Wellington, New Zealand

I know it's been awhile and I'm home now but I wanted to finish what I started and explain about upcoming adventures that I have been thinking about. Before you hear about anything new, I wanted to tell you a little about my time traveling. The last place I left off was Wellington, New Zealand and probably my favorite stop while traveling. Rachel and I stayed in Wellington for about two months and during this time, we found jobs at a charming little outdoors shop called Gordon's Outdoor Equipment and a flat ten minutes away from the store. I'm so glad we got the chance to stay in Wellington for an extended amount of time because it gave us a chance to see what New Zealand was really like. We made friends with our

flatmates and coworkers, made some money which enabled us to

do more and see more, and we got a break from constantly traveling. Rachel and I were already thinking about the holidays and thought it would be better for us to be in one place rather than traveling around. This was the first time either of us would be away from home during the holidays and wanted to make it as easy as possible. Everything worked out really well once we got to Wellington (not that it wasn't going good already, we were just really lucky). We decided to go and look for jobs since we were planning on staying for an extended amount of time. We looked at mostly retail jobs for the simple reason that we had experience and figured people would be needed for Christmas. We tried about ten different places before Gordon's hired us. We were very excited because they hired us on the spot and asked us to start the next day. Once we found jobs thenext obstacle was to find a better place to live for the summer. Living in the hostel would be fine, but we could save a lot more money if we were able to find a flat. It took us about a week to find a place suitable to live in after trying about a dozen places. We were again very lucky that the University students were going home for the summer and students that were staying behind needed people to rent there rooms. We finally ended up living with some students from New Zealand, Malaysia, Germany, and Belgium, who we became very good friends with. The bestpart about staying in Wellington was by far the people we met. Our coworkers taught us a lot about New Zealand mostly about how to drink and party, things I was already

accustomed to being in a fraternity but also a couple things I didn't know, for example that it was OK to drink while working. Don't get too excited it was mostly done when no one was in the store and only an hour before closing time, but still. They were all very welcoming and friendly and eager to tell stories about some of their travels as well.

I'd like to thank everyone at Gordan's for making my stay in Wellington a great experience. Also I can't stop writing without thanking everyone in my flat too. Dinner time was another one of my favorite times of day simply because everyone sat down together and ate together. Each one of us had a specific day we would cook for the entire flat and we would eat and have conversations about life. The night would be topped off by Em making her chocolate pudding for dessert. I hope to see everyone again in the future but will try to keep in contact with everyone.