Sydney

Alright I'm in Australia now. I have three weeks in Syndney and then three weeks in Brisbane. I haven't gone on any weekend trips yet; I've just been getting settled into my new classes and new room. I've done a lot of exploring around Syndey so I'll just show some of the places I have been in this post. This weekend I am going surfing. Some other students and I are getting two days of surfing instruction at a pretty cool beach three hours from here on Saturday and Sunday so you can read about that next week. This is my hotel room in Sydney. It has some benefits because it's located close to the middle of the city and near some restaraunts, but for the most part it's not great. They're pretty small rooms for two people and we're all pretty much living out of our bags because there is no dresser or closet. The other problem is the internet has been down a lot which is why I haven't posted in a while. But all that can be dealt with because Sydney is a really entertaining place to live for three weeks.
While we were waiting to board the plane from Wellington a bunch of us watched Finding Nemo (Righteous! Righteous!). Some day we are all going to search for P. Sherman and 42 Wallabee way, but this week Katie and I settled for going to see the fish at the Sydney Aquarium. This is a blue tang (Dori). We also saw a duckbilled platypus, sharks, clownfish, turtles, penguins, and seals among other things.
In Australia and New Zealand you only have to be twenty to gamble so one night I went to a casino. This is Katie and Doug on the escalator outside the Star city casino. That was my first time gambling in a casino so I gave blackjack a try. Fortunately I haven't gambled all my money away yet.
Sydney has two big street markets that operate on the weekends. They're a pretty good place to go buy souvenirs like boomerangs, pictures, or didgeridoos (aboriginal instruments). Katie and I visited this one, the rocks market. She bought a few things for her family and also, after much debate, decided there was room in her bags for one more purse.
The rocks is very near the harbour so afterwords we went to see the world famous Sydney Opera House. I'm sure I'll have about a million pictures of this area to show you once I return to the states.
From the harbour area also known as Circular Quay we rode a bus to this beach South of the city. This is Bondi beach, and it is one of Austalia's most popular. I think there were more people on this beach then there are in Wyoming. A few people people will laugh and say that isn't hard to do, but you get the point. I think I am really going to like hanging out on Oz's beaches especially after I learn to surf a little.
This is the Sydney Harbour bridge located very near the opera house. It's an excellent place to view the city from.
Here is a close up of the opera house. Most people don't relaize that it is tiled because they only see pictures from far away.
On the other side of the opera house from the bridge there is a stunning botanical garden with amazing views. Here is a look back at the skyline of the city. The thin one on the left is Sydney's tallest building, the Sydney tower. I believe it is the second tallest building in the Southern hemisphere next to the Sky tower in Auckland.
At the end of the botanical gardens you get to this lookout. This is the picture you'll see on all the post cards or television broadcasts you see from Sydney. I'm going to have to go back and get another picture on a nicer day.
On Tuesday several of us went to see a show at the opera house. We got some great seats at a student price of fifty Australian dollars. In the picture is Adam, Mallory, Mike, Suzie, Krista, Rebecca, me, Katie, Doug, and Nikky. We all enjoyed the show; it was a modern variation on The Elixir of Love. It was particularly appropriate for us GT kids because in the modern version the elixir ends up being coke and in the end there is a big finale around a lit up coke machine. After the show we were lucky enough to see a beautiful fireworks show over the harbour. It was a very good night for Katie's last night in Sydney. She is now on a fifteen day bus tour that travels north along the coast to various spots finishing at the Great Barrier Reef. We're back to doing our long distance thing for a while again. That's everything I have from Sydney so far. Don't forget to leave me some comments. Now that I'm two hours further away in time zones it's one of the few ways I can get some contact with the US.

