I know I haven't posted in forever but hopefully this will cover the last couple months...

Wow, I can't believe the last time I wrote anything here was after mid-semester break. So much happened since then! I was pretty busy after though, both with stuff for my classes and just hanging out with my friends. I went out of town pretty much every other weekend, and had some amazing trips. There are a lot of pictures on picasa of stuff I did, and I'll be putting more on soon, so hopefully you will be fully updated on my life in the next couple days (that is, if you still care and are reading this).

So I think the first thing I did after getting back from break was go kayaking at Milford Sound. It was probably one of the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life, and kayaking was so cool. I went with Katie, Kevin, Conor, and Eli and we had a great time. Kayaking is definitely the best way to really see everything up close. We saw some seals and a beautiful waterfall and the water was so gorgeous! It kind of rained on and off, too, so there were rainbows everywhere. That was a great day. On the way home we decided to take the Southern Scenic Route down around the bottom of the south island. It didn't take too much longer and we got to pass through some cool towns and we even drove through snow! We had a snowball fight with some random kiwi guys which was really funny too. It was definitely a fun road trip.

After that, I went ice climbing on Fox Glacier with Katie, Kevin, Conor, and Tristan. That was probably one of the coolest things I've ever done! It was an all day trip out to the glacier with two guides and we got to wear crampons and carry ice axes! We actually just climbed ice walls all day which was so fun. There were a couple funny mishaps, like where I almost killed Conor and he almost cramponed my face, but I was never actually worried for my life or anything. It was really awesome being on top of a glacier, surrounded by rainforest, with an ocean view. Very surreal! It was really challenging and exhausting but totally worth it.

The weekend before we had final exams, 8 of us went to Abel Tasman National Park to walk the Abel Tasman Track. We decided to do it in 3 days and stay in the huts for the 2 nights. We had to take a water taxi (boat) to the starting point, then walk back to the town where our cars were parked. I was so happy when we got up there because it was sunny and warm! I even got to wear shorts which was amazing. Abel Tasman is really beautiful. There are amazing beaches, the water is perfectly turquoise, and there's rainforest all around. It was a really nice 3 days of walking, and the track wasn't challenging at all (except when we had to cross mud flats without shoes). The huts were also amazing, with gas heaters and mattresses and everything! It's really nice that they have those available to people here. It only cost us $12 a night to stay in them too. It was an extremely long drive there and back, since it was all the way up the south island, but definitely worth it. It was nice to get out and hike before I had to get back and study for exams.

I had 4 final exams, and they all went fine. I was able to study enough and I tried not to get too distracted by my friends whose exams didn't really count for anything. It's not fair that my grades count! But I made it through, and after final exams it was Katie and Claire's birthdays, so we celebrated for the next few days. Then Mom, Dad, and Blake came down and i traveled around with them. We went to Queenstown first, where we did some snowboarding/skiing, and I got to hang out with my friends there because they were staying there for a week before they went home. After that, we traveled up to Blenheim where Dad did some work. It was pretty boring there because it was raining the whole time, but we tried to make the most of it. After that we went up to Abel Tasman again and hiked, which was cool, even for the second time. Then, we went to Farewell Spit, which was my favorite part of the trip. We got to see a lot of stuff there that most people don't get to see, so it was really cool. We got to see the northernmost tip of the south island, too, which was pretty sweet. We flew back from Nelson to Dunedin, and I said bye to the fam on July 5.

The next day my friends came back to hang out for a while before leaving me. I'm the only one out of my close friends that's staying for the year, so it was really hard to say bye to everyone. It's so much harder when you're the one staying. I became really really close with everyone, they were like my family for the past 4 months. I was especially close with Katie, Claire, and Conor and I really miss them right now. It's especially hard having to say bye and meet new people at the same time, since I'm feeling sad but I also have to put on a happy face and make new friends. I've also had a terrible cold which has set me back quite a bit. It's been about a week and it just keeps lingering! The new people here seem really cool though. Most of them ski/snowboard so I'm glad I'll have people to go to the mountains with. I'm sure I'll be just as good of friends with them when I leave, but it's hard to imagine right now. A bunch of us are going up to Wanaka this weekend to go to the snow, so we should hopefully bond and have a good time. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. It's been a lot to catch up on and I'm sorry. I'll try to be better about this from now on. I really miss you all I wish you could come visit!

