Jumping out of planes, Rat tails, and Sheep Poop

Hey All! 

I realized (or realiSed in NZ) that I skipped last week, which is probably not the only time I will do such a thing, but to my defense, nothing MUCH happened. I am currently sitting in the library in between classes and should be writing my essay that is due on Thursday but I am writing this blog instead. 

Wednesday – Thursday: Nothing much happened, I just went to class and attempted to research for this paper. I found articles for it, so all I had to do this week was actually write the thing. I think it was quite cold (cool, not cold) in the mornings but it warmed up throughout the days. I could see my breath in the morning when I walked to my bus stop but by noon, it would be fine to wear shorts and a t-shirt. In Dunedin, you have to wear layers, or else you will either freeze or sweat to death. 

Friday:  Alex, Katie, Brie, Emily and I went for a bike ride out to the peninsula. I had gotten a bike from Noora the week before, but the others had to rent theirs from a bike shop. So, we made our way downtown to the bike place where they had reserved 4 road bikes for the trip. But, as our lucky has it, the booking did not go through and there were only 2 road bikes left. Luckily, they had two mountain bikes that were available, so we took those and were on our way. The guy at the bike shop told us to go up one road and back by another, so we set out for the day hoping to see some penguins and sea lions as they reside out on the peninsula. Right away Brie realised that her bike was hard to stop as the breaks were at a weird angle, so she went back to the shop and traded for another bike, and then we were really on our way. The road to Portobello was VERY steep and VERY hilly (like most NZ roads) so I was the lazy one to walk up almost every hill, while the other girls rode up the hills (I realize that I really need to start exercising more often!). The one good thing about this high road was that it had beautiful views and a nice big hill when we biked into town! (That’s my kind of bike ride! HA!). We finally made it to Portobello at 5 (when leaving Dunedin at 1:30) and ate our premade sandwiches/fruit and started back into Dunedin at around 5:30. (NOTE: We did not see any penguins or sea lions because they are farther down the peninsula which we didn’t bike to. We did see lots of sheep, cows, goats and seagulls though.) The bike ride back was wonderful compared to the ride there. Almost no hills! The only thing that was a little nerve wracking was that the road was right on the water and very windy and cars zoomed up and down the road very fast. We held up traffic a couple times because there wasn’t much of a shoulder, so a few times we saw our lives past before our eyes, but lived to tell the tale! We got home around 10 to 7. I called Greg for a ride because the busses had stopped for the day, and they were just going into town to pick up pizza for ‘tea’ (dinner). I was extremely tired and sore from the 44km bike ride and went to bed pretty soon after tea. 

Saturday – Sunday:  I knew I had this paper due and I wanted to get a head start on this paper because I knew I was away the next weekend, but as it seems that I really can’t do work unless I’m in the library, I didn’t get much done. I lazed most of the day but did end up having some lovely Skype sessions with people. Katie and I wanted to try another church on Sunday night and Greg had suggested a church called ‘Elim’. It was great! Sang some songs I knew, and it was very student-y. We met some people after and are planning on going back this week. 

Monday – Thursday: As I knew I had this paper due, I researched and planned some things out, but didn’t do any writing for it. I went to class and planned for the weekend with Brie and Alex, which was a feat in itself, because the bus company kept messing up the ticket dates and numbers, and we finally thought that we figured it out. 

Friday: Got up early and finished packing. I caught the early bus down to town and walked to Alex’s before catching the bus at the Train station. There was much confusion with the bus company still to how many of us were going and how much we paid. Let’s say the bus company is not very organised and they need help with their administration. It was just really frustrating, but all six of us got there (Brie, Alex, Katie, Emily, Bill and Me) and found our hostel. After checking in, we decided that we should book skydiving the next day. The girl at the desk told us that Saturday didn’t look like it was going to be a good day, so she phoned the skydiving place to see if there was any spot left for that day. So, she signed us up for some and said that they were going to pick us up in 15 minutes. So, we got changed into our running shoes and were on our way. Alex and Emily weren’t going to skydive so it was just four of us going, but Alex and Emily could come and watch. We got suited up and we briefed before we were sitting in the plane going up to jump out! I think that it was good for me to go on such a whim, because I had no time to premeditate what I was getting myself into. I was actually pretty calm until a guy jumped out of the plane before me (We all did the highest jump from 15 000ft, but some people do 12 000ft). I was the first one of my group to do it, and my skydiver was the last one to attach me to him, so I was a little weary of what was going to happen! My skydiver was pretty funny and a good match for me. We basically just joked around. He told me that 4 people had died the day before and that they were still looking for them...he was joking though. He also told me not to complain and whenever I mentioned that the others had their hat on or had been attached to their skydiver, he told me not to complain. He was a funny guy. Before I knew it, I was hanging out of the plane and the only thing keeping me there was I was attached to a guy who was about to jump out of the plane! The feeling of falling out of the plane was indescribable.  I didn’t get the stomach drop that you get while on roller coasters, it just kind of seems like you are floating. It was SO amazing! As many of you know, I do get motion sickness, but the feeling of falling didn’t make me have it. It was only at the end, when there was spinning involved that made me feel a little motion sickness, but it wasn’t bad. I’ve heard that when you get an adrenaline rush that you just want to do everything afterwards, but it worked the other way for me. I was exhausted, but it might have been the long bus trip that we had that day too. We found something to eat and went back to our hostel to find other Otago students sharing our hostel room. It was pretty sweet! I didn’t actually know any of them, but Bill and Emily knew who they were. We were pretty tired so we went to bed pretty early. 

