la la land, and kiwi island

First, just wanted to say sorry it took so long to post. The long flight, and then the busy days have not given me a chance until now. But...Here it is, 5:25pm on Tuesday, and it is 3am for you guys (I think!).

Flights were all good, bit close of a connection to LA, but we made it. Had a beautiful tour of LA...the walk of fame, the hollywood sign, The Chinese Theatre, the Kodak theatre, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive (and the store that Julia Roberts was turned away from in Pretty Woman), Venice Beach and Santa Monica Pier. It was beautiful, hot weather, and it was a lot of fun. There were quite a few stops along the way, and many of the kids got to try some really great Mexican food on the Walk of Fame.

Then, onto the airport. Where we waited. And waited. And waited some more. And then the flight was delayed, and then we waited some more. There was an incident where Skye and Adrian and myself were trying to help a woman who fell and hit her head pretty hard in the bathroom. Everyone was walking by, or even worse, walking over her...it was incredible. I know they say that people in the US don't really help, but we saw it first hand. They took the lady out by ambulance, and I hope she was ok.

Finally, we boarded the plane, and it left LA at 12:14am. Small, small cramped seats, but, it didn't really matter as most of us tried to (and some succeeded) sleep. The flight was extremely long, and the food had mixed reviews, but we landed in New Zealand on time, with all of our luggage, so no real complaints.

We met Luke, our tour director this morning. He is very knowledgable, and is making things both easy and great for us. We drove into Rotorua (pronounced Rota-rooa) and visited the Maori Village which had the hot geothermal activity. It smelled really bad, but was amazing, and everyone really enjoyed it. We were able to see the gueyser go a couple of times, and I was able to put my injured knee into some theraputic, but scalding water. Afterwards, we went on the skyline gondola, where some students went luging. Payton, Kara and myself went on a skyswing which was terrifying and incredible and has to be seen to be believed.

We just checked into the hotel, and after some much needed showering, we will go and eat our traditional feast, and watch the Maori people do a dance demonstration...

Everything has been fantastic so far, and I will fill you in on more tomorrow.

~Lori