We are currently in Queenstown and here for the weekend! That also means our time travelling in our van is over with. We had some long road trips in that thing, but it was all good. Since my last blog we have been to the cities of Franz Josef, Dunedin, and Te Anau. We rented some 4 wheelers in Franz Josef since the glacier walk we wanted to do was booked. After 4-wheeling we still went to Fox Glacier and got to walk on it at a national park. We then went off t...

School is out and we have arrived in Christchurch! We got here yesterday afternoon. The customs people in the airport in Wellington nailed one of the girls in our group for having a mandarin orange in her carry on that she didn't claim. They accused her of trying to harm the environment and gave her a $200 fine.Last night we just had dinner and went to the pub, Saints & Sinners, which is attached to our hostel. We watched the New Zealand vs. Australia rug...

We have just started our second and final week of class! Time at Southern Cross has flown by so far! We took a couple of field trips last week to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, an aborigonal musuem, and to Byron Bay to go up to the lighthouse. The sanctuary was amazing! We got to pet kangaroos, koalas, see some wombats and join in on a huge parrot feeding. This past weekend I went to the Lantern Parade in Lismore. It's a huge deal here and it attracts alot of to...

Let me tell you about my homestay "family"... His name is Steve and he turns 39 on Wednesday. He lives in Gollenabah, which is a suburb of Lismore, the city our university ("uni") is. Supposedly, wallabies, kangaroos, snakes, and koalas come up by his palce, but I haven't seem then yet. He has a 2 year old daughter named Annisa who is never there when I am because he only has custody 9-5 Mon-Wed and I am in class during that span. He is a bi...

We have wrapped up our opening part of our trip and leaving for our host families soon. We just spent a couple nights in Brisbane and followed that up with a night in Surfer's Paradise and last night in Byron Bay. We didn't do much in Brisbane - we went to XXXX Brewery and got 5-6 free beers each! The tour wasn't what I was expecting, but the beer was good. That night we also went to the bar below our hostel to watch the Queensland vs. New South Wales...