Pleasant Surprise

Happy birthday to me! No not really, it's not my birthday, but I did come to work this morning where awaiting me upon my desktop was a decent sized-box from an New Zealand Flower Shop, inside early birthday wishes from Eddie, thanks again Eddie, it made my day, my week and probably more. They are beautiful flowers, white roses and then packed with vibrant blue and purple New Zealand flowers (don't know the names, I am looking them up as we speak). They came in a gorgeous weaved basket filled with woven plant stems and ribbon tied out of plants, topped with a Paua shell decoration (the NZ shell). They will make our apartment cozy I am sure.

Update on the past 2 days, 2 nights ago we were planning on going to the thermal pools at the spas but it was raining so we went to a slideshow presentation at one of the local outdoors shops about all of NZ's national parks and hiking trails and tours. It was a great presentation, and we were almost convinced to pay a thousand dollars for a 10 day tour in the South Island when we get there, but it was all hiking (which sounds awesome), however that would have left us with only 2 days to do our own things. So we decided that we do that tour next time we come back, to see all the backways of New Zealand. So we came home late and realized that we both didn't bring our keys (apparently, according to Melissa, it is ONLY my responsibility to remember to bring mine :op).. Anyways, after pretending to agree on mutual responsibility, we got let in by the manager, who may try and spring a 20 fee on us for the service. Ha ha. I think not, twice so far we went up to our rooms and had the bedroom doors locked on us and couldnt get in with the keys we do have. The manager can bite me. Sorry for the expression. So last night we went out to the Sky Tower Casino and gambled away alot of money. $ 2 bucks. They ahve 1 cent slot machines. It took me 20 minutes to loose 2 bucks! and I lost every time! It was nice there, we watched people lose alot and Melissa was searching for the Crapps table to try and blow on someone's dice, no luck, no crapps table. The casino was massive (in the sky tower) and of course had great views over the city at night. We got ID'd twice, once after we were already inside the casino. It is sad that it has come to this, but I feel like saying thank you now.

We are going to the Bay of Islands this weekend and are trying to plan that tonight, as well as actually purchase our flights to the South Island. I know I say that every post, but we have to do it today.

Classmates - is it just me or do we have more school work to do on placement than we ever had while in school? I hope it's just me and I am delusional b/c of this trip and that when I get home I will realize that I can do it in a week. Please.

Oh and about the pictures...I went to the machine that copies memory cards onto cd's, and well, I put in my memory card and it said that I have to purchase 4 CD's b/c of the amount of pictures I have on it (yuo cant choose which ones, it just copies them all) so I just couldn't bring myself to pay 50.00 to post them. If anyone has any other ideas, I would love to hear it. This is a developed country. There must be a way! Until then, I hope my words are enough.