Ness in New Zealand

From January the 1st until May 31st 2015 I will be in New Zealand for an internship as part of my Master Animal Science specialising in Animal Health and Behaviour. This travel blog will include weekly updates of my life in New Zealand and my big Lord of the Rings adventure.

[newzealandness]

We made it to Auckland! I am currently staying at my cousin's place :) tomorrow I will say goodbye to New Zealand and fly back to the Netherlands. I am feeling a little sad but I am also glad to go back home. 5 months was a long time. But I gained a lot of new experiences! In other news, hobbit cider :D

[newzealandness]

19th of May 2015

Queenstown - Nozone Skydive & AJ Hacket Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump

[newzealandness]

May 10 2015 Kaikoura

Swimming with wild dusky dolphins in Kaikoura. This was one of the most gorgeous wildlife experiences to date! We even saw a huge wandering albatross. Fantastic :D

[newzealandness]

May 6th 2016 Rover’s Tour - Wellington

“Get off the Road”, Weta Workshop, the Anduin, Rivendell and Isengard!

[newzealandness]

4th of May 2015 Mt Doom - Tongariro National Park

Beautiful! Quite a hike but worth it :D

[newzealandness]

3rd of May 2015 Hobbiton - Matamata

What can I say. It was amazing! Shame of the lack of light but we’ll cosplay again during the day later in May xD great evening, fantastic food!!! Thanks dutchieinthetardis for the pics :D

[newzealandness]

May 2nd 2015 Trollshaws - Piopio

Hairy Hobbit Waitomo tours was amazing and the guides are so friendly. It was so beautiful and quiet up here, great day :D

[newzealandness]

Week 10 – Week 12 March 9th – March 29th

Yes yes, I know. Weekly updates. No other excuse than to admit that I have been lousy for the past three weeks. Add the fact that I have been working my butt off and the last thing I wanted to do was crawl behind a computer and type my blog. And me and Marlena have been very busy booking our New Zealand trip. Lord of the Rings Tour is officially go :D

Geerdina took me to the racetrack where she works we had dinner and there. She also explained how the whole betting thing works and we had a lot of fun. I actually made all my betting money back which was nice. Don’t worry, I won’t come back with a gambling habit. The max I usually bet is about 2 dollars. But it’s good fun now I actually understand how to bet and what to look out for. And you get very competitive and it feels great when your horse wins.

The rest of week 10 passed by relatively easy. Live is starting to get very routine like and it’s not really worth mentioning every single thing that happens. We’ve got two tame chickens that insists on sleeping on a little wardrobe thing just outside the door. Which basically means it is covered in chicken shit every single morning. Even worse, one of them is a rooster. He just signed his own death warrant. I do not fancy being woken up at 6 every single morning.

Of course there was Armageddon Expo where I met up with Dani, April, Jarrod and Emily :D It was a lot of fun, especially the zombie Alley, omg. It was quite a big set up for a convention, however it was also very relaxed. There were a lot of opportunities to have a chat with some of the actors which was really awesome! We spent a good 15 minutes talking to John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli in the Lord of the Rings, and he told me I was a smart girl and had a good mind. What a compliment to get. Gosh he was a nice and very very inspirational man. I was very glad my Galadriel costume arrived in time.

Halfway week 11 I had dinner with 9 other Dutch peeps in Hamilton. Half of them lived here and were either dairy farmers or horse breakers. Another girl was there for I think working holiday and her sister and dad were there to visit her. We went to a Mongolian wok, which was very tasty. And I learned that hot chili sauce is indeed hot. Thanks again Geerdina for inviting me along. Unfortunately I could not stay for very long because I had an evening shift at 10:30… I did see some gorgeous fireworks on my way back to the car though :D

Yeah like I said, it is al starting to feel really normal living here to be honest. Not an awefull lot to write home about. Although I did finally see the Theory of Everything about Stephen Hawking and I have to admit that it is a worthy Oscar winner. Although I would have loved to see Benedict winning, Eddie really deserved that statue. I cried a lot, but that might also be because of the fact that they used one of my favourite music pieces in the film, Arrival of the birds.

