Keeping up with the Kiwis: rugby

We rolled in to a farmers market downtown by the famed train station. Before getting some delicious falafel and having Greenmarket NYC flashbacks, I opted to ride this old school circus bicycle. Hilarious.

NZ has the most cases of skin cancer in the world so they have free sunscreen dispensers. Awesome.
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aaand, the Highlanders Rugby game!

Versus the Sharks from South Africa...boggles my mind a team would travel half the world for one game. South Africans and Kiwis are a traveling bunch.

Scrum, ruck and tri...I know what they are now! ...amazing. My two friends on the BYU women's rugby team said the Highlanders played terribly. I have never been more confused about a sport in my life. Except maybe Cricket.

I was almost more excited for the Black Seeds concert after...

People I have come to LOVE. We have such different personalities, but we all have an incredibly fun time together.

So I am not getting any comments, but apparently my mom told some family and friends about this blog, so hey guys! Love you all and miss you too!

Our first stop on the South Island after spending a night in Picton off the ferry was Kaikoura, followed by Christchurch.

Kaikoura is the whale-watching capital of New Zealand. It was cloudy and overcast the half-day we were there, so it wouldn't have been that fun had we done it. Driving the east coast of New Zealand feels a lot like the northern California coast- beautiful and green.

Can you see the seals?

From there we were off to Christchurch, a stretch of drive that was not without being stopped by the Kiwi policeman! Basically, he pulled the vans over because we weren't spacing them out on the highway enough for people to pass. It was such a 'spirit-of-NZ' experience though, as after he stopped us, he walked by our vans, smiled wide and asked if we were having a good trip, before talking and cracking jokes to the drivers and sending us on our way. Such friendly people.

Then onward to Christchurch.

The first night a couple girls from the BYU rugby team taught us how to play in this huge field we found, and we had fun with that. I made up silly words for the formations (ex/ for the flock of geese pattern that you ideally form behind the ball on offense- I would tell people to 'Geese up'). Basically, acting like I was 12 again, again.

The next day was Sunday, so we attended church, followed by walking around downtown and the Botanical Gardens, and then went to the Institute building for dinner and a ‘fireside,’ which is like an hour long casual religious sermon. Because I’m already with BYU students so everything has a religious overtone, with spiritual wrap-ups to each day this trip … plus we had already done 3 hours of church that day, I felt like the fireside was going to be unnecessary religion overkill and was frankly, not looking forward to it.

I was initially so peeved that we had to sit in another meeting I ended up writing emails from my iPod and hanging out with a couple people from the group in the corner while people were eating. Then we got the idea to play tricks on the crowd and effectively shushed them for a few seconds, until the Institute director said “Whoa, what happened?!” You had to be there, but trust me, we still laugh about it.

But after everyone was done eating, and despite it being 2 hours long, the Institute director ended up delivering a really awesome message about how and what we can learn from the scriptures (I found out later he is also a professor at the University of Canterbury- makes perfect sense)…

I told my parents that if anything dire ever happened to Southern California, Christchurch would be a fantastic place to relocate… good weather (their #1 priority), coastal (#2), bright people (probably #3), and city with a smaller-scale London-like feel to it (not necessary, but a nice #4).

At a concert in the Botanical Gardens. It was Sunday afternoon and the band's name was "The Unfaithful Ways." hilarious.