Oh those New Zealand busses...

This morning was supposed to be our first New Zealand bus experience, but let me just tell you a little story:

Heidi, Anna, Jessica, and Christine were all very excited to ride the bus to school today. They all met at the bus stop, ready and smiling. The bus wasn’t supposed to come until 7:40, but they got there by 7:30 just to be safe. They waited and waited, and about 7:45, they saw their bus, 090, coming towards them. They stood up, just in time for the bus to drive right past them without even stopping! The nerve! They were all so taken aback and the bus turned the next corner so quickly that no one could even do much to try and stop it. Luckily, their dear host mum, Sheryl, graciously drove them to school, as they all laughed about their funny, first impression of the NZ busses.

But really, the bus driver didn’t even stop for us! She clearly saw four of us standing at the bus stop. How strange…

Here we are, ready and smiling!

After school, we attempted to find the bus that would take us home. We had to wait for a bit, but finally Bus 090 pulled up and the driver said he was going down Colwill Road, just where we needed to go. We all whipped our bus passes that we had just spent so much money on, but, to our disappointment, he wouldn’t accept them! Apparently, we had been given the “Stagecoach” bus line passes when really we need “Richies” bus line passes. Not really our fault since we repeatedly told the girl who gave us the passes that we needed passes for Bus 090 and she repeatedly told us “Oh, I don’t need to know that.” Hmm. Clearly, we have not figured out the bus system yet! Fortunately, this bus driver was very helpful, gave us the student rate ($2), and took us right to the stop in front of our house. Phew. Hopefully things will go better tomorrow after we switch our passes!

We actually got quite a lot of homework in class today :( But, before we buckled down, Anna and I went on a lovely run all the way up Colwill Road. Have I mentioned how incredibly hill-y our neighborhood is? I feel like I’m an ok runner, but all those hills just about kill me! After some delicious dinner of macaroni and cheese with peas, corn, and ham—different from the macaroni and cheese I’m used to, but still quite delicious—Alexis convinced us to get tattoos! We had just watched the Maori channel’s Kapa Haka with all the Polynesian men covered in tattoos, and thought we would try it out. Ours probably don’t have the same effect as the Poly tats, but it was only our first attempt… ;)

If you can't tell, it's a flying heart with yellow, blue, and green wings...Alexis helped me with the colors :)