We're at the airport on our way to Auckland and thought I'd spend a minute updating everyone. Again, we had a wonderful time here. The countryside is spectacular and you can really see the Lord of the Rings landscape all around you. The Kiwis are very proud that the movie was filmed here and everyone knows someone that was in the movie and wants to tell you about it. I'll post more later on the details of our time here.

We had a great milestone earlier this week. We couldn't remember what day of the week it was - literally didn't have any idea. That was quite a liberating feeling. After two weeks, we're not tired of traveling yet, although we are ready to head to a different part of the world. We're leaving for Asia tomorrow - Kuala Lumpur first, then Thailand and Hong Kong. The parts of SE Asia where we're going did not have any damage and are fine. I'm sure they need our tourist dollars more than ever.

There's been a few funny things I've noticed about Australia and New Zealand. There are much fewer traffic lights because they use "round a bouts" - basically traffic circles (not like the one in Long Beach! - much safer here) I've grown to like them very much. They also have a strange thing with Pumpkins and Sweet Potatoes. There's Pumpkin soup everywhere and many meals are served with Sweet Potatoes. These are two things that if they fell off the earth- I would never notice they were gone, so it seems strange to me that they're so popular over here. The toliets each have a 1/2 flush and a full flush button. I suppose to conserve water. When I would ask people where the restrooms are- I got a confused look - they call them toliets here. Cars - most of them are stick shift. Bugs - very few bugs - quite to my surprise. I expected the rainforest in Cairns and the forests here in New Zealand to have many bugs. The people here all seem to be very happy - we've never been treated with anything than the utmost courtesy. Also there are a LOT of redheads! Mom ~ it'd be a lot harder to find you in a crowd :-)

We've met some wonderful people that I'm sure will be lifelong friends. Shoot I'm out of time. Will post more later!