Saturday, April 29, 2006

Since I have been back

Since I have been home from New Zealand I have spent a lot of time getting things organized for the rest of the semster as well as getting my pictures uploaded for you guys to see. On Tuesday night (when I got back) all I did was laundry. Wednesday was the disco party on campus, check out the pictures it was an awesome time. Thursday and Friday I really haven't done too much, I played some tennis with Tim, Amanada, and Jake, but other than that basically I have been taking it easy. Ill work on getting through all the NZ pictures this weekend and will hopefully have them up by Monday.

~Andy

Pictures

I have finished uploading the majority of my pictures to the website Tim made me. So check them out here I have gotten up all the pictures except for New Zealand and I need to redo the Brisbane pictures, but tother that that i am all caught up. However there are over 800 pictures from our trip to NZ so that will take some time. I'll let you know when I get it done.

~Andy

New Zealand Trip

First off, New Zealand was the most amazing country I have been to so far, if you ever have an opportunity to visit DO IT.

The trip went like this:

Day1, Brisbane, Aus:
We got up and flew out first thing in the morning; we arrived in the afternoon in Christchurch, NZ. We spent the night getting situated in our hostel and then hit the town to have a look around. We ended up meeting up with a few girls from Uni Central (and it was one of their birthdays) and ended up going out to the bars with them that night.

Day 2, Christchurch, NZ:
Today we got up first thing in the morning and got on a train that would take across the country to the city of Graymouth. The scenery along the train route was amazing; we went through the mountain range at Arthur's Pass. When we got to graymouth we met up with our Kiwi Experience bus and headed down the coast to our hostel for the night. We ended up at Lake Mahinapua that night. We took some time walking around and seeing the lake as well as the ocean right across the road from the beach. That night everyone on our bus dressed up in trash bag costumes, since NZ has millions of sheep we conned Jake into being Little Bo Peep and we dresses up as sheep (an idea we have wanted to do at Sigma Nu for some time). We got some white trash bags and glued tons of bunched up tissues onto ourselves to make us look fluffy, it was a hit at the party that night.

Day 3, Lake Mahinapua, NZ:
Today again we got up first thing in the morning and headed to Franz Josef, we saw some cool stuff along the way. When we got there we signed up for our glacier hike that we were going to do the next day. After we got situated in our rooms, we took a hike to a cave nearby. When we got back we got some dinner and relaxed the rest of the night.

Day 4, Franz Josef, NZ:
Today we got up early and headed into town to go and climb the glacier, we signed up for a full day, 8 hour hike with 6 hours actually on the glacier. Today it rained a lot in the morning, but that is okay in this case because the waterfalls surrounding the glacier were pouring. It took about 1 hour to hike to the glacier after we got suited up. We spent the next 6 hours climbing the glacier, it was an amazing experience. When we got back to Franz Josef everyone was pretty tired so we relaxed in the hot tub for a while and then grab some dinner and called it a night.

Day 5, Franz Josef, NZ:
First thing in the morning we got on the bus and made our way to Wanaka. We saw some very cool sites along the way including Lake Matheson, Mt Cook, the Haast River, and Thunder Creek Falls. When we got to Wanaka in the late afternoon, we checked in to our hostel and then spent some time exploring the town.

Day 6, Wanaka, NZ:
Today a lot of people went skydiving, I didn't, and I regret it now. The people who didn't went to breakfast and then went to Puzzling World; some little attraction that had some cool stuff in it like optical illusions, holograms . . . all in all it was a pretty lame place though. When the people were done skydiving we made our way to Queenstown. Along the way we stopped at the bridge where commercial bungee jumping started. Jake and Brendan went bungee jumping and we then finished our drive. We spent the rest of the night getting situated in our hostel and exploring the town.

Day 7, Queenstown, NZ:
Today we took a half day tour to see some of the sights around the area, mainly the locations where Lord of the Rings was filmed. It was really cool seeing the screenshots from the movies while we were standing at the location, but the tour wasn't all that good overall. The remainder of the day was spent catching up on some much needed sleep and exploring the town some more. For dinner we went up the mountain closest to Queenstown on a gondola and ate at the restraint on the top of the mountain. We got some great views of the town as well as a great meal.

Day 8, Queenstown, NZ:
Today was our Milford Sound trip; we had to be on the bus at 6:45 in the morning to leave. We spent the first half of the day driving across the country to get to Milford Sound; it was raining hard all morning so the waterfalls we saw along the way were spectacular. Milford Sound is said to be New Zealand’s most beautiful spot. We took a 2 hour cruise in the bay, we saw many waterfalls, some seals, and basically relaxed and took in the sights. We didn’t get back until around 7:00 at night. After we all got ready we all went out to a few bars.

Day 9, Queenstown, NZ:
Today the guys rented a car and drove across the country to New Zealand’s first city, Dunedin. The drive there was an adventure (they do drive on the other side of the road there), but when we got there we first went to visit a castle. After the castle we went to Speight’s, the beer brewery there, and took a tour as well as a tasting at the end. From there we had some dinner and then explored the city more. We hiked up the World’s Steepest Road, Baldwin Street. After that we needed to head back in order to return our rental car in time.

Day 10, Queenstown, NZ:
Today we got on the bus for our final leg of the trip, Queenstown to Christchurch. We got into Christchurch in the afternoon and spent the rest of the night exploring the town, having dinner, and then visiting some of the bars.

