It has been a while that I have written something on my blog. In this blog I will keep up with some things that have been going on in the past few weeks. There is only two weeks left before I go home. It is such a weird feeling: leaving everything and everyone behind without knowing when you will see them again. A lot of people ask me every time: oh how long have you left, and that is a bit hard. But... I will make most out of my last days of an amazing year! But first: the things that have been going on in my life here:

LUX Light Festival:

On the 21st of May I went together with Angi, to the light festival. Throughout the whole city where artworks made of lights and projections to see. There was even a glow in the dark icecream place. There were also some interactive artworks with music and light. We strolled the whole evening over the Waterfront and through the city to see the lights. It was a cold night, but that didn't ruin the fun.

New Plymouth:

With the Queen's birthday weekend Angi, Jule, Luci and I went for a roadtrip to New Plymouth and Mount Taranaki. This was the last big roadtrip I would be doing before I am leaving. On Friday evening after work, we left for New Plymouth. Just before midnight we arrived at our hostel. The website said it was a good hostel, but in the end it wasn't that good. But oh well, we had to deal with it and it was only three nights. Saturday morning, after we had done some grocery shopping, we went to Mount Taranaki. We could see a bit of snow on the top of the mountain. When we arrived at the Dawson Falls, at the mountain, the weather turned out to be not that good. So we decided to just do the hike to the waterfalls and than drive back to New Plymouth to see the city and the Te Rewa Rewa Bridge. We went to the Te Rewa Rewa Bridge with sunset, this was amazing. When you walked over the bridge you could see Mount Taranaki in the background. That was really cool! After some dinner we went to bed in time. The next morning we woke up around 5 o clock because of a noisy roommate who went to have a shower around this time. We went back asleep for a little bit longer. After breakfast we went to the opposite side of Mount Taranaki from what we had seen the previous day. The weather was still not that good, but we decided to do a hike. We did a +/- 2 hour hike. Exactly after we were finished it started to rain. We drove back to New Plymouth and followed the road to the Three Sister Rocks. We only couldn't see the rocks, cause we didn't realise we could only see them with low tide. We tried to drive up a hill to see them from above, but that was also not possible. After this we drove back to the hostel and chilled there for a bit. The next day we would leave. There were two more things we wanted to do. First we climbed up the Paritutu hill. We thought we could just walk up with a walkway. But after many stairs we found out that we needed to climb up rocks to get to the top. We did this, and the way back was way harder than the way up. This was because it was also quite steep. On the top of the hill we had a cool view over the ocean, New Plymouth and Mount Taranaki. Then we continued our way. We wanted to see the Forgotten World Highway and we thought it would be a good idea to take a nice route through the hills. Turned out, it was an offroad way most of the route. We just drove further when we saw our firts typical Forgotten World Highway Tunnel. It was just around a corner where we didn't expect it to be. After that one we saw one more. But after this one the road changed, it kept being an offroad way, but it was so small only one car would fit on and we had to drive close to the side of the hill. Almost at the end of that road, what we didn't know at that time, there came a car from the army from the otherside. We were so happy that there was space for the other car to drive backwards and make space for us to drive pass, cause if this would have happened a bit further up the road, one of the cars would have to drive backwards on the scary slim part. We drove further home after this and stopped for some dinner in Bulls. After three nice days we were happy to be home not too late.

Hurricanes:

On Friday the 9th of June the Hurricanes, Wellington's professional rugby team, played against the Chiefs in the Westpac stadium. We managed to get some tickets in the week before to watch the game. I went here with Jule, Angi and Lara. It was so nice to see a professional rugby game, of course we had seen Tove playing her rugby games, but this was different. Way faster, more tackling and it looked more like the guys knew what they were doing. It was also nice to feel the atmosphere of being in the stadium with the game. It is like being at the stadium with soccer. We had seen it on television, but to experience the atmosphere in real life is more exciting. After a cold 80 minutes the Hurricanes unfortunately lost with 14-17. It was a close game, but it was not enough for the Hurricanes.

Hiking and surfing:

Through an au pair I know who lives in Auckland I heard that one of her Dutch friends just moved down to Wellington with her hostfamily. I decided to get in contact with her. The first time we met, we went to the Blue Belle Cafe in Island Bay. It was a nice afternoon. On a Saturday we wanted to surf, but we couldn't do this because the waves were too rough, so we decided to do a hike. We did the Makara walkway, this one went over the beach and back through the hills. It was amazing weather, it is winter, but we could walk around in our tops. There were no clouds and from the top of the hill we could see the South Island. We also said to each other to keep an eye on the weather forecast for surfing. The following Wednesday the weather was good and the surf not to rough or high. So we went to Lyall Bay during school hours to surf. We hired one board and we could borrow the other board from Fiona. It was so nice to be in the water again to surf. I really enjoyed it! We just kept trying and trying to catch some waves since we are both beginners. After surfing our feet were so cold we could hardly feel them and we struggled to get our wetsuits off since they are so tight. It was cool to do surfing eventhough it is winter.

Kids and friends:

Of courseI have also been doing my normal work. Most of the hours are with the kids, and sometimes it is nice to do something else than just being at home. Often we go for a play in the park after school. I also take James to swimming lesson on Tuesday and often we will have a play in the pool as well. We also went bowling together, he loved it. Olivia and I like to bake things together. When Kotaro, the Japanese student that lived with us for a semester, was leaving, Olivia and I baked chocolate muffins.

The things I do with my friends are often spending time in the city, go for breakfast or lunch or meet each other at our places. The past few weeks we went to Joe's Garage and Fidel's for breakfast and lunch. We really try to spend as much time together as we can because we are gonna be seperated soon. They are all gonna come to the airport when I am leaving and I am so grateful for that. It is gonna be sad, but I am happy they can be there when I am leaving.

Matariki rising:

Last week it was Matariki rising in New Zealand. Matariki is the M?ori name for the star cluster known as the Pleiades. Traditionally for M?ori when it appeared just before dawn in late May or early June, it signalled the start of the M?ori New Year. For some tribes, the rising of Puanga (Rigel in Orion) signals the start of the New Year. In the early 2000s Te Taura Whiri i te Reo M?ori (M?ori Language Commission), the Ministry of Education and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, became involved in the revival of Matariki celebrations. In traditional times, Matariki was a season to celebrate and to prepare the ground for the coming year. Offerings of the produce of the land were made to the gods, including Rongo, the god of cultivated food. This time of the year was also a good time to instruct young people in the lore of the land and the forest. In addition, certain birds and fish were especially easy to harvest at this time. The name Matariki is used also for the central star in the cluster, with the surrounding stars named Tupu-?-nuku, Tupu-?-rangi, Wait?, Wait?, Waipun?-?-rangi and Ururangi. In honour to this time of the year there was a Matariki Rising event in Te Papa. On Sunday, Angi, her hostkids Helena and Marty, Jule and I went to Te Papa to see performances from performing art groups coming from every corner of the country. We saw a Haka, we saw a Poi dance and heard a lot of traditional Maori songs. One moment the lady that was presenting the show asked who knew what the Matariki Rising stands for and Marty rose his hand. He had to come on stage and tell the audience. In the end it turned out that it was also live on television and more than a 50.000 people had seen it. He was so excited and proud when he came of stage and he also got a book about Matariki.

Well ladies and gentlemen, I am only two weeks time away, I will see you soon!