Once again, im slacking on my posts.

Im off to get away from the city for a bit, but in the meantime here's a link to some of my earthquake photos


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085742&id=1090560130&l=70be648b4f

Everything is getting slowly better, will post tomorrow about more details

Mt. Sunday

Up to this point I never really went specifically to any Lord of the Rings locations. I may have been in the region, and noticed, this definitely would have been in LOTR. But I needed my inner geek to come alive! So when my friend Caleb said that Edoras was a two hour drive, we made plans for the weekend. After a long gravel drive going through mounds of gravel, clouds of dust and a few streams (poor car), we made it to Edoras! More unbelievable was the view. In such a remote area, miles of plains come to meet the alpine fault rising high into the sky. Right in the center of these plains, was a tiny mound.

It wasn’t very tiny once we got to it, in fact it was a small mountain. We decided to hike to Mt.Sunday, but found it hard not getting wet in the wide rivers. But to think, most of the filming of Rohan was around these rivers, and we were wading through rivers of middle earth!

Once we got to the top, we had a hard time figuring out where the Great Hall was constructed. On top we couldn’t get over the view. We were at least 1 hour from any other person in any direction. You know how in the movie Rohan is very windy? Well, it was extremely windy. We could hang up on top of Mt.Sunday if it wasn’t for us being thrown left and right by the wind.

You know how we were 1 hour away from any other people? Well, that was shortly over when a LOTR tour bus arrived. Filled with overweight Americans, they lugged their camera and fanny packs a mere 5% of what we hiked, because they had a 6x6 (yes, a 6x6) truck to take them up the hill. The best part was, we noticed they weren’t using regular walking sticks. They were using reproduction swords from the movies! Ha-ha. So it ended up turning into a geek contest. Here I am spotting the Uruk-hai taking the hobbits to Isengard in the distance.

Wanderlust is a strong desire for or impulse to wander, or, in modern usage, to travel and to explore the world.

Celebrating With the Flat

Band Together

After the earthquake shook Canterbury, a free live concert was organized for the public. Over 30 NZ bands played, alternating on two huge stages from 11am-8pm in Hagley Park. It amassed a record-breaking crowd of over 175,000 people. To give you a sense of this size, Christchurch’s population is 375,000 people. If there was a famous NZ artist or celebrity or politician, they were there. The Prime Minister of New Zealand stopped to say hello, and the Mayor of Christchurch played bass with his all-time favorite band. It was a great happy-feely time as everyone literally “Banded Together” for Canterbury’s shaken troubles. It gave me a greater sense of how much trouble the earthquake caused to so many across the region. Subtle details can still be seen or heard. One example is that reported domestic violence increased by 40% since the earthquake hit.
There was every type of artist, for every age group. It led to little kids cramming around me to get near the front and older people rocking out to songs the younger generation had no idea about. The Swarm Dance Troupe team put on an AMAZING performance, having great vocals, original dance talent and great song mixes. It was interesting to hear NZ folk and country music, along with “Mainstream” NZ rappers who the US never heard of. Rock artists where girls scream bloody murder as if the Beatles just landed, probably would have a hard time landing a Bar gig in Middletown NY. Strange to see this little bubble of a music culture of four million which takes bits and pieces from music culture from around the world and adds their own twist. I was happy to wait till the very end where I saw the Exponents perform “Why Does Love Do This To Me” in which probably every person in the crowd new all of the lyrics to. After, all of the various music artist came on stage along with politicians, concert organizers, random people to sing on stage in a very “campfire sing along” style song. These kiwis sure do know how to put things to the side to just enjoy life at times.

Apologies!

I apologize from barely posting over the last month or two. It's been quite crazy, exciting, stressful, fun and all that jazz.

I'm about to leave for Australia in 2 hours!

I have no idea when i'll be by a computer next time. All I can do is try to fill in for everything at some point later. That'll be a job!

Wish me luck on my adventures!

