Summer Vacation 2007

Summer 2006 is not even officially over yet, and already I got an email and a call regarding my next summer assignment for another international trip.

Spain, Italy, Southern France, and Monaco--here I come in 2007!

New Zealand: Day One--Rotorua

We visited a small town where Lord of the Rings was filmed, but we didn't take a tour of the farm that it was film on. We just passed through the town.

We visited a Wai-o-Tapu, which is a large volcanic plateau of craters and mudbaths. This is called the Devil's Bath, and it changes colors from green to yellow, depending on the season.

G'Day, Mate!

I had no plans for summer until opportunity came knocking--actually, it fell in my lap! I'm going on an international trip where kangaroos, vegamite, and kiwis are to be had; where boomarangs are used for hunting, and taking coral from the Great Barrier Reef is illegal.

How did this come about, you may ask? I applied for a position in the People to People program for next year's delegation, and that's how I got my name in a pool. Let's just say that teachers this year backed out due to personal commitments, and therefore, the program was short on two chaperones. I got called to fill in a spot.

I think of it as more of a business trip rather than a pleasure trip because, technically, I will be working. I will be monitoring and chaperoning high school teenagers who are student ambassadors for the program. Not only am I there to ensure their safety, but also to ensure that they do not do anything shameless that could embarrass and damage relationships between the United States and Australia and New Zealand--oh yeah!--and instruct them on cultural sensitivity. Not that teenagers could do anything irreparable on an international level (*august thinks of Michael Fay's caning in Singapore for graffiti.*)

No pressure...

I leave next Sunday, and I will be gone for three weeks, just in time to still catch the Comic Con.

Pearl Harbor

The one thing I had to see while I was in Hawai'i. It was a very somber experience.

I Touched Connecticut and Massachusetts

I spent the weekend in the East Coast to see my youngest sister graduate from college. Massachusetts and Connecticut are really lovely states, especially the rural areas. I wished I did my studies in the east. We drove by Amherst at night, had sushi in Hampshire, drove over the Connecticut River several times, and awed at old brick buildings and spires that reached the sky.

Maybe I'll post pictures this weekend when my family comes back from their New York trip. It sucks not having a vacation when I want to.