So yes I have been working quite a lot. 53 hours in 5 days. Litterally an 11 hour work day of quite physically hard work. It’s not bad though, but it does wear one out. Now Easter is approaching. And gosh the New Zealanders are mad about their chocolate eggs. I really want to bring that chocolate pig back to NL for Roger. I will see what I can manage.

As I said Marlena and I are doing a Lord of the Rings tour down the South Island in May! We decided to book at lordoftheringstour.co.nz instead of Red Carpet Tours. Love them as well, but they are so much more expensive. And yeah cool you meet Daniel Reeve, but we have already met him and got signed work from him. So we figured to do the cheaper tour. We will travel down from Te Awamutu, after doing the Hobbiton evening tour, to Wellington (passing Mount Doom along the way) and will see a few LotR locations there before taking the ferry to Picton. We will pick up our rental car and drive to Abel Tasman National Park before heading down to Kaikoura. I really want to book the swimming with wild dolphins tour. Then it’s off to Christchurch, Wanaka, Te Anau and Queenstown before we fly back to Wellington. 2 weeks North and 2 weeks South Island with a LotR theme. Naturally.

I do want to the Kawarau Bridge bungee Jump though.

And I think I will contact Daniel Reeves about my tattoo, just to make sure I’ve got the correct spelling and all. I hope he can help me out. I want the Elvish word for Hobbit, perian. In their handwriting as well. It has been a significant and ongoing thing in my life now and I think I am ready.

Righty ho, hope you caught up a bit. Hopefully back to weekly updates from now on…. Thanks for reading! xx

[newzealandness]

Week 8 & Week 9 February 23rd – March 8th

Since not much happened during week 8, except for me meeting my extended family from the UK and going to Hobbiton again, but me houssitting my supervisours house while she and her husband were in Qatar, I decided combine these two weeks in my blog. And it was about time I did so.

I have a distant aunt that is related to my family in South Africa. She lives in the UK and her maiden name is the same as mine. Her husband tragically died about 3 years ago. I had never met her in real life, but we had a lot of facebook contact. And I really need to visit her in Warwickshire some day J Now her daughter Amanda and her boyfriend are in New Zealand at the moment so Nicky decided to go and visit them. And since I am here too we decided to do a family meet up :D We met up in Huntly but after brunch we figured it was a bit of a dump, so we headed for Matamata instead, where with a lot of persuasion we got in on an earlier Hobbiton Tour. It was as lovely as ever! AND SMAUG WAS IN THE SHIRE. It was really nice to spend the day with relatives in the Shire. And fun to hear stories about your family from someone else, really strange indeed :D

Yeah like I mentioned the rest of the week was pretty uneventful. It was a nice change of scenery though, but the limited internet connection was a little annoying sometimes. I had to look after the two dogs and two cats of my  supervisor, which wasn’t that bad. I watched a lot of dvd’s and did data input for our research we are doing at Equibreed. I made quite some progress!

It was Briony’s birthday that Wednesday! So the four of us went out for dinner at a Thai restaurant where I had fried squid and prawn in a chili sauce. It was delicious and we had a good night. I got here two Indiana Jones dvd’s, the first Sherlock Holmes dvd and a subway gift card. I love Thai food omg.

When I returned from my little ‘holiday’ THE KITTENS HAD GROWN SO MUCH. They developed from balls of fluff into actual miniature cats. They are so precious. I named the ginger boy Henry, and I a getting attached which is not good. Because it has got to go.

On Friday we met up with some friends at the Five Stags and there we had a lovely dinner, I had venison scallops. I absolutely adore venison, it is one of my favourite meats. Afterwards we went to the pub where Travis tried to hook me up to one of his friends. But no, just no. 38 years old and absolutely not my type, nice try Trav, leave it to me next time. It was a nice pub though, great live band and good drinks. Though I didn’t drink because I had to drive back, yay. Come to think of it we went out for dinner quite a lot the last few weeks.

