A Month Already...

Hello hello friends, family, and....others, I guess!  :)

I have officially been in New Zealand for a month now, and I honestly can't believe it. Some days it feels like I've been here forever and others it's like I got here yesterday. And then I realize I'm now down to only 3 and 1/2 more months here, and it's going to go by way to fast!

Classes are ok; it's only the third week of classes now so it's a little to early to tell. Out of 3 courses total, I'm only taking one science class that will actually count towards my major, so it's definitely a lighter load than what I've gotten used to over the last 3 years. During the week there are times when I don't know what to do with myself because I've never had this much time on my hands before. We only get, like, 5 channels on the TV, and New Zealand television shows are TERRIBLE, so that crosses out TV to pass the time, we don't have any video games, and I've already read the book that I brought with, plus one of Hanah's...I don't know what to do! I think I'm going to go down to the public library this week and see if I can get a library card so I can read or something to keep myself occupied...haha!

This last weekend 3 girls (all AustraLearners that I met at our orientation in Rotorua) and I went to the town of Paraparaumu which is about a 45 minute train ride north of Wellington right on the ocean. We left Friday after our classes, stayed the night in a hostel, and came back around 6 pm on Saturday. It was a nice little trip to get out of the city for a while. When we got there on Friday around 6-ish, the sun was on it's down, so we took advantage of that opportunity to take A LOT of pictures....they all just turned out soooooooo cool!

In the background of these pictures is Kapiti Island, which has a bird sanctuary on it where apparently, since the birds are raised without predators, they aren't afraid of people so they'll just walk right up to you

Cartwheel-ing

Jumping

'Hooray, I'm just so excited to be here...!'

Ooooooo....

Ahhh....

Also, I'm a huge dork and wrote this in the sand, so they insisted on taking my picture with it

The hostel we stayed at; The Barnacle

On Saturday afternoon we were walking along the beach again and came across this little creature, and as you can see, he was alive and kickin' but quite a long way from home. We decided to leave him be and let nature be nature and kept walking. About a minute later I turned around and looked back, and a seagull had already gotten him....oops...!

(Also, I don't know why this part of the text is underlined, but I can't figure out how to 

un-underline it, and I'm too lazy to look any further, so you're just going to have to deal with it)

Ok, so that's it for now; have to get up bright and early for class. Keep enjoying the Minnesota snow, and remember PEACE.