Changes in Latitudes

These are some pictures from Lisa's camera from our trip south: 1) Driving! 2) Dead Horse Pinch 3) Oamaru - Penguin sanctuary 4) On top of The Remarkables via helicopter! 5) Dressed as Lord of the Rings characters on location from the Fellowship of the Ring.

Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park

Wednesday, April 8, Lisa and I flew from Auckland to Christchurch. There we stayed at Tranquil Lodge (a hostel) and walked around Christchuch -it was chilly! Wandered into a bar looking for some dinner and of course we happen to stumble into the most American bar. Not intentional at all; we just saw "The Grumpy Mole" and thought we'd check it out. The next morning we picked up our rental car and I was suddenly driving on the wrong side of the road! I got used to it pretty quick though. We drove from Chirstchurch down route 1 to Ashburton, Timaru, Oamaru, Palmerston, Alexandra, Cromwell, and finally Queenstown. The drive was supposed to only take about six and a half hours, but we pulled off at a few lookouts to take some pictures. In Oamaru there's a penguin colony. We saw fur seals and some other birds but no penguins. We arrived in Queenstown at about 7:30PM on Thursday and it was already very dark. The sun set before 6:30PM. Got some great pictures along the way! T...

Going to the South Island for Mid-semester/Easter break. Original plan was to road trip all around NZ for the whole two weeks of break but complications with money made us lose the two other people who were splitting the car costs. So...now it's just me and Lisa going on this trip. We are flying from Auckland to Christchurch tomorrow (April 8), then renting a car and driving from Christchurch to Queenstown on April 9. We will spend the next 4 days in Queenstown doing as much as we can. Then we will drive back to Christchurch on the 14th and fly back to Auckland on the 15th. I am excited to see other parts of New Zealand besides for Auckland...don't get me wrong, I love this city but I'm ready to explore after being here 6 weeks. Don't worry about me Mom and Dad! Just because I don't post for a week doesn't mean I've died. Love you! Oh, and here's pictures of me and some more of my friends at a get-together this past weekend. First one is me and Juli, fro...

So I thought I'd add this now while it's on my mind. Because I'm the foreigner people have me repeat words to make fun of my accent and compare. One of the things that I comment on a lot is how people say Mac Donalds rather than Mc Donalds even though it is still spelt McDonalds . We get into a fun debate. I tell them how I think it should be pronounced and justify this because of the fact that it is originally an American restaurant. The common response is that only America says it like that and every other country says Mac. They think it's strange that we call it Mickey D's. Another accent mix up was when I was asking a couple friends if they knew of any pawn shops in town...they thought I said porn shop at first and got totally weirded out and gave me a funny look. I explained and then they said both of the words consecutively and with their accents both words sounded the same. We had a pretty good laugh. I know there's some other debates about words and sl...

Busy week for me. Had a check up on Monday regarding my kidneys, looks like everything is good. Had to write an essay for anthropology and study for my marine science exam for Friday. On Friday I hung out with James. There is a show here called "Stars in Their Eyes" and he is going to be on it. Basically you audition for the show by performing 3 songs for the producers and the producers pick out the song they want sung -and it's all totally secret. James can't tell people the song he's performing. He also has to try to look like his artist as well. He's a good singer and I'm excited for it to air on tv! Saturday I went lawn bowling for the first time. At first I was kinda dreading it because I was so tired but it turned out to be pretty fun and entertaining. Lawn bowling is like bocce ball but different in that the bowls are weighted on one side so it curves when you roll it...other than that it's very similar. I won a big chocolate egg for hitting the...