Renee's Perspective: FRIENDS!!!!!

Random happenstance is great. When I got to Bell Lodge (the hostel I've been staying at while in Tauranga) I felt like I was late because it had taken me longer to get here than I thought it would and I had taken a “wrong turn” and ended up taking the long way to get here (going through Te Puke instead of straight up from Rotarua) and got lost in the crazyness of exits and smartphone awkward directions and lack of map that happens when you are in a new city and driving on the highway (or motorway since we're in NZ and that's what they call it here). As it happens, all of these delays put me at Bell Lodge check in right when a Dutch woman named Lucia was checking in. We were put in the same room and she asked if I wanted to have dinner with her – I said yes, that would be lovely as long as it's not meat and she said that she was trying to be vegetarian. We had dinner and a lovely conversation about food and something magical happened. Somehow we reached an unspoken agreement within that first night that we should have dinner together every night – alternating cooks and it has been brilliant! I think on day three we invited another one of our two other roommates to join us, he is from Germany and goes by Ray. He is also trying the vegetarian diet (sometimes even venturing into vegan) and sharing dinners and conversation at the end of every day with them has been one of the best experiences of this hostel. Lucia and I have also started writing down all the recipes (well, as close as we can get) of the things we have all made because it's SOOO good!!! We've had traditionally inspired food from The Netherlands, Germany and the States as well as several “fusion” dishes.

We had a fourth roommate (also German) but she worked in a packhouse and we rarely saw her because she worked very long hours. When we did interact it was always lovely and she would have been welcome in our dinner rotation but she was usually gone from 6am-8pm at which point she would eat, make lunch and go to sleep very quickly.

Lucia, Ray and I have also had a few “excursions” which are/will be detailed in other posts and it has been simply wonderful to have people to travel around with – especially since they have encouraged me to do things and try things I would not have been inclined towards otherwise.

In the second week we celebrated Lucia's birthday at a Mexican restaurant and it was MIGHTY FINE. Sometimes mass amounts of good food with good company (and a few margaritas) are all you need for a great birthday!

There have also been some extremely positive interaction with many other people at the hostel and as people have left it's been a little more difficult to say good-bye because the longer people stay the closer friends we become :) I hope to meet up with many of these people again in other travels either around NZ or visiting their countries or having them visit the wonderful state of Colorado (assuming I stay there once I get back...)!