I'm back from New Zealand, and now back from Monterey as well!

I experienced much sketchiness during my last week in New Zealand, starting with a hostel sandwiched between 2 brothels, the rooms we were staying in already inhabited by huge opium and cocaine-smokers and an absent person whose stuff included porn, a cell phone, muddy boots, shitty romance novels, 4 towels, a scale, condoms (wrapped thankfully), and a dredlock wig. Sketchiness continued on the second night when my group (5 of us rented a car and drove up to Northland) tried to find a place to stay and wound up in a campground we were so sketched out by we only slept there 5 hours and woke up the next morning at 5 am to drive 2 hours to a beach where we slept in our sleeping bags for another 4 hours at the northernmost tip of New Zealand.

Fiji sucked. I tried kava, it really does turn your tongue numb.

Monterey was nice. We went for a bike ride, hit up the aquarium, and visited Elkhorn Slough.

Today is the final day of EcoQuest. We're leaving in half an hour for Auckland, then it's up to the Far North for me. My group's plan is to drive as far north as we can and then go swimming. Hopefully it'll be warm. Today it's actually kind of drizzly and miserable, but maybe it'll clear up.

I'll post photos when I have more time i.e. once I get back home.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! DRPs are done!

Well, not really since we have to give oral presentations on them. But anyway:

Who loves artsy photos? I do!





Today I tried to walk up the creek next to campus, but a little fence blocked me from going upstream. I brushed against it and got a shock. Who puts an electric fence over a river? That could have been really bad since I was knee-deep in water.

So instead, I went swimming in the firth because it was really hot out and the water wasn't too cold. It was awesome.