Clubbing

Clubbing, is a very common entertainment my friends and I partake in on weekends. When a flat party or a get together gets dry, one brings up the idea of going downtown and I, never quenching my thirst for dancing always agrees. Because I’ve never lived in a city, it’s strange driving 15 minutes or a bus giving you access to over 10 clubs and countless bars. Being of legal age to drink means there’s no cover charges to get into the clubs or bars. Of course I’m going to take advantage of this, but I’ll never spend money in a club or bar for drinks. All I need is a couple drinks back at the flat which gets a certain white male to be confident of his dancing abilities. Once that’s taken care of, you can meet me on the dance floor for the next 4-7 hours. The music is different here, heavy Dub N’ Bass similar to techno. Whenever they're not playing that style of music, its mainstream music from the USA or classic rock. They also rarely grind compared to the States, which is nice. I am trying to pick up some dance moves from my more cultures friends, but it’s a slow progress. Copying or coming up with some strange dance moves in this quirky long skinny body can create interesting facial expressions on spectators. Maybe that’s why there are so many pictures of me dancing. One of the clubs we go to “MyBar” takes photos of me literally every time I’ve gone. So here are some quite humorous shots of my friends and I.

Cool Panoramas I Made

Check out these cool panoramas!

Top of Temple Basin, in Arthurs Pass

Top of Mt.Sunday, location of Edoras in LOTR

Sadly, Blogger doesnt allow you to make the photos fairly big.
I create these through Arcsoft's

Why me?

Heres an email I recently received from my professor about the final exam:



So far in Relativity we have covered the 4-vector notation (104-105),
and most of the concepts in the space-time section (118-122).
This week I'll review a little about the Energy-Momentum vector and
4-vector scalar products to tidy up what we discussed in the tutorial.
However, I will mostly concentrate on the postulates of relativity and
the Lorentz transformations (106-113).

I think that the material actually presented in the problems and
solutions is correct (though I don't remember exactly what I meant by
the last sentence on Page 2 of the Tutorial solution), but the
relationship between the Laplacian (grad^2) and the metric is more
complex than I implied in the tutorial. So deriving eta_ij from ds^2 is
fine, but it would be best to use the relationship eta^ij eta_jk=
delta^i_k to derive eta^ij. And even once you've done that you need a
more complicated formula to generate the Laplacian from the metric
tensor. This will be explained in the General Relativity course...

In summary, the main take-home message is that there are non-trivial
metrics in curvilinear coordinates and unavoidable negative signs in the
metric when you start doing Lorentz transformations. In General
Relativity it become even more complex, but that's a matter for another
course...

Best Wishes,
Mike Reid


If you understand half the words he said, please take my final for me. Because I did not.

Pizza Taco

Tuesday nights you can get a large dominoes pizza (which is NOT a large pizza from back home, these are puny 12” pizzas) for 6$. So after stumbling across this fantastic idea, Carlos and I had to try it out on Pizza Tuesday night. I give you: The Pizza Taco.
Ingredients:
1 large(NZ large) pepperoni dominoes pizza
.75 kilograms of minced beef
Lettuce
Tomato
Shredded cheese
Sour cream

I have to say, I thought having the huge Big Al’s burger from Fergburger was fatty, but this was a whole new level. There was so much grease, so much meat and dairy products; it was probably the grossest/greatest thing I’ve ever eaten.

BBQ in The Park

In Hagley Park, you can BBQ at various locations around the park courtesy of the city. No need for charcoal, propane or a gold coin to start the grill, just press a button. So Jj and I decided to have a full kiwi experience and go for some sausages on toast. The lamb and venison sausages were great, especially with grilled onions and the main ingredient: H&P Sauce (The British equivalent to A1 sauce). Can’t wait to take full advantage of this when I’m on the road(or if I’m ever a hobo in NZ)!

Tea Party

Settle down class, our class on University of Canterbury Culture brings us to today's lecture on: The Tea Party.
I'm slightly confused on the name, being that I did not drink or even see Tea at this party. The Tea Party, is an annual celebration at UC for the end of the academic year. The only difference this year, was that from the earthquake, classes were pushed back a week. But although we had classes next week that didn't stop us from our partying. Let me start you off from the beginning of the day.



