Some more Kiwi Slang.

I want a kiwi bird!!

I only have 4 more days before my Easter trip to Northland and Queenstown, I'll be back on the 29th possibly on the 30th. I'm really excited to go to Queenstown specifically to do a Milford sound tour. I'm sure I'll have a lot to post about after then.

Some more kiwi slang:
brekkie- breakfast
capsicum- green peppers
caravan- camper
cheers- thanks or goodbye
chocolate fish- very popular chocolate covered pink marshmallows  in the shape of fish- they are really gross!
crisps- chips
chips-fries
dairy- a corner store
fringe- bangs
flash- something that looks good or that is fancy ex: that car is so flash.
gurken- pickles (Also the German word fro cucumber haha)

The Pinnacles

Tired, up at the top

The Pinnacles hike is possibly the coolest thing I have done in New Zealand so far. It is a major hike that I have wanted to for a couple weeks and then another au pair, Katharina wanted to do it so we got a group if girls together and drove the two hours to Thames to climb up to the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles is a Mountain Summit that took us 4 hours to climb to the top and 2.5 hours to get back down. The view was absolutely amazing and the sense of accomplishment was awesome! I will definitely be doing some more major hikes throughout my time here!! I went with 3 German au pairs, Katharina, Mareike, Feli and the Canadian au pair Paige that I will be going to Queenstown with!!

one of the swing bridges that we had to cross

Almost there!!

so Beautiful!!

There were stairs, ladders and medal bars in the most difficult parts, if only those luxuries were on the entire trail!

Pretty much terrified at this point!

The View, with the ocean in the back

Mareike, myself, Paige, Feli and Katharina

@ the L&P bottle in Paeroa on the way (L&P is a famous NZ soft drink)

German Breakfast and Pumpkin Night

The girls @ German Breakfast

So most of you by know that the majority of my au pair friends here are German which I love because I still miss Germany a lot. We often talk about what we miss about Germany and one of the main things was German Breakfasts! So Naturally Jenny and I thought why don't we have a breakfast! Six of us met at Jenny's beautiful house on a Saturday morning for a traditional German breakfast. It was awesome and brought back awesome memories. I even made bread, which turned out pretty good!

Link

Link

My Bread!

The Pumpkin we entered with all the other ones, It is yellow because it is a different kind

Two words: Pumpkin Night!
Pumpkin night is the biggest event that the kids school puts on. I couldn't believe how big of an event it was and much much effort went into it. My schools would have never been able to pull it off. It was the type of event that you see schools do in movies and think what school would actually do that?? Karen says that it usually brings in about $25,000! Jenny a German au pair and myself volunteered in one of the booths, it was a fun evening and cool to be a part of, I just found it hilarious that it was all done around Pumpkins!!

Caitlin's Pumpkin Creations

Pumpkin Night

The Creation Hall

Jenny working at the Nail Drive booth

Balloons Over Waikato

Dawn Parade

So one of the very FEW things that Hamilton is famous for is Balloons Over Waikato(the province in which Hamilton is in). Balloons over Waikato is a week long festival revolved around Hot Air Balloons. I found it to be extremely beautiful and such an easy thing that a city can do. I went Dawn Parade with my host family, we woke up at 6am and were at the event by 6:30am. Normally its illegal for balloons to go up in the dark but because it would be light by the time they came down they received special licenses for the event. It was absolutely beautiful and an amazing way to wake up to watch the balloons rise up with the sun over Hamilton Lake. There was no wind and the weather was perfect, it was completely serene and I was blown away by it.

The second event that I went to was Night Glow, I went with Karen and the kids and then met up with friends later. It was really awesome!! It was on a Saturday night and the balloons lite up in tune to different songs it was really neat to see, my pictures are not very good from Night Glow and my videos dont even show how awesome it really was.

Considering that Hamilton is considered the most boring city in New Zealand and is only famous for the birth place of the Rocky Horror Picture show and this, I feel pretty lucky that I got to experience both!

Balloons Getting ready at Dawn Parade

Basketless Balloon

The Balloons Getting ready @ Night Glow

@ Night Glow, Fish and Chips Picnic