ice cold..

so i'm in new zealand now for real. and it likes to rain here. got into christchurch on wed night - kevin felder - band friend studying abroad- met us at the airport and helped us get into town and to a hostel. emily and i ended up changing in the morning to this super nice all womens hostel down the street. free soup and even hot towels for goodness sake! spent thurs morning getting travel plans sorted. then met kevin for some wandering around - cathedral and botanical gardens, then on to 2nd hand shops. got myself a coat for staying warm. grocery store and back to the hostel for a bit. regrouped for dinner out at a pub. went on to the holy grail - huge sports bar downtown christchurch. there we happened to run into helen - or at least she saw me and emily and jumped us! she was there with some dukies leaving the next day for fiji. the four of us played a terrible game of pool and then headed off to bed. thursday emily and i took the transalpine train across from christchurch to greymouth via arthurs pass. rainy in the whole country that day. overcast but we saw some mtns. emily headed back and should be on her way home tomorrow. i took a bus south and arrived in franz josef around 5. walked around a bit then an early night. today did a full day glacier hike - definitely tiring but incredible to actually walk around on a glacier. a 2.5km walk out to it and then probably 3-4 hrs on the ice hiking up and down and all around. sneaking through crevasses and underneath worm holes. good times had by all! the ice is such an incredible blue - felt like i should be filming an imax movie. rainy off and on, but i guess it is the rainforest here. hung out with an american and some irish during the tour and am headed off in a bit to watch the australia v. new zealand rugby match down at the pub with them. headed down the road to fox glacier tomorrow and then on to queenstown. hopefully run into all of them there and have a big night wed! haha - will be rough first few days of bandcamp...