so tonight is our last night in Wellington, from here were driving over 2 days from Wellington up to Auckland. In between we will be bungee jumping and white water rafting in a cave! It should be really fun and were planning to get a different hostel in the middle of the island. Check out the picture website cuz i took a bunch tonight!! i took longer exposure shots of the sunset and the ocean right after twilight. The shots are slightly blury, but to me really resemble a painting, and i like them!! Kathleen and i went out and drove along the coast looking for penguins! We think we heard some, but never quite saw one, oh well! it was a really fun evening anyways :) Well its almost 1 here now, so i'm going to sleep. Im hoping to update once more before flying home :) be sure to check out the photos page!!!

so, its been a couple days, first off, freestyle went pretty badly, i blanked out and then fell several times, oh well!! atleast i did it..haha...standard went somewhat better but still more falls than i wanted, again, oh well, it was fun! Today, we went to the south island!!! it was amazing! we saw a stingray, and starfish, i hiked to bob's bay, and wandered through pectin. There was a rainbow, basically, we saw everything and everything was amazing. I have tons of pictures up now, they probably arent all exciting because i was just snapping away, but there are some good ones through out!

all my pictures are also found here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Janowiecki/NEWZEALAND#

these are some pictures from first around the hostel. the city is very beautiful, and very big although i am getting very used to it and feel able to navigate around. The next pictures are from the harbor i ride past every time i go to the gym. It's really pretty to see all the boats and all the water and makes me really want to sail, although i doubt ill be able to. Today it was very cloudy and rained off and on the whole day. Finally, after the harbor, was some shots of the highjump and a race start. I went a couple miles to see the track racing and attend the freestyle judging workshop. because of the workshop, i ended up judging two groups of pairs tonight at the gym. It was amazing!!!! i'm still kind of tired from the jetlag, and i'm not quite on a normal eating schedule, but oh well!! im having fun! :)

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

the first group of pics are from chicago, with the de-icing thing and then the sunrise. it was beautiful, untill it got too bright and just annoying. The next group is in backwards order so at the top are picturs of LA flying in, while the bottom are Fiji and the view around the airport. Right now im sitting in the auckland airport waiting for an hour or so for a flight to wellington. Overall, i believe the flight time will be 20ish hours and total travel time of nearly 2 days!!! its been quite a trip and im ready to get a shower!! I really wish i could have stayed in fiji but i guess the plane ride out was all i'll get. It was very beautiful and hilly and such. There were large areas of smoke that i was informed was where the sugar plantations were burning somethign as a part of the process. Overall, its been a really long but really fun trip! :)