The South Island

For my last free weekend in New Zealand I went with seven other people to the southern parts of the South Island. New Zealand isn't too big (about the area of Colorado) but it is long and thin so it can still be long distances to places. We ended up flying to Christchurch, New Zealand's third largest city after Auckland and Wellington, on Thursday night. Christchurch is about midway down the eastern coast of the south island. We stayed at a popular hostel called base backpacker's for the night.
That night in Christchurch we went to a bar called The Holy Grail. It was located pretty close to our hostel and also near the Cathedral that Christchurch is famous for. We grabbed a huge booth and had a good time eating bar food and getting drinks. This is me, Adam and Doug.
The next day we grabbed our rental cars and began our journey to Queenstown where we were spending most of the weekend. About half way between the two there are two large glaciers called Fox and Franz Josef. We had already booked a glacier climb on Franz Josef to break up the drive a little bit and allow us to see some interesting places. I took this picture because this is the rainforest that we walked through to get to the glacier. It's a pretty remarkable change in scenery.
This is Franz Josef. That's our guide cutting some steps in the ice for our group. The climb was a lot of fun and we got to explore the ice for about three hours. Frans Josef is a particularly interesting glacier not just because it borders a rainforest, but also because it is one of the fastest moving in the world. Parts of the glacier move up to 6 meters in a day. During the summer the steps melt so quickly the guides have to recut them twice a day.
This is just a cool picture of me with my ice talons on. All of us like to think we're pretty good photographers now that we've taken so many pictures on all our trips. As you can see the weather was pretty good for climbing, and everyone was wearing shorts.
After we were finished on the glacier we drove the rest of the way to Queenstown. Queenstown is a really cool touristy mountain town that reminds me slightly of Jackson, Wyoming or Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The major difference is it isn't a ski town; it is one of the adventure capitals of the world. My best proof of that is that Queenstown is the birthplace of bungy jumping. This bridge, Kawarau Bridge, is the original bungy site. It doesn't look that tall in this picture because the part of the river you see is upstream from where you actually fall, but I assure you it is about a 150 foot drop and plenty terrifying.
But when you are at the bridge where the sport was invented you pretty much have to jump. This is me dangling from the bridge by what is pretty much a bundled group of koosh strands (I have a section of the cord; you can look at it someday). It was the second scariest thing I have done in my life aside from rolling my car, but it was an amazing experience. Doug and I jumped here at the original bungy site, and a few of our friends jumped from a suspended gondola that is higher up that I think until recently was the tallest bungy in the world.So after the big jump on Saturday morning we went Canyoning in the afternoon. It was a really cool way to explore the mountains and rivers near Queenstown. This is the eight of us in our goofy canyoning outfits. This is the most you'll see of it because the trip would have been to hard on a camera to bring one. The canyoning consisted of zip lines, abseils, small climbs, jumping of waterfalls, sliding down natural rock slides in the river, and swimming small rapids. We decided it was a lot like caving, but we liked canyoning more.
That night half of the group and I drove four hours to Milford Sound. We stayed at a hostel near the sound so we could tour it the next morning. The area is pretty remote and the hostel was the only lodging for about 90 miles. The place ran on a generator and all the lights went out at eleven. We arrived pretty late and weren't ready to go to bed at eleven so we stayed up playing games in the lounge by flashlight. The next morning we walked down to the sound and got on a boat to tour the fjord. Milford Sound is one of the most spectacular places in the world, and many people go to New Zealand just to visit this place. I believe this is another place that was used in filming The Lord of the Rings. The rock faces rise almost completely vertical from the water.
You are probably thinking that it was a bit of bad luck that we went on such a rainy day, but that's not really true. First of all Milford is the second rainiest place on earth according to data; it rains for extended periods well over 200 days a year. The other reason it wasn't bad luck is that the rain creates all these waterfalls. We saw over 1000 waterfalls of varying sizes while we were there, but only three are considered permanent because almost all of them dry up within three hours of the rain stopping. There is no soil in the area just granite for the most part so whenever it rains all the water rushes down the walls into the ocean. On most days there is a layer of fresh water on top of the salt water between ten and twenty feet in depth.
After touring the sound we returned to Queenstown for our last night. We went out for dinner and then to a few bars. The most unique bar we went to was this place call minus 5. The bar is always kept between minus five and minus ten degrees Celsius because it is entirely made of ice. The seats, the sculptures, the walls, the bar, and even the glasses you drink from are all made of ice. It was quite an experience to go there; luckily they provide you with a nice big coat and gloves.
On the way back to Christchurch the next morning we took a different route. This is a view of Mt. Cook from a lookout over this long narrow lake. The lake stretches almost to the base of the mountain. Mt. Cook is New Zealand's tallest peak situated in the heart of the Southern Alps.
When we returned to Christchurch we had just a little bit of time to explore in the daylight since we had arrived after dark earlier in the weekend. This is the famous Cathedral. The whole town is extremely British in look and style. The joke goes that Christchurch is more English than England. After this we raced to the airport and flew home. After that I sadly had to write a few papers and study for final exams on Wednesday. Wednesday night everyone went out one last time in Wellington and we hopped the plane to Sydney the next morning.

