Thailand.

One of the last stops of my travels was Phuket for which I decided to stay in a hotel, since it was very cheap compared to other countries. I had to be rather careful with tap water because of germs and metals, but ended up having no negative reactions during my stay in Thailand. Basically what I did there was eat lots of fresh fruit, like Mangos and Durian. I also went to the beach, where the waves were ridiculously wild, but the water had a pleasant temperature. Obviously people lead a different lifestyle in Thailand and especially the traffic was interesting to watch and be part of.
My last stop was Bangkok, a city which is very big and very frustrating for a small person with a heavy backpack who is not used to such hot weather and has no clue whatsoever how to get to their hostel. However people took note of how lost I was and offered to help quite quickly. I met two friendly girls from Vietnam in the hostel who took me out for dinner one evening and showed me how they eat in their country – everything is shared between everyone. The centre was huge and had heaps of shopping malls.

Gold Coast.

HOLY MOLY. This city has been quite the experience. It all started off with my flight from Auckland to Gold Coast. A man was seated next to me, we started chatting for a bit, then I listened to some music. After a while he asked if I wanted a drink, I declined. He explained that he wouldn’t accept the change from his purchase because it would be a different currency, so I ordered an orange juice in addition to his whiskey. He paid, then the stewardess came back, telling him he would have to buy a pack of three whiskeys that day. So he had two spare ones and gave one to me. I rarely drink, so for the rest of the flight I ended up being very chatty. It was a great conversation and hadn’t we lost each other at the airport, I am sure he would have offered to drive me to my hostel!
The following days I couchsurfed at Cassie’s. Such a wonderful woman! She lives with her children and her fiancé and they were all so open-minded and friendly. Although they only live in a small flat and don’t have much, they share everything with their couchsurfers (they have several each night). Their kindness was nothing but inspiring! Two other couchsurfer’s, a man and his son from Sweden, were also very cool. They had a car and took me to a beautiful place at the end of the city and then gave me a lift to the other end because they didn’t have anything else to do. Gold Coast is an amazing city and I really enjoyed the nice weather, I spent most of the time at the beach. This evening I was meant to take a flight down to Sydney, but it got cancelled, so the airline put me in a really nice hotel with a 50$ food voucher! I am so lucky! My hotel room is just stunning and the absolute opposite to where I normally stay.

This morning I went to a 7/11. Someone bought a pack of cigaretts. Not only are they super expensive (30$/20€ per pack!!!) but they also had pictures of diseases caused by smoking on them. I was so astonished I just had to ask the employee to let me take a picture of one of them, so here you go:

Auckland & Paihia.

Time flies! It’s already July. And although this ‘winter’ (more like spring) is very warm, I can’t wait to catch a few rays of sunlight in Australia. Heading over there soon!
Anyway, let’s talk about the past two weeks. Or was ist just one? However long it actually was, I spent that time in Auckland, where I got to know a couple of vegans – two of which even turned out to be couchsurfers and hosted me! Also, they prepared a very delicious meal and smoothies! 🙂
At some point I went up further north to the Bay of Islands. The town I stayed in, Paihia, was very peaceful and beautiful. However the main attraction was to be found out in the water: dolphins! I finally got to see some in nature (screw Sea World and zoos with their stupid, way too small prisons for majestic sea creatures) and it was awesome! It’s no surprise though that they chose Bay of Islands as their home, because it’s wonderful!

I kept prolonging my stay, but after around a week I took a coach back to Auckland and have been staying in a slightly uncomfortable hostel with a bed just on the other side of a bathroom wall, with a hand dryer attched to it – very loud, people use it day and night, praise ear plugs! At least I got to wash my laundry today.
I also hiked up Mount Eden yesterday, I ‘forgot’ (too lazy to fill up my bottle) to bring water, but the sunshine and views made me forget about my thrist.
Later today I’m going to a vegan potluck, where you bring food and share with others. My dish options are very limited due to there being no utensils in the hostel’s kitchen. Anyway, sure it’ll be grand. As the Irish say.

Speeding it up.

I am struggling to remember what my last post was about. Dunedin?! Yes.
Okay, after my last blog post, I also went to the Botanic Gardens in Dunedin and let me tell you, they were amazing! I didn’t take too many photos though.

The next day or so I headed off to the other side of the island, to Te Anau. It is located at the edge of the Fiordland, which is every hiker’s paradise. Like in every hostel, I immediately got into a conversation with a fellow traveler. Her and I went on a hike together the next day. While she hurled herself into a four day hiking adventure, I did a very long day trip. I was extremely exhausted when I arrived back at the hostel and couldn’t do anything but lay in bed and sleep for one hour.

