Into the south island...

Hello! I hope you had a great weekend. I WENT SKYDIVING!!! I am so excited! But I spose I should tell you everything else first. I’ve been in a hostel for the last few nights now so I’ve had much more time on the computer so more new photos J It is quite a nice change from all of the camping. On Sunday night we got to go to the botanical gardens and watch a live band and sip champagne. It was awesome, another gorgeous night in Wellington. Monday morning we got to sleep in and wake up to brunch and then have a bit of class and then a free day. My friend Kendra and I got some school work done and then walked around the city and shopped for the day. It was great! Early Tuesday morning we packed up everythingand got on the ferry to go to Nelson in the south island. The ferry ride was great, scenic, and beautiful. We then had about a 3 hour ride in the vans to our next hostel. The van ride was by far the worst. Extremely curvy, hilly, and rough. Many people already felt sick from the ferry but we all made it okay and did some homework when we arrived. That night we went to the cinema and saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Very good and unique movie. This morning we woke up and half the group went mountain biking (I get to go at 7 am tomorrow, mom and dad I decided to go after all. This could be interesting) and at noon we all left to go SKYDIVING! There were 19 of us and they only took us up 3 at a time. I didn’t end up going until second to last so the day got fairly long but it was the most incredible experience ever!!! I didn’t seem to be that nervous until I got into the plane. We were going to jump at 13,000 feet. By 5,000 feet I already thought we were too high. The guy I jumped with was great and he tried to distract me quite a bit on the waqy up (a twenty minute scenic plane ride). Before I knew it we were outta the plane and then back on the ground. It went so fast! It was the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life and it was such an amazing day outside. I LOVED IT! Since we have been back everyone is quite tired and we are all laying kinda low tonight. We have another big day tomorrow starting with the mountain biking and then we have a wine tour through 3 vineyards and a brewery. I am excited. The following day we leave for Abel Tasman and begin camping again. I’ll keep you updated. Hope all is well at home. Stay warm.

Love you lots and miss you more

Living the good life!

Hello! I hope everyone is doing great! I miss you! I have so much more once again.

After our last free day we prepared for an 8 hour hike and on Thursday morning we woke up bright and early and took off for the mountains. I had no idea what was in store. By 'hike' i thought they meant a nice walk for a long time like we usually do but it turned out to be the hardest thing i have ever done...8 hours in intense heat and steep rocky mountain terrain. We got to see Mt. Doom which is in Lord of the Rings. It was very hot and quite difficult but it was such an accomplishment. I loved it sorta ;) I put up some pictures from the lovely hike. Afterwards we were all very sore and layed low for the night. The next day we went white water rafting on a much calmer water and white water kayaking. That night we had a bon fire and made hobo pies...yum! It was a wonderful night. Yesterday we woke up early and jumped off of a dam, there were 20 and 40 foot jumps. I only made it off the 20 foot one, alittle too nervous for the large one (too many rocks). Next we loaded up the vans and headed for Wellington (the capital city) its beautiful!!!! Our van broke down temporarily on the way but its all good now and the drive was great. We are finally not camping!!! We are staying in our first hostel. Its actually quite nice, similar to a dorm room. We all went out last night to pubs and dinner and had quite a great time. This morning everyone was a little sluggish but we began our first day of classes nice and early. We hiked up a large hill that overlooks the city and that's where we had class. It was great. Tonight we are going to see a live band at the botanical gardens! I'm pretty excited. We're here 2 more nights and then we take the ferry to the south island!! I can't wait! The weather here has been amazing. This is incredible!

Well i gotta go to dinner now but I'll update soon. Love you lots! Miss you

O and one more quick thing...I have never seen a more beautiful night sky in my life! The stars are absolutely amazing here! I love it

Hello again! Its gonna be hard to try and fill you in on everything i've done since i've last written but i'm gonna try. It feels like i've been here a month. We hiked in the most beautiful hills i have ever seen and then we all split up. I worked on homework as it rained for a bit, but once the rain cleared up , one of my instructors took us rappelling! It was incredible! Once again its hard for me to describe but what i did was pretty much put on a small harness, hold onto a very small rope and climb/drop down an 85 foot cliff straight down into running water. Probably the scariest thing i had ever done up to that point. But I did it. I really can't believe it. I was shaking so bad even once i finished ;) That night we went for another hike in light rain through the beautiful countryside. I felt like i was in The Sound of Music. It was beautiful! The next day we packed up, and started driving further south. We had a surprise stop on the way and got to go Zorbing! Three of us got put into a giant ball with a little bit of water and tried to run down a hill sorta like a hamster. It was crazy and fun! We got back in the van yet again and drove for aways then we stopped to go white water rafting!!!! It was amazing! Extremely scary and exciting all at the same time. Our guide was tons of fun and we went off a 21 foot waterfall. CRAZY! After that we drove to another Maori where we got to see their traditional dance and have a earth cooked meal. It was a feast!!! Bigger than thanksgiving :) They made us potatoes, chicken, beef, pork, and amazing deserts. All of the food was cooked in a giant hole in the ground. After that we went to some natural hot springs. Very strange but once again amazing! We headed to bed early again cause believe it or not all this activity takes quite a bit out of you. We left this morning and headed to Taupo where we are currently in town, doing laundry, using internet, and buying groceries. We are preparing for an 8 hour hike tommorrow, slightly intimidating. Its gonna be quite a challenge. We will be camping the next 3 nights at the foot of a mountain. It should be beautiful. I know I skipped some but it is hard to remember all I have done and its only day 5 or something like that. Well i miss you all! Have a wonderful week! I'll try to put up new pictures soon :) Love you

pictures...

it took forever to upload the pictures and i don't have time to lable them or figure out how to change the size so use your imagination ;) bye for now

I am in New Zealand!!!

Hey guys! AH!!! THis is amazing! I can't even put into words my expirience so far but I'll try to give you a quit summary...I left Minneapolis on Tuesday at 10:00am. Everything started off great but when I landed in Dallas for my lay-over my flight to LAX had been cancelled :( suprisingly I stayed calm and spent about a half hour on the phone trying to catch a different flight so I wouldn't miss my flight to New Zealand, got put on a flight to San Jose, CA and then another to LAX. This happened very quickly and I would rush inbetween flights and then end up just sitting anxiously on the plane. I ended up making it to LAX at 6:10pm and had to go through customs, find my now lost luggage, and meet my group because my final flight left at 6:45. Looking back I have no idea how it worked, there was running, many calls, and lots of worried people but surprising it all ended up working great! The flight was 13 hours and by hour 7 I wanted to cry but we made it to Auckland around 4:30am New Zealand time with very little sleep. We loaded up in vans, went and bought groceries, and headed to the One Tree Hill to get a beautiful view of Auckland. It is very different getting used to the driving on left, the bizarre driving, numerous round-abouts, the language, and always saying "toilets" rather than bathrooms, but I feel like we've caught on quickly. We spent a few hours at the park and then we went to a beach. We then loaded up the vans and spent the next 4 hours heading to the west coast to Piha. It was absolutely beautiful! We camped on a beach :) and got to watch a surf context on the most amazing black beach. We had a free day and spent a great deal of time resting, getting sun, and exploring. We went out to a bar as a group that night (its legal here ;) haha) and had a great time. I learned lots that night! We spent another night on the beach packed up in the morning and spent about 5 hours driving south to Waitomo. We were immediately greeted by Maori people who sang to us and welcomed them into their home. It was extremely different than the last place, we were now in the hilly countyside. We spent the evening repacking our bags, exploring once again and trying to catch up on sleep. All the driving and sun is exhausting believe it or not. Today we woke up early and it was raining (it has been extremelly sunny and hot up through this point, about 70-80 degrees, we are all started to peel) our rappeling trip was cancelled due to rain but we still got to go black water rafting which was amazing! We got all geared up in wet suits and went in single tubes through caves filled with glow worms. Extremely difficult to describe, but it was freezing, scary, and exciting all at once. Very different than anything I imagined. We then went to a farm show which was interesting but honestly quite boring. We watched the man shear a sheep ;) now we have an hour of free time to work on school work and check the computers before we meet back for supper. As a group we have been cooking breakfasts and dinners. They have actually been quite good and nutritious. I sure eat a lot less here and its much healthier, lots of fruit.

A couple things I have noticed right away here: Kiwis (the New Zealand people) are extremely nice and friendly, they see all resources as precious and are very particular about conserving water (we have been taking very limited short showers), they also have much smaller portions of everything, and seem much more carefree over all. THey seem much less stressed and are not worried so much about time or material things. It is not uncommon to see people walking in and out of shops with no shoes. Its crazy! but I love it

Wow I feel like that was extremely long and I hope I didn't miss anything but I am running out of time on the computer, so I'll try to update you again as soon as I can. I hope that wasn't to hard to understand.

I love you all and I miss you!!!

Departure

I leave one week from tomorrow! I fly out of Minneapolis on Tuesday morning, January 13th!!!