Looking back... Kia Ora and G'Day

It's almost 2am and I'm still not feeling sleepy and so I thought I'd do something I've been putting off for weeks- blog about my trip to New Zealand and Australia now that I have returned.

Let me finish my list:

#13 Legal drinking age in NZ is 18, but a major can buy a minor a drink and it's still legal.

#14 Sales Associates compare your signature on the receipt to the one on your credit card. And credit cards have pins, like debit cards in the US.

#15 Presents are called 'pressies' in Australia

#15 And in my humble opinion, the Australia's commuter rail system is pretty primitive.


As you can probably tell by now, the trip was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I think it came at a really good point in my life as I was totally burnt out with applications to schools, jobs, and studying. It was nice to not think about all the question marks at that point in my life and just live day to day.

My cousins, who were hosting me, turned out to be way cooler than I had ever imagined them to be. I had never expected myself to get along with them so well.

The adventures I had was another thing. My cousins kept on asking me what kind of places I wanted to see. I somehow couldn't find an answer to that question. I thought about it and kind of had an epiphany. Usually, when my relatives visit me, what usually happens is that we drive to all the touristy places, spend a few mins there and drive to the next one, the goal being to cover as many places as possible.

In my opinion, I felt like we were never able to soak in the essence, the history of the place this way. After years of traveling like that from when I was little, I've begun to avoid it. If you think about it, for a "seasoned" traveler like me (I'm not sure I can claim this yet, but let's go with it for now), the thing that you remember of a place is how it made you feel, not the facts and figures you are bombarded with when you are there. And traveling like that, there was no way really, to get a 'feel' of the place to remember it by. And so I told my cousins that's not what I want to do. Especially in a developed country like New Zealand, which shares many similarities from climate to landmarks, to cities in the US.