Saturday: We got up early to go on a hike up Rob Roy’s Peak. We took a taxi there because it was a distance away and started walking. It was very overcast when we started walking, and we were basically walking in a cloud. We started out in a sheep field and there was a good amount of sheep poop on the path, so you had to watch were you stepped. I am kind of happy that it was overcast on the way up or else, I’m afraid that I would have given up on the walk there. Once again, I realized how out of shape I was as I puffed up this hill. To my defence it was a pretty steep walk at times, but it’s no excuse as to how many times I stopped “to look at the scenery” (and to catch my breath). Alex wanted to take it slow too, so we ended up at the back while the others went ahead and got to the top in about 3 hours and 15 minutes. We stopped at the top, had a photo shoot, ate some PB and J sandwiches and then started to make our way back down the mountain. The view was incredible. It, once again, didn’t look real. It was like it was a big green screen that projected the mountains in the background and the lake in the foreground. On the way down, the sky was clear and we saw the view that we didn’t on the way up. Our knees, hips and toes were killing us at the end of the hike, but it was so worth all the pain. We all got a little bit burnt, and of course, I was a little more than a little burnt. It’s still not as bad as the first burn I got here, but it was still pretty bad. After the hike, we taxi-ed back to the hostel, changed into our bathing suits and went kayaking for an hour. (Bill walked back from the hike along another trail back into town, but us girls were exhausted, and wanted to kayak before it was closed.) We basically just kayaked into the middle of the lake and sit and talked. It was nice to be on the water after a long hike. It was Earth Hour at 8:30 so we went down to the pub attached to our hostel and listened to some acoustic band and then went back to our room. We were planning on doing something that night, as we had not done anything the night before, but we sore and tired from the hike that we ended up watching a movie (or half of a movie) and then going to bed. 

Sunday: We had to sign out of our hostel by 10am, so we packed up and stored our things in the storage closet in the lobby. We were all still pretty tired/sore from the hike and it was raining off and on.  I didn’t want to really spend money either, as I had spent a lot already this weekend. We tried to book paintballing, but it didn’t work out. Then we tired booking other activities, but they were either really far away, or didn’t have any spots available. So, we went back to the hostel and watched movies for the day until the bus came.  Katie and I got Subway to eat on the bus ride home and the others got other types of food. (NOTE: Katie is highly allergic to shellfish and bees) and caught the bus home. Once again there was a conflict of booking. Somehow, the bus ride that I booked didn’t show up on the list and there were not enough seats for me to come along. (There was in Wanaka, but we were supposed to pick up more people and take them back to Dunedin). The bus driver was quite nice though and let me stay on, and he told us to cross our fingers that someone wouldn’t show up. Luckily, someone didn’t and I had a seat all the way home! When we were about 45 minutes into our trip, Katie felt like her throat was closing up. We were VERY lucky that we were in the town with the only hospital in the region. The bus driver (again, very nice) drove us there and the whole bus waiting to see if Katie had to stay overnight or just get treated and get on our way. Katie only had a minor reaction to something (We think it was from Subway, because the girl serving us said that she had eaten the crab sandwich earlier that day) and kind of reacted to it to make it worse. Anyways, she didn’t have to stay over, and the whole bus was very understanding. (We would have had to wait in Alexandria for half an hour anyways, because the bus driver was switching and it would take 30mins. So instead of waiting in Alexandria for 30mins, we waited in Cromwell at the hospital). (Yes! Only 30mins to treat her! It was amazing! Haha!) We were on our way again, and got into Dunedin about 10:30pm. I got Greg to pick me up (Both him and Celia are wonderful!) and went to bed.

