As I write my final blog entry, all I have to say is this: You really never know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
After getting through final exam weeks, all four of them, I travelled around New Zealand with some friends and slowly made my way to Auckland, which was where I was going to fly out from. I visited windy Wellington, smelly but beautiful Rotorua, and the busy city of Auckland in my final week. It was so great to be able to see the country and not have to worry about papers or upcoming tests. I had finally gotten to the best part of study abroad, as if my entire semester wasn’t already amazing enough.
I arrived back home in Miami last Sunday, and as nice as it was to see my family and friends again, I already miss everything about New Zealand, a country where I made a second home. I miss the mountains surrounding the city, being able to go wherever I want, whenever I wanted, casually seeing sheep on the side of the road, and all the friends I made during my 5 months there. If my family had the opportunity to come out to New Zealand it would have been fantastic as we would have travelled around the country and maybe even visited Australia, which is one place I was unable to get around to while I was over there.
I do have to say it was nice to arrive home in time for the holiday season. On Thursday I think I ate my weight in turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and Thanksgiving desserts. On Friday, I went my annual shopping spree at my local mall in honor of Black Friday in order to take advantage of all the great deals the stores had to offer.
To my surprise I am not as jet lagged as I thought I was going to be. In the total of 22 hours it took me to get home (which includes flying time and layovers), I slept about 3 hours. With my parents waking me up at 7 or 8 in the morning to do chores, run errands, or go to appointments, I made the most of my first couple of days here and my body adjusted very quickly to the 18 hour time change. I do have to say, it was weird not being able to live in the future anymore, but that wasn’t the only weird thing. I had to adjust to driving on the right side of the road (literally), having the driver sit on the left side of the car, and not being in walking distance of pretty much everything. Perhaps the strangest thing of all, was not planning to visit a new place each week. Getting myself re-adjusted to my ‘normal’ way of life is not as easy as I thought…
I am forever thankful that I had the opportunity to study abroad in a country as beautiful as New Zealand. While I said goodbye to new friends, I knew that all good things must come to an end. I just hope one day I’ll have the chance to visit again. And just like that, my semester abroad comes to an end, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing, and if given the chance, I would do it all again in a heartbeat.