I finished all my essays and work that I needed to for this trip. 5000 words and a couple tests. Yuck. I never understood the studying part in "studying abroad". There is so much more to learn outside of the classroom as an exchange student.

I am going to get some sushi and a chicken sandwich right now because I am taking a knightrider coach bus to the Christchurch airport, leaving at 9 pm. I will get to the airport at about 330, and then fly to Melbourne at 6. I am in Melbourne from the 1-5, Brisbane/Gold Coast from the 5-8, Sydney from the 8-12, Fiji from 12-18, then back to Dunedin.

I will fill in more details if I have access to a computer at anytime during the trip.

Definitely been a minute or two since I have posted. Things have been pretty stable around Dunedin and I didn't leave town last weekend for the first time on this trip. I have had a lot of school to do because the professors requested I get work done before I leave for Melbourne. I CANT BELIEVE ITS ONLY TWO DAYS AWAY! I am really stoked to have a vacation in a vacation. My neighbor growing up, Emily, went to Australia last year for study abroad and has given me a ton of helpful information for my trip.

I saw Avatar in 3d on Friday night and without any exaggeration bought 1/25 of my body weight (in kilos) of bulk candy. Could not have felt more like throwing up after the movie. Thought I had the flu or something. I did not get out of bed the next day until 1 haha. In regards to the movie, I highly suggest seeing it in 3d while it is in theatres because it is not worth sitting through that film for 3 hours unless it is in theatres. It is definitely mind-blowing in terms of visual effects.

My birthday was basically a full weekend event and seems to be dragging into Monday, at least on my facebook wall since it is today in the States. Saturday night a group of us kicked off the evening by getting a tour of Speights Brewery. It was the original brewery in New Zealand: 1876. There was so much cool history and our tour guide was amazing. At the end of the tour we had a 30 minute all you can drink with 7 different kinds of beer. It was so cool to be able to serve ourselves on the tap behind the bar. My friends let the guide know it was my birthday so he extended the period for another 15 minutes.

Free drinks at every bar all night on Saturday after midnight so that was pretty wild all night.

Sunday, my real birthday, was really relaxed as you can imagine. I laid around and watched movies pretty much all day. Paige and Abbey brought me a double scoop from Rob Roys dairy for breakfast ha. We went to a Turkish joint for dinner with a pretty big group. I got a chicken doner, rice, pita bread, noodles and salad. It was amazing. Pictures posted on the net of the meal. Paige made a blueberry cheesecake for dessert which is my favorite by far. Could not have been more thoughtful - and expensive. Apparently the ingredients here are a bit overboard.

I gotta get crackin on the school work cuz I leave for Melbourne in 2 days.

Friday morning I got a text message from my friend Simon Blue. He has already graduated and is a pharmacist now. His license plate says "DrugDr." Simon is an awesome guy and comes from a really wealthy family. He offered to drive up to Queenstown for the night and show Paige and I around the town. We accepted the offer and he picked us up at four in the evening.

The drive up was a little bit crazy because his car has turbo and we wanted to get there in a timely fashion. The curves are pretty intense all the way up. Queenstown is one of the more famous places in New Zealand. It is where all of the skydiving, bungyjumping and other extremities take palce. We stayed at hostel right on main street. Our room had 8 bunks, and 9 people. We hung out with the couple that was sharing a bunk for a little bit: The guy was from Argentina and his girlfriend from Spain. They were really nice and had been staying at the hostel for three weeks while living off a workers visa. Simon, Paige, and I had a reservation at an ice bar at eleven.

I'd never experienced anything like the ice bar before. Cups, tables, chairs all made of ice. We got to shatter them at the end. Our bar tender was a really pretty girl from England and she let us break a bunch of rules in the bar. It was -10C and we were required to wear huge coats, gloves, and pick everything up with two hands.

Later in the night I met a girl who lived in Oregon and was about to attend Law school. It is ridiculous how small this world is. Paige met a guy that sounded like he had fled America for legal reasons but lived in Aspen where her brother lives. Small world again.

I lost my cell phone that night and won't have one for the rest of the trip. I cannot afford to buy one. I already know I am going to go broke. Traveling and eating are killing me. Once you have paid for transportation, food and accommodation you are a few hundred dollars in. Then you factor in doing any activity...yikes. This is a once in a lifetime trip so I am not going to hold back on anything.

