Blogs from Wellington, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 119

Prime Minister Helen Clark The perks of being in a small country about the size of CA with a population of 4 million- and being in the capital of this country..in the middle of the national elections: The Prime Minister comes to visit your campus during her lunch hour! Just crazy man. Can you imagine our president doing that? hell no. What an experience this was! FYI: new Zealand not only was the 1st country in the world to let women vote, but also it was the first country to have a female national leader such as the Prime minister! Way to Go KIWIS! The elections were coming to a close last week, so "Aunty helen" came for a visist to Vic. Now, ive heard that Victoria is a campus known for having a more open ... read more

Today I woke up late because I have not been feeling well this weekend. Just a cold I think. Last night Andy and I had epic competition against Bluff and Dan, loosing the first 7 game series. Today I went outside for lunch, Indian Food. On the way back I bumped into a few people from McKenzies that were headed to the beach. It was a very nice afternoon, so I decided that I wanted to take the van to the beach aswell. I called some friends and loaded the van up with Kiwis. We played touch rugby and just hanged out at the beach for a while. It was really nice and relaxing. The sand on the beach was actually imported from Nelson a long time ago. Right now I am about go to help ... read more

Greetings from Wellington, New Zealand, the capital city. We've had a busy few days travelling through the north island. We flew from Sydney to Auckland, NZ on Saturday and immediately rented a car to drive south to Rotorua. Don't tell anyone, but I was doing 100, 110 even.... of course, that's k/hr so, not all that quick. The drive that first evening was a bit hairy, hard getting used to driving on the left side (I'd done it once before), shifting with my left hand, and using the turn signal when I meant to use the windshield wipers (and vice versa). But with the help of Sherry's navigating skills and in total, four very alert eyeballs, we made it. We spent 2 nights at the 'Funky Green Voyager' hostel in Rotorua. I'm not sure where the ... read more

Sorry, it's been a while....a long while. Haven't been taking too many pictures and the routine has been the same. Wake up at 7:30, go to work(but I get my "tea" breaks), come home at 5:30, eat dinner then read for about an hour, and go to bed. Work has taken over my life down here. How does that happen on vacation? It's actually not like that. There are some good people I've met in the past month or so, some Germans, a couple Londonites, a South African, and a guy from Wales. We usually hang out a couple times a week and go out together on the weekends. But, my "dull" life in Wellington is about to change. I head South to the ski fields for a ten day ski trip. Things were looking pretty ... read more

I woke up today, but on my basketball gear, and walked a few blocks to meet a man who was selling his car to check it out. He asked if I wanted to drive, I told him I had never driven a car in NZ before. He drove into the suburbs and I took the car for a spin. It was nice, I liked everything except it had about 100,000 miles and was not too efficient on fuel. After that I hiked up to campus for the 3 on 3 basketball tournament. Andy, Chang, and I were confident and thought we would win the tournament. We won the first game 20-4 without trying hard. The competition was not too fierce except for a couple teams were alright. The format was to play for 12 minutes ... read more