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I seem to be out of creative titles for the moment. I blame it on posting from a McDonalds, which oddly enough had the easiest Internet access for us in this area that was opened late. Which, incidentally, is Nelson, south island New Zealand. There's a mass of teenage girls stomping around screaming about...no idea.

Anyway, this McD's is surpringly progessive, other then the lack of wireless internet, they do have 3 terminals with restricted access. Not so restricted I wasn't able to run the terminal services client from a flash drive though, which was helpful. The inside is very clean and neat, and the design is less kiddie-fluff and more effort to be a real restaurant I think. Also, there's the McCafe, which I just can't get over, a coffee shop inside the McDonalds. Pretty good smoothie, although a lot of seeds, but I think that might be a NZ thing?

So my take on the Abel Tasman national park:
Very cool. It has first and formost really hammered home the goodness in relying on the locals, particularly the people running the lodgings we are staying at, for reccommendations. We took that trip because the owner of the last place we stayed at had gone recently and highly recommended it. We decided to give it a try and it was totally worth the drive. we're trying to upload at least some pictures now, although not of that trip, as they are still on the cameras. We napped after getting back, it was a pretty tiring day.

Anyway, lots of cool thigns were seen, the boat was a great deal of fun, and Sean, our driver was very nice and friendly, as is the kiwi way. i'd put more here but without my pictures in front of me I won't be able to get enough detail, I think I'll make a special entry for it or something. I've decided the blog is good for the immdiate day to day, but I'll probably compose a website of the trip when I get home. something along the lines of the geek version of a scrap book. Then I'll more room for pictures and such there.

let's see...we bounced around nelson some more, ate dinner at a pub. Jester took pictures of my meal as usual. I think that he should let me start ordering for him, as he seems unsatisfied with his meals of late and jealous of mine. nice weather today, with standard impressive scenery everywhere. I think that it must be a jarring experience as to how boring the country side can be in the US to a Kiwi, if they visit the wrong areas. Although our cities are certainly more overwhelming experiences then theirs.

Oh, one interesting thing I've noticed about Nelson/Picton at least, and I wonder if it applies to the whole south island, the vehicles. There are actually quite a few motorcycles, surprisngly of all makes, included H-D's and a larger variety of cars. Including some US models, I saw a 68ish Musting and an 80 or 81 Trans Am, and a stingray corvette today, all in show room shape. All with US steering, so sitting on the left side...must be interesting to drive here. Also, there are SUV's here, full sized ones. No escalades, but 4 door ones, a few US, mostly japanese ones. But I can't think of any in the north, and I did look for them. There was even a full sized Dodge RAM truck, again I was surprised because I think cars built for US roads are probably a bit squeezed on the narrow NZ ones.

Driving, I'm pretty comfortable with now, i've noticed most kiwi's dont' seem to have any issue with turning utilizing the minimal shoulder as much as possible. It's how they are keeping speed while going around the tight turns without risking drift into on coming traffic.

On a more personal note, while I'm not exactly missing TV, I am missing some of my shows. I'm so offset and I don't know how TV works here(they don't have our traditional CBS/NBC/ABC/FOX setup) so I can't figure how to watch my shows. They are primarily this Sky-One(a british based network) thing as far as I can tell. sky does have some kind of broadcast partnership with at least some networks, but I don't know how that works. So that means that i have like 10-15 hours of TV shows I do want to watch, to catch up on when I get home. It sucks my DVR is not working because Dish gave me the shaft(that's a different, long story) but fortunate I have the Internet. :)

Sorry this entry kinda sucked.