Back at it!

After a nice long break from the island it was nice to get home and see everyone. When we got back to the island it was my birthday. My roommates made me a chocolate cake and we went swimming for the day. We have done a lot of swimming lately because it is about the only way we can cool off here. I was honestly just happy to be back to my new normal after being in New Zealand for two weeks. After my birthday it was time to get back into the swing of school. I was excited to get back to school just so that I could get back on my normal schedule for a day. I was also excited to see my students since I really hadn’t seen them since I had gotten back from New Zealand. The first day back at school felt like the first day of school all over. The students were filled with energy and excitement and were not used to sitting down all day. We had some pipe issues the first day back so we actually only had a half day the first day which was really nice.

            The rest of the week at school went pretty well. It took my students a little bit to remember what we were talking before we went on break. We also have not had the end of the semester yet. It might be a student’s worst nightmare but it is also a teacher’s worst nightmare. We had a two weeks off of school and now we are supposed to have final exams. Trying to get my students to think back to what we discussed in August is almost like pulling teeth. We have reviews for the rest of the week and then next week we will start our final exams. After all of that is over I will get a nice weeklong break while my parents come to visit the island. I am not real sure who is more excited my parents or me! This has been the longest we have ever been apart before.

            On Saturday we had the opportunity to go grocery shopping. This is a big deal for us. Shivaun called us and told us to meet her at the store and she would drive us wherever we needed to go for the day. We got a whole bunch of groceries. It was nice to restock up our fridge and I found some new foods that I am going to try out. Every time we go to the store I always find some kind of food that I want to try out. We also had the opportunity to get our packages. Big shout out to my grandma for sending me care package filled with supplies for tacos and other things! I absolutely love getting the packages. The bars are also disappearing quite quickly it seems that our friends on the island really like your bars! J

            It is now Tuesday afternoon and my students have been sent home from school for the day. We had an early out today because we are having some pipe issues at the school. The water was not working at school so the students were all sent home at noon. In the morning the vice principal came into the classroom saying that they had no water so no one was allowed to go to the bathroom. If a student had to go to the bathroom they would have to either use their bike or ask a friend to use their bike to go home and go to the bathroom. Any student that did not come back to school would receive a zero in all classes and would be counted absent for the school day. It was really amazing the second that the announcement was made my students all had to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t believe how they all of the sudden had to go to bathroom…

Hope you are all having a great week back home we are still sweating it out here in Samoa.

With Love,

Abby

I'm Baaaacck!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We have returned from New Zealand and I can’t even describe how amazing that trip was. We hit a few bumps in the road along the way but it was a great experience. I will tell you a little bit about what we all did on our trip to New Zealand. Virginia and I spent two weeks traveling around the country. We left for our trip and took a tiny plane from American Samoa to Western Samoa. The plan had about eleven or seats and we were squished inside the plane. Once we got to Western Samoa we took and hour and a half taxi ride to the international airport to catch our plane to NZ. We were so giddy when we got on the plane because we were able to watch movies. The little things really made us happy. We ended up watching a movie that was about the Samoan culture it was called, “Three Wise Cousins.” When we arrived in Auckland it was freezing for us. I remember stepping off the plane and going we need to stop and get our coats out its too cold. Sure enough people were walking around in shorts and tank tops and we had leggings and coats on. We had a little bit of culture shock upon arriving in Auckland. Auckland has about 1.7 million people in the city. That’s a lot of people after living on a small island for five months. I remember looking at Virginia and going this is just too much for me I can’t handle this. After settling into our hostel we felt a little better about the situation.

            Our first couple of days we spent exploring Auckland and going on a little shopping spree. We had to buy some warmer clothes because the clothes that we did have was not warm enough for us. We also went to a pharmacy to pick up things we needed to take back to the island. We couldn’t believe how easy it was to purchase everything. The rest of the time we just explored around Auckland. One of our favorite things to do in Auckland was to just sit in the harbor and watch people walk around and listen to some music. We also enjoyed the food a lot. We took full advantage of the fact that we finally had some American food. After spending a few days in Auckland we flew over to the South Island to Christchurch. A majority of our trip was spent on the South Island. The south island is known to be absolutely beautiful. The first major thing that we did on the south island was take a five hour train tour through the mountains. The tour that we were on was known to be one of the top five best train tours in the world. We travelled through the mountains and saw bright blue rivers, deep valleys, crystal clear lakes, and fields filled with lavender flowers. The pictures that we took throughout the trip do no justice for what we saw on the trip. On the train tour we were traveling through the Southern Alps. After we had finished our train tour we hopped onto a bus. In NZ they have multiple bus tours that go all over the island. Its one of the cheaper ways you can travel along the island. The bus will stop at scenic areas so you can takes pictures along the way. We spent on average about 5 to 6 hours on a bus when traveling. Our first bus took us to Franz Joseph this was a smaller town that was known for its glacier. We took a hike through the rain forest and made our way to the glacier we got lucky and were able to see the glacier. The clouds are almost always covering the glacier but when we were doing our hike we were able to see it.

            The next city we traveled to was Wanaka. If you ever have the chance to go to this area in NZ do it! I have never seen scenery like this in my life. I have never been speechless in my life when driving and looking around. I just looked at the window in complete awe of what was going on outside the bus. Wanaka was a smaller city not nearly as busy as the other ones, which is more of my style. Wanaka was located on a lake in between huge mountains. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. After Wanaka we headed to Queenstown for five days. Queenstown was a big city that was very busy around Christmas time. It had very nice restaurants and this was also located on a lake. We spent Christmas on the beach with all the other locals. Everyone just goes to the beach for Christmas and has a picnic on the beach. We did a lot of walking around in Queenstown just exploring and doing some shopping. We also did a few touristy things while in Queenstown. We headed down to Milford Sound, which was a national park that was filled with waterfalls and mountains. We also took a boat ride on a lake at Milford Sound. Milford Sound is one of the most photographed areas in New Zealand. We also ended up going hang gliding. For hang gliding you are running off the top of a mountain and just flying above the ground. It was so much fun. The instructor took videos while hang gliding and I will have to show you guys when we get home.

            After Queenstown we headed to Mt. Cook, which is the tallest Mountain in New Zealand. We apparently got really lucky that day because usually the clouds are covering the mountain but we got to see it. We took a ten-mile hike that day to look around the Mt. Cook area. We came across a glacier and a lake on the hike and we saw huge chunks of ice just sitting in the lake. To end the trip we headed back to Auckland for NYE.  For NYE we stayed at a nice hotel. We felt so spoiled that night when sitting in the hotel. We had a dishwasher in our room. I forgot how much I missed the luxury of having a dishwasher. On NYE we walked around and saw fireworks getting shot off. It was an experience that I will never forget. New Zealand was an amazing trip and I never expected that I would actually get to see this country. I am also happy to be back in Samoa seeing all my kids and the familiar faces of the island. I am also very excited that I will be seeing my parents in a little over three weeks! J

With love,

Abby Drenth