Goodbyes/Heading South

Time has been FLYING- as expected.
I said goodbye to most people today as I will they will leave while I am in the South Island. It was really weird. It felt like I was leaving my friends back at home for New Zealand- but flip flopped. I guess that's a good thing because I definitely have made some great friends here. The best part of that is they live all throughout the world. US: West coast, mid west, south, east coast. Europe: Netherlands, Germany and of course, My Kiwis. So I'll have people to visit everywhere. What a great excuse to travel :)

Exams finished up and we have all just been hanging out and having a good time. Friday night I went to my favourite Kiwi band's concert: Six60. www.six60.co.nz .. they were absolutely AMAZING live. It was an awesome night and probably one of my favourites in Wellington. We started out having a nice dinner at an Indian restaurant on Cuba Street then headed to the concert. Apparently, Six60 was scheduled to come on at 12 and we thought 8pm. So we went back to the Cube and "prepared" for the concert a bit more. It was AWESOME. Then I had a stat exam the next morning. Oh how lovely Business Statistics is after 3 hours of sleep and drinking...hehe.

Last night we (Leah, Jarad, Dani, Jon, and Alex) went to Three Kings (huge sports bar) to watch the FIFA soccer game with NZ All Whites vs Argentina. It was an okay game, but ended amazingly! A Kiwi scored with 30 sec left and it ended up being a draw. That was a lot of fun just to see the culture of sports watching in NZ. The pub was PACKED. We got there an hour early and barely got a table.. hundreds of people were there. It was great! Before that, we went to dinner for Indian food (obviously)..that was great too! I'm going to miss the cultural food. There is so much Malaysian, Indian, Asian style food options here.
Today Jarad and I just walked around town and did some shopping. It was a beautiful, sunny day (I actually got sunburnt!). I'll definitely miss being the Wellington sunny-day walks. Everything is just so pretty when it's nice out. The waterfront is packed and people are out of hibernation. There's so much to do/see when it's nice out. Those days usually speed by. Oh, Welly! I can't believe it's almost time to go!

I'm off to bed. I'll be in the South Island for a week before my 3 1/2 day wrap up of Wellington. HOW did this happen?!
My itinerary is:
June
17: Christchurch
18: Scenic train Christchurch to Greymouth
19: Greymouth to Franz Josef (glaciers!)
20: Franz Josef to Queenstown
21: More Queenstown
22: Dunedin
23: Tekapo
24pm: Fly back to Wellington

28: LEAVE WELLINGTON
29: helllllo Vermont!

http://www.magicbus.co.nz/main/productDetail/index.cfm?productID=8

That's the link of my detailed itinerary. It has a map with descriptions of what each town is known for and what to explore. It's actually a really cool system. I purchased a bus pass for this specific journey and can decide how long I spend in each town, with a minimum 7 days. So someone could have a 3month travel pass, staying weeks at each place. So I'll be backpacking, but with a planned schedule. I am actually really excited and don't know what to expect. I feel like a kid on the first day of school, very anxious yet thrilled for it to start. YAYYY!!!