Our Canterbury Tales Thus Far...

Hello all,

We arived to Lincoln NZ a few days ago (after 36 hours of traveling), and have spent most of the past few days getting used to the country.

We got bus passes, so that we can easily travel to Christchurch and it's suburbs.

Some of the things we've done thus far...

1) Cathedral Square... right in the middle of downtown Christchurch

We walked around town to several different places including the Canterbury Museum (a pretty sweet Antarctic exhibit and some moa skeletons), the Art Gallery (at the old Canterbury College), and many little street vendors.

2) The Christchurch Botanical Gardens

It's sort of like the Central Park of Christchurch. The Avon River flows through it, and there were tons of really cool plants, like red wood trees, lots of orchids, fern trees, and NZs favorite... the koru.

It's a Maori symbol for new life and growth.

3) Willowbank

This is sort of a wildlife preserve. Basically the first part is a typical zoo, but with NZ animals (although most aren't originally from NZ). My favorite was the giant eel (that they let us pet... ). After, we had a show by some of the Maori people. Our own Ryan was appointed cheif, while some of us learned the haka (a pretty sweet Maori dance/chant) or poi twirling (basically, spinning these balls on a string--- the Maori originally used rocks to strengthen their wrists for fighting).

Then a delicious meal, where I tried mussles, which I will never ever ever eat again. But, at least now I know that I don't like them.

After dinner we went on a nocturnal animal walk were we got to see the kiwis!!! They were so cute! Also, we saw some kias, tuataras (dinosaur-lizards with three eyes), and some other cool animals.

4) Today was our free day. Some of us went to Sumner to a little beach (with lots of surfers), and then hiked up the hillside. It was a beautiful hike! (But pretty steep so I'm sure I'll be quit sore in the morning).

The backside was 10x prettier, but I couldn't find photos anywhere online.

Others of us went on a gondola ride up the hillside and went hiking around at the top.

Alright, that's basically all that we've done. Classes start tomorrow so we'll be out in the field doing herbivory studies.

Another thing that eveyone in everyone in America should know... New Zealanders have crazy hair! I've seen more mullets, rat-tails, and other crazy hair-do's than I have the rest of my life combined. I swear.

Oh, and everyone has perfectly shaped hedges.

On that note, Goodnight.
Hilary