I was on the top bunk and didn't sleep a single second. Heat rises and the ceiling was cooking. I cannot crash unless it is cool in my room.

We woke up the next morning and had breakfast right on the Lake. After debating on taking a steam ship around Queenstown harbor, we decided on going to the top of a peak and luging.

I crashed a few times really hard into a wall and had to ice my legs and lay in bed the next day. It was well worth it. Always is. There is no way I can put into words the view from the top of the peak. You will have to check out the pictures I have posted.

This is the first time I am feeling homesick. I already know what the reasons are, and I am just trying to remain busy and distracted. Spring break is going on at home and that is my favorite time of year to be with my friends. My birthday is in a week. My mom and Steve's the following two days. The NCAA tournament is heating up and I am usually with my Dad and buddies breathing basketball for a week. I gotta stop.

Last night was St Patricks Day in Dunedin. I live within 45 seconds of an Irish bar and man it was roudy. I won't get into any more details about that. I think I am spending the weekend here which will be a nice change of pace, especially considering next weekend is my birthday followed by going to Australia. Probably a great idea to just chill. The only reason I posted today was because I have been reading Shane's blog, gettinwetineugene.blogspot.com. It is absolutely hilarious. It is just about our friends and day to day life. He isn't traveling anywhere. If you are 25+ or are offended by any explicit content you probably shouldn't read it. For anyone who wants a great laugh, check it out.

People that believe you need to take hard drugs in order to find new brain tangents, expand your mind, or have an epiphany or sorts should either travel or chill out in nature. Every day I think of new things that I have never though about when I am here. I guess that is probably a big part of being by yourself in a foreign country. I wish I could write everything down. First and foremost I need to find some way for an American to buy land down here because of the opposite weather patterns. It is summer here during our winter, talk about ideal.

I got close to zero sleep last night but woke up early this morning to go to the Catlins which is basically the southern most tip of the South Island, about 1.5-2.5 hours down the coastline of Dunedin. About every 20 km or so there would be a new sign for an epic view, hike, waterfall, some kind of mind blowing visual. This place was sooooo lush it was insane. I have this bad habit of eating if I am not busy doing anything else. Car rides are the worst and today was no exception. Three bags of chips, a big bag of candy, two peanut butter and jellies, a chicken sandwich, two blue cods and some french fries. I am most likely leaving some stuff out, but you guys get the point. I have been consuming a jar of peanut butter every single day trying to gain weight but without success; I had to google search negative health repercussions from indulging on this much pbutter. sketchy. I put it on apples, bananas, mix it with any kind of icecream I eat, sandwiches, plain spoonfills. Rob Roy dairy is less than a block away from my flat...bad news. A single scoop is equivalent to a double in America with two flavors for $1.40. And a double is a quadruple. Its plain sick.

On the drive to the Catlins there was a full rainbow going over our road which was awesome for so early in the morning. The first stop in the Catlins was a lighthouse built in 1869 at Nugget Point where there are usually yellow-eyed penguins. It was so windy and unstable I thought I was going to be blown off a cliff into the sea. I held my ground this time against mother nature. Purakanui Falls was right off the road, rather small but easily accessible and convenient which was great because of the rain at that point.

We drove another 45 minutes down the beach to Porpoise Bay. Quite self descriptive. Home to Hector's dolphin pod - an endemic species to New Zealand - Porpoise bay was probably my favorite site today. I don't think I have ever seen dolphins in their natural habitat, let alone a species that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. It was awesome. I am definitely going to pay whatever it costs to swim with leopard sharks, dolphins on my trip to Golden Coast in Australia.

After the bay it was freezing cold and raining so we headed towards Waikaka where we found a fish n chips RV serving Blue cod. We got into a conversation for about an hour with the people working and it was definitely a learning experience. Waikaka has a population of 28. That is no joke. We met 1/14 of the entire city. The fish n chips was so deep fried that the food was wet. Apparently the person who caught the fish was a third generation fisherman on this area of the coast so they had their quota lifted. Pretty cool stuff I thought.

Before the next stop in the middle of the road was a herd of sheep. Never seen anything like it. We couldn't drive for atleast 2 km because of the roadblock. By the way, why the hell isn't the US on the metric system? Sure makes a lot more sense. I guess we're really stubborn in our ways and love our national identity. Surprise surprise.