4am: Wake Up. Start Drinking
Waking up way too early, and drinking beer with pancakes is not my ideal morning. But the Tea Party is an event I've been hearing about since my first week in New Zealand. Here are the unofficial requirements for the Tea Party, and you have to pick one.
1. Six Before Six (Six alcoholic drinks before 6am, the one I picked)
2. Eight Before Eight
3. Goon Before Noon (Bag of wine about 28 drinks before Noon)
4. Crate before Eight (Crate of Beer before 8pm)
and a bunch of other ridiculous rhyming requirements.
Because we were waking up early, I decided to stay at Mark's flat the night before along with a few other friends who would partake in the festivities.

6am: Finished the six beers, off to get ready for the Party
At the Tea Party, everyone dresses up, as anything. I decided to be a hobo. Gloves missing fingers, flannel shirt, wool sweater, messed up jeans, and a cardboard sign that says : "Family kidnapped by ninjas; Need $$$ 4 Karate Lessons"


10am: Try to enter the Party.
You can see while waiting on line who continued drinking after their requirements, or who was still desperately trying to finish right on line. I got in with the Security guard if Ive been drinking, and after telling him I have a little, he said " You don't look like you've had a little". Well, sir, that's because its part of the costume, I'm a drunk hobo." And sure enough, he let me in.



11am-6pm Dance
Once I got in, there was probably over 2,000 drunk, dressed up students all over the UCSA building amphitheatre. There were some great costumes. Lego men, The Beatles crossing Abbey Road, Hulk Hogan, Duff Man, Goon-man, etc.




During the party there was about 10 bands playing over the course of nine hours. Some great artists played, such as Kids of 88 and The Naked and Famous. You don't know them of course, they're only famous to the four million people on this tiny island.










Also, as the organizers are students themselves, they know of the drinking tradition for the Tea Party. Therefore they had all the free food you could take. Spring Rolls, Rice Balls, Pizza, Meat Pies, Fries etc. The ticket cost about 40$ for nine hours of entertainment, But I made sure I got 40$ worth of food.


Also, remember how i wore my flannel shirt and wool sweater as my costume? Well that Mr.Sun decided to turn the day to about 80 degrees. I was dying!



Anyway, Great costumes, great music, hilarious drunk acts made another successful Tea Party. Most people passed out by 8pm that night, after waking up at 4am to start drinking. But my flatmates and I decided to continue the festivities at my flat, and then proceeded to go downtown to dance some more. I got back around 5am that night, which meant I was up for over 24 hours that day. There are some great photos from the flat party, which I hope to post soon.

Kaikora Seafest

What happens when a small coastal village quadruples its population for one day a year? It gets a little crazy. We call this, Seafest.

It was my first major trip with the car, and I was kinda nervous. More so that I was bringing some friends from Ilam Villages also, I don't mind myself being stuck on the side of the road, but with four others, not so much. I actually ended up not even driving the car, because I participated in the ENSOC BBQ. I posted about the BBQ a few weeks ago, if your curious about it.

When we arrived to Kaikora it was fairly late in the afternoon, and we jumped right into the festivities of Big Top Bash. It was two bands playing covers of some classic songs and a few recent songs. I spent so much time up on the dance floor, I had a few locals come up to me remarking about all my dancing last night. Even the artists got accustomed to me as the guy dancing in the front row.

I LOST my jacket at the big top bash. I was devastated. I'm talking about my black leather jacket, which belonged to my Dad's brother over 40 years ago. I tried getting back into the event, and the security guards said there was no clothing left. I went back to Ross's house where we staying, and told my friends about how I lost it by leaving it on the table. At that very moment, a strange, awkward moment happened. Ross's mother came walking in, wearing my jacket.
"By any chance, does that jacket say Harley Davidson on the inside"
"Oh yeah it does!"
"Yea, ummm... that's my jacket."

I slept in the car, and man it was NICE. I had a comforter, and extra sleeping bag and foam pads underneath my sleeping bag. So it was pretty comfortable.

