This past week has been pretty uneventful for me in terms of adventures. It’s mostly been spent going to class, and planning my mid-semester break with a few people I’ve become close with in my complex. However, something noteworthy did happen to a flatmate of mine, and I thought I would share her story to future study abroad student’s so that they might avoid the experience she (almost) had.
When you study abroad, you meet a lot of new people. A lot. Every day for the first few weeks is a barrage of new names, faces, and facts that are nearly impossible to keep straight. It’s overwhelming, but it’s also pretty cool because there’s so many people willing to jump in to any adventure you feel like having that weekend. At the University of Otago, Facebook is a great tool to find people in your area who are looking for something to do. Finding people who want to go do that hike you’ve been itching to do is ridiculously easy but user’s beware. If planning weekend trips with strangers over Facebook isn’t something you would do back home, then maybe think twice about doing it while abroad. There’s a tendency when you’re abroad to dive headfirst into excitement and adventures before properly vetting it out. My flatmate fell victim to this over the weekend, and it did not turn out in her favor.
On Wednesday, my flatmate saw a post in the tramping group on Facebook advertising an extra seat available in a car going on a trip over the weekend. The poster was a friend of a friend, so she responded and decided to go on the trip. They planned to meet at six pm on Friday, and travel to the campsite where they would set out on fourteen hour hike the next day, and then drive home. This plan seemed pretty ambitious to her, but she figured there would be a backup plan if for some reason they were too tired to drive home the same day. On Friday, she showed up at their house on time, only to find no one home. When they eventually pulled into the drive, she saw that they had not yet packed, had no plans for food, and were planning on sleeping in the cramped car overnight. Basically, she realized that they had no solid plans, and yet were still planning on travelling to the middle of nowhere, with no experienced guide. She knew she didn’t feel comfortable going anymore, but she felt too awkward to just leave, so she called our mutual friend, and asked him to make up an excuse as to why she needed to stay home this weekend, and then she left.
When she recounted this story to my kiwi host, he almost couldn’t believe it. He commented on how people like that are why Americans get a bad rep in New Zealand for being dumb tourists who have to be helicoptered off of mountains. Travelling around a new country is exciting, and finding new people to do it with can be half the fun, but it’s no fun at all when there’s no real plans. Moral of the story here, travel everywhere you can, but make sure you do it with people who are willing to take the time to put in the work beforehand.
