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Hi Guys. A long time ago - we know, sorry a thousand times, we have just been very usy as always.. Last time you heard from us we had just arrived in Wellington, so what you are about to hear is about boring wellington.
After spending 3 nights in Wellington we got to see a very windy city, very boring city and did a lot of walking. We saw the famous Te Papa museum, which is the nationalmuseum = there was a lot of information about earthquakes. The maori culture. And a lot about the nature in generel, it was kind of interesting but very big so we did not get to see everything unfortunetly.. We took a ride on the cable car up a little hill to the botanic gardens which is in every city, and walked all the way down - a nice walk with a lot of beutiful flowers all the way down. Our second day in Wellington we met a guy, Shane, from England, who was very talkative and he joined us when we went to find a park to get a tan.. We ended up at a cricketfield, because Wellington does not have a park, which makes the city even more uninteresting.. All together we were a bit disapointed about the capital of New Zealand.
On the 22nd of January we took the bus to Taupo, with Flea, the driver we had down the westcoast, so that was fun, we liked her. We stayed at a place called Urban retreat and they could not garantee us more than one night, so that was a bit upsetting. Lisa, the swedish irl, we have been travelling with troughout New Zealand was suppose to do the bungyjump so we walked all the way over there and when she saw it she got cold feet, we do not blame her. After being a bit disapointed with herself we went back the next day and she jumped after a few minutes of hesitating, pretty cool.. We took a walk, which we love so much, to a waterfall called huka falls - it was a hot hot day. It took 1 our to get there and one hour back, so we we were exhausted. We met up with George and Rebecca, the english couple we met on the westcoast so that was nice. We were worried about having a place to stay but it all worked out fine. We stayed at the beach watching a boatrace otherwise Taupo was not that big, so we did not do much. We liked Taupo though - the wether was good and the town was charming.
Next stop was Rotorua, which is known for their boiling sulfid, boiling mud, so it stank pretty much everywhere. Our first night in Rotorua we went to a Maori evening (maori are the natives in New Zealand) This was quite an experience. When we arrived we were told not to laugh or even smile, when they did their war dance for us. They would attak if we did, because they felt they were not respected. So we were a bit scared. They also make funny noises and faces and show their toung. Afterwards we were shown around their town, where we saw different games and how they made baskets. After that was the big concert. When they began to sing and dance we were so amazed! It was so beautiful, and the music was absoulutly incredible! The harmonies and voices together gave us goosebumbs! And they only had drums to sing after!! Anyway, after that they had prepared a big dinner for us under the ground (special Maori way) It was realy good and we were so full afterwards. It was truly a great evening. We really enjoyed it. The next few days were very quite, since Emily was sick. We did not find out what it was, but she got to relax and felt better after a few days, which was good. Me and Lisa did the riverrafting which was really fun - we went down a 7 meter waterfall - I was so scared but after a few minutes we just had fun. Emily was still sick when we got back unfortunetly so we did not do much - we went for a walk me and Lisa. Rotorua is really boring if you do not want to spend a lot of money so our time in Rotorua was not something we will remember as one of the best.
Auckland was the next city that we invated. We left Lisa in Rotorua, but she would come after a few days so it was not the final goodbye. The busdriver laughed at us when we told him that we had 6 nights in Auckland, aparently Auckland was the worst city in New Zeland so we were a bit ecxiting about how that week would be. It started out pretty bad; At first we were dropped at the wrong YHA hostel and had to walk with all our lugage up a long hill. When we got there and got everything sorted out our mastercard had decided to go against our wishes. It would not work and we had to pay the 6 nights out of our own pockets which our creditcard did not like, but what the hell, we are on vacation;).. They messed up our resevation and we got a twin room for the same price as a dormroom so that made everything a bit better.
The first days in Auckland we just went around and saw the city - we bought a lot of food and made good dinner every night, we are pretty good cooks if we have a saying in it. Lisa arrived on the 31st of january. We told her to come up to our hostel after dumping all her lugage, she called, just when I was winning Monopoly!!!!!! She could not find it and Emily rushed to find her. We just stayed at the hostel and Lisa joined us for dinner with a big salad and pasta. We decided to be a bit cultural so we took the ferry to a little surburb called Devonport - it was not really that ecxiting and we ended up leaving it just 1 hour after we got there. We went to the beach and got a bit of a tan, jubii / our worst fear is that people cannot see that we have been away for three weaks = so this is just a little tip; when you see us then tell us that we are brown, eventhough you do not think that - we will then get extremely happy!!!!!