The Kingdom of Tonga

Ok, this is getting ridiculous. I only get internet in my flat for about 2 hours of the day now. in fact, I don’t even have internet right now so I’m writing this on Microsoft word and I’m going to copy and paste it. This is so frustrating!

So Tonga…Tonga, Tonga, Tonga… where do I begin? Well we got there on Easter Monday and we didn’t have accommodation set up yet, because the internet was down on the whole island from a hurricane. We had heard of the International Dateline Hotel, so when we got to the airport we found a taxi to take us there. We were driving through town and I started getting really scared because there was NOBODY around and everything was closed. There were also dogs, pigs, and chickens running all over the roads, which was a little funny. I hadn’t realized at this point that it was a national holiday, so I was just thinking that we were gonna be stuck on this island with nothing to do and no people around. Then we got to the hotel. It was “waterfront” which meant it was on this disgusting harbor, and it was so shady! I definitely didn’t want to stay there. We went to the front desk to see if they even had our reservation that we faxed them, but the receptionist didn’t speak English and had no idea what we were talking about. So Claire and I decided we should go to the tourist office, which was about a block away. Of course, it was closed. There was a little bulletin board outside and we stood there for a minute looking at brochures that were on it trying to find a place that looked decent. People kept driving by and yelling at us, since we were the only white blonde girls in sight. Then some man pulled up behind us and said something. We tried to ignore him, but he said something again and this time it made sense: “Do you want a guide?” And we were like YES! He gave us this guide to Tonga and practically saved our lives. We bought a phone card and tried to call some numbers of hotels in the brochure, but no calls went through. I kept calling this old lady who didn’t speak English by accident. So we asked the front desk at the other hotel and they called for us and also called a taxi. So we found a place, Liku’Alofa Beach Resort. We took the taxi there and it took FOREVER cause we got stuck behind this funeral procession. Funerals are a BIG DEAL in Tonga, so we couldn’t pass, we just had to sit behind this funeral for about a half an hour. Finally we made it, and this hotel was on a beach, it was a bunch of little bungalows, and looked decent. The rooms were nice, and they gave us 2 rooms for $200 when they should have been $300. So we decided we wouldn’t find anything better and took it. There was really nobody there though, and we got a little nervous again. We were just thinking “shit, maybe we should have stayed in New Zealand this is gonna suck.” Tonga is clearly not a touristy place, something we sort of expected, but not to THIS extent. After we had set up our room and stuff, the staff gave us some free fruit, and this raised our spirits. We got the most amazing bananas ever and papaya and coconut. This got us thinking maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

The next day we went on a tour of the island, which was actually cool. We went with another family, which we befriended and hung out with the rest of the trip. There was Zane, a 37 year old guy, his daughter Georgia, who was 10, his mom Jenny, and her friend Liz. We saw the tip of Tonga where Abel Tasman landed, some cool blowholes, a couple caves, an old Tongan replicate town, the King’s palace (which was really just a regular house), where Captain Cook landed, and we saw the town with people in it. On the way back to the hotel, of course we got a flat tire. So we had to sit on the side of the road in Tonga waiting to get rescued by the hotel manager, who showed up in a van with a Tongan band in it and took us back. Very interesting day indeed. 

After that, we basically sat out by the “pool”, which was a concrete wall that let the seawater in and didn’t have coral inside it like the rest of the surrounding ocean. We each read a book, and we all read “He’s Just Not That Into You” aloud to each other along with a Cosmo. Very relaxing! One night the people at the hotel gave us some Kava, a traditional Tongan drink. It’s made from a root and it kinda gets you drunk and makes your mouth numb. They gave us two huge bowls full of it and Claire and Katie didn’t want to drink it because it tasted like plants so I had some because it didn't taste that bad and i was curious. I didn’t feel drunk at all, but my mouth was definitely numb. It was a really cool feeling.

More laying out followed that, and then on our last night there there was a banquet and show at the hotel. They had lots of dancers and food (they made a pig!) and it was really fun. People kept going on stage and giving the dancers dollar bills too…closest I’ve come to a strip show! There was this 10-year-old fire dancer that was amazing. After the Tongan dancing was over, they had all of us (me, Katie, Claire, and the family we were friends with) get on stage and dance for the Tongans because it was Georgia’s birthday. We totally made fools of ourselves! It was pretty hilarious. Great way to end the trip.

So that’s Tonga in a nutshell. It is the most friendly place ever, and the weather was beautiful. Everything moves in slow motion, too. So if you’re into non-touristy places and relaxing, you should go. Plane tickets are cheap too!

When I got home I actually had to do school work, which was disappointing. I also had to study(!), something I hadn’t done since December. But last weekend we went to another Highlanders rugby game and I had a field trip. Pretty low-key. This weekend is my 21^st birthday, though, so I’m planning on going big! 21 is actually a big deal here too, so it should be fun.

Q-Town weekend

I know it's been a while, but I'll update you on my trip to Queenstown, which was definitely the experience of a lifetime!

So on Saturday, we had a bungy jump scheduled for 11:00, so we went into town, got weighed, and got on a bus to go to the bungy site. It's in this crazy canyon like 45 mins out of Queenstown so we had all that time to get amped up for it. When we got there, we got strapped into harnesses and some guy told us how to jump. He basically said to dive out as far as you can, which is safer but also looks cooler. So this bungy platform is out in the middle of the canyon, hanging on wires, 134 meters (440 feet) above the river below. You have to get transported out there on this little box thing that travels down the wires over to the "pod". Right before we were about to go out there, though, the power went out! This girl had just jumped and she was stuck down below and couldn't get pulled up. She also had trouble pulling her feet out of the bungy cord so she was hanging there upside down for like 5 mins. Now that REALLY made me excited to go... So we finally made it out to the pod and there's clear glass in the floor so you can see everyone jumping before you. They seriously just kept going down FOREVER it was unreal watching them from above. So a few people went before me, and then it was my turn! I sat in this like dentist chair, got all strapped in on my feet, they walked me out to the edge, and I didn't even have time to think about what I was doing, they were just like 3-2-1-GO! So i did the most graceful swan dive ever and fell 440 feet! It was the most incredible feeling ever I can't even describe it! And it's definitely way more scary than skydiving. But it was so amazing I would do it again in a heartbeat. 

After we got done with that, we went back to the mainland in the little transporter box and they had this special on this canyon swing. It was $55 per person for a tandem swing, so of course we couldn't pass it up! I went with Katie and it was hilarious. Even though we had just done this crazy bungy jump Katie was still freaking out as we were getting strapped together. We ended up doing it upside down with our faces to the ground and it was insane. We were just hanging there and then all of a sudden we were falling towards the canyon and swinging back. I guess it's the biggest swing in the world, which is pretty cool (120 meters). But that was definitely an adrenaline rush too. Definitely worth it! 

So after all that adrenaline, we took a chill hike in Glenorchy on Sunday and drove home that evening. Overall it was an EXTREME weekend!

Sandflies: my arch nemesis

Well, I have survived yet another tramping expedition, this time to Fiordland national park. I signed up for this tramp with my flat mate katie and neighbor Tristan to go up "Cascade Creek". We had no idea what it was, but we wanted to get on any trip we could and we were excited to go to Fiordland to do some tramping. We drove out there Friday night and camped out. Now, we didn't sleep in a tent, we slept in a "tent fly", which is basically a tarp over our heads. And it's COLD here at night (I'm such a spoiled San Diegan). But I have a ridiculously warm sleeping bag so I was OK. I woke up on Saturday morning to the wonderful feeling of sandflies biting my face and neck. What a lovely alarm clock. Sandflies are these stupid tiny flies that bite you and then you get a bump kind of like a mosquito bite, but it itches way worse and for WEEKS.........I have 2 huge ones on my neck, some on my head, some on my feet (the worst spot), legs, arms...Sandflies are probably the one thing that is not cool about tramping in New Zealand.

