Wow! I did not realize I had not posted in a month! This past month has been hectic, and it does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon. I had a lot of homework, assessments, and quizzes to do at the beginning of April. School picked up heavy because mid-semester break was coming.
The second week of April, I went on a weekend trip with Don and Ace.
The first day of the trip, we walked around Sydney. I got to see the Sydney Opera House, along with Chinatown and Bondi Beach. It was so fun to just walk around. We even took a ferry to go to different places in Sydney.
On Sunday, we took the train to hike Blue Mountains. It was absolutely beautiful. Before we hiked, we went to The 3 Sisters lookout. To start the hike off, we took the Giant Stairway, consisting of 998 steps. Even though we were going down the stairs, it was still exhausting. I can not even imagine what it was like to go up. After taking the journey down, we walked around to see waterfalls and great views. The hike back up was not as bad because there were little lookouts to stop at and walk around.
This past week, mid-semester break started. Me and some friends went to New Zealand for the week.
Our home and vehicle for the next 5 days, was this bright green camper van. There were 2 beds, so the 5 of us were nice and snug at night for sleeping. In the van, there was a stove top, sink, and kitchen supplies. Kevin and Ethan were the best drivers ever, driving us along the south part of New Zealand. Our flight landed in Christchurch. We stayed in a hostel that night, picking up the van in the morning. From Christchurch, we drove to Queenstown.
In Queenstown, some of us did the Nevis Swing (the biggest swing in the world). It is a 134 meter drop. It was only scary for the first 2 seconds because we were just free falling. After the free falling was over and all the screaming was done, Ethan and I just looked around at the pretty views as we swung back and forth. Once the swing slowed down, we got reeled back up. It was exciting having a little adrenaline running through our veins. I know I was a little scared, but I think my mom was way more scared just watching the video I sent her.
The final 2 days of the trip, we turned in our camper van for a smaller car. We stayed in hostels again. We were supposed to go to an observatory for stargazing, but it was cloudy. Instead of stargazing, we stayed in and played cards. It was kind of nice to stay in and relax. We had been driving around so much, constantly having something fun planned. We had an early flight of 6:30 am back to the Sydney airport. Since it was an international flight, we got to the airport 3 hours early just to be safe. I do not think anyone was feeling too great getting up at 3 am, but we all got to sleep on the plane. Once we landed in Sydney, we took the 2.5 hour train ride back to Newcastle.
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Junior Christine Rheinberger is spending the spring 2019 term in Australia through our
U of A Exchange program at the University of Newcastle.
Read more from Christine at
https://crheinberger16.wixsite.com/website/blog
Don't miss your opportunity to study or intern abroad! Start your search at
http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/
Interested in becoming a HogsAbroad Social Media Ambassador like Christine? Contact Katie at
ksabo@uark.edu.