Monday- Tuesday – I haven’t really done much these past few days, except working on this essay, and more class related things. I am also attempting to plan for reading week. A bunch of people are going to Australia for the break. I would LOVE to go; I just have to decide on if it’s in my budget and such things like that. I hope it all works out because that would be SWEET!  

More New Zealand Quirks:

-          Pancakes: When I got here in February, I give Greg and Celia a jar of maple syrup and they said that they wanted to make pancakes on day. Saturday, I went downstairs to ‘pancakes’. In NZ, pancakes are crepes, and our pancakes are called something different. I didn’t complain, because crepes are wonderful, but just an interesting fact!

-          Rat-tails: ARE EVERYWHERE! I sometimes think that I have gone back in time and arrived in the 80s. A lot of the guys here think rattails look good for some reason. I kind of want to carry scissors around with me to cut them off when they sit or walk in front of me.

-           Bare feet: I’m surprised that I haven’t mentioned this before now, but a lot of people just walk around in bare feet, everywhere! I’ve seen people in class, in stores, around town, just everywhere. I think it’s pretty crazy, but I kind of like it, because I don’t like wearing shoes either! 

That’s basically it for this week. I should get writing my paper and I have a reflection due tomorrow. I actually just looked at my budget and I realized that Australia will not fit into my budget. So, I might just stay around here. We’ll see what happens. 

Love to all!

Cheers,

KB  

Hiking, Beach and Boys with Short Shorts, Oh my!

Hey All,

It is currently Wednesday again, so I decided that it was time for another blog. I think I will start skipping some days because I don’t do much besides school. So, I last updated last Wednesday when I had just had an exciting weekend in Queenstown. I’m sorry to say that this post will not be AS exciting, but some eventful things did happen! 

Wednesday – Friday: I had school! Classes are now getting more interesting and I am learning a lot of New Zealand laws/policies especially around family/childcare. (DID YOU KNOW that New Zealand has a legislation in place that you are not allowed to physically touch a child anymore. It’s basically an anti-spanking law, but has a lot more associated to it too. Just an interesting fact!). I slept over at Alex’s on Thursday night. Brie, Alex, Sophie (their Kiwi host) and I ended up baking some interesting oatmeal cookies and had made plans for the next day about going to a little French Bakery but as sleep has a way of us missing things, we didn’t end up going. I went to my class and when I came back, we decided to go watch a movie at a NZ movie theatre (which is basically the same layout as ours back in Canada). I went home after the movie as I wanted to relax before the bike trip out to the Dunedin peninsula we had planned for the next day. Greg and Celia were away for the weekend, so I had the house to myself, which was pretty sweet!  

Saturday: The BIG Bike trip! I had plans of getting up early, walking into town, picking up a bike from my friend who had offered to let me use hers for the semester (I met her in class. Her name is Noora!), riding said bike to Alex’s and then we go off from there on our big adventure. BUT unfortunately, the bike rental place that Alex and the rest of them were going to rent from only had two bikes available. So, that was the end of that plan. Brie and I really wanted to do something physical as we felt like we were lazing, but Alex needed to work on an assignment that she had. So, Brie and I searched the internet on what we could do in/around Dunedin. And then we found it! A good hike up Mount Cargill! That would be great! And it was only 11km to walk there, not THAT far. So, Brie’s friend Emily joined and we walked, and walked, and walked....and walked some more, asked some people directions, went up, up, up and around and this way, and that way...until we finally reached the base of the mountain...2 hours later. We then got lost again, as we thought a very muddy BMX trail was the trail up to the top on the mountain. So, after climbing up that and sliding back down, we found our way to the actual trail. It was now around 6 o’clock and we were debating even hiking the mountain because it was getting late. Emily phoned her Kiwi host to see if he could pick us up if we hiked, and he agreed to. So, we started up the trail, and that is when I realized how out of shape I am. As Brie and Emily were totally fine walking up the trail, I felt like I was dying (I blame it on the 2 hour hike to get to the hike, but I think I should probably get to the gym sometime...). We kept asking people how far until the top, and they were discouraging as each time we asked they said 45 more minutes to the summit. At around 6:30 we decided that we should probably turn around because Emily’s Kiwi host was on the way. Luckily there was a lookout spot just down the trail so we took a look at how far we had got and realized that it probably wouldn’t have been a good view anyways because it was very cloudy that day. On the hike down, an owl swooped down to greet us, and we heard sounds that sounded like either a dinosaur or a dying sheep. New Zealand is a very odd place for wildlife. Emily’s Kiwi host picked us up and we went home, and I was sore as anything. I slept over at Alex’s again.

