Happy New Year and hi!

I will try it this time in English because I will make sure my friends here in Hobart can read what I write down. And it is 2018 so why not?

Sometimes I receive the question if I will make a new story or not. That is awesome to hear because I am sure people are reading my blogs. So here is the latest blog from Hobart. Christmas Eve, Christmas day, New Year's Eve, let’s say the party days (feestdagen) on the other side of the world. I will tell how I experienced these days.

We organized 12 pubs for Christmas tour. The name tells you exactly what we did. We went to 12 different pubs. We had 30 minutes in each pub, so it was going really fast. People became pretty drunk, pretty soon. But we had so much fun together. There were rules we had to follow so that was even more interesting. Luckily, I wasn’t that drunk, so I didn’t feel too bad the following day. I did well and had so much fun!

Christmas Eve, in other words, the 24^th of December. With five other people in the hostel, we decided to go for a sportive activity, a hike. We made the choice pretty soon where to go because we read all goods about it, it was Cape Hauy. It is a hike for four hours return and it should be one of the most beautiful hikes of Tasmania. We drove there in two hours with a really good ride and started at the hike. We could say pretty soon that it may be was the truth that it supposed to be one of the best hikes. The view is amazing, there were so many different views. When you compare it with the other hikes I did than that is definitely the difference. Normally it is climbing up the mountain and see one view, but this was amazing. The view was so many times really stunning and totally different from each other. So not a bad idea to choose to go for a hike on this day.

Christmas in Hobart, it was weird, it was different. The temperature was warm, I wasn’t with my family. But I can tell you, maybe it was the best Christmas in years. And that doesn’t sound really nice for my family back home, but it is always the same. I started Christmas day at 10 o’clock with white sparkling wine and soon after that, it became Sangria. At 11 o’clock we did Secret Santa with approximately 30 people. Everyone had to buy a present with the maximum of 10 dollars. Then one in a time they called a name and that person could pick a present. But the person after the previous one could steal any presents they opened before. People were creative for buying presents, for example: a small box with condoms, a real goldfish with food and everything, games, chocolate and a lots more. It was so much fun! Later on, we went to the beach, go to the beach on Christmas day. Just went for a swim, chilled down on the beach for a bit, had a little drink and returned back to the hostel. For a lot of people, it was nap time, while I enjoyed myself with Sangria at the bar where Alex was working. Later in the afternoon, it was time for more games. We played Sangria pong, which I won with my team twice! We did the wrapping game. Wrap something in a paper, again, again and again. Then let people sit down on the floor, get an oven glove, a diceand play. This was very stressful but so much fun. In the night I called my parents, sister, her husband & kids and my aunt & uncle with my nephews. It literally felt like Christmas.

New Years Eve. My experience I wish that I could never have experienced it. I saw for the first time a really big spider. I was sitting at the table together with Anu and then I saw in the corner of my eye something moving really fast. And there it was! I screamed really loud and run as fast as I could. A lot of people were asking what was going on, and I said rumbled…. There is a huge spider. Luckily, there was a hero and he removed the spider to outside. In the evening I had to work. I supposed to be free on this day back home, but here in Tasmania, it was different. It is one of the busiest days of the year. We were fully booked and yes it was pretty busy. We stopped working at 11.45pm to see the firework! We could drink at work whatever we wanted. You can imagine that I used that offer. We went out afterward and I returned back to the hostel pretty late. I don’t know what time it was because my phone runs out of battery.

And after this point, I was realizing that my time in Hobart was almost up. I booked a flight for the 3rd of January to Sydney, to make sure that I will catch my flight the 4^th of January to Auckland, New Zealand. It is actually kind of sad because I made a lot of friends over here. Not only in the hostel but at work as well. I really enjoyed working at Blue Eye and my coworkers are amazing. It will be the first time that I will travel by myself, I am leaving a hostel which felt like home. A lot of emotions at the same time. But I am aware of the fact that my trip in New Zealand has to be awesome because I booked already so much fun activities. So really mixed feelings.

But all my friends here in Hobart, thank you so much for making my stay here that awesome. It couldn’t be that good without you, and I hope I will meet you again at one point!

For the lovely people back home, I hope you had a really good Christmas & New Year as well. I wish you all the best for 2018! Thank you again for reading, and sorry for the ones who can’t read in English.

I will start a new adventure today.

Cheers, Kirsten!

Ps: I will add the pictures from Cape Hauy later on.