It's Summer Time!

(this entry was supposed to be added before I left for Australia, but I couldn’t get the site to work).

Most of the week has been characterized by shorts, lounging in the sun, and sandals…so nice! 

Thursday I mostly hung out during the day and then that evening had some friends over to my flat to continue the Halloween celebration with a scary movie and pumpkin cookies!  Friday I studied a little and grabbed lunch with Werner from Unicol.  An again on saturday I met Werner for lunch and we went and got some delicious sushi.  Saturday night, we had a reservation at Indian Spice for a BYO, but somehow our reservation got messed up.  So they gave us a discount off our curry and delivered it free to our flat, which was awesome!  We also went to town after dinner since it was our last Saturday night with everybody here!  Sunday was not too exciting either.  I watched a movie at Erin and Rachel’s flat as a goodbye celebration for one of their flatmates. 

Monday I actually buckled down and studied for my exam.  We also treated our kiwi hosts to dinner at Indian Spice (if you can’t already tell, it’s kind of our favorite place and it’s cheap) to thank them for being so awesome, loving, and welcoming all semester!  After dinner, I met up with some friends to celebrate Guy Fawks.  After hanging out in our flat for a while, we walked down to the rugby field where heaps of kiwis were shooting off fireworks.  It was certainly not professional, as one ended up hitting a car on the road.  And we probably should not have stood so close because right when we turned our backs to the fireworks to get a picture, one misfired, landed right in our circle of people, and starting firing…which sent us screaming and running in all directions...I think the Kiwis got quite the laugh out of it!  Luckily, besides a few painful bruises, we are all completely fine!  But it was fun watching the fireworks and hanging out with some of the best people ever!

And today I took my last exam!  I am officially done with my academics here in New Zealand.  Definitely have mixed feelings about that, but it’s summer here and I am in good spirits J  I also had to say goodbye to Katie today, which was pretty hard.  But, now I have a reason to visit Minnesota sometime!  And I also have to say goodbye to Werner tomorrow, which will definitely be rough, but he plans on coming to the US next year!

Cooking dinner for my flat now and then going out tonight to celebrate being done!!!

 And leaving tomorrow for some crazy fun adventuring!  Can’t wait!  Love you all!