The next day, I already headed off to my next destination, Clinton. This is where I spent 1 1/2 weeks on the farm. This time I only stayed there for one night to pick up a letter and my beloved MP3 player. However the intersting thing is how I got there: I hitchhiked! So many people have encouraged me to do this and I was very curious as to what it would be like, so I just tried it out and I must say, it was amazing. First a woman from Argentina gave me a lift until our paths separated. As soon as she dropped me off, another car stopped next to me and the driver asked where I was heading. So, they took me to the next town. There I waited for about 10 minutes before a super friendly young man, Grant, picked me up. Not only did he bring me to the next town, where he went to buy something, no, he even made a 40km detour to bring me directly to the farm. What a generous person. With all of my lift givers I had interesting conversations and it was absolutely worth trying hitchhiking out, 100% cooler than taking a bus.
Because of this great experience and the inconvenient bus route, I decided to give it another go the next day, when I left Clinton. Getting out of the village wasn’t easy, but I kept on believing that eventually someone would pick me up and so they did – after one long hour. A taiwanese couple, Tony and Gina, took me to the next town. They were having a break and therefore dropped me off. One hour later, when they finished their break, I was still waiting for a lift. They saw me and took me to the next town, until we went to different directions. This time I only had to wait two minutes, when a friendly Kiwi stopped for me and took me all the way to Queenstown. We drove past the village he grew up in and he told me lots of cool stories about his country. He even stopped at certain view points, so I could take photos. It was a good ride with amazing views.
Queenstown is a crazy city. If you’re an adrenaline junkie, this is your place to be. Actually, if you are anything, this is your place to be. There a amazing mountains for those who are into outdoor sports, lots of bars, parks, fresbee golf, a lake,… The best burger bar is located in this city as well! It might even be the highlight of this place. Everyone is talking about Fergburger. (Edit: Some people were concerned I ate meat. Of course I did not. They had vegan options. Just to be clear: In this lifetime I am not going to eat an animal ever again.) Sometimes people stand in line for two hours to get one of their burgers. I tried one, they’re popular for a reason.

In one week, I’ll be working on the north island and am therefore speeding it up big time visiting the south island’s hot spots. However I will have to come back, there are too many things to do and see.
Couchsurfing is nearly impossible here, which might be due to the population: Only 1 Mio. people are living on the south island!

I am back.

Well, I wasn’t gone, really. However my laptop is back and happy to serve us all. Maybe not too happy, some parts aren’t fully functional yet.
So, my days at the farm are over and altogether I must say I had a great time there! The other helpers were awesome, we shared some nice dishes and stories in our little community ‘station’. The most shocking thing to me was when a guy from South Korea informed us that more than 80% of women in his country have plastic surgery. To look nice. So they find a husband. A rich one of course. And naturally the parents would pay for the surgery, as a gift when their daughter graduates from Highschool. Lovely. However he was equally shocked when I told him in my country personality plays quite a big role when it comes to mating. Anyways, I liked the farm, the people, the food, the animals, nature – great first experience of WWOOFING! Oh, and the night skies were also amazing, I tried taking a photo one night, but didn’t really have the equipment or patience for it.

Right now I am in Dunedin, which is the closest bigger city to the farm. I already went to the steepest street in the world. It was very steep and offered a nice view over the mountains.

Christchurch.

I am liking it here, which is certainly due to the amazing weather.
This morning I went down to the beach for a run – something I’ve been meaning to do for yearsss! It was really nice, brightest sunshine, running barefoot, refreshing waves of water. On my last few kilometres back though, I was joined by a dog, no idea who owned it. However I got lazy and thought I might as well just walk the last 500 meters, but the dog didn’t seem to agree and started attacking me as I slowed down! So I kept running. Best personal trainer ever! (Der hatte Biss, haha!)
The other day I went to the city centre and explored the local park. Really beautiful, although my skin was burning like hell because of the sun. In the middle of the park, there was a brass orchestra concert taking place – so cool!
Apart from exploring the surroundings, I am also getting some paper work done. For example, today I opened up my bank account. I went there a few days ago and they said, they would get in touch with me as soon as they received the okay to open it up. Today I got slightly impatient and just walked in to ask if there were any news, they looked it up in their system and ohhh, great surprise, it had already been confirmed. It’s always like this, every single time. Never trust a person when they say they will get back in touch with you. You literally have to annoy them or else they will make you wait for ever.
Anyway, that was step one. Step two will be getting my IRD number (income tax number), which I needed the bank account for and both these things I will need, if I want to earn money in this country. Hope it won’t be too much of a hassle getting it, we’ll see.
Travelling is a lot of paper work and organisation in general, it’s not just fuffing about. Luckily I made a thousand copies of all kinds of documents at home, saves me quite some time. But no matter how prepared you are, there will always be something getting in the way, like me standing at the check in at Berlin Aiport, being told I need a visa for Australia as well since my connecting flight was more than 8 hours post landing. I was very lucky I could just quickly walk over and buy a visa there.
On another note, I experienced a few mild earthquakes already and have been told they happen almost daily.

