Greetings from Franz Josef

We arrived Franz Josef today. We traveled through the Southern Alps via train from Christchurch to Greymouth and then traveled by bus to Franz Josef. I will post a few pictures next. We all LOVE to check the blog and see if any of you have commented so please drop us a note whenever you can. We miss you all.

Here are a few random thoughts observations -

Kiwis will fly through anything. The Air New Zealand flight from L.A. was very bumpy. In fact, the worst I've ever been through - but, I figured that was because it was a long flight over the ocean. Then I found out that it was uncommonly rough and that one of the passengers had been picked up and thrown by the turbulence. Then, we traveled by plane from Napier to Christchurch. It was 10x worse than the international flight. The seat belts were extremely necessary as we would have all ended up on the ceiling if we didn't have them on. Whew!

Tearooms - tearooms are the common stopping place and gathering place in all towns. They are a cross between cafes, convenience stores, tourist shops, bus stops, and yes - they serve morning and afternoon tea.

Coke or Pepsi? - if you are a pepsi lover you won't find much of that here. We've only seen Pepsi once. It is coke, diet coke, sprite or fanta. Or, if you'd like a local favorite it would be L&P which is like a soda/lemonade or ginger beer which is like a root beer but even sweeter.

Tomato v. Ketchup - tomato sauce is what you find in NZ and it is pretty sweet. I've only seen Heinz once.

black pepper - the pepper here is finely ground - more like a powder than ground black pepper like we have in the states. I think it also has a sweetness to it but we are still debating that one.

The trip - The trip has been perfect. I couldn't have imagined it any better. There is something special about every stop. Hopefully the pictures tell a little about the beauty and special quality of all that we are seeing and doing. I really can't put into words how beautiful everything is.

The people have been very courteous and friendly. We've had some of the best bus drivers in the business. They all seem to enjoy dealing with crazy tourists like us and are full of wonderful and fascinating information that they are happy to share. "Dennis the Menace" from the Tamaki Village tour bus was one of the best. He was the one who inspired the "Imagine This" post regarding singing a song. I've had a recent thought about that one. How about Take Me Out to the Ball Game? Baseball is known as America's pastime and we all know the words....I think.

I'm really glad we decided to tour both the North Island and South Island. We arrived the South Island the day before yesterday and are now just over 1/2 way through our trip through NZ.

I will spend some time tonight posting a few pictures.
g'day!