Sunday: Sunday was BEAUTIFUL! Such nice weather that it HAD to be a beach day. Alex, Brie, Emily and I went down to the beach and met up with Blake, Mark and Texas (Alex’s flatmate Matt, that will for now on be named Texas, just not to be confused with Matthew their other flatmate). Tanned and relaxed on the beach. Brie and I went in for a bit but it got cold really fast! We attempted handstands, cartwheels, and headstands before going home. Katie and I had been talking about going to a more student-y church so we decided to check out a church called “South life”. We decided after that it was an experience, one that we might try again, but we are thinking about going to another church called “Elim” this coming Sunday. So, we’ll see how that one is. 

Monday – Wednesday:  This week has been one of catching up on schoolwork that I should have been doing all along, but as I tend to be a procrastinator, the work has once again gotten plied up. I read three chapters of psych yesterday, and am planning on reading some more articles today! I am actually enjoying being back into school again. It gives my life a little more organization and routine, which is always a nice thing to have. 

NZ things that I have learned:

1)      1.“Sweet As” – This term is used as anything from ‘sweet’ to ‘nice’. It is not “sweet as (insert something        here)” just “sweet as”.

2)      2. “Cheers” – This term is used whenever you are given something, or do something for someone, (like Thanks and You’re Welcome)or leaving somewhere, or arriving (like Hello and Goodbye) BUT you do not reply ‘cheers’ to ‘cheers’.

3)    3. Boys wear short shorts – It is an odd thing in NZ to see a male wearing shorts that are longer than his knee. A lot of the shorts I first saw were rugby ones, so it was pretty standard length for rugby shorts, but NO, they are everywhere and not ALL rugby shorts. A couple days ago, I saw a guy who was wearing pink short shorts (like mid-thigh length) with long black socks on, who was wearing jandals (flip flops). This is just an everyday occurrence. 

That’s all for now! Nothing too exciting, as I said. Yesterday marked one month of me being in New Zealand, so I guess that’s something exciting! I love being here! It’s just such a laidback atmosphere. Just my style.

Love and Cheers,

K

Queenstown: The city of Adventure.

Hello All,

I hope you are doing well! Today is Wednesday so I figured another update was needed. Last I updated you was last Tuesday. 

Tuesday, Wednesday – I lazed around a lot on Tuesday because I didn’t have any class (because they are all tutorials and they weren’t running). I organized some courses and watched some TV. On Wednesday, I went to my two classes which were pretty good. I find my classes overall really interesting as they are all about social work but also about government policies (some that are different from Canada’s). I also met a few people who are in multiple classes which is sweet to connect with them. I was going to go to the gym because it is free at Otago but decided not to because I needed to pack for the next day. So, packed for the rest of the night and went to bed early because I had a class at 9am the next day. 

