Rotorua (week 3 and 4)

Finally I found my rhythm here in New Zealand. Go to the supermarket, cooking food, washing clothes and still have enough time to hang out with people from all around the world. Also on my work it is getting better. I’m getting along with my colleagues, we talk and laugh a lot with each other. One of them “Josh” invited me to watch a movie with his old schoolmates. I had no idea which movie we were going to watch, but I thought I should be fine. We ended up in the movie: Attack on Titan. It was a Japanese movie with English subtitles. It was a real Japanese movie with crazy stuff, 50% of the time humans got eaten by titans. The titans also looked a bit weird/creepy. If you want to watch something else than mainstream stuff this is a film you should watch!!!

We went the first weekend to Waiheke island (see photos). The trip to the island took us 40 min by ferry. We already enjoyed the trip, because you could see the skyline of Auckland and a lot more beautiful things. Waiheke island is a beautiful place with a lot of different vegetation and lovely view’s all over the island and the sea. The weather was good and we just walked around randomly, over small tracks, between the woods and along the coast. We travelled about 7 hours and around 20km while going up and down the hills. After that day we were so tired that we almost did nothing the next day. I figured out that my phone can make descent pictures but not really good once. So I decided to buy that weekend a camera that makes really good pictures for the rest of the time here in New Zealand.

The second weekend I had already planned the trip to Rotorua, booked by internship. After 3 hours driving we arrived at our destination. The first group left to go rafting and the second group, where I was in, had to wait for 2 hours to go rafting. Plenty of time to check in and discover the town. After some traveling by a guided bus we sat with 7 people in the raft (see photos). We went down the river with waterfalls. It was so much fun and of course like everything here, IT WAS SO BEAUTIFULL  AGAIN!!!

The second they we had to leave at 9:30 am, but no one really liked that. Almost everyone went out the night before (including myself) so a lot of people were really tired or had a hangover. The morning activity was visiting a Maori village (original New Zealand people). I don’t know if it was the lag of sleep, but I didn’t enjoy the village. The village was really ugly, because it was too modern with antennas on their houses and more. The Maori people danced the “Haka” and it was really cool to watch. I still prefer to watch a live Haka from the all blacks (New Zealand national rugby team).

The afternoon activities were a lot better. It started off with luge riding. It is riding down a hill with a small car. The only two things you can do are roll and brake. The hills are really high so you can go really fast with those little carts. After that we did the best 1 min of the weekend: OGO. Maybe you know that video on facebook where you see a big plastic ball with people in it rolling down the hill. That’s exactly what it is!! From the outside it looks really boring, but the inside is a different story. The ball is filled with a little bit of warm water. Jochem, Joris and I went in the ball together. The first meters you try to run, but I fell already after the very first step. The other two fell not much later. After that, you try to stand up, you slap each other, lie on each other and you’re like one big was machine. You also had zero orientation where you went and we all laughed the whole time from the start till the end!!!

PS: Check out the photos and videos.