The next waterfall, Mclean Falls, was gargantuan and had a little pool in the bottom. If it weren't so cold I would have surely jumped in. I almost did anyways, but no one would go with me. I always do that kind of stuff. The water was about as cold as Jake's cabin that I used to spend birthdays at every July 30th. I really miss those days of cops and robbers in the forest, freezing my balls off, the ski-bowl, and it was the first time I had ever smoked a cigar. I love the Harders. One of my all-time favorite families.

We had to climb a little bit to get to the last waterfalls, Matai. I thought we were going to run out of gas on the way back, as did everyone else in the car. I have only had that happen one time in my life, with Shane Chandler on the way back from a Blazers/Nuggets game on I-5 in December. Police came and that wasn't too fun but it all ended up being okay and we sat courtside at the game after buying 2 tickets from a homeless guy with no front teeth and a beanie. We initially thought they were counterfit.

Somehow, someway, we made it to a "petrol" station and filled up. The most strange thing ever was inside. So, you know when you are filling up your cup of water from a big filter that you have to switch the flip and poors out? They had about five huge jugs, with empty (more or less, a little liquid at the bottom) fifths and wine containers. You could fill them with vodka, rum, whiskey, or bourbon. It wasn't even just weird for me, none of the kiwis had ever heard of such a thing and we all decided it was unsanitary. Obviously didn't stop us from filling up other things than gas.

My kiwi buddy AJ just noticed I am writing a blog, he was on the trip today, and he decided he wanted to make a celeb appearance in the blog. Legislation decided to approve the request:

Ok guys (very kiwi mother start to a chat to be honest), my name is AJ (Alasdair Johnston)and I was a key player in the trip today. I provided the 1996 Nissan Pulsar SR-V rubbish 4WD with SR18DE, as provided by my aged mother, well more aged then my youthful self and obviously more aged than your loved one... Kevin... I know him too... we share that in common, now we're close... I may have create raport with you. Nice.

Today, I almost stranded your loved one in the desolate, tourist infested South Island region called the Catlins. But thankfully the petrol station we found just in time was also fueled itself with various homebrewed spirits... let just say, drinks were drunk (not by myself, the driver), people got a bit effed, effin effed, and a Kiwi helped Americans see dolphins... for reals... in the sea... I rated it. They literally said they'd had as much fun as a fat kid on a scooter... going down a slip and slide... wet.

Well until next time my loyal new friends, from the pretty much exact opposite side of the world.

All my love, real kiwi, 100% pure love,

AJ

Its remarkable to me that I've almost been here for a month, let alone only having 3.25 months left. TIME FLIES when you are constantly on the move. Welcome to my life. I am about halfway done with a pair of 3,000 word essays for my 300 (400 in America) levels. One is on Perestroika and how the economic, social, and political reconstructions completely dismantled the USSR. The other is about "New" Social Movements like environmentalism, feminism, peace movement, anti/pro abortions, etc. Almost all new movements come from the left wing, which is a good sign for the future of humanity. With a few exceptions of course.

I officially have all five of my flatmates addicted to Entourage, I know it was a good idea to bring my external hard drive. I have such a bad eating disorder: I have already consumed about $500US of food...I don't know what to do because if I am hungry I am going to eat. I am even buying by far the cheapest foods, not buying alcohol, and only going out to eat if the meal is >5$. There is really no alternative when your playing ball, lifting weights, running, or hiking 7 days a week. Also, with no car, I am walking about 5 miles daily just to get from place to place. It feels good to not be contributing AS much carbon footprint as I do in the states. A nice 4.5 month break from driving and drying clothes.

In contrast to the last statement, I learned on my flatmate Abbeys car how to drive in NZ yesterday. The steering wheel is on the right side of the car, and they drive on the left side of the road. The blinker is on the right too; several times I turned on the windshield wipers. I actually did a fairly good job driving. I don't think I broke any laws at all. The weirdest law they have is if someone wants to turn right across traffic, they have the right away. Not me. In America, imagine not being able to turn right on red, or even green for that matter, because the person across the street turning right across traffic has the right of way. SO DUMB! New Zealand is the only country on the planet with this law, and they are altering it within the next year or so. I drove to the grocery store and Baldwin St. (The steepest street in the entire world, I think Lombard in they Bay is 2nd).