Sevens!

This weekend a lot of us students stayed in town for the New Zealand International Sevens Rugby Tournament. Sevens is a tournament between sixteen countries in seven different cities. This weekend it was in Wellington. The tournament is different from most rugby games because there are seven people on a team instead of fifteen. This makes for a quick exciting game. The halves are also only seven minutes long so the games go very fast. Every team plays three games on the first day for ceding in the elimination games on the second. The tournament is kicked off with a parade of all the teams on Thursday afternoon. Everybody went down town to enjoy the festivities after class.
Friday is the first day of the tournament. Three other students and I decided to go try to get into the sold out game. We patiently waited and scalped some tickets for 100 dollars New Zealand. Not bad considering one day lasts more than 10 hours and has 24 games. This is a picture of a line out play in one of the kiwi games. Damn, I sound like I know what I'm talking about!
But the truth is sevens is much more than a rugby tournament. It is a weekend long party. Everyone dresses up in costumes for the game; it looks a lot like an adult Halloween party for 40,000 people. The atmosphere is electric and the night gets crazier with time because instead of maybe four hours of drinking at a football game these people have been guzzling for ten hours. My friends and I have decided that sevens can best be described as an enormous costume party and if you get bored with that you can turn around and watch a little rugby.
Well, everyone was dressing up so we didn't want to break tradition. Believe it or not the US had a team in the tournament so we thought it was only right that we support them. In the picture is Adam, Doug, Jim, and myself. On a side note it was pretty educational having my chest painted like that in front of all the kiwis because it was the first time we had been in a large group where it was obvious that we were Americans. I definitely found out a lot about how people feel about the US. There is no middle ground from what I can tell. Everyone either told me they loved America and chanted USA or said F America. It was pretty interesting
I'm really glad I dressed up for the game, though. During halftime of the second United States match they played "Born in the USA" over the loudspeakers and we were on the jumbotron for like 5 minutes. We had a great time watching all the games. Sadly the United States lost all three matches on the day we watched.
On Saturday we had a party at Katie's apartment for the last day of the tournament. Of course costumes were still required. Doug and I went as southern frat boys. Look at those short shorts and croakies!
I think Cailin will be proud to know that I am still in the practice of "rescuing" banners from the dangerous streets of down town. The red one is mine and it is six feet tall. It is the coolest souvenir you could hope for from this country. I think it will look excellent on my wall in Atlanta.
We finished off the week by going out for "Super Bowl Monday." All of the Americans went out to sports bars so we could watch the game. This one is called Chicago's and had a lot of American decorations which was nice. This upcoming weekend I'm going to Queenstown in the South Island. It is one of the Adventure capitals of the world and incredibly scenic so look for a good post about that before I leave for Sydney, hopefully.