So the ten of us in our group started out Saturday morning at about 10:30 and started hiking up this river bed into the mountains. There wasn't really a trail, we just followed our leader, Paul. Now if you want to see a mountain man, Paul is it. I think he's part Chuck Norris, part mountain goat. He can do anything. So we followed the creek, crossed it a few times and got wet boots, and then headed up into the bush up this mountain. We finally found this "trail" and followed that out of the tree line. I was wearing shorts that day, and it is unbelievable how scratched up my legs got from all the brush. I think every inch of skin that was exposed has a scratch on it. I don't think I'll be shaving my legs for a while on account of how bad they sting. So the trail ended where the trees ended and then we were on our own (well Paul was I guess, he made all the judgement calls). We hiked up to this little saddle and camped out for the night. As soon as the sun went down it got soooooo freakin cold. I had like 2 pairs of socks, 3 pairs of pants, 2 shirts, 2 fleeces, a rain jacket, gloves, and a hat on and I was still cold (still a pussy San Diegan). We made dinner and got in our warm sleeping bags under the tent fly (!) again. So basically I was sleeping outside in below freezing temperatures. 

When I woke up there was frost outside and ice on my sleeping bag. And my boots were frozen solid because they were wet from Saturday. Well thank god, Sunday was a beautiful day, which is super rare because it pretty much rains all the time there. There were no clouds in sight and as soon as the sun came up we were nice and warm. My feet thawed out eventually, after about an hour of hiking uphill. Nobody got frostbite so we were in good shape. On Sunday we hiked up this mountain about 200 meters, then back down the other side, which was EXTREMELY steep, into this saddle, then back up another mountain about 250 meters. Overall, we were about 1500 meters above sea level. We hiked along this crazy ridge with some amazing views and then had to head back down again into the bush. It's crazy thinking about how easily I could have died on this trip. At any given moment I could have just fallen down the mountain if my pack shifted my weight the wrong way. So we hiked down another steep slope, then came to a scree slope. If you don't know what scree is, it's all these rocks forming a steep slope, and when you step on them you basically cause a rock avalanche. So all of us got into a close group and pretty much surfed down this scree slope down into the trees. Let me tell you, that is a quick way to get down a mountain. It was pretty fun too. So we made it back into the rain forest and tramped back down toward the road. At times it was pretty steep, and by that time I had lost most of the function of my limbs so I did a lot of butt sliding. My pants are now covered in mud. 

We finally made it to the road, and then Paul took off running up the road about 3 km to go get the van (after all that hiking! Told you he was invincible). The rest of us just sat on the road, pretty much unable to move. We drove home pretty uneventfully and made it back about 1 AM this morning. Now I'm sitting in my oh-so-comfortable bed, nice and warm, but sore and scratched up, and I'm really thankful I don't have class today. I definitely have a new understanding about the meaning of "tramping" here. Kiwis are crazy. Overall it was a great weekend though. I had a lot of fun. 

Not much else has been going on over here. I had a fun St. Patrick's day because I was allowed to go to an Irish pub for the first time and I hung out with some real Irish kids (my neighbors). Last weekend I had my first field trip for my marine science class, which was really cool. We went to a beautiful beach and collected mollusks. It's awesome that we're allowed to go on field trips here, because I would never be able to do that at home. I think next weekend I'm going to go to Queenstown and do the bungee jump and stuff, so I'll tell you about that later. I'll put up my amazing Fiordland pictures up as soon as I can. The pictures can't even begin to do it justice, but at least you'll get an idea of how beautiful it is here.

Sorry to Keep You Waiting

Well as you probably guessed, the last couple weeks have been pretty busy. I'm trying to remember what I've been doing and it's much harder than I thought. I definitely need to consult my pictures.

So I updated you like the second day I got here I think. After that I ended up going camping on Thursday with some people I met here. We went to Queenstown for dinner, which was really beautiful, then camped on the lake out there. Unfortunately, it rained that night so we got pretty wet, and it was still raining the next day so we couldn't really do any hiking because hiking in the rain is kind of miserable. So we drove out to Wanaka and went to this place called "Puzzling World" and did a giant maze and then camped again on Lake Hawea out there. It kept raining and the next day we went back to Queenstown and Glenorchy and just decided to come home a day early because the rain was so miserable. It was really too bad that we couldn't do any hiking or anything but i got to see how beautiful it is out there and I'll definitely go back.

The next day we still had our rental car and since we paid for it we decided to take it out to the Otago Peninsula to see these cool World War II bunkers on the cliffs. I guess during WWII the Kiwis were afraid of getting attacked for some reason, but I don't know why anyone would want to attack them. The bunkers were kind of creepy, but it was really pretty there. I guess a bunch of soldiers committed suicide there or something...