The next day we went to the nationalmuseum in Auckland, which had everything from the oldfashion way of teaching to maouri culture and modern art. We went to see yet another maouri concert and we thought it was amazing - especially Emily loves these concerts, actually her respons was that; ''If I lived in New Zealand I would go see a maouri concert every week''. We went out to eat dinner with Lisa, it was our last night together which was a bit sad since we have spend a month together in New Zealand. We ate a great dinner and afterwards we went to the cinema to see ''Rolemodels'' - we were laughing our ash''s off. Lisa had to get up early so we said goodbye after the movie and promised to meet up in Scandinavia for a roadtrip sometime;) we were leaving Auckland late in the evenng on the 3th of feburary so we spend the day relaxing and getting ready for the long flight. We send a package home with 10 kg. and saw spiceworld the movie;)
We came into Auckland airport at 9 o'çlock in the evening and went over to check in. We had an E-ticket so we got a bit suprised when they told us that they wanted a real ticket - we did not have such thing........... We thought!!! They send us to see a supervisor and he asked to see our tickets we used to come from LA to Sydney and the tickets we needed for this flight turned out to be at the back of the old tickets - we only kept them as a souvenir, luckily enough - otherwise we would still be in new zealand.. We got on the plane and watched alot of movies while everyone on the plane was sleeping - neither me or Emily seem to be able to sleep on airplanes. We had a stopover in Hong Kong and finally we arrived in Manila after 30 hours of no sleep so we looked like s***!! We found Bob's brother Ramon and he took us out for lunch and a quick drive around a little part of Manila. We had to catch a flight to Boracay at 3 o'çlock and Ramon dropped us off. We left one piece of lugage with him since we are going to stay with him and his wife for a few days before we leave Manila. You can not imagine how small that plane was and how primitive it was, we did get a bit scared as the plane took off and when it landed, but we survived the plane to Caticlan and took the boat out to Boracay (a little island (1 km wide and 7 km long) where we are spending 12 days). We had a few dificulties with finding the place where Bo and Josephine was staying but the Tricycle driver was very patient and we called Josephine and figured it all out;)..
we are now living in a little room, very nice and very phillipino with cold showers and very humid, but we love it, as an experience, and it is nice to live just opposite Bo and Josehine and their caretaker Boyet and his Nephew Joy for only 30 kr. pr. night pr. person!!!;) We have been partying for a couple of days with Josephine, which has been really nice - they got some great partybars down here and it is only 5 minutes away.. The wether has been a bit of a mix. For one day it was raining and it was only about 24 degrees!!!! But today for an example it has been absolutely boiling and we had to go into the water every 5 minutes to stay cool.. We love Boracay and we are having a blast here - just relaxing and partying. The plan is to go out tonight and maybe find some karaoke since Bo and Josephine are leaving tomorrow and we are spending one more week in Boracay so we do not get to see them until we reach Denmark.. We have also decided to go a little crazy so the last three days here we are spending at a hotel "Red Coconut" with seawiev and swimmingpool - we have to have compensation for the last threee months as backpackers;)
Bo and Josephine are taking very good care of us and I promise you we are gaining about a 100 kg. by the time we get back home, the food is so good..
This is our last blogentracne which is a bit sad because that means we are going home soon;( We hope you enjoyed our blog eventhough we have not been the best at writing that often... We have enjoyed writing anyway and it seems like everyone is enjoying to follow up on our trip.
We will be back home the 19th of feburary at 21.30. Our flight company is Cathay pacific and we arrive from London (Heathrow). Feel free to come to greet us;D Ha, Ha, Ha!!! We are both looking forward to see everyone and we hope that everyone have had a great time at home the last three and a half months.. We have so much to share when we get back, it has been the journey of our lives and we feel that we have experienced all that we wanted without missing anything. Me and Emily have had a great time together and we both feel that we chose a wonderful travelpartner to do this liveexperience. We know eachother very well and this sabbatyear can only be recommended, we have both grown so much and we feel more independent than ever.
Thank you for all the messages on the travelforum, please keep writing in the forum we love to hear from you - PLEASE do so, you still have 10 days to send us a little thought;D..
Love from Emily and Sara.
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