New Zealand!

Ahhh, the flying day was one looonnnggg day! Surprisingly, the flight from LA to Sydney was not too bad. I was able to sleep for almost five hours straight so when I woke up from that, there was only a little less than 7 hours left on the flight. These international flights, they just feed you and feed you and feed you. And then when you think that you are done, they feed you one more time just for good measure! Well, I guess they are making up for all the US flights where they nickle and dime you for everything. The flight from Sydney to CHC was actually the roughest one of them all. It was only just under 3 hours, but since it was the end of such a long day and we only had just enough time between those flights to walk from one gate to the other, basically a brief stretch of the legs.
After arriving at the airport in chc, and going through customs which for me was a breeze, we went over to the CDC(clothing distribution center) to drop of our huge bags that we did not want to haul all over town with us. This is the also place that I am leaving my big backpack for traveling with after the season is over, just put the stuff in it that I won't need whilst on the ice, put a tag on it with my name and it will be waiting for me when I get back. I just packed a small duffel with stuff in it for a couple days and left the big bags there. Then we caught a shuttle which took us to our lovely modern hotel in the center of town. Hotel So, its a very nice place with super comfortable beds. I was so confused when I got into the room though because none of the lights would work! I went around pushing all the buttons, trying different lights, none of them would turn on. I was just about to call downstairs to tell them all my lights were broken when the phone rang, it was Carol calling to ask me something. So I asked her if she had any ideas about why my lights didn't work, she laughed and told me that I had to take my room card key and plug it into the little box next to the light switches. Doing that activates the lights and you can then turn them on. Odd, but kind of nice when you are leaving because instead of having to turn off each light, you just pull out the card and within about ten seconds all the lights turn off. Kind of fun anyway.
After taking a much needed shower, which felt amazing, it was time to go take a turn around the city. We walked around the center of the city, grabbing a coffee, kabab, and a piece of carrot cake(which the guy asked me if I wanted some yogurt with, evidently they eat yogurt with many of their desserts here). We made our way to the local market to get some stuff for breakfast and by the time we were headed to the front of the store to check out, both of us were starting to sway from exhaustion. We agreed that a nap was in order, only an hour though because we really need to try and adjust ourselves to the time change. After a nap that felt like it pretty much had not happened, we went out to get some dinner. I wasn't feeling very hungry and nothing really sounded good, but we went to this great pizza joint that had tons of character. We ate our margarita pizza, quite possibly my favorite kind, strolled through town for a bit and headed back for some much needed rest.
I uploaded some of the pics I took to facebook, they did not want to upload to here...I will have to work on it...