Thursday – Got up early to finish packing for the day ahead. I had plans of skydiving and hiking and had to be prepared for any type of weather because NZ weather is changes so much.  So, after trying to pack everything into one little backpack and my purse, everything was ready for the trip ahead. I had two classes that morning and after them, went over to Alex’s to walk to the bus station with everyone who was going (It ended up only being 5 of us; Alex, Katie, Storey, Mark and I). After getting everyone together, we slowly but surely got everything/everyone together, and made our way downtown to the bus station. We got there with some time to spare but needed to check in and get our backpacks under the bus for storage. We got seats together, and then just talked until the bus started to run. Now, it was a hot day (which is slightly rare in NZ) and because we had limited room to pack we had wore lots of layers in case it was cold in Queenstown. We figured that the bus would have air conditioning and we could strip off some layers and all would be good. BUT as I have come to realize, don’t figure anything because it is usually the opposite in New Zealand. So, the bus’s air conditioning was broken, and here we were on the hottest, very curvy bus ride that I have ever been on. My inherited motion sickness was not an asset to this trip (it really never is an asset but…for the sake of a good story, it could be). So, throughout the four hour trip we attempted to play some card games, but people were starting to feel sick so we decided to stop and just enjoy the beautiful New Zealand country side, mountains that could have been the set for Lord of the Rings (and probably were) ], sea blue rivers and cute country towns. I unfortunately didn’t take any pictures on the way there, excepting that I would take pictures on the way home, but that didn’t happen either. So, I took good mental pictures that will hopefully last me a lifetime! There was a New Zealand girl on the bus ride there who was very friendly (a little too much) that was obsessed with our accents and got us to say silly sayings, like purple curtains, just to hear our accents (More on Purple Curtains later). She was nice enough but we were pretty tired, and wanted to rest so we could have a good night in Queenstown. So, once we got there, I’m pretty sure we sweated half our weight and were pretty hungry. A girl in my class had suggested a burger place called “Fergburger” (which I called Fernbergers for the weekend). So, we tried it out and MAN was it fantastic! It was probably the best burger I have ever had. It was also HUGE but since we had not eaten since before the long hot bus trip, we were pretty hungry. We had earlier signed in to our hostel and had discovered a Canadian t-shirt that one of our hostel roommates had left on our floor, so we also wanted to meet him. He was actually from Hamilton and we had lots to talk about as most of the people who went were Canadian. He had actually come over from Australia for a few days and was leaving on Saturday. We hungout until we got hungry later (which is actually quite impressive after having a “Fergburger”) so we ended up eating Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches (and also a Apple Cinnamon Muffin) in the stairwell of our hostel so we didn’t end up waking up Alex (the Canadian) or Colm (our other roommate, who’s Irish accent was so strong, we barely understood a word he said, unless Mark translated (He’s Scottish). Overall, a good night was had by all, and we were probably in bed by 2am. 

Friday- We slept in quite late on Friday because we didn’t have much planned and we had had a pretty late night the night before. Some of us didn’t get much sleep because Mark and Colm both snore pretty loudly. Once we were finally out of bed, we had decided to go kayaking, on the gondola up to the top of the mountain (which included a luge course) and visiting the botanical gardens. This is what we planned, what we actually did was another story. We ended up going down to the waterfront (which was about one street away from our hostel) and realizing the water was FAR too cold and FAR too wavy for us to kayak, so we took some scenic pictures and went on our way towards the gondola. The view from the top was just as breath-taking as the view from Tunnel Beach (maybe even more). The lake surrounded by the mountains just seemed somehow surreal, like it was just a backdrop instead of real mountains! BUT the truth was it was real and the view was AMAZING! (I’ll add some pictures below). Once up there, there was a luge course that is basically like a concrete course that you go down on a turtle (like one of those things in gym classes that when you wiggle the handles you move, in other words, kind of like a wagon, with steering). That was a lot of fun, Mark was speeding way ahead of us girls but we enjoyed our time going down at a leisurely rate.  We marveled at the view some more before taking the gondola down deciding what to do next. On the way down the mountain we noticed some sheep just lazing on the side of the mountain. It looked kind of like they were wild, because there weren’t any farms near there, but I’m sure they just escaped and were enjoying their freedom.  After the gondola we decided to prepared what we were going to do the next day (as we have heard that we have to make reservations to get on some trips). We first all went to the skydiving place as most of us wanted to go skydiving (some needed convincing), but we all signed up for mid-day. Then Alex wanted to go zip-lining so we went to a place to sign up for that but got convinced that Canyoning was better (which we agreed after we did it). Canyoning consists of zip-lining over the canyon, repelling down the canyon, swimming through the canyon, jumping off waterfalls in the canyon, and a combination of the above. BUT in order to go canyoning we had to switch out skydiving time until 7am so we did that and in the process Alex and Storey didn’t want to skydive anymore and decided to go Hang-gliding the next morning instead. So, we had it all planned out, Saturday we would skydiving or hang-glide, then all go canyoning. We were all excited for the next day. We really didn’t have much planned for the night or afternoon as we didn’t really want to go out because the next day we had to get up early for our morning activities. As it was such a nice day, we decided to lie in a park and enjoy the sun, after a few hours of that, we were getting pretty hungry again and wanted some food. We had decided to take it easy that night so we were just wandering around town when we saw some Arcadia people (Arcadia is a group of students mostly from the states that are all Otago students (Brie is one, and we’ve met people through her)). Among them were a few who weren’t Arcadia like Matt who had hitchhiked all the way to Queenstown that day. Matt didn’t have anywhere to stay and we had another bed in our room so he decided to stay there for the next few nights. He also signed up for Canyoning with us so he hung out with us for the rest of the weekend.  Alex (our roommate, male) taught us some card games and Katie really wanted to go ride the mechanical bull (which we had heard about through some people we met). We all rode the bull (some a few times) and it was just plain fun! We got hungry again at around 12:30 and decided to get “Fergburgers” and got in bed around 2am again and were excited for the next day! 

