Goodbye to Stine via Bungy

• Annatee's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Auckland

Trip Start Feb 16, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 22, 2008 Next
Entry

  Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The details of this past week's adventure will come later.  It's funny.  Travel teaches you a lot of things.  I just had a pretty amazing realization that has been a really long time coming.  After spending a ridiculously fun filled, at times disappointing because of the damn tour, weekend with my new friend, Stine, I realize how much I TRULY APPRECIATE all of the wonderful women in my life. 

As we took the bus back to Auckland, Stine and I were very quiet.  We decided to get coffee before she caught the bus to the airport.  She's headed down to Christchurch to meet her brother and I'm staying in Auckland while I figure out what's next. We both were really sad about saying goodbye.  We've had so much ridiculous fun.  She's very much a kid at heart like I can be.  The weekend was FULL of mishaps, one after the other, but we just rolled with it. Once we arrived in Auckland, we found a coffee shop to hang out for little bit before we needed to catch our respective buses, talked more about our little adventure and got all weepy.  Traveling can be really hard.  Constantly moving, meeting new people, and saying goodbye to those people -- which can be the hardest part.  She's off to meet her brother and I am back to being by myself for a bit.  We talked about all of this.  We laughed, we cried.  I realized I really needed to just cry and be sad about it and then move on, like you do. 

As I sat there, at one point I thought about Stine and how we are from totally different places in the world, yet we've had some of the same life experiences.  Things that kind of transcend cultural differences.  We found a lot of the same things, often ridiculous things, funny.  Again, it's been like therapy.  So, I sat there and I thought about all of the women in my life.  My family, my friends, ones I've grown up with, the ones I've worked with, played with, cried with, laughed with, cried and laughed some more with, traveled with, fought with, ran with, drank with, and learned from.  How much they've all taught me. It's like each one of those messages just hit me at I sat there, so very hard, like a ton of bricks.  Each and every one of you.  Thank you. 

It's so funny how things come to you like this and how in this particular moment, at this particular instance, it hit me pretty damn hard and the tears will not stop.  Sometimes I feel, as women, we focus so much on trying to meet THE guy, that we forget about all the little ways that we, as women connect, that we don't with men. Men are important in our lives, absolutely no doubt about it, don't get me wrong, but there is a different type of connection that we have with women. 

After we sat there for awhile, wiping the tears away, we decided it was time to go.  As we walked up Victoria Street, we passed by the hostel where I woke up Stine and our adventure commenced.  It's right down the street from the Sky Tower and across from a place where you can bungy.  Basically, you sit in this seat, all strapped in, attached to huge purple bungee cords.  This is right in the heart of Auckland mind you.  This sucker propels you in the air 55 meters.  We both looked at each other, looked at the bungy thing, and decided to do it, the whole time saying, WHAT ARE WE DOING???  We climbed in, held hands and next thing you know we are being SHOT UP into the air, over the city at what feels like a zillion miles an hour. The WHOOSH of the air all around us was absolutely crazy and unlike anything I've ever experienced.  There was more laughing and screaming over the next 3 mintues as we bounced around in mid-air.  We couldn't tell which way was up or down.  City lights were all around us.  It was nuts, and we couldn't wait to get down. We yelled a few times, "WHEN ARE YOU BRINGING US DOWN!!!???"

Although I grew up an hour from a Six Flags Park where we'd pilgrimmage to once or twice a summer for the roller coasters, and I love the idea of an adreniline induced adventure (this is Anne Adventure afterall...), I'm not sure I want to bungy again.  The adreniline pumping through my veins over the next SEVERAL, yes, SEVERAL hours was almost unbearable.  It might have had something to do with the state of mind I was in, I don't know, but  I felt like I was going to throw up for a few hours.  Poor Stine had to get on a plane after that too...

Print this entry Share Auckland hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry