End of an era

It's over. I don't want it to be over. Right now, if I could, I would take another 26 hour journey back to New Zealand. In a minute.

To catch up:

The first day in Queenstown, we tramped on part of the Routeburn track. The whole thing takes 3 days one way. We drove an hour to the track, and unloaded the bus. The track was very interesting. There were 4 or 5 spring bridges, which are probably the scariest things in the world. They move way too much when you walk across them. The moss everywhere was a bright green, there were shield ferns everywhere in one section of the forest. The track followed the Routeburn River, which was a bright aqua blue. So beautiful.

The next day was my free day in Queenstown. I went to breakfast at a small place with a few girls from the group. We went to the botanical gardens after breakfast, then went shopping. It was a nice, relaxing day. We went to Fergburger for dinner, and I had the lamb burger, again.

We left Queenstown the next day and travelled to Te Anau (pronounced tea ahh-noo). It snowed on the way there, and everything was white. We took a cruise through Milford sound in the Fiordlands the next day, which was beautiful. It's very controversial, because Milford gets so many tourists that it is having a negative impact on the place.

The next day we travelled though to Aoraki/Mt. Cook. Many roads were closed because of the snow and ice. We hiked through Hooker Valley the following day. I think it might have been the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

We had to leave and go back to Christchurch. It was our last coach trip, and no one liked that. We drove through the beautiful countryside, back into the city. I had kebabs for dinner, then watched a movie in my room. It was the first time I had had a room to myself. No roommate. The next day was a free day, and I did a little shopping with a friend. We went to a place called the Honey Pot for breakfast, which had the most amazing pancakes. The final day was our exam, which I think went well, and we had our last group dinner at a restaurant called Two Fat Indians. Not really spicy enough... but still good.

The flight home was long. Because we crossed the international dateline, I had to live June 3 twice. Quantas is still probably one of the nicest airlines. No bags were lost.

a couple days in christchurch

So I've been in Christchurch for a couple days now. We've had lectures on ecology, tourism, sustainability, Maori culture, multi-member proportional government, and agriculture. A nice break from all of the hard-core science at Tech.

I have been to the grocery store a few times. Kiwis have some strange tastes: vegemite, instant coffee, ovaltine, nutella (can be bought for NZ$2.89), muesli and granola cereal, chicken flavored chips, kiwifruit, dried fruit, instant juice... just to name a few. I've been snacking on lots of dates and nutella sandwiches. And the fruit is a kiwifruit. It is not a kiwi. Kiwi means either the person (a european decent new zealander) or a kiwi bird (which are rare and only come out at night).

We went to the botanical garden and the Canterbury Museum today. I took so many pictures of the garden, I wish I could upload them. The museum wasreally interesting. They had lots of Maori artifacts. There was an entire exhibit on the geology of Antarctica, which I wish I could have spent more time at.

The Maori culture and language is very fascinating. There are two periods of Maori history. The first is when they were first here and hunted extensively. They hunted the large flightless moa birds, which whent extinct because of this hunting. The second period is more of a farming and agriculture period where they developed towns and tools.

On another note, this hotel is interesting and weird. It is very modern. The rooms are all different, and somehow we ended up with the bad bathroom with NO counter space and a huge shower. The floors all have different color themes, I'm on the green floor.

Christchurch is a cute town. All the buildings are very English looking. You can find so many coffee places here, and they all serve the ovaltine. I don't know why so many people keep going to starbucks for breakfast.

Well, I have to go get dressed for the Maori dinner/reenactment thing we have tonight. It's supposed to be cold and involve lots of walking. We'll see...