After this I was just kind of hanging out in Dunedin, meeting people and exploring and stuff. I had to do course approval which is the stupidest thing ever. You have to get advisors from each department to sign off on the classes you're taking. I don't see why we can't just do it online. It was a huge hassle for me but i got all my classes signed off eventually. The O-Week stuff was pretty crazy too, I know Mom heard about the Toga parade on the news, but it's where the freshmen dress up in togas and run around the streets and everyone throws stuff at them. We filled up a trash can with water balloons and got some freshmen really good. People were trying to portray it on the news as riots, but it was nowhere near that, just a good hazing. There was also a thing where people went to this bar in town and dressed up and drank all day, but I didn't do that. It was pretty funny to see all the drunk people in costumes though. There were concerts and stuff too, but I didn't really want to pay to go, so I mostly just hung out at our flats and met people here and went to this international student party. It was really fun being able to just hang out with people and sleep in and stuff for a week. I also signed up for some clubs and stuff, but don't worry I didn't do any crazy O-Week shenanigans. 

Most of the last couple weeks I was hanging out with these girls that live at other university flats and this one guy that lived next door to me and we got to see a lot of cool stuff around the area. I kind of think my pictures will do it better justice than my description here. We went to the beach to collect cockles to make dinner, went to another beach just to hang out, went to tunnel beach, where a tunnel was carved into the rock and there's also really cool rock formations, went surfing at this other beach called Aramoana. Yes, I DID get in the water here! Good thing we took that surfing lesson, Tricia :). And yesterday I went to the beach again and hung out. Basically whenever it's nice here we go to a random beach. I always took the beach for granted at home, but I don't anymore!

Last night we went to a rugby game here in Dunedin. It was the Otago Highlanders vs. the Canterbury Crusaders. It is a huge rivalry and the Crusaders are probably the best in the league, so it was kind of a big deal. All kinds of students went and dressed up in blue and gold and painted their faces and stuff. It was so much fun to see a real rugby game, and we were really close to the field in the student section. The Highlanders won, too 6-0! It was actually kind of a crappy game but at least we won! Afterward there was a concert with one of New Zealand's biggest bands and that was really fun too. It was definitely an awesome night. 

Today I went and learned how to cross rivers properly with the tramping club. This means I can go on this trip to Fiordland in the next couple weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to sign up for that. I heard it's really hard to get on trips, but I'm going to at least try. I might as well do what I can to travel as much as possible. 

Oh, I have started school, I guess that's part of the reason I'm here. I'm taking 2 Maori studies classes, sport and exercise nutrition, and marine ecology. They all sound really interesting, and I've heard that my Maori language class is the easiest class in the southern hemisphere. I even get to go on field trips for the marine ecology class, something we would never be able to do at home, so I'm excited about that. I mostly have class on Tuesday and Thursday, with only one class on Friday and Wednesday and none on Monday, which is really nice. That means I can go places on the weekends! 

I think that's pretty much all I've been up to. I have yet to see the penguins here or climb to the top of Mt. Cargill to see the view of the city, but I'll have to wait for a sunny day where I don't go to the beach to do that. This has been a little rambly, but I promise from now on I'll update you more, I was just doing a lot before school started. Pictures should be up on Picasa too, so that'll show you better what I'm doing. 

I Fixed the Pictures in the Last Post, and Now I'm in Dunedin!

I made it to Dunedin! 

Last week I was in a little town called Lincoln outside of Christchurch with a friend I met at orientation, Melissa. We went on a tramping trip in Arthur's Pass National Park, which turned out to be much harder than we anticipated. It was a 2 day trip and the first day we hiked for about 8 hours. We made it to the top of Goat Pass and there were some beautiful views. Other than that, the trail followed a river bed pretty much the entire way, so we had to do some boulder hopping, which is really hard with a pack on. And to top it off I didn't have good shoes. But we trekked on. It rained that night and didn't let up all of the second day, so we had to hike about 5 hours in the cold and rain. This was kind of miserable, but we made it. We were going to stay in a tent that night, but all of our stuff was wet so we just decided to give in and stay at the only motel in Arthur's Pass Village. The owner was really nice (I think he felt sorry for us because we were so wet and cold) and gave us 2 rooms for $150. The next day it ended up being a little nicer so we hiked to some waterfalls, and then went back to Christchurch. I spent the next 2 days there just hanging out.

