Sarah W

Hey, this is Sarah. I'm a junior Bio major hanging out in VA til we leave. I'm really excited for the trip (as we all should be). Along with Chris, I'm not too thrilled for the plane ride, but hopefully the movies will be good. I'm working on a minor in Japanese, so one thing I'm looking forward to practicing my skills on some unsuspecting tourists. I think NZ is a big vacation spot for the Japanese. I'm also excited for the 4 day weekend. I'm not quite sure what I want to do yet, but I've been looking at maybe going zorbing (sp?), hiking, and shopping for all the people I promised souvenirs to. I'm pretty much up for anything that will let me see as much as possible, so if someone comes up with something fun, I may have to mooch off of the idea. My friend who went to NZ last year also told me about the LOTR tours they have. I'll admit that I'm a huge fan of the movies, so I may have to look into the Trilogy Tours as they call it.

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/sights-activities/activities/attractions/operator-details.cfm/businessactivityid/179080/activityitemid/168/startrow/7/endrow/0/activitycategoryid/3/seed/0.html

I saw an interesting fact on the travel channel the other day that will hopefully get me some geology brownie points from art. There's a lot of activity underneath Wellington that make it a prime earthquake zone. Since it's the capital city and the home of Parliament, they've taken steps to minimize the damage potential for some of the buildings. They aren't sitting on the ground, rather, they are sitting on top of blocks of rubber that will absorb the shock from the ground should an earthquake occur....crazy