Also I will be going to Armageddon Expo in Hamilton this Sunday. Only I ordered a Galadriel costume, which will arrive on Monday after the convention. Amazon is currently doing its best to deliver it on Saturday, but I do not think it will succeed haha. I will probably just wear a white dress with some LotR jewelry. At least I tried. At any rate, Graham McTavish will be there (Dwalin), Adam Brown (Ori), Manu Bennet (Azog) and John Rhys-Davies (Gimli). I will also meet several people from tumblr and I am really excited :D

Till then! Thanks for reading <3

[newzealandness]

Week 7 February 16th – February 22nd

WELLINGTON TIME. I took a nightbus from Cambridge, leaving my car in some random carpark, to Wellington. I arrived around 6:45 am in Wellington. I had breakfast at Maccas *mcdonald’s* Just a coffee and a yogurt ;) It was obviously WAY too early to check into my hostel so I decided to stroll about the city and look for the first locations of the Hobbit Costume trail! Which turned out to be very easy. There were maps available at every hotel that participated. And Wellington turned out to be a very easy city to walk around in. Costumes of the following characters could be found; Thorin, Gandalf, Bilbo, Bard, Radagast, Legolas, Tauriel, Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Balin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Ori, Nori, Dori, Gloin and Oin. And I found them all woohoo :D

Before I checked in I decided to have a look at Zealandia, which is a New Zealand restoration project 10 minutes outside Wellington. It’s a sanctuary for the native bird species. A big fence keeps out the invasive predators and competitors like possums, rabbits, rats and stoats. A lot of native bird species suffered from the invasion of, mostly European and Australian species of animals. Many plants, insects and birds have been driven to extinction. It’s a very nice opportunity to see many bird species in their natural surroundings. And it’s a beautiful place. I found out afterwards that Mark Carwardine and Stephen Fry visited it to see the ancient reptile Tautara there for the documentary Last Chance to See. Which I recommend wholeheartedly. I unfortunately did not see a kiwi, because they are nocturnal. And I am sad to have missed Sirocco the Kakapo. Would have loved to see the flightless parrot. There’s not many left of them.

I met a very nice Taiwanese couple there. She was German and he was from Taiwan. They were on their honeymoon and I joined them to Zealandia. I am so glad they valued my company because traveling alone can be.. alone? They even offered to meet up with me when I at Taipei airport for my 18 hours stop over. Which is so nice of them and I am looking so much more forward to the return trip already!

After Zealandia I had a little nap at the hostel before I continued my Costume trail. Including a visit to Te Papa Museum, which was certainly worth a visit. The next day I visited Weta Workshop, which was fantastic. This is where the art department of Weta is located. Very interesting and oh my god the gift shop is pure torture. They actually had the big Smaug statue on display but it was way off my price range xD

At any rate once again, go there if you ever have the opportunity. A look behind the screens for just $24 is so cool! After Weta I headed to Wellington Airport to see the famous Gollum and Eagles statues that hang from the ceiling there. AND I FOUND SMAUG :D well he couldn’t be missed really. He is 75% scale, and quite huge. His eye opens and closes and his pupil focuses and moves about. Very cool feature. I want one in my garden. Makes for a good guard dog. *nods*

The rest of the days I spent on the docs. Watching people fish, rowing and swimming. I listened to music and just chilled enjoying the sun. It is such a great city. Such a positive and relaxed vibe. Lots of people just enjoying life. Lots of music, good food and drinks. Viva la vie.

It was a good two days, but I had to go back home eventually. My bus returned in Cambridge at 3:30 am and miraculously my car was still at the carpark where I left it. Seriously no one wants to steal it, but I was afraid it might have been towed away, lol.

The rest of the week went by fairly uneventful. On Saturday evening we had another nice Jam session. And we went to see the glowworms near the creek at the farm. It was quite a dangerous trail in the dark but oh my god it was like we stepped into a star wars movie. It was so gorgeous! And there’s no way I could have caught it on camera, and even if I did it would not have been like the real experience. I love nature. It always amazes and surprises me. Glowworms rock. And I met Cedric, Patrick and Nancy the eels. And we saw a river rat. Lovely.