The next morning we woke up to walk to the same tent where we partied last night. I couldn't get over the scenery on the way there, because it was too dark to see the landscape. Such a beautiful small town. I'd recommend it for a day or two to climb around, see some marine wildlife it's well known for.

Getting into Seafest many of us were a little disappointed upon entry.

One: The "Souvenir Glass" that came with the ticket was a plastic cup with shoelaces tied around it so you could wear it around your neck and not lose it. Although extremely handy I must say.

Two: The fest I thought was all about trying wine, food samples for free, because the ticket for both nights was around 65$! Not the case. They only charged MORE because you were stuck inside.

Three: The "Music Line-up" was the same two artists I spent dancing to all of the night before.

There was good food and drinks though. I went through money way too fast like the vendors strategically spent. Luckily Luke Stover does occasionally think ahead in terms of money, and only brings 20$ for the day to spend. There was one drink that had tequila and hot chilis which had a great taste, called "Hot Pants" or something like that. I also sat in on a cooking show, which was surprisingly good. The best thing I got out of it was this simple and extremely tasty dressing recipe.
Sweet Chili Sauce & Fresh Lime Juice &Ginger Powder
Just mix these together and you have an awesome dressing. Me and Ellie used it later that month on top of avocados and chickpeas.

The costumes the locals were wearing was quite interesting. I'll let the photos do the talking.



Once back at a Ross's house we started relaxing outside as Ross's Parents began the BBQ. Delicious food was had and I began my adventure to find another place to dance. After a few tries at different clubs downtown (the only main road of Kaikora) I found a great place packed with people dancing to mainstream in the front. This was alright dancing, but everyone from seafest (thousands) were scattered among the very few bars in Kaikora. So I wandered to the back and found a live jazz band playing with about 10 people listening. They were great! IT was also out in the open so you could dance underneath the southern night sky And the salty sea air nearby. After a couple of hours I ran into Barry! Barry, sold me the car, and took the bus to see the rest of the island before he left in a month. So Barry and I caught up, and had great deep discussions on traveling and life decisions, past and future. I learned quite a bit from Barry, as he's got the same mindset and goals. The convos also made me quite confident on my decisions which has lead me here, and my future.

We walked back to his hostel where we met some Scottish, Irish and kiwi older gentleman. The gents were pretty happy after most of the bottle of scotch they were enjoying was gone after the three of them. So much, that me and Barry (from England) pretended we were from Columbia with ridiculous spanish accents. Once I gave away my real Scottish and Irish heritage they quickly poured me a big glass of scotch. And I had a bit out of it, but no way was I finishing that. Turns out, Allen Dale who I met in that hostel had a passion for VW Vans. So much, he tattooed one on himself. He also brags about driving the fastest 1/4 mile normally aspirated VW van. Who new? I asked the guy what he would say to himself if he was 20 years old again. "Follow your passions in life". For him, it was paying homage to VW vans by racing and Tattooing them.

Ensoc BBQ

I had participated in the ENSOC's (Engineering Society of Canterbury) annual end of term BBQ. And it was quite crazy.

Upon waiting on a line which stretches across Ilam rugby fields for over an hour, sometimes more, you join 1900 other students in a fenced in area. They shouldn't call this a BBQ, because there is a puny line for sausages on toast(of course) with about 6 people standing on line. To the left of this stand, is about 500 students pushing and squeezing and screaming to get to the front of the line where there is: 60 kegs of Alcohol. Not bad eh? Not bad when you hear how fast these kiwis (and myself) went through it: 2 hours.

