Kelsey's Travel Blog!
I travel not to escape life, but to be sure that life will not escape me! Come join me!
New Years Celebrations 2012
After returning to Queenstown to Bumbles Backpackers following our overnighter in Doubtful Sound, we had arrived just in time to celebrate New Years with our new friends from the hostel! It was one for the books, and one I will remember for years to come.
We had an early New Year’s Eve celebration with Trish and Dad in the well-known Icebar in downtown Queenstown. All bundled up in our jackets and snow boots, and guided by our incredibly good looking barman from Sweden, we spend a lovely hour in the Icebar drinking Martinis from martini glasses made of ice, and taking shots of Jagermeister from ice-manufactured shot glasses. The ice benches and sculptures decorating the bar were incredible, but the 17 degrees started to chill you, even with the large, puffy jackets. As we were leaving, the bartender at the Icebar, also employed at the Boiler Room located right next to the Icebar, invited my sister and I to the New Year’s festivities happening in town and then to an after party at his place once the bar closed. Although the pre-party got a bit out of control at the hostel and we never really made it to the after party with him and his friends, we still had an incredible 2012/2012.
We got to see beautiful fireworks over the lake and I even got to wear a dress in the warm summer air, which is something I had been dreaming of doing for quite a while. Counting down the New Years in New Zealand was hands down the coolest experience ever, and it was made perfect by our friends from Bumbles who, when we have to leave on the second of January, will surly be missed!
The time has come!! 2011 is coming to a close, and 2013 is right around the corner. Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions, new adventures and challenges, and, in my case, a renewed case of wanderlust. It’s only the beginning of my traveling for the year, and yet I can already tell that in seven months when I finally return to the States, I will be yearning for the road once more; unable to shake this travel bug.
There is something about the New Year that makes me feel nostalgic. I look back on the year 2011, my spring and fall semesters, my summer spent in Colorado, and I can’t help but tell that my life is changing. I’m no longer attached to my life in Colorado. I see that I have begun to make deeper connections with Philadelphia and the people at Temple, and have slowly lost touch with those back in Superior, not because I want to, but because our lives are diverging from each other. My love for travel is growing as well, which has caused me to wonder where my life after college will bring me. Spending this New Year in New Zealand has peaked my interest in spending my new year in other corners of the world. Maybe this year will bring me to London, or to Asia, or maybe even back to Queenstown. Who knows!
I have high hopes for 2012, and if this New Year celebration is any indication as to how the rest of the year is going to turn out, I’m sure it will not disappoint. Queenstown has become our home for 9 Days, and 9 Days is long enough to really get comfortable and start to associate a place with a home.
As I travel more, I find myself having a love-hate relationship with the open road. It’s not because I miss home too much, but it’s because the more places you go, the more you realize how loose the term “home” really is. Friendships disintegrate just as quickly as they are made, and I am progressively getting better at saying goodbye, despite how much I hate it. Saying goodbye to Bumbles, the people there, and Queenstown in general was incredible hard, because many of them, I may never see again. It’s hard to leave such amazing people, yet the road and Wellington are calling, and we are on our way.