Thank you for hanging in there and see you next week :D

[newzealandness]

Hobbit Costume Trail and Weta Highlights

[newzealandness]

Week 6

9th of February – 15th of February

Sorry for the lack of updating guys :D Turns out a week of working and a planned trip to Wellington is all a bit much!

Surprisingly enough Leon wanted to see The Imitation Game and he asked me along, so I saw it for a third and probably last time in the cinema. Afterwards we went to MacDonalds. To be honest, it DOES taste different from home, even though it is prepared almost the same. The chicken patties are not succulent. Very dry really. Not bad but a bit meh. The ice cream is heavenly though. It actually tastes like milk.

On Tuesday we I went with Travis and Jason to a band practice up the road. It was pretty fun although a lot of songs were sung I didn’t know. However they were quite good and I had a nice time. Lots of laughs and lots of drinks. Problem was though, I had to work the next day, so it was a bit of late night for me hehe.

THURSDAY WE HAD CURRY nom nom nom I had a spicy lamb curry called Rogan Josh. Lots of wine and garlic naan bread. Yes it was good :D

On Friday I had the honour to represent Equibreed at the Auckland handicap trot race which Equibreed sponsored. Lee didn’t want me to drive up to Auckland in my old car, because she was afraid it would break down, so I had to take hers. It drives very very nicely. When I arrived a woman, called Kim, showed me around and told me where to be at what time and gave me a restaurant voucher. So I had a very nice dinner, stuffed chicken with bacon nom nom. Being at a race I also made a little bet! Only the horse I bet on came last… Hahahaha I tried. I can imagine why it is addicting though, the atmosphere was very fun.

At any rate I was where I had to be when the race started and we witnessed it, my name was announced on speaker which was a bit daunting. We watched race and what should have happened is that the winning horse and owners should come the winners circle to have a picture with the sponsor. Nice to share on facebook and all! However the owner took hold of the horse and just ignored us and stormed off. Just like that. And everyone could see and everyone was flabbergasted.

Kim was extremely apologetic and I was a bit perplexed and very disappointed. I mean the owner did not even go to the presentation room where she would have gotten her trophy and I my framed photo. Just rude, absolutely rude. They were able to get me a picture with the horse, after it had a shower…., and her son which was better than nothing, but still, such an anticlimax to a fantastic night pfffft. Even the driver came up to me to apologise because he did not like the owners behaviour. Kim is going to invite me over for another race because she felt I should have the full positive experience, which is quite nice. I would like to go back. But I feel very stupid and sorry for Equibreed. They sponsor a race and then they are literally humiliated by a very grumpy owner. RUDE.

ANYWAY I got home safely and did not have a terrible night all together.

I literally spend the next two days preparing for Wellington, I will write more about that in the next update! Thanks so much for reading!

[newzealandness]

Week 5 February 2nd – February 8th

I am going to Wellington next week :D I am really excited to go. I booked a night bus, which is cool because it was cheap but somehow also a shame because they say it’s a stunning scenery when you go down south. So I will totally miss that. But I am pretty sure I will get another chance to see it. It’s about a 7 hour ride to Wellington from Cambridge so yeah, night bus it is.

This week passed yet again reasonable uneventful. Monday was primarily reserved for studying. Reading articles and writing bits of my report. On Tuesday I went into town and sporadically thought “Let’s go to the cinema”  So I went to see The Imitation Game, which is a film based on the true story of Alan Turing and the breaking of the German Enigma code. Set in World War Two, which happens to be my favourite genre of film, it also deals with Turing’s conviction of  his homosexual tendencies. Something that was a crime in the British Empire up until 1967. I will not spoil the movie for you. Please go and see it. Both the film and Benedict Cumberbatch, among others, are nominated for an Oscar, although they are competing against another jewel that is The Theory of Everything, based on the true story of Stephen Hawking. At any rate it was a very cute and small cinema, which such amazingly comfy chairs! I think even the ones we sat in during the preview screening of 12 Years a Slave cannot live up to.