In the center of the party is a roped off arena for the chundy-mile: Final year ENSOC students dressed in wacky costumes run around to various stations where they have to chug beer, eat raw eggs on toast (or throw them at eachother) and sloppy-joe sandwiches, and slide around on slip-n-slides. I believe the original plan was to see who could last the longest number of laps eating, drinking and sliding. But instead, it was complete carnage. The problem may have been that the final year students had been drinking one hour before the race, taping into the unlimited supply of alcohol. For me, it was a great way to see New Zealand's finest. Upon charging to the first station in the race, about 50 of these students toppled the table of food right over. A mad scrambled, some quickly moved on to the next station while the remaining were slowly getting back on their feet, but as usual wrestling started to occur. While all of his was happening, the nearby security guard grabbed a carton of eggs, and put them behind his back so i could have access to 12 gorgeous eggs for throwing at people. It was great, one of my friends clipped a final student in the ear causing him to fall over. The security guard pounded one kid in the chest with an egg. This kid thought it was from the crowd, ready to throw back food. He quickly realized that it was the security guard he was about to chuck a sloppy-Joe right at. Quite humorous to watch, but not the best part.
This may be the grossest thing Ive seen in my life, so pass if you do not like throw-up stories.

As one guy(guy 1) was scrambling to eat his food at the station in front of me, another guy (guy 2)charges right at him and throws him to the ground. The guy 1 retaliates and pushes the guy right over the table. Guy 2 decides to tip the rest of the food on the table on top of guy 1, lays on top of guy 1 and table, and guy 2 stuffs his mouth full of food. Guy 2 spits/vomits his inner contents into guy 1's open mouth, and runs to the next station. Guy 1 is too drunk to capture all of the situation. I on the other hand 10 feet away am gagging at the site of this once in a life-time experience I had witnessed. A final year student dressed as a baby is flailing his arms running past me. Only in New Zealand.

Travels to Governors Bay

I realized its been quite sometime since I posted, and that I am greatly behind. I still haven't finished posting about the rest of my spring break! Well, I'm going to send it all to you at once, and just get it all out of my system and up to date. So I apologize for the flooding in of randomized posts from the last month and a half of my travel/adventures.

On a current note, I have 2 more classes left of the semester! I can't believe it, and I am scared to death. Finals are shortly around the corner, which leaves me with a little over one week to study four physics courses worth of material from this whole semester. I have already been studious enough to turn down (although very hard to do) a four-day hike to Milford sound, one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. Ellie has been out and about, taking great photos which I'll be posting soon.


Here's a post about one of my short motorcycle travels out to Governor's Bay, near Lyttleton.




My Trip Governor's Bay, and a few lesson's of motorcycle riding I've learned.

1. Take off sunglasses before entering NZ's longest tunnel.
After school, I decided a great way to experience the gorgeous days of spring which keep getting better as the days go on, was to take out the bike. I decided to try a few roads along the bay near Lyttleton. I decided to head out to Lyttleton and follow the coast stopping in various places. It was a bright sunny day, and I decided to try out my new 4$ sunglasses I used for a "greaser" costume a few nights ago. Approaching the tunnel I forgot I had been wearing the sunglasses, because the glasses made the sunny day look like a typical cloudy day in Christchurch. Aaand pitch dark. Crap. Well, just follow the brake lights ahead of you, follow its speed because I cant see the speedometer. You have to give me a little sympathy, as this tunnel is much darker compared to the United States' tunnels. Back in the States I remember playing "disco" from the bright orange lights flying past you at such a fast rate, as they were spaced probably five feet apart. Here in the NZ, lets say 25 feet. Once my eyes were adjusted I discovered other horrible features of riding a motorcycle through a tunnel like:
2. Stand back from vehicles ahead of you, as exhaust gasses tend to accumulate in tunnels 3. British Motorcycles are better suited for "Tunnel Travel".
This is extremely true! My Honda has no tachometer, and with the deafening roar from the acoustics in a tunnel, I had no idea of how my poor little Honda was handling certain gears. Now if I had a Triumph, this would be ok, no need for sound, or a tachometer, because I could feel how the engine was working based off how quickly my legs were turning numb. I'm pretty sure Edward Turner had this exact reason in mind. Mr.Honda had it all wrong, with no engine vibration.

