Happy New Year!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014 5:55 pm

Happy New Year from 2014!

I meant to post last night and wish you all a Happy New Year from the first time zone in the world but I ended up being much to busy having fun to bother. Hope you all are enjoying New Years Eve in the states. As I'm writing this it is currently 3 minutes until the ball drops in NYC - it already feels like old news here. It's crazy being 19 hours ahead of CST.

For a recap of yesterday, I had the day off and went back to New Chums beach by myself. It was fairly crowded since it was New Years Eve day and everyone is on holiday here. I spent about 6 hours there listening to music, reading my book, getting some sun, and watching the people. It was a perfect beach as well. I hitched over there again, as I don't have a car, and it ended up taking me 4 rides in total there and back. My first ride was from a couple nice women. They took me to the turn off for Whangapoua where I caught a ride from Victor, a local Maori guy who drove me all the way to end of the beach where the walk to New Chums starts. He probably saved me about 30 minutes of walking, how nice. On the way back I got a ride from a couple in their early 60s to the turn off for Coromandel. The wife was from California so that's cool - it's always fun to meet Americans. Then my final ride I got form a man, his brother, and his daughter. The man who was driving had spent 3 years hitching around the world and said he owes rides to others and was thus happy to pick me up. He's been to 96 countries - I can't even imagine. What an experience that must've been!

Last night, for NYE, we hung at the cafe drinking and talking until about 11 when we headed to a party hosted by a local guy where there were DJ's and dancing and fireworks. It was very fun but I'm very tired today. We were up until probably 3 am and then I had to work at 11 today. I may elaborate on this post a bit tomorrow as I just don't have the energy to do it now.

Happy New Year everyone!

Best!