home home home!

After 20 hours of flying and living Monday twice.... I made it back to Chicago!  Carly and I managed to get on an earlier flight out of LA so no 12 hour layover (thank god) and made it back around 7pm.  Becky picked us up from the airport!  I was super tired but alas could not fall asleep until 3am (stupid jet lag).  I hope you all have enjoyed reading this blog.  I might post some stuff later so check in.  

Homeward Bound!

Carly and I are in the New Zealand International Airport waiting for our plane! So this will be my last blog entry from overseas! I can't believe it has been 6 weeks already. I am really excited to go home and see everyone but am also kind of sad that it is over. Australia/New Zealand have been way too much fun and I have had so many great experiences. Be ready for a giant photo album because I am going to make everyone of you sit down and look through it (I have like over 1500 photos... be ready. hahaha. See you all soon!

Woo hoo photos!

Some pictures

My giant latte... so good after freezing in the van all night


Carly spotted a Gandalf stick so of course we had to take pictures

The van and the stick
"You shall not pass"
We took it will us but it was so big it had to stick out the back sunroof. We got many weird looks with our green and purple unicorn van.
Wild pony in the forest preserve... so cute!
A waterfall we found while driving through the national park place
Sunset
Cooking some beans next to some sheep
Hiking to the top of this mountain... it was so freaking long and straight uphill
But the view at the top was great!
We went to an Irish Pub for some drinks in Rotorua. They had these dark sexy cocktails (Guinness and chocolate liquor... yum!)

Kiwi: Bird Fruit or Person?

New Zealand is so pretty even if we are freezing our butts off at night in our van! Yesterday we left Taupo and started heading to Roturua. Randomly we decided to drive to the coast so proceeded to drive through a Forest Preserve. Little did we know that the road becomes unpaved and winds so much that we are going about 10-20 miles per hour the whole way through (4 hours). It was really pretty though and we saw a bunch of random animals (cows, goats, sheep, horses) all chillin by the road. We got out the preserve and made it to the nearest big town on the coast then decided we didn't want to take the East Coast tour since it would be just as bendy so we took another road straight up through New Zealand and looped around back to Roturua. It was a random road trip that took all day but totally fun. Today we went hiking at a thermal vent place. We hiked to the top of a mountain that proved how out of shape we were but the view was great. Then we made lunch out of the back of our van and walked around downtown Roturua. Tonight we probably will go out for a little bit and see the local bar scene. First we have to find a place to shower... hmmmm. Unfortunately photos are not loading on this computer so just imagine lots of hills with sheep and cows and cool steam rising out of rivers. I can't believe in 3 days I come home!!

Random pics from Cairns

Out of order but I forgot to post these pictures earlier..

Carly and our Dutchmen (TJ and Stephen)
The Crazy Welsh Guy (no one could understand him so we didn't know his name, something like yellow)
TJ cooking us a spaghetti feast
The view from our balcony... pretty!!
"there is a large Dutchmen on my floor" (He didn't fit on the bunk so he put the mattress on the floor)
Carly and Hungry Jacks (Australia is too cheap to pay for the Burger King name so they named it Hungry Jacks. New Zealand has Burger King though)
Crazy sunglasses
They board flights from outside in Australia (and feed us lunch and show us entertainment on domestic 2 hours flights)
Carly and I on our way to Brisbane from Cairns
The Great Barrier Reef from the plane

We are living in a van...

a pretty awesome van!! It was way cheaper to rent a camper van and drive randomly around New Zealand than stay in hostels and such so we got our Jucy Van and away we went!! We were going to drive to Roturua on the first day but then decided to drive a little bit further south and got to Taupo.. some random town with a lake and tons of hot water vents. We camped out last night at some random reststop in our great van then woke up this morning and went for a couple hikes. Then Carly did laundry and we bought a few DVDs to watch tonight in our van.

The inside of our van... this part converts to a bed

Cows and sheep and rainbows... pretty much sums up NZ
We drove up a road that said scenic outlook... um yeah the cows we found up there were prettier than the outlook
Carly and our kickass van
NZ has exclamation points... this one was for steam... we have seen others for car park and waterfall... who knows
Cooking out of the back of our van... yummmm beans
Me and our dinner in the van
We found a fat kitty before our walk
He joined us for a little bit
STEAM!!
RAWR!
RAWR!
Pretty hike
Waterfall/river place
Us and the Huka Falls

GBR photos

Carly and I got our waterproof camera developed from the Great Barrier Reef! The pictures don't do the reef justice but they are better than nothing.

Giant clam!
Nemo!!!
The reef
Bunch of fishes
Turtle!!