Janessa's Adventures Abroad: Rotorua and Hobbiton :)

We spent this weekend in Hamilton and Rotorua and it was so much fun! On Friday we got up early and drove down to the temple. It’s beautiful! We did baptisms and then ate in the cafeteria. The girls that are endowed missed their session though so they decided to go to a later one. So after we were done with baptisms we spent some time in the visitor center learning about how the church came to the Maoris. It was fascinating! The church has been in New Zealand for a lot longer than I thought. So cool! Then we went over to the LDS high school they built and got a little tour. They closed the school a while ago but we got to see all of the plans they have for the buildings that are still there. They are building a huge stake center (it’s going to be the biggest one is Australasia) and they are turning one of the buildings into a BYU independent study center. Awesome, right?! Then we went to our hotel and just chilled until the other girls were done. We watched some Hannah Montana, Drake and Josh, and Keenan and Kell. Hahaha, we had a lot of flashbacks. Then we went out to this beautiful lake and swam for a bit. Then we found some hot pots to sit in for a while. Rotorua is full of them. It smells like sulfur but the water is so warm! I like the hot springs in Spanish Fork better though because we were in a river so the heat would flow past us instead of just staying warm. But it was still fun and pretty warm most of the time. Some of the girls decided to give themselves facials with the clay. It’s supposed to be really good for your skin. After that we got a bunch of pizza for dinner. It was sooooooo good! And we totally ate all of it… Then today we got up and went to the flea market for a little bit. I bought a really cute purse and a nutella crepe. It totally brought me back to London and the stand at the Green Park tube stop by Buckingham Palace that we used to get crepes from. I miss London but New Zealand is pretty great, too :) Then we went Zorbing! Brooke and I weren’t sure if we wanted to spend the money on it but in the end we caved. And we are so glad that we did! It was so much fun! You sit in this big bubble with some water in the bottom and then you roll down a hill and try not to get drenched or fall on top of the person with you. Hahaha, we were totally drenched after we went down and the second time I totally sat on Brooke for part of the ride. We took videos while we were in the balls so once I get those I’ll post them on Facebook. I’m sure they’ll be great because I just laughed the whole time. After that we decided to go see how much it was to take a tour of Hobbiton!! We talked to the tour guide lady and she gave us a group discount so we all went! It was so awesome! It was totally magical and I felt like I was in the movies just like at the Harry Potter studio tour. It was beautiful and just the cutest little hobbit town ever! We all decided that we wanted to move in and we picked which hobbit holes we were going to live in and everything. Haha, I know, super nerdy but totally great at the same time. I can’t even describe how beautiful it was there. I totally understand why Peter Jackson chose that site for the set. Our bus was named Pippin and our tour guide was named Sam. Yes, that is his real name. If you went to tour the set anytime before they started production for The Hobbit then there wasn’t much to see because they tore pretty much the whole thing down. However, they left it all up after The Hobbit so we got to see everything! They even had The Green Dragon rebuilt! That’s where we ended the tour and we got a free drink inside. We were looking at pictures from the scenes filmed at The Green Dragon and Rosie (Sam’s wife) was in one of them. Rachel has super curly hair just like her and her name also starts with an R. So we told her she was our very own Rosie and our tour guide heard us talking about that. So when he handed her drink to her he said, “Here you go, Rosie.” It was so cute! And remember how his name is Sam? We made Rachel take a picture with him so we could document that amazing moment. Hahaha, so we had our very own Rosie and Sam on our tour. It was so great! We were sad to leave :( On the way home we stopped and got some yummy Tip Top ice cream though! It was so good and I ate three whole scoops! It was huge and delicious! Also, I forgot to mention that I bought myself a pillow pet. We’ve named her Serena and she is best friends with Andrea’s pillow pet, Mervin. Serena is a butterfly and Mervin is a dinosaur. Best $15 I’ve ever spent :)