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November 20, 2010

Wow.  I can’t believe it is already the 20th of November.  Before you know it this month will be completely over. Soon 2010 will be over.  I’ve been living so within time and now that I’m here I feel a bit out of time.  Before I left everything was leading up to November 4th and the family trip to Hawaii.  In September I had just barely figured out that I was really coming to New Zealand and I was somewhat dreading and somewhat anticipating  the month of November.

Now I’m finally here and I’ve lost track of time.  The days feel short but the weeks feel long.  I can’t believe I’ve been New Zealand just a week!  So much has happened to me and I’ve done so much.  It’s bizarre.  I’ve barely been aware that it is the month of November.  This might be due to going to the beach twice this week and getting a sunburn in Auckland.  It doesn’t feel like November has always felt to me.  In fact I’ve spent most of November in summer weather.  When I left Seattle it was about 70 degrees!

Yesterday Rachel let me do some laundry and it has been hang drying because it’s too expensive here to use a dryer.  It’s incredible the things we take for granted, like doing laundry.  If Rachel hadn’t asked me if I needed to do laundry I don’t know what I would have done or where I would have done my laundry.  Even the dryer at home I take for such granted.  

Today has been awesome! I had a wonderful Mueseli breakfast with tea and Rachel and her mom and I went to do some errands.  We visited a fabric store to get some fleece for Rachel and her big trip to  Colorado.  We went to the grocery store which was in a little kind of mall.  Their version of Walmart is called Warehouse and we visited that too.

’ve been packing up today because I think I’ve stayed long enough with the wonderful Williams family.  I don’t want to overstay my welcome.  The place I’ve booked looks good and Rachel and Richard said it should be quite an experience.  It is a hostel that has been modified from a jail.  That’s right it used to be an old jail!  It’s near to the train station too, which I didn’t know before I booked it.  That will come in real handy because on Wednesday I’m taking the TranzAlpine train to Greymouth.  I got that all changed today and it was way easier than I thought it would be.  

In a lot of ways everything has been way easier here than I thought it would be.  Getting a job, meeting up with friends, booking travel and accommodation, changing my travels have all been much easier than I think it would be in the US.  It’s kind of nice and I’d say everyone here is quite a bit more relaxed than at home.  People aren’t high strung!  They go with the flow.  It can be perplexing for me because I expect everything to be harder than it turns out to be.  But it is also a relief.  

I mostly just hung around the house the rest of the day and packed up my things.  Then Richard came over and wanted to watch the news about the miners who are stuck near Greymouth.  As we watched it I felt this tingling type of sensation all around my body.  I felt I should be there in Greymouth.  That’s where all the families of the miners are.  I knew that if I hadn’t changed my ticket this morning that I would be on my way there tomorrow for three nights.  I felt like I needed to be there, but I didn’t want to go.

The news is horrible.  There are 29 miners stuck in this mine north of Greymouth.  They don’t know if they are dead or alive.  They haven’t spoken to them or anything.  They just know there was a large explosion.  They’ve been trying to put oxygen through to the mine hoping that the men will be able to breath it.  I feel I need to be there even if it is just to pray for them and be near it.

Rachel’s mom had some friends over for light bites before they headed to an art exhibition.  We sat down and had fun eating and talking.  I love Rachel’s mom’s cooking!  I had some of her roasted vegetable salad today for lunch and then these snacks tonight were just fabulous.  Before she left for the event she invited me back anytime to come and stay with them.  I loved hearing that.  Being a guest in someone else’s home is harder than being a host and I wanted to be a good enough guest to get welcomed back.

Rachel and Richard took me to my hostel and dropped me off.  It’s really a perfect hostel for me because it has a free shuttle to the train station!  I’m going to go there tomorrow morning and see if I can get my train ticket changed back to Sunday morning.  I already called a hostel in Greymouth and they have availability and it’s cheaper than the hostel I’m in now and has free internet.  So I’m thinking it will be good all around.  I’ll be in Greymouth where I feel I should be and I’ll pay less per night.

But let me tell you this hostel I’m in here in Christchurch is amazing!  It’s so much better than the hostel in Auckland.  At one time this hostel was a jail and if you walk up the stairs to the second floor the sound of your footsteps is just like the sound they use in movies for jails.  It’s amazing!  The rooms are comfortable and large for a dorm room.  Most of my roommates are girls which makes me feel so much better.  Plus three of them are older than my mom!  Crazy!  I never would have expected to see three older women staying in a dorm hostel room.  But it’s really comforting!  The hostel even has free towels, a cup of tea, a clean kitchen, free movies, and free adapters.  The free adapter allowed me to charge my camera battery which was quite helpful since I haven’t bought an adapter yet.