So far settling in is proving to be far harder than I expected. I remember that before we left, we had previous exchangers talk about their experience and warn us of post-exchange depression, but I never, ever thought there was any chance it would affect me. I think it's because even when my exchange finished - I continued to travel for a bit, I applied for the mentoring program (mentoring international students at Otago), and am being a kiwi-host (living in a fl...

So I finally made it back to New Zealand in one piece (although I can't say the same about my suitcase…). Yesterday was a really good day and as per usual, by the time I actually got home I was totally exhausted. We decided to do a day trip and headed to Palm Beach, which is known as Summer Bay from Home and Away! Mum and I have watched Home and Away together since I was really young, so it was something really cool to do. The actual locations for most of the f...

Today we arrived in Sydney. The flight was pretty long but we only managed to get around one hour sleep in total, and so right now I'm absolutely exhausted! When we passed through the arrival gate, we found my mam! She was very cheeky and attempted to surprise me (except she's horrible at keeping secrets), but it was still awesome and just what we needed since we're craving home SOO badly right now! Thanks mam you cheeky goose! We did all the boring stuff - got ...

First things first, check this web link out. It's about what's going on in Bangkok with the protests. http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26224510 I just want to say it's amazing that despite this insane amount of violence - people are actually dying and losing limbs, use of grenades and real guns - life in Bangkok actually continues as normal. You could easily not even know that any I this is going on. --- Anyway... Today was a bit of a game changer....

Well this is just one big bloody disaster! Absolutely everything that could wrong seems to be messing up. Even the most simplest things such as asking if we can leave our stuff in a luggage room - and there is no luggage room, we have to leave it in the public area for the day! Or paying a lot of money for an elephant trek tour that includes pick up and drop off from your hotel, but actually no they won't do it from OUR hotel -_- its super frustrating. We decide...