Saturday – Katie, Mark and I set our alarms for 6:45am so we would be up in time to get to the skydiving place for 7:15ish. With the lack of sleep kicking in, we slowly got dressed and got ready to go, but unfortunately it was raining and when we got to the place, the instructors said that the run that we were supposed to go on was cancelled due to the rain. So, we went back to the hostel and went back to bed. Well we were catching up on some much needed rest, Storey and Alex (female) went hang-gliding, which looked like SO much fun! While they were still out, the rest of us (Katie, Mark, Alex (male), Matt and I) got up and decided to go check out the botanical gardens (because we didn’t get to that the day before). They were quite nice, lots of flowers and trees, and a pretty river running through it. We ended up sitting on the edge of a swimming pool/skateboard park (I actually don’t know which one it was…hahah!). Matt and I ended up on the subject on parkour and how cool it was and that was just the theme of the entire day. We screamed HARDCORE PARKOUR during canyoning and throughout the night! All of us talked until we got hungry and wanted to get ready for canyoning. We met up with Alex and Storey just before going to canyoning. There are really no words to describe the way you feel zip-lining, swimming through, jumping in, etc. in the canyon except for awesomely amazing! It’s a total thrill and it’s definitely gets your adrenaline pumping as you jump off a 15 foot waterfall! We were decked out in water-suits, lifejackets, little boots (mine kept unzipping) and helmets to protect us from the elements and rocks. We first zip-lined across the canyon and then repelled down the side of the cliff where we stopped and jumped for a picture. I was more focused on the jumping away from the wall, that I forgot that I had to catch myself on the way back in so I bashed against the wall. It’s all good though, with all the equipment on, I didn’t even get a bruise! J We then swam, jumping and navigated through the water and then climbed up a hill to zip-line over a pool of water and then lower ourselves down a rope to jump back into the water. Now, the rope was attached to a pulley system which was attached to the zip-line and each person so that you would only have to lower 10% of your bodyweight instead of the full thing, BUT I was the smart one that instead of holding the rope below the pulley system, I held it above and lowered my entire bodyweight down the rope. Let’s just say my arms hurt the next day, and I had horrible rope burn on my hands (but didn’t notice until after because by this time my hands were so numb that I really couldn’t feel them). Anyways, the rest of the course was just jumping through the rocks and swimming down the river, but it was SOOO fun! I highly recommended the activity to anyone! The water was so cold and actually 5 degrees colder than usual because the rain in the morning had melted some snow up in the mountains. The effort to take off wet water-suits, and the gear was a feat to itself which involved a lot of laughing! It was SO cold after swimming in the water that we were shaking and our skin was tinted blue, but we survived and were super hungry. So, once we got back into town we went to get our third and final Fergburgers of the weekend. The night ended up being fun, we really didn't get up to much but were up pretty late. 

Sunday – With the early morning packing, and the signing out of the hostel we were already tuckered out by the time with got to the bus stop. It was a pretty chilly morning and we hoped that the bus home at heating. After the cold afternoon the night before and the chilly morning we decided that it we should have never complained about the hot bus ride to Queenstown. So, once we got everyone piled in, all the girls took a Gravol and tried to sleep as much as possible with the twisty, hilly roads, and a bus driver who didn’t understand the size of the bus plus the curvy roads made for a bad combination that resulted in the bus feeling like it was going to tilt so far that it would fall off the cliffs. After 4 long hours of trying to sleep on the bus ride we were finally back in Dunedin, ready to go back to bed. Greg was gracious enough to drive down to get me and I spent the rest of the day resting and relaxing and went to bed at around 9pm.  

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday- After the busy weekend, it was nice to be able to relax. I went to classes but they weren’t too stressful yet. I also came down with a cold, and had the worst sore throat and runny nose on Monday. The cold is still hanging around but it isn’t as bad as Monday. Tuesday and Today are just about the same, went to class, hung out with friends for a bit, got to know a few more people in classes. I need to get reading for classes so I don’t fall too far behind. Today was beautiful out. The sun was nice and bright again! I got sunburned again but it’s not as bad this time.

No plans for this weekend. Greg and Celia are away so I have the house to myself which will either be great, or really boring. I might ask if they have a bike that I can go into town with on the weekend. We’ll see! 

Love to all, 

K

Picture Time: 

Canyoning - the jump that I failed to land.

Queenstown: