New Zealand in a short blog

was in New Zealand from the 26th of June until the 12th of July.

hey guys i completely apologize for not writing on this blog in forever... i have been to NZ and back and i am still in newcastle, but it is only 4 days until i leave. i will be home the 21st around ten in the morning... New zealand though was absolutely beautiful! it was of course freezing cold.. and at times it made me kind of lazy and i didnt want to go anywhere sometimes, but it wa still one of the best experiences i have done in awhile!

CHRISTCHURCH
first we took a plane to christchurch and were there for a few days. (just 3 actually) first night we got in we had originally planned to stay in the airport since we got in late enough, but ended up just leaving to a hostel for the night. we got a shuttle into the center of town and met a few people in out shuttle. they were the same crazy energetic people we had on our flight and actually got to meet them so that was fun!. we got to our hostel that night at 2 in the morning and had to leave by like 10 to check out and get to our hostel we had booked. we had ended up booking a place way outside of the center square in CHC (the square was called cathedral square) so we got to walk all the way there.. in weather like 30 degrees or something... that night the All Blacks(the New Zealand Rugby team) were playing in town nearby and unfort we couldnt get tickets so we went to a pub, had some dinner and watched the game. those few days we were there allison and i just really walked around seeing the different sights people said were a must to see.

QUEENSTOWN
then a few days later we hopped on a bus for about like 8 hours and headed to queenstown. there we found our first accomodation place that ended up being up on the way to one of the main skiing mountains and so we ended up just chilling there. it was a super nice ski resort that must have had a good deal going on when we found it. it has a bowling alley and a spa and sauna. needless to say we staying in the room the whole two days we were there and drank lots of tea and kept our electric blankets on. here in queenstown it did snow and it was colder than christchurch. two days later we went to our next accomodation which was in town across from the lake. clod as it was, we were completely amazed of the beauty of where we were. the mountain came up right next to the lake which was right next to our hostel. basically it was an amazing sight. first night we went out with a few people in our hostel room and went out exploring. went to this place called minus 5 which is a place negative 5 degrees celcius. In it they have ice scultures and you can get one drink in there and they put it in a cup made of ice. luckily they give you a huge jacket and mittens and such to keep you warm. also afterwards we headed to a bar/pizza place that apparently when the dance floor is full of people they open the roof. we were there for a little, then realized the roof wasnt going to open for another few hours and it was like midnight so instead we all went home. next day in the hostel i met three guys from Albuquerque new mexico and we played cards like the whole day teaching each other new games. then that night we went out to a big burger plane in queenstown called Fergburger.

AUCKLAND
The next day the fun began. (sarcasm) we hopped on a bus back to Queenstown (or attempted to) but just a few hours in we stopped at a bathroom stop and the bus driver decided to turn back around to Queenstown cause the weather was bad in the pass we were about to go through. instead of wanting to turn around allison and i met a couple girls that also did not want to turn around and go back to Queenstown so instead we all hopped on a bus that went more south but towards the east more in hopes that once in Dunedin (our final destinations) we could find a bus then back up the coast to Christchurch to catch a plane. by this time (due to the reroute) we had missed our plane and we had to call and switch it. when we finally got into dunedin we caught a bus an hour later up to CHC it was midnight so we decided to just get to the airport (our flight was early in the morning) and just sleep there. i made a friend in the airport that lived in sydney and ended up not sleeping in the airport like more than 45 minutes cause we just sat in the airport talking and giving music advice and all that. around 6 in the morning we boarded our plane to Auckland.

Cousin David picked me and Allison up from our plane and i spent about 8 days or so in Auckland. we visited heaps of places. we went to The Zoo, the Kelly Tarlton Aquarium, One tree Hill (literally though no Tree Hill), The Aucklan Museum and just taken around the city. i came home the 12th and took the train (by myself cause Allison then went straight home while i had another week in Newie).

Just another day in newcastle...

Today matty lovegrove, a friend of mine came over earlyish in the morning and watched boondock saints and some flight of the concord episodes with me. We then got picked up by Babs with Monique and Katie and headed off to a Rugby league game. Unfortunately we lost the game by 2…sad day…. Afterwards we ran over to a friends house to let me borrow a jumper and pick up some clothes, then headed to DJ and Babs house to have some dinner. We then headed off to church and finally CAR PARK SOCCER!!!!! It was amazing…again! I love love love playing this game…. Somehow, for some reason, either I became a magnet for goal shots on my team’s goal, or I stopped being scared of the goal and made sure I was in the line of fire, but I ended up being hit about 5 times per leg by the ball blocking a harsh hit in attempt for a goal. It was great for my team but it was a little painful…. Afterwards we headed home stopping at mackers (McDonalds of course..) then got dropped off at home around midnight. With only having about 4 and a half hours of sleep I was pretty tired. so i crashed almost immediately.

Hanging out with my church friends...

ok so so sorry it has been sooo long!!!! i have a lot to say too!! this is my update....

Church has been amazing. I finally have been hanging out with aussies. A few weekends ago I went to the country. I first went to my friends Bab’s house and helped him with chores around his farm.. a real life farm!!!! I even helped move a herd of sheep. Yes I am a real life shepherd.. haha….. then afterwards, I went to my friend Nathan’s house and we went hiking and to an observatory.

Every week I have been going to uni-church on Sunday nights and to bible study on Tuesday nights and NCS meetings on Wednesdays. A few Thursdays I have been going to my friend krisha’s house. First I went for a day called “unnecessary appliance day” on this day we made dinner and snacks using only unnecessary appliances. This includes pie makers, popcorn makers, waffle makers, and even a cotton candy maker, which is actually called fairy floss here. The other Thursday I spent with krisha and her roommates (pip, flick, Bo and mel). I just went to their house after uni for dinner and then to Beaumont street to the Eurobar.

Other activities I have been doing with my church friends…..a few times I have been going out to dinner/coffee with the guys from church. One time on a Wednesday we went to Three monkees and there was about 30 or so people all from church just hanging out at the restaurant. A few weeks ago NCS (Newcastle Christian students) had an event called elegant evening where we all dressed up and had a little dinner and danced the night away…..

A friend of mine, Babs actually goes to school for music. He plays the sax. A few times ii have gone to see him play. One time a huge group of church people went to see him play at a bar called the “view factory.” The music was all “big band” type music. We had such a great times just dancing with each other and supporting our friend. Next night even after an accident a few of our friends got into after he totalled his car, or in their term, “written off” we went to another concert of Bab’s where his band played a long piece of compositions with bits of Queen melodies embedded into it.

The last week has been my favourite so far. Wednesday was my first state of origin game, which is a night that the two original teams of the rugby union teams play together. They are the best of the two sections of the leage. This is kinda like the baseball all stars game, but for Rugby union. (this league is different to the rugby league game that I went to which was the Newcastle knights. Super confusing I know, I have only started to begin to understand it after it being explained to me about 6 times ot so far…..) the game was pretty incredible, and after the game was even more fun. It was a time I really got to know some of the other people in church. I finally got my camera out to these few events. We all stayed for a few hours after the game just talking to each other hanging out, watching jimmy play the trumpet, and watching mikey and pete play guitar while we all singed along. It was an amazing evening getting closer to some more uni church friends.

Carpark socder is every Thursday and Sunday night. this last Thursday was my first night going. Carpark soccer is at the university on the ground level floor of the parking structure on campus. Everyone goes all out wearing athletic shoes and jerseys and such, and we all pick teams and just play soccer in the parking structure. We didn’t even start until about 9:30 and played until about 11:30. At the beginning of the game I was not too into it, it was a little overwhelming cause so many people came outto play, and I still have fears playing a non official game of soccer (no shin guards I mean) due to my incident in 8th grade breaking my leg with a kick to the shin by someone at AWANA, but after awhile I got super into it, even though I am not heaps good. I made some great plays stealing the ball from people and kicking it out of the group to someone who could take it up to the goal. It was one of my favourite nights for sure. A couple of my friends the whole night were making fun of me and getting me to say words in Australian so they could laugh at my poor attempt at their accent. The word of the night was “water” which apparently was hilarious to them the way I say it.

Last night I went over to DJ, Nate and Bab’s place (even though nate want there) also there was matty lovegrove, and matt sharpe and Katie. We hung around a bit and ended up watching boondock saints and most of bill and ted’s excellent adventure (although apparently we watched it too late cause the boys got bored right before the end) since it was pretty late and I feel bad when someone has to give me a ride home, I ended up crashing at katies house which was super nice of her. Next morning we had pasta for breakfast and watched a couple movies, the devil wears prada and night at the Roxbury. Then Katie got a ride home while I got a ready for the next part of my day. We were going to be playing tennis. I got picked up an hour an a half later and by 4 15 we were at the courts playing tennis for a couple hours. After wards we went too the raj Corner, which is a tai place that has for only 3 bucks a pretty good size bowl of rice with sauce on it (and at times this delicious sauce has some meat in it which is a special extra treat). Afterwards we headed off to our friends house and hung out there for most of the rest of the night. We watched a little “whose line is it anyways?” and rented role models, which was a pretty funny movie.. I had seen it before, but had forgotten how funny it was… around midnight or so, while we waited for the soccer game to come on (which came on at 1:30 due to the fact that it was in asia and all their soccer games are usually on pretty late at night) we headed down to a park nearby the “Jeso house” (a nickname for a house full of 9 church boys that is located in the suburb of Jesmond) and played a little bit of a soccer type game (its kinda hard to explain but basically you cannot touch the ball more than once until someone else touches it and there is one goal keeper and the only way someone can score is by heading it into the goal or kicking it before it touched the ground once someone kicks it up for you, so ithere was a lot of communication to attempt to score goals on each other and I only got a few in….lobbing the ball into the air is not my strongest point in life, although im sure Reilly would be amazing at it!) after we played the game, the actual game came on so we watched in until about 4:15 or so and then luckily I got a lift home. Which was awesome cause it was really cold and I really wanted to sleep in my own bed. I have no idea what tomorrow will hold, but I cannot wait to hang out with my friends again. I am loving hanging out with these guys so much! It is so awesome! These guys are great! I want to stay here with them! It breaks my heart I have to leave, just when I am finally beginning to fit in. I have a place in ther life which has been awesome to realize.

o and btw.. here are pictures of my friends...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116969&id=1067220169&l=dba6d12b65

MELBOURNE SPRING BREAK: SATURDAY

Saturday was actually almost just as amazing as friday. The day started off a heading down to the Cricket ground for our AFL (Aussie Rules Footy Game). We also had planned for that day to go to the Olympic museum which is located in the stadium. We walked over to the Cricket ground (which is where the opening ceremony and some Olympic games we held in for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and the 2000 Sydney Olympics). The Cricket Ground, first of all is a beautiful stadium let me say... Unlike Rugby, AFL stadiums are circular (rugby is rectangle like a football or soccer stadium). Today The Hawthorne Hawks played against the Port Adelaide Power.
Before the game they open up the museum so we wandered around the museum for a few hours before the game. Unfortunately they do not allowed cameras into the museum or i would have taken probably a billion... For those who want to travel to Melbourne, this museum is a must see. I learned so much not just about the different sports in the olympics, but the actual olympics and the progression form year to year. it is small, but theres a lot of material in the layout of the museum and I was first of all overwhelmed, but also blown away by all the material in the museum. They had many mini theatures set up displaying accounts of different competitors telling the audience of their experiences in the olympics etc... they had a huge cricket and AFL section. (probably because the Cricket ground actually has those two sports play there throughout the year). After we went through the museum it was about time for the game. On the Ocean Road Tour from the day before some guys on the tour told us we should root for hawthorne and that they were the favored team winning last year's championships (also they were more the home team than the other team and therefore the majority. Unfortunately for the most favored team, they failed miserably with a terrible score of 115 to 85. so much for the best team in the league..... but I have a confession to make about this game.. watching this game i have discovered my new favorite sport. let me repeat that....AUSSIE RULES FOOTY HAS BECOME MY NEW FAVORITE SPORT. this means, even back in the states I plan to follow AFL. I am so stoked. I love watching this style game more than any other sport. even Rugby. There is always something going on and I enjoy every secound of it!. The task I have now is to find the team i want to follow. Hawthorne will deffinitely not be the team. they are sloppy when they play and drop the ball to much. I was thinking maybe the Sydney Swans. I think they are the closest to Newcastle... i want to try to go to one of their games..... i will do some research.

anyways... moving on from my rant from the AFL... after the game we walked all the way home.. (did i mention before that it probably took us like 40min to walk to the cricket ground....we walked everywhere thsi week if your couldnt tell.) we picked up flowerds for the girls whp let us stay in their appartment for the week. That night i watched two AFL games and fell in love even more with this game..... (sorry i said i wouldnt talk about it again and i did.. sorry..) Allison and I TRIED to get to bed early due to the fact that we had to get up at 4:45 to head to the airport. I went to bed around maybe ten or so but only ended up getting about three hours of sleep. i was, for some reason, not tired and I woke back up at midnight and read for a few hours.

a few hours later Allison and I woke up at 4:45 and by 5:30 we were packed and headed out for the train station where a bus would pick us up and take up the airport. keep in mind the sun was not yet up so here we are in the dark draging our suitcase 3o minutes to the train station..... we got the the airport on time and headed back to newcastle. we got back home at about 10:30 or 11. by then Carly got home from her road trip up the coast with the boys so i cooked myself some food and chatted with her about her trip. and now i am here in the hub writing this blog.....

something i have decided i will do, at some point is start blogging about my thoughts. just random things. last night i read a book called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (actually for the second time) and it got me thinking and I feel like i should write down my thoughts. so whoever want to check that out, keep looking at my blog and i will post a link to that blog soon enough.. maybe i will make it when i am here in Aussi land.. i am unsure.

anyways.. this lack of sleep is catching up with me..... ill write back soon enough...

follow this link to the pictures of all this....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113977&id=1067220169&l=c05627128b

MELBOURNE SPRING BREAK DAY 5: FRIDAY

well today was the best day of the week for sure.

We went on the Great Ocean Road Tour. I had actually never even heard of the Great Ocean Road but then i believe in one week i had three people tell me that taking the Road from Melbourne to Adelaide on the Coast would be one of the greatest sights one could ever see in Australia so Allison and I decided to take the tour.

The day was cloudy with a slight chance of rain, but couldn't have been a better day. Allison and I got up at 6 to leave by 7 and meet the driver in front of the closest hotel which happened to be a 20 minute walk... (yay us!) we get there and the lady at the reception tells us to wait outside. we sit for about 10-15 minutes and a man waiting with us asked us if we were waiting for some kind of tour and when we replied that we were, he then told us our driver had been looking for us about 20 minutes prior to our arrival at the hotel (apparently the website decided it would tell us a different time to be at the hotel then the printout did and we went by the website only not knowing out printout said differently) fortunately we called the number on our printout and the driver swung back around after his other pickups and then we were off.

The Great Ocean Road was actually designed after the Pacific Highway which was hilarious to me, here I come all the way around the world to go to a place that is designed after where I live. O well. Anyways.. First stop, Bells beach near a suburb Torquay, is one of the biggest surfing beaches in all of Australia. It is actually the home of the Easter Festival which is a huge surfing competition. This past weekend Kelly Slater, one of the world's most amazing surfers was at Bell Beach for the competition and was actually beat by a local (i was interested in this tidbit on information). We actually didnt stop here, but just drove by while our tour guide told us all this information. After this our Tour guide preceded to play us some good ole surfer music.. of course the Beach Boys(our tour guide actually had a song for seriously every occasion and stop). We then continued to drive by the ocean, all the meanwhile taking lots of pictures.. (i do not think i can quite stress this idea of lots of pictures. lots...) Our first real stop was one by a arch over the road that said "The Great Ocean Road." of course here we paused for pictures and got to walk down to the beach so that was pretty fun. on our way from there we passed by a few areas that had been burnt in bush fires (not the recent Melbourne fires, but just fires in the brush) and learned an interesting fact about the trees that grow in this particular area (i believe some kind of Eucalyptus). The fact is that these trees (whatever they are) drop little seeds on the ground to reproduce, but the weird thing is that in order for the seeds to start to grow they need to have intense heat which is why, brush fires are actually necessary to help restart plant life. this i thought was so amazing, that God would make fire, something seeming to be so destructive, to actually be necessary to start new life. anyways...

Next element of fun on our tour was a stop by another beach maybe 30 minutes later (also a bathroom break) with some cookies and tea. it was on this break from the bus that Allison and I got to talk to some other people on the tour and to our guide. one of the craziest things to date, will be this next person we met. This man was named Kevin, and he worked for Costco. He actually builds them. This man was sent to Australia from like CO (but he has been all around the US building Costcos) to build the very first Costco in Australia. we are witnessing history in the making (the day before) of Costco blessing the country of Australia. also, this man has built many Costcos we know of including the one in San Dimas and a bunch in the OC and a few up North by Allison. This was a weird "small world" moments that i had to share with you all. also on this break I talked with the tour guide who had just got back from doing 4 years of being a tour guide in Europe. after talking to him, I have decided I am first (before I decide whether or not I go, or attempt to go, to graduate school in London, for graduation I am going to save up money to take a tour (for like 45 days i believe) in Europe. Our guide (actually names Neil) was telling me it hits every major city and most major sites in Europe and even has a week in either Egypt or the Greece Islands and I have decided I am going to save up money for that. I have always wanted to go to Europe and travel and that will be my perfect chance.. anyone want to pitch in? haha kidding. i have two years to save.

On our way to the next stop we drove through an area where Koalas chill in the trees. There were actually a few chilling in the nearby trees so we got out and took some pictures.... This was my first time seeing a real Koala in the actual wild!!! I was super-stoked!! (the rain-forestation had them contained so it wasn't technically in the wild) i found out some weird things about Koala's today. FACT ONE: they are territorial and stay strictly in one tree (or at least in the same area of trees) until they have stripped them clean (in my pictures which are not up yet (they will be posted on my last blog of melbourne...) i have pictures of these trees totally stripped. FACT TWO: Koala's eat Eucalyptus trees that are actually toxic, but Koala's have an enzyme that can break down this toxic for them so it is not dangerous to them. FACT THREE: Koala's are NOT born with these enzymes, rather they must acquire them. FACT FOUR: Koala's acquire these enzymes from eating their mother's poop for the first few weeks after birth. that is just gross no lie.

Next stop, we walked a little through the rainforest and learned a little about the trees and bug and such. We saw the 2nd tallest tree (first is of course the redwoods in California!!!! heck yes!) which was pretty cool. Many trees were hollow due to a fungus that eats the inside of trees, and back in the day they used to put bars on these hollow trees and used them as jail cells.

The next stop was my favorite. This is a spot on the Ocean Road called the 12 apostles which are tall rock formations that are in the middle of the ocean because they broke off from the shore and the space in between was eaten away, so now all is left is just random rocks jetted out from the surface. The sight here is just breathtaking i cant even handle it. I loved this section of the tour!!!

Next we went to Loch ard Gorge which is a inlet/cove area from the ocean that, in the past, ships got stuck in and got shipwrecked. There is actually only two survivors and it at first is like a love story, but it ends up falling apart, but i dont remember it. i took a picture of the story so you all can read it in my picture when they are up. The last place we stopped at before dinner was the London Bridge rocks. This one holds quite an interesting story. The London Bridge rock formation was named mostly because it used to have two arches in the rock that jets out from the shore, but actually in 1990 on half of the arch (the on closer to the shore) fell into the water. People used to be able to walk out on the rock out to the sea and there were actually people who were out on the rock the day it collapsed (luckily no one on the part that fell) but it did leave two people stranded out on the rock for a few hours. When the film crew arrived to interview the two stranded travelers, they actually jetted home not wanting to interview, and later it was found out that the man stranded on the rock was skipping work for the day (when he had told his boss he was sick) and the woman with him was actually his mistress. This to me was a funny story.

After the London Bridge our official tour was over. The Guide let us borrow PSP electronics to watch some movies while we made the trip home. (thought that was pretty cool) and got to drive in on the bridge into Melbourne at night driving into all the beautiful lights and such. so beautiful. Did you know that Melbourne is the third largest city (spread out) First LA, then Sydney. I thought that was cool....

well thats it for now.... hope you enjoyed the small book i just wrote.

to view the pics for this day follow this link....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113975&id=1067220169&l=caedf1ae9a

MELBOURNE SPRING BREAK DAY 4: THURSDAY

Well today was an extremely lazy day for some reason. we woke up late again and watched TV.. so sad of us to do, but then after awhile got out to head to the Docklands. We first stopped by Victoria Market to pick up some last souvenirs (our lists of people to but for is slowly getting smaller.. YAY!) After we headed to the Docklands. Now this is what we thought was going to be the Docklands.... Harbor-side cafes and little touristy shops and just a fun little strip of shops, however either this version of "the Docklands" was never found or does not even exist. so that sucks. we asked a few people and got to the Docklands center which is like a shopping center. Allison and I were not down to shop since we have no money, but we did decide to find the souvenir shop there and check our what fun little gizmos we could pick up for those on "the list."

Afterwards we decided to head toward the Ferris Wheel that we keep on seeing around everywhere we go (it is huge you see, but by the docklands, we were extremely close to it). right by the Ferris wheel (that is actually called the observatory wheel or something like that) was an amazing sight that we were craving and that would be called ice cream. I do not remember the name (something like Cold Rock...), but it is basically a Cold Stone and I had never tried it so we went there and I got the most amazing mixture..... mint ice cream with Tim Tam's blended in. Now i am unsure whether i have told you all of the Magic of Tim Tams. basically graham crackers with chocolate in the middle and then covered in chocolate. some of you may say, yea well we have that kind of thing in the states, but NO you are wrong. we do not. Tim Tams are one of a kind-the most amazing thing ever, especially when frozen. i will bring them back for all to enjoy... so yea, best mixture of ice cream ever... After our ice cream date we started to head back, but we were surprised by something, quite american chillin' in the Australian city of Melbourne, and i am not going to lie i got excited. This thing, was a Costco. Now the Costco was not opened, but the exciting date of June 10th 2009 meant there was some hope for Australians.....anyways, after this we walked to the hotel that the bus for our tour the next day would come to, and we timed the walk. we actually got a little lost for the street we walked by was named two different things depending on which way you looked at the sign. After like an extra half an hour we found the hotel and headed home. we went to bed early since we had to wake up at 6. yay early!

to view all the pics of my trip up to this day follow this link...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113969&id=1067220169&l=41d94c89e2