Hello family and friends, we made it to New Zealand!!! What a travel experience it has been…While it was only 36 hours technically, it felt like 3 whole days spent in airports and on airplanes. We are so fortunate to be able to say that we made it to this beautiful country without any major hiccups. We arrived at Quest Hotel Auckland around 4:30 on Friday afternoon with just enough time to put our things down and take a quick shower. Our guide from Education Abroad, Ashley, took us on a brief tour down Queens Street (the Main Street of Auckland) before we made it to our dinner reservations at the Mezze Bar. Ashley had pre-arranged a very generous wide array of tapas that we enjoyed until it was impossible to stay awake any longer. With no offense to the trip so far, hitting our beds on Friday night was probably the highlight of the trip since we boarded the plane in Dallas :).
After a wonderful night of sleep, we met in the lobby on Saturday morning at 9:30 to walk to the University of Auckland for our introduction to the New Zealand Education system. This presentation was given by Rachel Fenton, a woman who also works for the Education Abroad Network with Ashley.
As a Kiwi herself, Rachel was very informative about both the culture and education system of New Zealand. She shared in great detail about the various schooling systems (mainly public schools) that make up the country and what we can expect when we’re visiting schools in the coming week.
After the information session, we got another brief tour from Ashley of Queen street all the way down to the beautiful harbour. The group split at the base of the infamous sky tower for a quick lunch break before we hit the New Zealand Museum. We were greeted by two tour guides at the museum that took us on a very interesting tour through the museum. We learned about the history of the Maori and how they originally settled on the land.
After the museum, we had about an hour to regroup before we went to the Rugby Match. Even though this was an optional excursion almost the entire group chose to go. We were all very excited to watch (and hopefully understand) the game of rugby since we have heard about it so much upon our arrival. It was a great experience to be amongst such an excited crowd while cheering on the Blues.
Overall we have had a great start to our trip and we cannot wait for all that’s to come!
A whole group shot in front of the Museum!
The beautiful view at the museum
The Harbour
Rugby game!
Group shot at the museum