Every ending is a new beginning

I am now in Frankfurt on my way back to Norway. I was really sad to leave New Zealand and all my friends there, but I am really looking forward to see my friends and family in Norway! I have had a nice journey, except my normal messyness :) In Auckland they almost didn’t let me on the airplane because I had renewed my ticket twice, and in that process my name had ended up as Vaine, Ingaringdale, which confused the poor lady in the check in. On the plane from Auckland to Sydney I met a NZ ichocke refree on his way to Finland, lost my booking pass and luggage tickets, and discovered the wearing pink, yellow and orange toe socks with kiwis on and jandals is a great conversation starter. In Frankfurt I discovered that Qantas has lost my tent, used hour on that on got lost both on the air port and the city. And I finally got to see the Simpsons movie! I loved it! Spiderpig is great! And being in Frankfurt I take back everything I have ever said about German bread not being good!

I’ll give a short summation off my three weeks of holyday. More will come later, and so will photos! The trip started with me and Jake taking the plane to Nelson about 3 hours after our last exam. In Nelson we met Greg with a broken yellow van, spent the night getting drunk, buying firework, and managing to get Jake and Greg to be called annoying Americans (they are my favorite annoying Americans though :)

We then got the van fixed and went off to Paynes Ford, Golden Bay the next day where we met Ed, and spent a week. After Ingrid and Kristin came in the end off the week, we went back on the road and drove down to Charlston, where we climbed on the sea cliffs while 20 m high waves washed over us, and Suvi joined us. Wanaka near Queenstown was our next goal, thereafter Wye creek with beautiful climbing and perfect camping. And after Ed and Jake left us, the rest of us got a couple of days in Mt Cook area. Basically what we have done is climbing almost every day. As Lisa uses to say about me: “I don’t know anyone else who have traveled so much in NZ, and seen so little!” To my defence, I have seen a lot of nice rock :)

Quotes of the trip:
“Peer pressure always leads to good decitions”
“Friends don’t let friends climb naked alone”
“Why not? The drawers are up!” (The boys ended up climbing a 26 called why not without knowing it was a 26 just because the drawers where up :)
“It’s gneiss, but don’t take schist for granite”
“Svigermorstopp!” (The one word in norwagian all the boys knew and loved to use)

Activies on the trip except climbing:
Eating
Sleeping
Swimming
Rescuing dogs
Drinking
Mooning
Knitting (Ed, Kristin, Suvi and Ingrid, all the boys got yarn and needles!)
Croucheing (Jake, Greg and me)
Extreme knitting and croucheing (Jake and Ed like to take their new hobby and combine it with their old!)
Card playing
Driving around in Greg yellow van and a rental car

Nick names of the trip:
Jake – Ost
Greg – Shaft, John Shaft (because that’s Gregs song!)
Kristin – Little blue penguin (so Greg could meet one)
Ed – DC (down climber, since he climbed down a 23 because there was a beehive there!)
Inga – Spiderpig (I think the reason was that i actually tought the name was funny:)
Ingrid – Macademia (she is a bit nuts, and also since she got so sad when we ate all the macademia chocolate and left her the paper :)