We made it! The trip over was not the greatest thing in the world but it is beautiful!! The weather it perfect. Nice and warm but not too warm! Yesterday we did some sight seeing at the Antarctic Center which was a blast. We got to meet up with the other group (the group my boyfriend Mike is on) so it was fun to see all of them and have dinner. We have basically just been exploring the city so far! I'll write again soon!

Today we met with 2 NZ authors at the public Lib. It was such a great experience, I learned a lot about the history of childrens lit (where it started at and where it is now). It has gone through so many changes. Gavin Bishop brought in some of his books and his drawings. We were able to see the process of making the illustrations for his books. It was a picture perfect monment when he held up his large drawing and then held up the book.

We have been exploring Christchurch the past couple of days. They have some beautiful parks and gardens around as well as a lot of old architecture and artwork. The next couple of days we will be doing a number of activities including swimming with dolphins, taking a gondola ride, going to a wildlife center to see the Kiwis, and having high tea. It should be a fun last couple of days in Christchurch before we take the long train ride and ferry to Wellington.

So I finally found the book store and I tried to post a pic. of me and the owner (because she was so helpful) but I dont think the pic posted sorry about that. I will try and see if it works with some help. Tomorrow we will be taking a 80 min. bus ride and swimming with the dolphins :). I am so excited for this one. I will take lots of pic and will try and post them if I can figure out how. Miss you all and sending lots of love.
Jen

Yesterday we went down to the Christchurch central library to meet with local author Gavin Bishop. One of the things that interested us as group was his thoughts on the difference between how picture books are viewed in New Zealand as compared to the US. In the US picture books are meant for children who can't read whereas in New Zealand Bishop believes that they are meant to be read by all ages. He thinks everyone can get an important message from one of his books or form other authors like him.

After being here a few days, we have noticed a lot of differences between New Zealanders and Americans. For instance, while watching a juggling performance in the public square, the performers laughed and made fun of how Americans are so loud with everything they do. When they asked for me to come forward and help out with a stunt, our group cheered loudly for me while when other volunteers were picked, no body said anything but clapped politely. It was a culture shock.

Yesterday we took a bus to a small town that is the only French settlement in New Zealand. Even though it is mainly one street, it still was very fun to explore the small shops and look out across the bay.

Friday we finally got out of the city of Christchurch and traveled to the beach town of Akaroa where we swam with native New Zealand dolphins! I was expecting to be put in a wetsuit and then into a tank with a bunch of trained dolphins that would do tricks for us and let us ride them. Little did I know that we would acctually put on wetsuits, flippers, snorkels and masks and load up into a boat to be taken out into the middle of a huge harbor where we looked for a pod of dolphins to swim with. Once we found a group of probably ten a large group of us went into the water to play!

On Friday we finally got out of Christchurch. I was starting to get really restless wandering around the city. After a few days we had seen the same places pretty much every day. The bus ride out to the coast was so amazing. We drove through the hills to a little town on the harbor called Akaroa. Just the hills were beyond anything I expected. While everyone else seemed to sleep I stayed up taking pictures out my window and got frustrated cause they didn't do justice to what I was really seeing. It was beautiful...all green and covered in fog.

Friday, most the group traveled to a city called Akaroa. Our mission was to swim with the native dolphins which are a lot smaller than the ones we are use to at home. Once we arrived at the actual dolphin excursion store, all the girls and erik put on some fancy wetsuits and got in the boat ready to catch some dolphins. This was something I was not use to for my experience with dolphins has been in a small docked off area with trained dolphins which you could hug, kiss, and hold on for a swim. Instead, these were wild dolphins that we went out on a boat to search for.