Bingo!

”Hi, I’m Alexia,” she says and shakes my hand. She has just gotten out of the shower and is wearing nothing but a towel.
“My name is Kirstine,” I reply.
“Oh, where in England are you from?”
“Ehm... I’m from Denmark...”
I can’t always control what I sound like. Even back in Denmark I sometimes adapt to the accents of people I talk to. And I really can’t control the different English accents having taken on quite a few while travelling.

I’m in New Zealand, traveling around both the north and south island for a month. I won a bus trip around the north island in a dance competition in Melbourne. Then I upgraded it to both islands because what’s the fun in half a country?

It was a very big coincidence that I won the trip. During my ten month travel I had been to New York, Vancouver, Los Angeles and Australia, and I wanted to go to New Zealand, but I didn’t know if I could afford it. Then while I was in Melbourne, where I played a whole lot of bingo, I won a lot of stuff. Amongst free nights at hostels all over Australia and New Zealand, a campervan for five days and a trip down Great Ocean Road, I also won a book about Neighbours and a trip to Neighbours Night. Neighbours is this Australian soap opera that no one in my home-country, Denmark, has ever heard about, so I went to meet some actors that I didn’t know who where. That night I also met an Irish couple on their honeymoon, and the wife and I competed together in a dance competition. That’s how I won the trip around New Zealand. She said I could keep it for myself, because they were only traveling in Australia. So four months later I went to Auckland.

I came to New Zealand, was in Auckland for a couple of days, missed my bus and stayed a day longer before I headed south. It was amazing. I saw some of the Lord of the Ring sights (because at home I am referred to as a hobbit sometimes), I skydived, bungee jumped and met a whole lot of people – among these, Alexia and the Irish couple.

I like to travel by chance. Jumping in with both feet when you don’t have everything planned, that is when the great and unexpected things happen.