On Sunday I flew to Dunedin from Christchurch. I got here at night and none of my roommates were here so I just unpacked and hung out in the flat by myself. My flatmate Katie came in later. She's Canadian and seems really nice. Since we got here about the same time we've been doing a lot of school errands and stuff together. Scotty, our "kiwi host" got here around midnight that night and he seems really cool too. He is from Dunedin and has a car so he is an invaluable resource. Our flat is one of nine in a complex with a courtyard in the middle. All the flats are the university flats and everyone here seems pretty awesome. I met a lot of people last night, mostly Americans and Canadians, but I think they'll be fun people to live around. People like to hang out in the courtyard here and lots of people from other flats come by too so I think I'll be pretty busy. 

Overall Dunedin seems like a great city. I haven't seen that much so far, but there are cool old Scottish buildings and stuff. There's also Cadbury World and the steepest street in the world that I need to check out. I'll take some pictures soon and post them for you. If you want to see all my pictures from here on out, you can go to this website: picasaweb.google.com/svclark6. I'll update that as much as I can. 

I have a couple free days, then we have course approval on Friday where I'll sign up for all my classes. After that, it's the infamous "O Week" where everyone gets ridiculously drunk here (especially the freshmen). It should be fun, since I've never had anything like that before. When I see more of the city, I'll let you know about that. Hopefully I'll get to go up to Mt. Cargill sometime soon so I can get a view of the whole city. Today is a really nice day, so I'm going to the beach! Catch ya later!

I Heart NZ

Wow, writing this post has been the most frustrating thing ever. I almost just gave it up. But I am so dedicated to telling you guys about my life that I'm giving it another shot.

So on Wednesday, I hiked to the top of Mt. Eden with some people. It is the highest point above Auckland and a volcanic crater. I even got to go inside the crater which was pretty cool. We could see the whole city from up there and a bunch of other volcanoes. Apparently Auckland is comprised of 48 volcanoes and is still an active field. Wonder when the next one will blow.

This is the crater with a view of the city.

Thursday was the first day of orientation. We had a couple sessions about stuff like the outdoors and Kiwi language and we had some free time in the afternoon so we went to the beach. The water here is really beautiful and warm. I even went in! Of course, I got sunburned, even though I put on sunscreen. It's going to take a lot to get used to the sun here. At least I can get tan!


Takapuna Beach.

Yesterday was Waitangi day, a celebration of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. We went to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and saw a ton of cool stuff. The picture below is of a Maori court. All the carving inside is original. I can't believe that they can carve such intricate designs. I'm thinking maybe I should take a Maori wood carving class now. After looking around the museum a bit, we got to see a Maori concert. It was really awesome. I love the Haka (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-lrE2JcO44) and the Poi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hu2g5h0hNM). Go to those links if you want to see what I'm talking about. Maori culture is really amazing.


So today was our big island trip for orientation. We went to Tiritiri Matangi island out off the coast of Auckland. It is an open preserve that they have been completely reforesting since the 1970s. Now it has all native species there, with no outside influence. They even made people clean off their shoes before going on the island. It was so green there and the water was so turquoise, I never wanted to leave. We got to go on a guided hike through the bush, which was awesome because I never would have noticed as much without the guide there. There are also native birds there, and there's one called the Takahe that is so rare there are only 220 left in the wild still. They are flightless and only live in the Fjordland and on some remote islands like this one. There was one named Greg that tried to steal everyone's lunches.


How beautiful is this place?


A Takahe in the wild (not Greg).

Everything has been amazing so far, I've just been going nonstop since I've been here. Auckland is definitely a cool city, but I'm excited to get down to the South Island too. I know I'm going to be here for at least 10 months, but already I'm worried I won't even be able to see everything (or want to leave for that matter).

I might not be able to write again for a while, since I'll be busy, but this is my schedule for the next week: tomorrow is the last day of orientation, we're going to have a nice dinner across the harbor; then on Monday I'm flying to Christchurch (I think it's the biggest city on the South Island) and going tramping (backpacking) with two other girls around the area for four days. We're going to be doing a track that sounds really beautiful, going by bays and beaches and stuff. Then finally on the 15th I'm flying down to Dunedin and that's where I'll be living for the rest of the year. So I'll update you on that when I get there, don't miss me too much!