I'm coming home!

Hey family and friends!

I'm writing this post sitting at my gate in Heathrow airport about to board my plane to head back home to New Zealand after being overseas for just under 3 months, but man has it gone quickly!

It feels like just a couple of weeks ago that I was waving goodbye to my parents and boyfriend at the Auckland airport departure gate about to begin my overseas adventure - and now here I am 11 weeks later and it's time to go home. As amazing as my trip has been, I feel so excited to get back and see everyone and get started on the next chapter of my life! This will involve moving 5 hours away to a new town, a new house and a new job (fingers crossed). That move in itself will present a whole new adventure for me and I'm so excited.

Something else I can't wait for is studying at uni next year and being a student again. This is kind of funny to me because I literally can't count how many people said to me "If you take a gap year you'll enjoy the freedom too much and never want to go back to studying". I love learning and working towards a goal, so simply giving myself a year off as a break isn't going to change that. And while we're on the topic of gap years, let me just say I definitely recommend it to anyone who is finishing high school but hasn't decided if/what they want to study. Personally, I think it's semi pointless going to uni or tech just for the sake of going - take some time and figure out what you actually want to do before committing your time and money to a degree or course.

I know I just went on a bit of a tangent sorry, but I just wanted to say that I'm so glad that I didn't just follow the crowd and go straight into further study. I have learned so much and gained so much worldly knowledge which I'm sure will help me in the future. Europe has been unbelievably incredible and every day I experienced new things, but I have missed the simple parts of normal life like cooking myself a proper meal, and going out with friends.

So I know some people have been wondering more specifically what I was actually doing here, so just a brief run down- for the first two months I was in France doing voluntary English tutoring through a company called Geovisions, then I went on a crazy seven-countries-in-nine-days Contiki tour in western Europe, with a few days in London on either side.

See you soon New Zealand!!