Travel buddies
17:47One of the first people I met at UCLA is a kiwi. We sat next to each other at a freshman orientation event and I told him about my interest in studying in New Zealand. I don't think he took it seriously.
Over a year later I got to bring him good news of great joy: none other than me, myself, Natalie, his dear, dear friend, would be traveling to NZ in a few shorts months. To which he responded, "radical, let's buy plane tics together," to which I responded, "sweet bro." I'm just kidding we don't actually talk like that in California. Close enough though.
So instead of hanging out in the airport by myself, sitting on a plane being lonely for 13 hours, and navigating an airport in a foreign country while dazed and confused and very solo, I found myself a travel buddy and pre-orientation companion!
Us on the plane having a grand ol' time:
Because Xiao is a real person who really lives in New Zealand with an actual family, I enjoyed the luxury of being picked up from the airport bright and early two days later. Yes. Due to the flight length and time change I departed on a Saturday night and arrived on a Monday morning. Weird.
As part of the University of California Education Abroad Program (UCEAP for short or EAP for extra short), I had to attend a mandatory orientation in Auckland, but I had a few days to kill with Xiao before making my way to the city center. So he was my fabulous tour guide and I stayed with his family because they are shockingly kind people!
This is the view from Xiao's high school
and at a nearby beach I had him take the first official picture of me in New Zealand!
During these three days, I discovered I love to photograph three things:
Boats
Birds
And stairs
So prepare to see a lot of these.
I was glad to have stayed with Xiao's family before orientation because it gave me time to adjust to the country, and take care of matters like having money and using said money to buy meat pies and fancy drinks.
I also came to terms with the fact that it was indeed winter, and resorted to such measures as lying on the ground while no one was home to absorb the sun's heat (as apparently central heating in NZ is not common).
Yes this happened.
At the end of my stay, Mr. Xiao's Dad was kind enough to drive me into the city for my EAP orientation, thus kicking off the second segment of my adventure.
2 comments
Thanks for your posts, Natalie. I read your posts and it pushed me to write my own! LOL.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, you're really funny! Also, I'm loving all the pictures. New Zealand looks gorgeous and I especially loved the horse picture and the one with you holding the lamb LOL.
Can't wait to hear more from you!
Thank you so much!! It's great that you were inspired to make one as well! I'll be following yours for sure
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