Officially Stateside

Been home for three days so I guess it's time to wrap up this New Zealand Blog Business...

Last couple days in Dunedin were pretty relaxed. Just hanging out with friends, packing up, drinking a billion cups of tea, and saying bye. Got a banana and some free books from the awesome Kiwi guy who works at the used bookstore by New World. Special thanks to Tim, Liz, and Alan for taking me to the airport Thursday morning.

Left Dunedin Thursday morning, landed in Fiji Thursday night... not too shabby :). Fiji was really good. I basically just hung out in and around the city of Nadi for a few days, ate some Indian curry (YUM), went to the Friday rugby games, lay on the beach, read some books, and made friends with some other American, British, German, and Dutch wanderers who were staying at the same hostel as me. Relaxing in the sun was SO NICE. And it was SO WARM which was great because Dunedin was SO INCREDIBLY COLD when I left. Another really nice thing about Fiji is the tide change. Not only was the difference between high tide and low tide really really really noticeable, but the period when the tide was changing (from low tide to high tide) was also really really noticeable. It seemed to always happen around 3pm, and I just found it to be the coolest part of my day.

OKAY SO, Fiji is interesting/different. For example, apparently in Fiji... if you are 20+ years old... you are meant to be married with a bunch of children. So yeah, BASICALLY, when someone is young+unmarried+visiting Fiji (eg. LIKE ME!!!), you are going to get marriage offers. At first, this is awkward, but I was talking to the other people staying at the hostel and I guess they had the same experience with the marriage offers, so whatevers.

I left Fiji on Sunday night. Flew to California/LAX/home and (because of the time change) landed there Sunday afternoon. After I went through customs and got my bags, I found my family... Mom, Padre, Luke, and puppy dog... and then they took me home YAY!

Man, it is good to be back. Saw Toy Story 3 and it was AWESOME. Ate some In-n-Out last night. I am honestly just THRILLED by the fact that 1) I can sleep in a warm house and 2) I still got three solid months of warm weather before it decides to snow in Boulder. Being warm and sleeping bag-free so incredibly nice. Other than that, I still got to finish unpacking and clean my room and just figure out my life... but summer is good and travel plans are good, and I pretty stoked about seeing my New Zealand/California/Colorado people again because they rock my world.

Farewell and Safe Journeys.

Love, Theresa