On a more exciting note, WE HAVE GOT KITTENS IN DA HOUSE. There are four very cute and very little babies. There is a dark one, a grey one, a ginger/white one and a tortoise shell one. What a cutie patooties. Ruby, the mom, is doing well and she is a very good and attentative mother, especially for a first timer. They are very precious and I want to enjoy them as much as I can before they go because KITTENS.

AND we have baby horses here at the farm! A filly and a colt, I didn’t get a pic of the black one as it was too far away but the bay one is adorable. Just one day old on the pictures. I want 10.

I am very happy with my new hat which was a gift from my supervisor Lee Morris! I am going to treasure it forever, just a very nice and loving gesture I think. And it’s just a very cool straw hat. The horses love it too.. three of them have already tried to lift if off my head and/or eat it. No. Go away.

The responsibilities I am having are slowly getting bigger and bigger. This Sunday I was alone on the farm for most of the day. Responsible for dealing with a client, and giving treatments to the horses etc. It’s quite scary sometimes because you want to live up to expectations and not make mistakes. I think I am doing well, but it’s always a bit.. unpredictable shall we say? Emma is still not fit to work, although from what we’ve heard she is doing quite a bit better. Her back is still not 100% though so as long as she is out, I am in.

Next to the work at Equibreed I am studying the oestrous cycle of the mare and exploring seasonality and the possible effects of heat stress. It’s all very interesting but also challenging. It’s a good thing I like to do literary studies.

Right ho, that’s it for this week! See ya :D

[newzealandness]

Week 4 January 26th– February 1st

Well I did it, I fell of my horse after a few practice jumps. She is an old polo brood mare and quite easy to ride but for some reason she jumped higher than I expected and she just bolted afterwards. I lost a stirrup in the jump and couldn’t get control so when she made a feint as we went straight ahead to the gate I simply rolled off. It wasn’t so bad a fall, but I landed against an iron fence which cut my elbow and bruised my shoulders. I couldn’t move a lot as I lay there, I did check for broken bones but was very shaky. Thank gosh I wore a helmet though, I felt pretty dizzy and had quite a blow to my head. It might have saved me from a lot of trauma. But all was well, I could stand, I could walk. I took a warm bath and ice-packed my elbow. I was a bit stiff the next day but I felt good enough for Hobbiton!

I won’t bore you all again with tales of the Shire, if you want to read the special blog entry concerning hobbits you can go here. It was great anyway :3

The rest of the week passed by reasonable uneventful, I really do not have much to tell other than falling of a horse and hobbits. Oh yes hang on, Sharneigh invited me for dinner at Agnus Road Eatery up at Mystery Creek which is next to Hamilton Airport. We were with about 8 people and there also was a Dutch lady. She was very nice and we didn’t realise we were both Dutch until well into the conversation. It was nice to speak Dutch to someone again. I don’t know if I have said this before but when you are faced with living in an English speaking country you realise how poor your English actually is. I can speak it of course, but it sometimes hard to express yourself or be spontaneous. Especially when you are in a group and I don’t know, it’s hard to go with the flow and make jokes and stuff or to explain something without making mistakes. I can cope, but still, I wish it was my mother-tongue sometimes.

At any rate, dinner was nice and I think it is really sweet of Sharneigh to invite me along with her friends :)

Speaking of Hamilton Airport, I am getting quite friendly with the ground staff of Air New Zealand. It is a tiny airport. TINY tiny. And quite regularly we have to collect horse semen from an national or international flight. Yes I know I feel like I am in a Cabin Pressure sketch (btw go and listen to that radio series it is absolutely BRILLIANT).

