INTERVIEWS AND EARTHQUAKES

As we arrived in Rotorua the weather forecast did not look that appealing for the next few dews. However we decided that we wouldn’t let the almost constant rain to dampen our spirits after all as the Finns say we are not made of sugar! We headed to a meeting at our next co-operating company the Canopy Tour’s where we met their lovely marketing manager Nicki who told us any particulars we might need to know for the upcoming interviews and on the next morning we were back there perky and ready to snatch answers from the first unsuspecting tourist that would walk in. And quite few of them did walk in and participated to the tour defying the weather.

We were happy to notice that the crew in the Canopy Tours reflected quite well the over all mood of the locals in Rotorua; very laid back and friendly. As we had quite a lot of time between our interviews we scanned the central city area rather precisely. We did some great finds for people back home (<3), inhaled tons of sulfur saturated air, ventured to a park full of thermal pools and learned which cafés had free wi-fi’s.

 

We also experienced something that neither of us had experienced before (or Lotta had but she was too small to remember anything of it); a simple small earthquake or actually a few. Not the kind of which rip the ground in half spilling out lava and destroys few cities while at it but the kind of small shook of a house which felt really strange to two Finnish gals who were sitting on a hostel room eating peanuts and watching Moomins. Miia considered panicking, Lotta continued stuffing peanuts to her face; “If I’m going to die I want to die with my stomach full”-kind of attitude. Both reached for the same conclusion after few, hardly noticeable, quakes followed the biggest one which reached almost the level three in the Richter scale; when it would be time to panic someone else would panic first and let us know! After pondering all scenarios involving volcanoes, buildings collapsing on top of each other and the road just splitting in half under our feet we decided to go bed and continue our travels the next day. 

Of course the weather cleared up when were leaving but as the bus to Papakura was leaving in the afternoon we decided to spend the morning strolling on the shore’s of lake Taupo taking in the last we could of this sympathetic city.

With Love Miia & Lotta