!
During one of our hikes, Trev picked some leaves off a bush and tore it apart for us to taste. We tried it (not the smartest thing we have ever done) and found out that it is a spicy pepper tasting plant. Meghan spit hers out and I luckily had some of my biscuit (cookie) left to cover up the taste. I brought some of the leaves home to toss in with dinner since Trev says he likes to cook with them. It might be nice with dinner, but not really a hiking treat.

I am loving New Zealand!

Chocolate day

Today was another great, but chilly, day in Dunedin as we walked the streets in search of great chocolate. We toured the Cadbury factory (with some nice little samples) and we were pretty much the only 3 people that were fluent in English in our entire tour group of 20. This was an oddity as everyone speaks English here, although it may take me a minute to figure out what they are saying with the heavy English accent.

After our tour of the chocolate factory, we wandered around the University campus. The buildings are gorgeous and the leaves have changed color, so it is quite picturesque. It really is amazing.The cathedrals and train station have beautiful architecture. It feels like there is so much history everywhere around this place.

I’m still fighting this pesky cough that kept me up all last night. I am looking forward to not being sick anymore.

First couple days of rotation

The first two days of our rotation have been pretty fantastic. We took a tour of the college of pharmacy, figured out how their curriculum compares to ours, stopped by a local pharmacy, and nailed down our research project. It’s been a little rough since I have been fighting off a nasty cold that I caught before I left the States. After we come home from our rotation, we’ve been walking the nearby streets (fabulous idea when I sound like I’m hacking up a lung). The first photo is from our walk along the cliff that hugs one side of the beach.


This photo of us at the gate from the beach to our apartment had to be included because Meghan was almost run over by a car during this shot while she was standing in the middle of the road.


Today we walked the hills overlooking the cliff and the city. The houses are amazingly adorable with a strong Victorian influence.

First day in New Zealand

After a long week of finals, packing, and goodbyes, I made it down to New Zealand! Tip #1: Don’t drink black tea after the dinner on the plane as you are about to try to sleep. Not a good idea for someone who barely drinks caffeine. Between the caffeine and the coughing from the bug my immune system has not yet fought off, it was a rough flight but well worth it.

Dunedin is a beautiful place. Our apartment has a full ocean view and the sound of the surf crashing can lull you to sleep. We have a cute little lounge, and a full (but cramped) kitchen. The one downside is our only closet is the smallest one I have ever seen. Most broom closets are larger than this, so Andrea and I will have to be creative in our apartment with very little storage space. During a little exploring along the beachfront after lunch, we found an intriguing sign that made us bundle up a bit tighter.

Tomorrow we head to the University of Otago and meet our preceptor!

T-2 days!

With two days left until I fly out of T-town, the trip preparations are a little overwhelming. By a little overwhelming, I really mean that I am freaking out a little. There are so many loose ends to tie up before I leave, but at least I can be very happy to say that I am done with my last test in pharmacy school ever!

This past weekend in Mexico was a great little getaway before finals and heading to New Zealand. This is the sunset view from the house in San Carlos and the other picture is from the boys fishing trip where they caught a marlin. Amazing! I am so blessed by having so many wonderful people in my life.

Can't believe I am two days away!