Wellington

Wellington has been my home for the last four weeks and will be for two more before I go to Sydney. It is one of the coolest cities I've ever been in, and I love it.
This is a view of the city from Mount Victoria. Wellington is at the southern tip of the North Island and curves around this awesome harbor. The population is about 160,000 and just about everything I want to do in town is within walking distance of Weir House. It is the political and cultural capital of New Zealand so there is usually something cool going on. This is a view of downtown from Victoria University where I have class.This is a picture from in town not far from the beach. I don't know why it looks so empty in this spot. It's a pretty lively city.All the hills rising up around the harbor mean walking up long flights of stairs anytime you go from town or the beach to Weir House. This set is 176 stairs so you definitely get plenty of exercise walking around the city.
This is a suspended sculpture in between the civic center and the public library. The design cut into it is a bunch of fern leaves. They're the National symbol of New Zealand. Just about everything made for a tourist has a black background and a silver "New Zealand" and fern leaf on it. The ocean is just about 100 yards past those stairs.
This is Oriental Bay, a nice beach at the base of town. All of the sand has been hauled in to create the beach. A lot of people like to come down here when we have a reading assignment for class or a free afternoon.
This is a bunch of us a Mac's, a local brewery. This patio has a nice view of the harbor. In the front it is Katie, me, Jim, and Rachel. Around the table it is Mike, Nikki, Mallory, Evan, Jeff, Connie, Doug, and Adam
And here I am at the Tattoo Museum about to get some ink done. Blake, Emily, and Jim peer pressured me into it. Just kidding, mom, don't make me come home yet.

Weir House

OK, I've been promising to post something about where I'm living for a while now so here you go. You actually get two posts today and hopefully another about the rugby tournament in a few days.For the six weeks that I'm in New Zealand I live in the Weir House in Wellington. It is a freshman dorm during the year, but we're here during their summer semester so it's open to us. Georgia Tech people have been coming to stay here for several years. It looks really nice on the outside . . .
but don't let that fool you, it's not really any better than your standard dorm. This is my room, pretty much all of it. I actually really like staying here with all of us living on the same hall in individual rooms. My room has a sink that you can just see in the picture which is convenient, but the bed is not made for a big American. It's made for some kind of midget. Oh well.
The best part of my room is the view I have from it. We're about three quarters of the way up the hills that surround the harbor so we have a great view looking down on the city.
Unfortunately being up in the hills makes for a rough walk sometimes. When we get lazy we can take this cable car that has a stop right next to the Weir House. This is me, Emily, Kristine, and Blake.
Just a little further up the hill from the dorm is the Wellington Botanical gardens. They have some awesome plants, but they also have a great lookout.
Some nights there are concerts in the botanical gardens. This is Katie and I at one of them; we went with about twenty people and saw a very good show put on by some kiwis.

Taupo

Last weekend all of the study abroad students had a geology field trip to Taupo. It is pretty close to Rotorua so there was more volcanic activity to study. It wasn't quite as fun as a free weekend where we got to decide everything we wanted to do, but we still saw some pretty cool sites and had one afternoon to do whatever we wanted.The Taupo area has three large volcanoes that dominate the skyline. The first day we went up this one, Ruapehu. It's actually a ski area during the winter which is pretty cool. In all my years of skiing I've never done it on a volcano. It must take a lot of snow before it opens, because these lava flows are pretty rocky.
We spent the entire second day hiking on this second volcano, Ngauruhoe. It is better known as Mount Doom from The Lord of the Rings. It's a lot bigger than it looks in this picture, but you can check that out for yourself in the movie.
This is the view from half way up the volcano. A lot of this area reminds me of Wyoming because there were mountains, not too many trees, and you could see forever. Dad, I bet those lava flows and pyroclastics make you so excited! Although, my professor neglected to mention anything about oil.
Here is another picture of Mount Doom with me in it to prove to Mom that I'm still alive. I also like how the clouds kind of make it look like it is erupting. All of these volcanoes are still active, and the one that created lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand, is the source of the largest eruption known to man.
On my free afternoon I decided to go jet boating on white water rapids. This is a smooth part where the driver likes to throw the boat into 360's, but the boat can also go both down and up rapids. I don't know exactly how fast we were going, but judging by the way the wind ripped over my face I would say it felt a lot like sticking your head out the window of your car at 70 mph.