Well, it has been a while since I updated this website. Many reasons for that, the biggest one being that I was busy with school assignments. Another main reason would be the fact that I’m quite lazy and on top of that, there must be something exciting to write about. The reason I’m updating now is there is in fact something to write about.
Since the 22nd of December I’m in New Zealand, Queenstown to be precise. I am here to do my internship and of course the much needed traveling around. All students in my year will do their placements in the first half of 2008. Since we are all doing international tourism studies going abroad is mandatory. At first I wanted to go to a Spanish talking country to learn the language. However, in Macau I didn’t do Spanish too much which resulted in not taking the exam and therefore getting a bit behind. I am pretty certain that if I would do my placement in South America I would get lost easily and wouldn’t actually benefit much from it, so I choose a country where communication wouldn’t be an obstacle. With this realization my choices where also narrowed down dramatically. Since only my Dutch and English would be sufficient and the Netherlands wouldn’t be allowed, my choice eventually landed on New Zealand. I then applied for a placement in Christchurch, which was offered by the school. Four people would be applying for it but eventually I wasn’t chosen. The manager of that placement company had my CV and sent out emails to fellow tourism companies in New Zealand of which one eventually responded and offered me a placement. This all happened somewhere around mid to end October and this left me 2 months to prepare myself for traveling to what is almost exactly the opposite side of the world. Soon enough visa and flights were arranged and I was ready to go. In the meantime school got quite busy and I had to work on several projects, which consumed most of my time. I finally finished my last exam on Tuesday the 18th of December.
Four days later I set of towards New Zealand. I flew via Los Angeles where I had to wait nine hours for my flight to Auckland. In LA I met up with Crystal, which I met before and in Malaysia and Hong Kong. It turned out to be a nice afternoon where I saw some parts of LA whether intentionally or unintentionally. Naturally with the strong euro backing me up I had to do some shopping and I bought a new 160 GB ipod. I saved over 100 euros with buying it there instead of back in Europe, which I’d say is a good deal. Crystal dropped me of back at the airport and I was set for my flight to Auckland. The jet lag already got to me then and as soon as I boarded the plane I fell asleep. I didn’t even notice that we took of and I woke up four hours later in the middle of the night. Luckily Air New Zealand is much better then Lufthansa which has a shitty entertainment system. ANZ gave me a private screen and remote, which gave me the ability to choose my own movies and music. I actually enjoyed this flight and no, I’m not paid by ANZ although I wouldn’t mind a small donation after this small marketing talk. So I arrived in Auckland two days later and missed Sunday the 23rd of December. The reason for this is that I flew over the International Date Line that is set over the Pacific Ocean. I was therefore flying for the 22nd into the 24th. It’s a bit weird, but think about it and you’ll understand (mind you, I’ll be reading this story when I’m older and I have to think about it again, so the ‘you’ I’m referring to might actually be myself). Getting into New Zealand was much easier then getting into the US where they wanted two fingerprints and a picture. I had to wait at US customs for about an hour where it took me 10 minutes to get passed it in New Zealand.
In Auckland I had to wait for about 4 hours for my final flight to Queenstown. This wet fast enough since I first had to wait in line to check my luggage in again. The flight was a short one, one hour and 20 minutes, and obviously I slept through the whole thing. And then I finally arrived in Queenstown. In the arrivals hall I was searching for a couple of about my parents age that where wearing or holding something that indicates that they are from the company I am about to work for. I couldn’t find them but eventually found a girl with the mentioned clothes. Her name is Cortney and she was there to pick me up and bring me over to the holiday park. Since I just slept on the plane I didn’t notice much from the jet lag yet and I was quite hopeful that I would last the whole evening. I was introduced to Kenneth and Sandra, the owners of the holiday park once Cortney had brought me to them and found out they are gentle people and have the best intentions with me. Cortney showed me around the campsite so that I could familiarize myself a bit with it. Once back in the office Kenneth explained what I would be doing over the next few days. He wouldn’t through into the deep end as I expected but I am to follow a trainee program that’ll last for about two weeks. Another thing I didn’t really expect is the fact that the company will also let me go on trips and activities, which are offered in the office. Kenneth wanted me to get on a jet boat that day but they were too crowded so this wouldn’t happen. However on Boxing Day a trip was planned to Milford Sound, a famous fjord some 4 hours away from Queenstown.
That day I was introduced to the family I am living with. They turned out to be really nice and apparently Kenneth had another surprise for me (at least I wasn’t expecting it), which was that all food expenses are paid as well as the accommodation. Basically this means that all living costs are taken care of!
Since this evening was Christmas Eve, my host family (consisting of Dave and Rebecca which are the parents of Brittany and Victoria which are 11 and 8 respectively) had a lot of visitors and a party going on which I joined for a bit. Around 9 o’clock however I got really tired and decided to go to bed. Next day they couldn’t believe I slept through all the noise they made but I did.
First day on the job, Christmas day, I had to do some work around the campsite. This basically meant tidying up some rubbish that lying around in order to make it suitable for receiving guests. Not much to mention about this so I’ll just leave it at that. I still am feeling the jet lag actually so that day I went to bed around 10-ish to wake up real early, around 6, in order to make the coach that would pick me up at 6.45. New Zealand is the first country I have been where the trip to the attraction was more impressive than the actual attraction. It’s truly a magnificent country where there is so much to see. The trip of almost 5 hours just flew by. Milford sound itself is something terrific as well and well worth a visit. It’s also quite remarkable that some of the mountains where snow covered to a certain degree which even the bus driver thought was unusual. Who says the world is warming up?! There were also possibilities for taking helicopter flights over the valleys and cliffs but I didn’t do that. I arrived back home that day around 7 o’clock where dinner was waiting. I feel like I’m leading a rather luxurious life considering the benefits I get so far! Today is the next day in the story and I want to work around 10.30. Now everything is getting a bit more serious and Kenneth wanted me to explore the campsite better and see the accommodations for myself. Afterwards he is quizzing me about it to see if I know what to tell guests. By now I’m quite familiar with the park and accommodations layout and am learning the prices of all of them. In the afternoon however, Kenneth managed to get me on a jet boat trip after all. The drive towards the dock took about 45 minute and led over an old mining trail. It was basically a small road where we drove over in a big bus-like vehicle and had no protection what so ever. There was no tarmac on the road and I’m pretty sure accessing it by foot would be forbidden back in the Netherlands. But this is New Zealand and the driver found it fun to see people this scared. The boat trip was fantastic. However, the weather is really bad at the moment so we couldn’t see much since the rain kept gushing in our faces. With the speed of the boat the rain actually hurt a bit. This trip also marked the first lord of the rings movie spot I visited namely the part in fellowship of the ring where the riders of mordor are flooded by the river while Frodo was on his way to Rivendel. I didn’t recognize it at first but the boat driver had a picture of the scene and it was quite obvious after that.
Getting back also meant the end of the story since this was only a few hours ago. Again dinner was ready when I got back and I’m just relaxing a bit now and typing this story. Hope you liked it and if not, bummer.
Cheerio!
