soofs-travels

[soofs-travels]

The NZ Chronicles: Chapter 1

Preparations & Departures

That I was going on this incredible journey, that was long known but that time would fly like this. I think it is safe to say that I never expected that my departure would be this close. It just feels like we skipped 4 months and all of a sudden we are September 7th.

But let me start at the beginning by introducing myself. Kia Ora (which means hello in Maori), my name is Sofie and I am 20 years of age. As part of my international business degree at Karel de Grote University College in Antwerp, Belgium; I had to do an international internship and this seemed like an opportunity that I couldn’t let pass.

I am currently finishing up my International Business degree at the KdG University College in Antwerp, Belgium.

I have been blessed with being able to travel (last year to Spain, Italy & Malaysia) and getting to know so many people and cultures.

Though all of the previous travels were either in group, with a friend or with my family. This adventure, probably the biggest and scariest adventure of all, I am taking on myself.

But first, let me take you back to almost a week ago. On Monday I started the real prep (except for the visa. I applied for that back in June).

This meant getting a facial, going to visit my grandparents at the seaside, meeting up with friends and then ofcourse packing my luggage.

That is honestly my least favourite thing to do because it is so stressful. On the one side, you don’t want to forget anything but on the other side you can’t pack everything because there is a weight limit. But eventually we managed to pack everything and stay under the weight limit (yeet).

I am currently sitting on the floor near gate A5 where the second part of my journey will start. I left Belgium at around 11 pm (Belgium time) and arrived here in Dubai at around 6 am in Dubai time or a little over 4 am Belgian time.

Even though it has been a great flight with great people next to me (thank you for that!), I wasn’t able to catch a lot of sleep. I think I got a maximum amount of sleep of 30 minutes. Considering I have been awake since Saturday morning 8 am Belgian time, I can feel the energy starting to drain but hey we are not here to quit or whine, did we?

Even though I have already had a flight of 7 hours, it still hasn’t sunk in that I am going to the other side of the world for 5 months. It is just too crazy and surreal at the moment so my brain won’t process it I think.

And even after a flight of 15 hours !!!! I still haven’t been able to process it. Let me tell you, it was a looooong flight but I managed to get some sleep so that was really nice.

It was very nerve-wrecking though because I still had customs and let me tell you NZ is not messing around with it! I did have a dutch officer so that was really nice :) 

After that I grabbed a cab home and well for the rest of the stories, you can find in my later posts :p

[soofs-travels]

#tb to the beautiful city of Nîmes 😍