So after traveling through New Zealand's longest tunnel (2km) coughing on exhaust fumes, blind, deaf, and two gears away from what I should have been, I turn away from civilization and head out
to motorcycle paradise. And, as usual of New Zealand, I find it, again. twisty, winding roads which touch the coast and then shooting back up hundreds of meters was a great time to test out if I could get away without having 3rd gear. I had a blast on these roads, and although I thought I was going fast, a young woman driving a Miata convertible didn't thinks so. She passed me, and I decided to see if I could follow her moves, as she had obviously done this road more than I have. It was a fun game of cat and mouse, She seemed to take off on the straight-aways more than my 250cc could handle, but I would catch up to her on the corners. Once she pulled off to I'm guessing her village I proceeded until I found a nice place to pull over. See that itty-bitty pier at the center of the picture to the right? I decided to going there. After going through a village of around twenty houses I walked to the pier, and took in the surroundings. The colors of the fresh green grass, yellow flowers on the mountainside and the almost Caribbean blue water can't do you no wrong. Butttt, I get to excited for more, so I proceed to my next destination. I reach Allendale Reserve, where I walk the dried up portion of the bay, find a little box stuck in the mud I call my treasure chest, and enjoy a peanut-butter and jelly with gummi bears that somehow got shaken into the honey of my sandwich. not good.


5. As usual, always be on the look out and never trust any other drivers.

On my way back from Allandale Reserve I was going my merry way when I saw a van approaching the other direction. I keep to my motorcycle training taught at MSF and stay closer to the center of the road rather than the far side. It's supposedly makes you more visible, deters drivers in the other lane from drifting over in your lane, along with some other defensive driving skills. As I am just about to drive by I noticed the van slowly turning into a nearby parking lot. I quickly swerve to the left, missing the van, and notice the van in my mirrors completely stopped halfway between both lanes, he must have never seen me til the last second!

6. You may navigate though the middle of the desert without a map, but in the city, its impossible.
To get to Lyttleton, as with most of my short trips, I don't bring any maps. It makes things a little more exciting, and full of adventure. I have all day to go wherever I want, and I like when I run into places I probably never would have seen if i hadn't gotten side-tracked(not lost, side-tracked). So going out to Lyttleton was a piece of cake, head east out of the city to the view of the Port Hills, take the coastal route or tunnel, and then keep the bay on my left as I tour around. That, I can do great. I can also get back to the city limits from sight, a vague recollection of the sun and all the signs pointing to Christchurch (these are slightly better than my sun-gazing skills). But once I get to the suburbs of Christchurch from a different direction I came out of (which i always do, because I do not like back-tracking), It's impossible. It's worse than a corn maze, and I'll tell you why. Corn mazes, usually have 90 degree turns so after turning a series of turns, I can say, hmm my new direction is 0, 90, 180,270 degrees off from when i first entered. CHRISTCHURCH SUBURB ROADS DO NOT DO THIS. They have slight bends in the road, which you hardly realize, and before you now, after taking a few slight bending turns, you hardly realize you've turned around. This is my main reason why I get lost coming back to Christchurch. A typical way for me to get out of this is going to a bus stop, looking at a bus route map and then finding a familiar road name. So who needs maps?

My Future Plans For the Summer

I've just purchased my ticket back from Australia, which solidifies my plans for the summer. Here's the scoop.

October 7th: Ellie Arrives. Still in spring, but for as much as we care, it's pretty much summer. I'll be balancing on a tightrope showing Ellie around New Zealand and going on adventures while trying to pass all my classes.

November 6th: Finals end. Celebrate, say goodbye to everyone who is leaving this semester

November 16th: I leave for AUSTRALIA! Flying to Sydney where I'll stay for a week. Ellie will leave around the 19th from NZ, doing whatever she feels like.

November 26th:I leave from Sydney, doing whatever means necessary to get to Melbourne on a college student's budget.

December 3rd: I leave from Melbourne back to Christchurch

December 4th-7th: I leave Christchurch on my way to Auckland to meet mom and Dad.

December 7th-25th: I try to show the Parents New Zealand in less than three weeks.

December 26th-early January: I try to sell the car with Sophie, split our profits and I start planning my motorcycle adventure.

