Flying solo: Nelson

Okay, I lied. I figured I'm not studying anyway and I booked my flights to Australia today (!) and need a break from looking at Cairns hostels anyway.

So Nelson. First off, here is where Nelson is located. It's the northern part of the South Island of New Zealand, right next to Abel Tasman National Park. I also took this trip by myself, and the first thing I learned about traveling by yourself is that you need to get over the miserable first bit, and then it's awesome.

I was so exhausted flying to Nelson. I legitimately slept one hour before my 4:30am alarm went off, announcing my unwelcome wakeup time to catch my shuttle. I feel asleep in the shuttle to the airport, across the seats in the airport, and on the plane. Exhausted.. kind of an understatement. I wish I'd been more awake for my flight though - I have limited memory of flying over the beautiful Marlborough Sounds. I think I was even sleeping when we took off and landed.. new record.

Nelson was freezing. Extremely cute and I loved it, but freezing. I believe it was four degrees Celcius when my plane got in at 8am.. brutal. After a short trip to the hostel, I napped on the couch in the tv lounge because my bed wasn't ready yet and I was exhausted. I ended up walking to the "Centre of New Zealand" after my bed still wasn't ready at 10:30am, which was pretty. I was still feeling pretty miserable at this point, but I checked into my hostel and then decided to walk to the iSITE for some tips on what to do - the wine tour wasn't happening.

cute little Nelson

centre of New Zealand

A guy from Argentina who works at the hostel walked me to the iSITE. I guess I looked a little lost when I was holding my map at the end of the block.. After some advice from the iSITE people, I stopped for a quick cappuccino (my new drink of choice, I guess) and a sandwich at a cafe and then headed out on my adventure.

I was walking towards Tahananui Beach when I came across an art gallery. Being the curious person that I am, I stopped in. It was so cool! Local artists produced the majority of the work, and it ranged from jewelry to sculptures to candle holders to paintings. I bought a couple things, and after they made a makeshift box for me I continued on to the beach. At this point, I was feeling much better about traveling solo and just generally loving life. I was so proud of this discovery that I'd made.The walk to the beach was along the water, which was pretty. Extremely windy; I entertained myself by taking pictures every 10m and singing Beatles songs. I continued onto the World of Wearable Art & Classic Cars museum (aka the WOW museum), which was only a half hour's walk further than the beach. I was neutral about the cars, but was only allowed to take pictures of the cars - not the World of Wearable Art designs. Which was a bummer because the outfits were SO cool and creative. They were made out of wood, paper maché, exquisite fabrics, metal, etc. If you want to check out some of the things I saw, click here. It's seriously worth checking out. Ugh I wish I could have taken pictures. SO cool.

I took the bus back to the hostel at sunset, where I got my free dinner of soup and bread! I was exhausted from the day's events so I journaled, texted my mom that I had survived my first day traveling alone, talked to a German girl who was staying in my room, and went to bed by 8pm. Yeah, that's a luxury of traveling alone; you can go to bed and get up whenever you want.
Also, some more cute things about my hostel: it was in a house in a residential neighborhood. So I basically stayed in a bedroom that had two bunks - and no one slept above me either night so that was nice. And free dinner of homemade vegetable soup/bread. And free breakfast of cereal/toast. Pretty good foam mattress. Individual lights for each bed. Seriously, so great. Probably my favorite hostel to date. If you are ever traveling through Nelson, New Zealand, I recommend Paradiso Backpacker. :)