I'm in love!

3-5-11
2:45pm

Hello Everyone,
I made it successfully to New Zealand!!  Surprisingly I adjusted very well to the new time.  We boarded LAX at 10p (12 Iowa time).  The plane was amazing, we were told it was a brand new plane.  I watched The King's Speech on the tv, we had so many options. Miranda and I had 2 open seats between us.  I was in the last row before the flight attendants prep area.  Then there were more seats behind me.  After flying for a bit we were given dinner.  They then dimmed the lights and I believe I slept for about 6 hours on and off.  With about 3 hours lift in the flight they turned the lights on and began serving breakfast. I watched another movie and waited to land.  We landed in Auckland at about 7:30 and retrieved our bags and went through customs.  We then got on our domestic flights to Queenstown.  We landed at about 11:30 where the new entrance (kindergarten) teacher picked us up.  We made our way to Alexandra.  We stopped at the place were bungie jumping originated, watched several people jump (which got us excited) and went on.  We had lunch in a very cute town of Clyde, about 10 miles from Alexandria.  We drove around town and on to the school.  The school is unlike anything in the states.  (I write about it late this week)  We met the principal and our teacher quickly and then went to our house.

The house is amazing! A cute motel with a great view of the mountains around town.  The 4 of us began to unload our bags and get settled.  Miranda, Laura and I are sharing a rooms while David has his own smaller room.  The girls are sharing a bathroom and David has to walked outside to an adjoining shower and sink (I think its for those that stay in caravan (motorhome).  After showering and settling in we went to the market and looked around.  We just got a pizza and some beverages.

I tried my best to stay awake until it got dark.  Come to find out, it doesn't get dark until close to 10p.  I ended up falling asleep at about 8:30 and slept until 8 this morning.

It was raining when we woke up.  It was still pretty warm.  After getting ready we drove to the school hoping to get into the computer lab.  The internet wasn't working and so we left to walk around town.  We did some exploring and got our groceries for the week.  The plan for the evening is to go to the local pub, the Fat Badger, to celebrate my birthday  :)

A thought I'd share a few odd things that we've noticed for the day we've been here.

-Everyone is so friendly
-Kids don't wear shoes in school, around town, even in the grocery store.
-Everyone trusts everyone.  People will leave their dogs outside any store.
-Alcohol is expensive.  A 20 dollar bottle in the states was about 40-45 dollars here!
-I'm still getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road.  We've let David drive so far.
-They don't have many stop signs, most corners say "give way" instead of yield.
-Men wear short shorts!
-Mullets are in style.
-I can't figure out the weather.  Today's is rained, been sunny and then when we returned home, it was still about 50-60 degrees and it began to hail!

-Honestly I'm more surprised how much things are similar than different.  I will add to my list the more I can think of.


Right now I'm paying for the internet depending on how many MBs I use. I'm trying to conserve as much as I can. On Monday we will be able to access the internet in the school for unlimited time.  I will upload pictures as soon and I can.

Sorry for going on and on, hopefully it all makes sense.
Love you all! :)