Yeah, what else, nothing much to notify people about. It has rained a bit. Apparently more rain has been pouring from the sky in February than in the whole of January. That pretty much sums it up how dry it actually has been here. The farmers are all very happy. Newlands calls me a relentless optimist. I am, I told him it would rain at some point and it did. Obviously…

Well I think I will call it a day and go to sleep now. Thank you for reading and see you again next week!

Cheerio.

[newzealandness]

Hobbiton Movie Set - January 27th

In addition to my weekly updates I decided to make a post about my visit to Hobbiton.

Matamata is just an hour away from where I live, which in New Zealand terms is a short distance. It really is in the middle of nowhere along a very bendy farm road. The surrounding already started to look Shire-ish, if that makes any sense at all. The signs where telling me I was getting close to my destination. The car park appeared into view and I arrived there at about 1 in the afternoon. The weather was perfect. Cloudy, no rain and not too hot. I bought my ticket (75 NZD, about 45 euros, expensive but worth it so much) and the girl commented on my Evenstar necklace I wore, which we both wore in fact. My tour started in about 5 minutes so I had a quick look in the gift shop which was a mistake. So many goodies.

The tour lasts for about 2 hours. We went on a coach and the driver drove us down a farm road which was built by the New Zealand army for Peter Jackson, since he needed a way of transport to the set in the days of the Lord of the Rings. Down we went and we could already see glimpses of the Green Dragon inn. When we got off the bus our tour guide introduced himself, David, and asked about our Nationalities (Dutch, Chinese, English, Swizz, Kiwis), whether we had read the books and the seen films and that sort of thing. Apparently 30% of the visitors have not read the books or seen the films. What.

At any rate, down we went and there it was. The Shire. Hobbiton. The spot where Bilbo goes “I am going on an adventure!” I need to get a picture in cosplay there next time. To be more precise it is called Gandalf’s Cutting. THE HOBBIT HOLES WHERE SO TINY AND PERFECT omigosh. Chimneys smoked, there was fire wood outside and honey and beehives and all little stuff and it was as if they just had gone inside for a short nap during the day. So cute. David asked a lot of questions to which some I did not know the answer to, so it was actually nice to learn a thing or two as well. I did know about hobbits eating plums from the trees and little things like that. We made our way up the hill and admired the scenery and the hobbit holes. And then the oak came into my sight. We already caught glimpses of Bag End, covered in tourists unfortunately, but at least that is why it still all exists. Better be grateful. At any rate we came close the that one magical smial.

The oak tree is entirely fake. In fact they chopped down the one from LotR because it had to look smaller. All the leaves are hand wired. If we found one we could keep it David said. And guess what. Buried in the ground I did in fact find one and it is the best souvenir I could have ever wished for. An oak leaf from the tree above Bag End. Oh god.

Bag End was fantastic. The detail was amazing and it was so surreal to finally stand there and see it in real life. It is absolutely beautiful and the gardners (SAMWISE) did such a good job keeping everything green and blooming during the drought. Birds sang, butterflies were everywhere. Clearly hobbits and men are not the only creatures that love this place. After taking a lot of pics with my selfiestick a very nice gentleman offered to take my camera and make pics of me during the rest of the tour. His daughter was not so very interested and I think he enjoyed my enthusiasm and shared it.

We had to go on eventually and we made our way down the hill to the party field and the famous party tree. It was fantastic to see. Bagshot Row, Samwise’s movie residence, was right along it and it was strange to see the ending of the Return of the King. Pretty emotional. I did not really cry but I sometimes had a big lump in my throat. Off we went into a little patch of forest, when the Green Dragon came into sight! First there was Sandyman’s Mill and we crossed the bridge. Then we went into the Inn and had a pint of ale :D I bought a cookie as well. Next time I want to try any of the pies they sell. There was a book with signatures from actors and crew whom visited the Green Dragon. Martin Freeman of course among them. The pub is just a real place, it feels so old and like home and just very very comfortable. I could have stayed there for a long time. Alas the tour came to an end and we had to move along. We walked across the lake, with a beautiful view of the Hill, and through the vegetable garden, back to the exit.