January/February: I'm on the road. I have no residence, and therefore I go from campsite to campsite, couch to couch, bumming off as many friends and strangers as possible. Everything I need for the 1.5-2 months will be on my back and on my motorcycle, and I will tour both the North and South Islands.

February 22nd(ish?): I come back to Christchurch in hopes of finding a flat for the remaining semester, and start school shortly after

I'm pretty excited for all this traveling, but it wont be an easy task. From November 15th on I have no residence, until I start up school again in late February. I will also have a completely relaxed schedule, going where I care to, and stopping wherever I, (or the bike) pleases If the bike fails, depending on the condition I may just salvage what I can and walk. or who knows, ride sheep.

The trips will either have me done with traveling for quite a while, or only make my taste for traveling/adventure into a sick addiction, dependent only on my bank account. Hopefully during my travels I will be able to do small jobs in return for food or accommodation.

Car!

Sophie stumbled across this 97' Mazda 626 Station Wagon. so we decided to check it out!

240,000km (~150,000miles), inspection is due soon but the only problems we saw failing inspection were the two rear tires. I noticed in the records there was a radiator replacement. So noticing the engine I could see some oil build-up around the heads, seems like it overheated at one time and slightly warped the heads. It's been driven almost 20,000 km with no problems, and if we keep checking on the heater gauge, oil and radiator we could get away with the problem.

Barry met up with us to check out the car downtown. He had started at 2,000 NZD, and after a week decided 1600 may sell it faster. I pointed out the head leakage, and said I'll take it for 1500. Not bad, with Sophie and I splitting the cost i came to 525 American dollars each! It's a gamble with the engine, but worst comes to worst, we lose 525 each.


It also came with a lot of stuff! a tent, sleeping bag, 2 Frisbees, cooking equipment, bedding, and air mattress and yes, that weird wooden duck. All of these things Sophie needed anyway, so it only made the purchase more reasonable.

I met up with Barry downtown, treated him to a beer at a bar downtown and sorted out all the paperwork. Pfft paperwork? I gave him 1500, I made a bill of sale (even though i didn't have to, just precautionary) walked to the local post shop, and in less than 10 minutes we had waited in line, paid 9.20 for change of ownership and i officially owned a car in New Zealand. This is not the nys dmv.

Barry and I walked to the car, Barry gave me a few tricks he's learned for working and traveling from many trips around the world (main tip: be open for any job, he worked skinning sheep when he first got here) and I jumped in the car and left.

The Life

Currently I'm resting because I feel good about my fluid mechanics test I just took, just finished my homework for the week and I am about to start studying for the rest of the day for my test tomorrow in Classical Mechanics.

After tomorrow's test I will pick up sophie and my car, and this weekend i'm going to the ENSOC BBQ (one of UC's biggest parties, typically over 2,000 people) and Seafest, a musical festival on the shores of Kaikora.


It's about 70 degrees out, sun shining, and a cool breeze. For me I'm calling this the official start of spring. I'm taking a walk through the gardens across the street enjoying a Corona.

This is the life.

The rate of studying is inversely proportional to the temperature outside

It's Sunday, the 26th of September, and I've woken up rather early, knowing I have some things to do, no, a lot of things to do. I drive off into the city looking at cars for sale and return back with my head set at "Luke study away". I come back to my flat, run into my friend Tom who asks me to come with him to the Vegetarian Expo.

Tom: "Wanna come to the vegetarian expo with us"

Luke: "I should do some studying"

Tom: "Aww, that's too bad ,it's really nice out"

Luke: "Yea, it is really beautiful out"

Luke's Head: "It is REALLY beautiful out, and this is another excuse to ride your motorcycle"

Luke: "Yea I'm in"

We go to the expo, and thinking I could get my veggies there, turns out to be just over-priced tofu and strange power bars so thickly packed with fiber, you could taste it, no you could feel it, it was so hard to swallow.

So we leave shortly, It's still nice out. The gorgeous botanical gardens are right across the street.

