The Travel Tales of Julia Sheldon

I am officially in love with New Zealand, and I want to live here at some point! I haven't written much, because a picture is worth 1000 words, and there is no decent way for me to explain the beauty of this place in words. If anyone wants to provide closed captioning for the photos, please let me know because they're worth it. October 10: Auckland I landed at 8:40am to find that the wheel had finally come off my giant 23kg suitcase. Womp womp. I knew it was coming as it's a very old suitcase, but I was hoping it would make it until Australia. While waiting to go through customs, I learned that NZ is really particular about what's allowed in the country. It's a delicate ecosystem, with lots of species that only exist here. So I waited for about 45 minutes for them to search through my bags and ask me lots of questions, but they actually didn't end up searching my bags at all. It was an $80 cab ride to my hotel, which was right downtown! Auckland has a ...

August 9: Yogyakarta So our bed was fantastic and we were thoroughly enjoying it, until our roommates left before 8 and caused the alarms on the door locks, of which there were 2, to be repeatedly very angry. We waited until they finally left, slept for about another hour, got breakfast at the hostel and then Andy was grumpy so went back to sleep while I went to wander the mall. I grabbed money from the ATM, scoured the English bookstore, picked up a few groceries, and booked a few days of activities for us. Andy emerged just as lunch was ready. I LOVE having a hostel with a decent kitchen. We made pasta with sundried tomato pesto, and bell peppers.  We decided to wander about the town, and made our way towards the palace. What a let down. It was closed, but also looked quite run down. Seems that in Yogyakarta, and likely in other parts of Indonesia, hawking is a practice i.e. training birds to come back when you let them fly away. Surprising, and strange. Th...