This past week has been pure craziness thank to my beautiful cousin Clare who came to visit me on her spring break! She was only here for a week which means this past week was jammed packed with plenty of adventures. Now, seeing as I am technically going to school here, I had to stay back and study on Tuesday and Wedneday while she went and had a blast swimming with dolphins and going on the Lord of the Rings tour. She had a blast which made me feel better because I felt bad I couldn't go with her! All this studying while I'm "studying abroad" is just silly isn't it?
Thursday I decided to skip some lectures so we could go horse back riding, something she's wanted to do the entire time. We went to a place about an hour outside of Christchurch and had a blast! It was great because there was only four of us and it was really relaxed. We got to trot or canter every time we got a field which was a lot of fun!
Our guide Chris said that as long as we got to the point across the field, we could get there any way we wanted haha It was about a three hour ride with a stop for hot chocolate/coffee and biscuits in the middle. I could already tell I was going to be extremely sore after this and I definitely was! We were both struggling the next couple of days. It's been awhile since I've rode a horse! My horse's name was Nugget and is apparently the super dominant horse in the group, so he struggled to listen to me a few times. Clare rode Samson who consistently bucked his head back and didn't always want to listen to her either. It was pretty comical sometimes. Either way, we had a great time and the weather was beautiful for it! Clare got lucky. The whole week she was here was pretty much beautiful! You never know with New Zealand :)Friday morning was craziness. We had a 7 am flight and got picked up at 5:30 am to go to Nelson, which is a town on the north part of the south island. Because it was so early we decided to just not go to sleep....ahh interesting decision. It was a little bit of a struggle on Friday to have any energy whatsoever. But, we did end up going kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park, one of the most popular national parks in New Zealand.
It is a gorgeous area and it was nice because it was just Clare and I on the kayaking trip, along with our guide. It was like our own private tour! It was once again a beautiful day and we got to kayak which I've never done before! Our bodies were definitely taking a beating though. Our legs were already sore from horse back riding and now our arms were sure to be sore...going on no sleep. Yep, our bodies hated us. We still had a great time and it was fun to do. We went back to the hostel, had a quick 2 hour nap and then went out to get some dinner. We were both struggling to stay awake at dinner and were ready for sleep. We went to bed at about 9:30 haha But, we needed it desperately if we were going to SKYDIVE the next morning :)We got picked up at 8 am by the skydiving company. I was still very very unsure if I was going to go through with this. I am not adventurous whatsoever, ya'll probably know that. I hate rollercoasters for heaven's sake. But, everyone did a very good job at convincing me that it does not feel like you're stomach is dropping, which was my biggest concern. No, it wasn't the fact that I could die (it is actually an extremely safe sport), Everyone was so keen on me doing it and I realized I couldn't turn back now. I also wanted to prove to myself that I could. Thank goodness Clare was there to push me. I'm so happy I ended up doing it. To be honest, when I was actually in the plane I wasn't that nervous! I was doing it so why be freaking out? Even when I was hanging outside the plane ready to jump I was really calm! I surprised myself haha Skydiving is the strangest thing though. You don't even feel like you're falling even though you are falling so extremely fast! It is more like a huge hair dryer is underneath you keeping you up there floating.
We had about 50 seconds of free fall and we jumped from 13,000 ft! The 50 seconds felt like 10 seconds though and before I knew it the parachute was out and it was over! The only thing that I didn't like about it was that my ears were killing me! They were completely popped and aching really badly. Other than that I would totally do it again. It really was thrilling! After skydiving, we headed to a cafe to eat and then were off to the airport to fly back! It was a really quick trip but we did two really awesome things! We got back to Christchurch and then went out for Clare's last night! The week she was here went by so quickly it was crazy. I guess we were doing so much and having such a good time that it flew by! She seemed to love New Zealand and to be honest, I don't know how you could hate it. It's such a blast. I'm happy I get to stay here for 3 more months :) Hope all is well back at home!
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