My Polish roommate Matthew is never home, he is always out and about or adventuring somewhere on the island. He came home last night so I got to hang out with him for a while. I really love when he is around because I usually live with four girls and need some testosterone around. Although Paige is kind of like a guy anyways with a trucker's mouth and the best beer pong player that I've seen here. Matthew taught me some cool things in Polish. He is fluent in English, German, and Polish, while currently learning Spanish and French. That would be the greatest benefit of living in the EU with basically a transnational government and no trade/travel barriers. They have 7 different noun forms. Imagine that. Not only trying to learn a bunch of verb forms, but SEVEN different noun forms. For example, Kevin, Kevina, Kevineam, Kevinowi all mean my name but in different scenarios. Polish has 9 additional letters in their alphabet and they drop our X. Zobaczytem Jak Kevin Gra W Koszykowke means I saw Kevin play basketball (note that that is not spelled correctly because I had to insert our letters for some of theirs). This one KILLS me: beaobachtungspanzerwagen. That means military car. One word? Are you kidding me?

As a flat we watched the film "Out of the Blue" that was about a schizophrenic guy that lived in a town of 50, and murdered 13 of the residents in 1990. As you all know, I hate movies like that and was hiding behind my Macbook for most of it. It reminded me SO much of the Kip Kinkel shooting at Thurston when I was a kid. "Out of the Blue" occurred only like fifteen minutes from where I live, so tonight we are driving the the EXACT shooting area. It creeps me out that people live there now.

I got to get to class, but I'll let you know what happens over the weekend. I really want to go to Milford Sound which is where a lot of Lord of the Rings and Avatar were filmed. I think we're gonna have to postpone that trip though because it is more than a two night kind of trip.

I felt like this small bit of information was hilarious and necessary to share: You know at the gym they have transparent fridges with gatorades, powerades, juices, and an assortment of bottled waters? Well, at the workout facilities in NZ you can add beer to that list. What would a nice sweat be without a bottle of your favorite brew? I thought this was extremely comical and seems paradoxical.

That is really all I had to say. I have had a really relaxing day reading in the sun. I also skyped with my mom, dad, anne, and Whipple. It was great to see and catch up with Alex because I haven't seen him since I left. It is so weird to think that some of my really good friends are graduating college soon and going into the real world.

Dunedin is so strange for a college town because everything is poppin' from Monday-Thursday with everything closing at like 8:30. Weekends seem really dead here on George St. most likely because people leave town to go hiking. This weekend was not exception for me.

I went to Turkish falafels last night for dinner. And then again for post-dinner meals. There seem to be literally four seasons in one day in New Zealand. I woke up to grey skies, slight rain. Sunny skies and warm beaches appeared three hours later. I hiked sand dunes today with Abbey, Paige, and JJ. It was amazing but now I can't move from bed. I really messed my feet up from jumping off dunes. We got some amazing pictures but in retrospect was no worth it. There was a giant sea lion that snuck up on us while we were hanging out on the beach and charged and growled at us. Adult males can reach 9 feet and 650 pounds. This was definitely an adult male.

Got some pretty epic photos leaping off sand dunes. I'll load those later. Great Saturday.

I've now attended all my classes and can't wait for the weekend. I wanted to get way ahead in all of my classes so I could chill for a few weeks, so this week I have been a pretty big geek doing a ton of reading. Last night was Katie Garlick's 21st birthday. Her parents were nice enough to let her charge the tab for 12 of us to go out to a high end Indian restaurant. We each ordered a bottle of wine, some Naan, and a meal. I couldn't believe how generous she was. The fact that they don't tip in NZ saved us about 50 bucks. I got a spicy chicken tikka masala and i had to used my napkin as a sweat towel. It was absolutely delicious though as I love food that lights my mouth on fire.

My roommate made KayGee a birthday cake and we had ice cream back at my flat before everyone went to the bars. I didn't feel like going out last night so I stayed home. It is nearly impossible to keep up with the drinking culture here unless you are an alcoholic. I have been reasonable every night I have been here except one. I don't want to wake up in the morning and either regret something or waste a full day because I don't feel good. There is too much to do on a day to day basis to throw one away.

I'm really looking forward to Friday/Saturday because 5 of us are packing into a car and driving to the Penninsula for an evening. It is only an hour away; I am praying the weather is perfect. JJ (John Joseph, not Joachim Jacobs ;)) is making the trip with our group and he is one of my favorite kids in NZ. Real laid back and would fit into any group, extremely versatile.

I got to get to class, but I am learning to drive this afternoon all over again. Steering wheel on the right side, drive on the left side. This could be interesting.