Tom & Brian: "You wanna walk around the gardens with us?"

Luke: "I Should do some studying"

Tom: "Aww, that's too bad, it's really nice out"

Luke: "Yea it is really nice out"

Luke's Head: "It is REALLY nice out, and all the flowers are in bloom in the garden"

Luke: "Yea let's go"

I'm glad I did, the botanical gardens are absolutely beautiful. All the flowers are out, there are fields of Daffodils and the each tree is a testament to natures beauty. The Avon river runs through the center, where people are kayaking or couples are having picnics on the shore. Christchurch is the "Garden city".

I did take photos, but for some reason I cannot find them on my computer. Bummer!

We reach the end, and a bar is nearby the flea market were headed to:

Brian: "anybody want a beer"

**follow same suit as above**

Luke: "Yea I'm in.

I'm very glad, but guilty at the same time I went to the bar. Its 2:30pm , sun shining in this beautiful patio outside of the bar "Dux de Lux" and I am enjoying a very good beer. It's called a "Ginger Tom" and is an alcoholic Ginger Beer. If you like Ginger Beer, this is even better. We discuss how it doesn't get much better than this, and they only reinforce my correct decision to stay in New Zealand for twice as long as they are.

I feel sorry for a lot of international students, many are leaving as soon as finals end, which means they will have been in New Zealand for about 4-5 months. They can only travel during weekends and spring break, unless they skip Monday and Friday classes. I highly recommend taking two semesters abroad. You get the feel for things, discover a lot of different activities to do the first semester, and then continue your favorite activities the next semester. You also get a feel for the country as a whole better, by experiencing all four seasons, which radically changes the experience. You also have three months off in between semesters to do whatever you want.

Keeping Busy

I've been rather busy, with two tests this week and four homework due right before the two tests, I haven't had much time to relax. But, when I have relaxed this week I've been enjoying every minute. When Friday rolled around last week, it was 70 degrees (F). classes were out for the week, and I have a newly licensed motorcycle. And that's all I needed.

I started just driving, around, and settled on checking out Sumner, a small sea-side village right outside Christchurch. A beautiful little town, with lots of gardens scattered between cliffs and the sandy beaches. A highly recommended place to go for a nice afternoon in the sun walking around.

But I wasn't walking around, I was on the search for twisty, sea-side roads through rolling hills. I found a large hill with a road going right through the middle of it. Just the thing I was looking for. I was a little nervous trying out my motorcycle for the first time on major twisty climbs, after recently dismantling the rear wheel and the brake systems. Did I put that bolt back on, is it tight enough? Well mom, there's only one way to find out! Speeding up twisty roads with cliffs to my right, I started to worry a little less once the fun of motorcycling overwhelmed my fears of a motorcycle I've barely used falling apart while going around a hairpin turn.

At the top of the road, it was closed due to earthquake destruction, but luckily for me there was the Godley Head Nature Preserve trail to the left of me. This is where I had some of the greatest fun in New Zealand so far, my first real motorcycle adventure. About 2 meters wide, rising along the cliffs(no guard rails!) I shared with the sheep around me the view overlooking all of Christchurch, Sumner, Lyttleton,Taylor's Mistake, New Brighton and the rest of the Canterbury Plains.

Godley Head was absolutely beautiful, and I would highly recommend someone starting in Sumner and walking (or better biking, (or even better motorcycling!)) and heading to Taylor's mistake, a very tiny village on the beach which is supposedly a great surfing hangout. Then proceed to Godley's head, and check out the surrounding views along the coast line.

I'll hopefully update more on my visit to the botanical gardens, and hopefully finish up my spring break road trip. But after my two tests I'm off to Kaikoura to Seafest 2010, come back Sunday, Do my Presentation on the Fluid Mechanics of Carburetors (mainly Amal Carbs) and then Ellie comes later that week! And it turns out I have finals starting in 1 month. AND THEN!? Summer begins, which means a whole lot of different things, but for another post, another day

-Luke Stover

-Tell me, have I done anything of worth? -Leonardo Da Vinci