I certainly want to do the evening tour now :3 It was such a magical and beautiful place. I wish I could take all of you there. Please visit it if you ever have the chance. You will not regret it.

[newzealandness]

I fell of my horse today. I am quite sore, but the rum helps. She bolted at some point and I fell into the iron fence and cut my elbow and bruised my shoulders. I expect to be very stiff in the morning. Oh well, keep calm and carry on. At least I got this awesome picture :P 

[newzealandness]

Week 3

January 19th  - January 25th

I just realized it will be February next week. Just a tiny indicator of how quickly the time passes. It will be all over before I know it, so enjoy it now I say :D

This week passed fairly routine like actually. I did have some trouble with getting out of bed, which is not exactly new, but my sleep has become increasingly unrestful. I dream of work and of airplanes and my visa and whatnot. Not particularly nightmares, but they keep me very busy and I wake up from them quite often. Aka not a good night’s rest and I am beginning to feel it. Luckily I have my second (SECOND!!!??!) day off tomorrow and I decided I am going to sleep as much as I can.

We had a busy week at Equibreed, mainly because of Jody’s semen collection, which took place during the mornings. I was equipped with transporting the semen to the Animal Breeding Centre near Hamilton Airport. About an hour’s ride in total and good to practice to be honest. Quite uneventful yes, and the dangers of lunching at KFC were always present (it’s so cheap here, what the hell, you get a complete lunch: 3 wings, fries and drink for 3,35 euro’s), but it was nice to have some time on myself.

Unfortunately one of the staff, Emma, hurt her back pretty badly and she is not to return until it is fully healed. Which means we are pretty short on staff right now. Which also means I have been officially employed to work there. And it is certainly not bad! I earn about 10 euro’s per hour and work an average of 9 hours a day. I am very grateful for this opportunity because I thought that it would initially cost me a lot of money to sustain myself here, but the opposite turned out, which is very beneficial for my bank account (at least for now, the temptations of LotR and Hobbit merchandise have not  yet crossed my path…)

All very nice, but I have to keep in mind I am not here for just a work experience or  a holiday. The idea of the internship is that you get accustomed to cooperating with a company, which boils down to work along with them, but I also have to be involved in scientific research. I talked about this with my supervisor and we set a deadline for a small paper I am to write about the mare’s ovulation cycle. That will at least keep me busy until we come to the data analysis and other stuff. Ohh, and I saw an embryo through the microscope the other day. I believe it was 14 days old, and of course did not at all resemble a horse yet, but it was very exciting nonetheless.

Other than that and being exhausted from work and just wanting to eat and sleep I have been riding a bit again with Briony and will probably go again tomorrow! And I am planning on visiting Hobbiton on Tuesday. I initially wanted to go on Monday but it turned out it’s a public holiday, in other words it will be swarming with people. Not a good day to go. Plus it’s not a case of “yolo let’s go to Matamata” It’s a big think okay? It means an awful lot to me. So yeah it will probably be a rollercoaster of emotions :P It’s also so very very close by, like a 50 minute drive? I am going for the day tour. When Marlena is here we will go again of course, and I will try to persuade her to take the evening tour. Which will consist of an evening dining at the Green Dragon Inn and when walk with lanterns through Hobbiton up the Hill to Bag End.

Yes my thoughts exactly *_*

I am not influenced by any film by choosing this country at all!

Ah yes and in case you are wondering. That big bug I found wandering around Equibreed, no idea what it is… but it was huge and awesome :D And that big  black spider, yeah, that one lives behind one of the paintings in my bedroom. So basically it is my roommate and I called it Bob. Although I am not 100% comfortable with it roaming around at night. But hey it keeps the mosquito’s at bay. I hope.

It’s very hot here btw, 30 degrees easily, and so very very dusty. It reminds me of Pinkpop 2014 a lot. But without the rain. And dustier. And with more Physical exercise. Man I do hope to lose some weight here. Built some muscle. Whatever.  (See here my problem with cheap fastfood)

I hope you are all well, thank you for reading and I see you again next week!