Day 11, Christchurch, NZ:
Today we planned on visit the botanical gardens, but it was raining so we went to a modern art museum for a good chunk of the day. We spent the rest of the day buying souvenirs. We all went out for dinner that night at the restraint we ate at our first night of the trip, we then split up the girls went to bed and the guys went out. That night the guys decided we didn’t want to pay for a hostel since we had to leave for the airport at 3:30 am. Being that bars don’t close until around 3:00 there we decided to dump our stuff in the girls room and have one last night out.

Day 12, Christchurch, NZ:
Today we got up or were still up and headed to the airport and flew home.

Along the way the guys decided that every tap beer they came across along the trip they would need to sample. The grand total at the end of our 11 day trip was 33 different beers. By the last few nights we could not find any new taps.

The trip to New Zealand was a very memorable one.

~Andy

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Disco Bowling and then New Zealand

Last night we celebrated a birthday by all dressing up in clothes from the 70's and went bowling, it was an awesome night. We all got some pretty interesting looks. I'll post some pictures when I get back from New Zealand. We leave tonight for Brisbane, and fly out in the morning for New Zealand. It sounds like we will be pretty active and it will be an incredible trip. I will be gone until April 25th so until then I will not be posting.

~Andy

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Getting Ready for New Zealand


The past few days I have been busy trying to get stuff done before we leave for our trip. We leave on Thursday around 6:00 pm and get back 12 days later. Not too much has been going on lately, everyone else is in the same boat as me trying to get stuff done before we leave. I got my job back at McFarland Construction so I will be in Eden Prairie for the remainder of the summer when I get home. Other than that nothing that exciting to say from Australia. I hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather it sounds like you are having back in the states.

~Andy

(picture: the sunset the day we went fishing)

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Deep Sea Fishing was a Success




Yesterday we went deep sea fishing all day, it was a fun experience. Everyone ended up getting at least one fish as well as lots of crab. Last night the people that like fish and crab spent a few hours cleaning all of the fish. Today I plan on getting stuff ready for New Zealand, we leave this Thursday! I may end up going to a birthday party tonight if I get my stuff done. I have uploaded fishing pictures here, but I wont have any pictures from Fraser Island posted until after I get back from New Zealand, sorry. I hope everyone is doing well, it sounds like you guys at Sigma are keeping busy. Feel free to drop me a line.

~Andy

Pictures: Me with my mackerel. Jake, Me and Brendan carrying all the fish/crab back.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Deep Sea Fishing

Yesterday I took it pretty easy all day, we grilled at night, and then watched a movie. Today we are going deep sea fishing, I am not a huge fan of fishing, but I am sure this will be an interesting experience. I'll let you know how it goes. I am in the process of making a new page for all my pictures, but it looks like I won't finish until after my New Zealand trip. So stay tuned I'll get it done one of these days.

~Andy

Thursday, April 06, 2006

A test, tennis, and a few bars

On Tuesday I had my first test, it was pretty much the easiest test I have ever taken, and it isn't like I spent hours upon hours studying for it. Then I registered for my classes at NDSU, and it is going to be an easy semester. Yesterday I had class in the morning and then Tim and I played tennis for the rest of the day off and on. Last night we went out to Chancellors for a couple of hours. Today Tim and I played tennis for a couple hours, now I have class, and later tonight I foresee us going to the Tav.

~Andy

(Pictures: Brendan, Jake, and Me having a good time at Chancellors)

Monday, April 03, 2006

Another long Monday

Today I have been on campus pretty much all day, I got here around 1:00 and will not be able to leave until aroound 8:00. I only get one break from 5-6 during that time, but I am usually doing homework in that time. Tonight I get to study for my only midterm, Principles of International Business. So I don't have much that is very interesting today, I will try to get my fraser pictures up sometime tomorrow.

~Andy

Sunday, April 02, 2006

An Amazing weekend at Fraser Island


I just got back from Fraser Island, it was an amazing experience. Every part of the island was beautiful. Fraser Island is an all sand island (there is nothing but sand and the lava rock at Indian Head, no soil anywhere on the island) right off the coast, the island is home to more sand than the Sahara dessert, while only being roughly 70 miles North to South and 15 miles East to West. The tour started at 6:00 on Saturday morning, when we first got to the island our first stop was a 1-mile hike through a forest and then over a large sandblow (basically picture a desert) to swim in Lake Wabby. After swimming in the lake for around an hour we hiked back to the bus and headed for Indian Head, a large lookout at the point of the island. We were able to see a school of tigersharks feeding right at the base of the cliff. We then headed down the beach to float down Eli Creek. Our next stop was to a wrecked cruise ship that still rests on the beach from 1935 called the Maheno. We then headed to our resort for the night, Eurong Beach Resort. After dinner we spent the rest of the night at the Beach Bar. Today we started at 9:00, we first drove to the center of the island and stopped to swim at Lake McKenzie. It was the most beautiful lake I have ever seen, the water was as clear as the water in a swimming pool and the beach was all white sand. The lake is rated #7 of the best places to swim in the world. After a few hours there we headed to the rainforest. During our hike through the forest, we saw lizards, eels, king ferns (1 of 5 places they exist in the world, the ones we saw were estimated to be 1500-2000 years old), and a lot of huge trees. That was our last stop of the tour. We finally got home around 6:00 tonight, it was a very exhausting weekend. Now I am just taking it easy for a while and later I will do some reading for class tomorrow.

~Andy