Beginnings

On the 25th January 2006 i made my departure for the Netherlands. It had been a long and tedious process up until this very moment. I had sent my portfolio away to Utrecht late september and slack like the dutch are, i did not hear anything back until mid december. Then it was hurry hurry trying to book flights and find myself accomodation whilst working my butt off in the motels and icecream parlour to try and fund myself. The great thing is that even though i had little faith in god, he made everything happen. I scored myself some reasonably cheap flights and got hooked up pretty quickly with accomodation in Utrecht. My aunty had found something on the internet..a girl who is in spain on a med placement for the same time i was going to be in utrecht was renting out her room furnished for 250euro per month. This was absolutely perfect considering i would otherwise have to pay people 100euro to find me a room, because it is apparently so hard to get a room in utrecht.

My last day of work in Hanmer was on the 20th and i spent the next day attempting to pack. This was the biggest mission ever considering i was going to be away for half a year..and only allowed 20kgs. I got this new suitcase and couldnt work out why when i had hardly packed anything it already weighed 20kgs. so i weighhed the suitcase by itself, and it alone weighed 7kgs! flag that. So i decided i would go minimalist because knowing me, i would return alot more. It worked out in the end about 17kgs plus my handluggage allowance of 7kgs. The saturday night we had a kind of farwell barbeque at home for me. The funny thing is..i think it was just an excuse for mum to have a barbeque and invite all her friends around. Not that i have many friends in hanmer anyway...apart from Emily! shes fantastic, she has been coming to hanmer for two summers now, its so much fun having her around to keep me company.

Sunday the 22nd mum and i headed to christchurch and did some last minute shopping. for example i wanted some new running shoes and some flightsocks for the plane. I stayed with chris in spreydon until the tuesday night. It was great being able to go to church on the sunday night (after having not been nearly all summer) and it was cool to catch up with heaps of christchurch friends as well. Tuesday night, the night before the departure my parents came to town and we went out for dinner with the Densems, some family friends we stayed with that night. It was a great meal, i ordered a nice big juicy steak because i thought that i wouldnt be eating one in a long while. I didnt get much sleep that night. I
knew i was leaving the next day, but it didnt really feel like i was going..if you know what i mean? it all felt very surreal. (photo - mum and dad at dinner)



Destination day! woke up and had a shower and some breakfast and then headed off to the airport! felt very very very nervous...out of fear or excitement i dont know? I think i had a right to be though, considering this is my first big trip overseas by myself..and i still have a wee fear of planes, so wasnt really looking forward to the 24hr flight across the world! It took ages to line up to get checked in, so dad got talking to the people in front of us. It turns out that the girl Aefke, was from Utrecht in the Netherlands and was heading back there after an exchange in america, followed by a holiday in New Zealand! i love it how god works situations out like that! I really love it! here i was feeling really nervous about going to the other side of the world by myself, and he gets me in contact with a lovely girl who lives there! Seriously, as soon as that happened i knew i was exactly where i needed to be and that god had his hand on this whole trip. Thanks god for being with us all the time, even when we dont think youre there.

Aefke and i got a seat next to each other and stuck together the entire way to Utrecht. Our first flight QF4112 was to auckland, where we stopped off for a few hours. We had lunch at Mcdonalds and Aefke had to sort out some business with some overweight luggage. I hadnt eaten Mcdonalds for a long time, and i cant say it really satisfied me either. I did some last minute shopping and got a journal and some duty free Baileys for my uncle. Roxy gave me a last minute phonecall on my cellphone which was really sweet. It was great talking to her and having someone kind of farewell me off and wish me luck at the last minute. I didnt really get much of a farewell in Chrischurch because we were so rushed.

Flight CX108 flew us from Auckland to Hong kong. For most of this flight i either listened to music or watched movies. I watched two movies..Shallow Hal and Proof. Shallow Hal was pretty stupid but i really liked Proof. They both had Gwenneth Paltrow in them. odd. Didnt get much sleep on this flight. I find it really hard to sleep in aeroplanes becuse the seats are really uncomfortable and the girl in front of me kept moving her seat back and forward in really sudden movements. Cathay Pacific is pretty good to fly with. The food is pretty good, and i like the little personal entertainment units. Hong Kong airport is absolutely huge!!! i was blown away. We had to spend three hours here in the middle of the night so i wasnt really in the mood for shopping or exploring or anything. It took us about half an hour to get to our gate anyway...we had fun walking really fast down those flat esculator walk things. I shouted Aefke a hot chocolate at Starbucks and we had a look at some photos on her laptop from her time in America and New Zealand. Then i just took my place on the floor and had a wee nap until the time came to board.

Flight CX271 flew us from Hong Kong to Schiphol, Amsterdam. We sat in exactly the same seats as the last flight. except we swapped places. I didnt get much sleep on this flight either. Again my time was filled by listening to music and watching movies. My favourite movie this time was In her shoes, in fact i think i watched it twice. I also got alot of entertainment by watching the screen where it shows the aeroplane flying over all the different countries. I also made frequent trips to the bathroom to make the most of their free hand lotion and facial moisturiser. I saw a pretty cool sunset which i took a pretty average photo of. One of my favourite parts was flying over parts of Russia in the middle of the night and being able to see the lights of cities.
(Photo - view of sunset from plane)

Landing at Schiphol was a pretty interesting experience in the early hours of the morning. I expected to see lots of pretty lights..they were covered by alot of cloud so it was just darkness all around. I didnt see the lights of amsterdam until we just about hit the ground. But it was gorgeous, one of the coolest sights ive seen. I have a thing about city lights. Schiphol airport is pretty huge as well. Aefke and I made use of the bathroom and freshened ourselfs up to make ourselfs presentable and then we went through customs and collected our baggage. Aefke was pretty excited about seeing her family so she went to the arrivals window and waved at them for a long time and used this crazy phone thing. And i stood at the baggage terminal looking pretty useless. I also felt pretty useless when i went through the arrivals gate too cos Aefke threw herself into her parents arms..and i was left wondering where my cousins were that were meant to be picking me up. But there was no missing them, i recognised Cor and Anton straight away. They started doing that whole three kiss on the cheek thing that the dutch do. that was pretty wierd. They helped me with my bags and we got into Cors Work Van and started heading towards their home in Maassluis.

First impressions of Holland? I tried to have a positive outlook, but when you havent slept for more than 24hours things never seem so great. My first impression of holland was that its dark, flat and freezing cold. I was reallyshocked by the freezing temperatures. I had been warned my my mother but had brushed her comments aside. Oops Bad move.