I AM IN NEW ZEALAND. MY LUGGAGE IS IN....

HAWAII. Yes. You read that right. No, I am not kidding. I finally got into Auckland after 25 hours of flying and sitting at airports and I wait by the carousel. All 300 plus people on the flight have now left the carousel and neither one of my bags shows up. You have to be kidding. I go to baggage services and they check on my bags to find out my bags have gone to Honolulu. The first flight I was on was Atlanta- Los Angeles and than it went on to Honolulu. Seems like they didn't take my bags off. So. I am now in Christchurch with toiletries, the clothes I wore, guide books, iPod, digital camera and the brand spanking new NZ$100 worth of clothes that they gave me to buy. And a dream. Supposedly, my bags are going to catch up with me in Franz Josef tomorrow. Franz Josef is pretty out of the way, so I am not sure. They better get there as I am scheduled to hike a glacier on Thursday. We shall see.

Anyways, when I finally arrived in Christchurch, I met my Uncle Jerry about 30 minutes later as he departed the plane. We had a very nice time going to lunch and than heading off to the New Zealand wildlife park. We saw lots of interesting animals including Emus, Llamas, Rams, and many different kinds of birds, including the nocturnal and national bird Kiwi. It was a very interesting time as he is a link to the family who has been in New Zealand for many years now. He shared a lot of interesting stories and insight about the family. He headed back to the airport at about 7:30 and I headed back to the hostel for a glorious shower. It is 9:10PM here and I am going to head off to bed soon. Take care and hope all is well with you guys.