NEW ZEALAND

On Monday I took a flight to Abu Dhabi, then one to Melbourne and Thursday morning I finally arrived in Christchurch. It was a loooong journey and I only got like 10 hours of sleep altogether, but it was nighttime when I arrived at the airport, so I stayed there and waited for the first bus. I kept falling asleep on the busses, managed to be awake when arriving at my stop, only to find out check-in time at this particular hostel is 1pm. So…five more hours of staying awake. Arrghhh! Everytime I sat down, my eyes closed, I couldn’t help it, so I decided to take a stroll around the area and ended up at the beach – which is really lovely. There I witnessed a beautiful sunrise and took photos of birds. My mind was so ready to sleep, the most regular things made me laugh. I started talking to seagulls and couldn’t contain myself when they ran away from me with their clumsy feet. Good times…
Back at the hostel, I took a much needed shower and went to bed for only 18 hours. Holy smokes. Got productive in the morning though and applied for a bank account. There is a surfing competition taking place down by the beach, might go and watch some more of that now.
Oh, and my stopover in Melbourne was also really nice. Everyone was outside enjoying the sunshine. I love the activity summer brings to society.

Å i Lofoten.

On a ferry again. This time the shaking is bearable.
The island was very remote and I could fully embrace solitude. Well, except for the unavoidable small talk with fellow travellers in the hostel, but they were all very friendly. The place was so small, that I often ended up running into people I met before when on a walk. A few villages away, there was a tiny shop, which funnily enough sold vegan ice cream. I bought a package on my birthday and ate it all in one sitting. Just because there was no freezer of course. Beautiful mountains, sometimes sunshine, no aurora. What a shame, but I still had a nice time. At some point I developped an addiction to the TV series Grey’s Anatomy and if YouTube wasn’t blocked on this ferry’s WiFi, I would be watching it right now.
A long journey is ahead of me now. I wish it wasn’t so complicated getting out of this place, but nevermind.

Trondheim.

Wohoooo, she’s back on track!
My travels continue and have led me to Trondheim, Norway. I had never been to Scandinavia before (except Denmark, but that doesn’t count for me) and I must say it’s beautiful. The moment I stepped out of the airport shuttle, it started snowing giant snowflakes. Nice!
I met up with my couchsurfing host, Heleen, a cool traveler from the Netherlands.
She brought me home to her place, which has the best kitchen view ever! I would never stop eating, if I lived there…oh, right, I never stop eating anyway. She could only host me for one night, so the next day I went to my second host’s place and met up with Peggy, who also is a great woman! One day we went for a walk, where she gave me a lot of information on the local river and together we explored the fjord, which at the time was packed with military ships. Apparently they came all the way from America to practice their missions under colder conditions. Or does it maybe have to do with the fact that there have been appearing more and more Russian submarines near the Norwegian/Russian border? Who knows!
Later that day Peggy taught me how to country ski. So cool! I’ve always wanted to try out skiing. I was sweating a lot, but it was great fun.
Also one day Heleen, her cousin and I went to a place called ‘Hell’, where we took photos with 5000 years old carvings of reindeer.
Last night I went to the cinema to watch The Revenant. They showed the movie in English with Norwegian subtitles. Most of the time they were either talking in some Native American language (with Norwegian subtitles…) or in thick texan accent. Right after that I took a night train and nine hours later I found myself in Bodø. Another six hours later, my ferry to the Lofoten islands arrived, which I am on right now. And I gotta be honest, the shakiness and looking at the screen are not really my favourite combination, so I’ll stop here.

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Thank you.

Juat a quick thank you to the lovely people who have given me all kinds of presents throughout my travels. Some of which are in this picture. All your gifts (physical or non-physical) are very much appreciated. – Shifting from minimalist to hoarder… 🙂