Tail end of journey

Hi everyone! We are back in Melbourne before we fly out this afternoon. Wish us luck as we try to pack everything before we leave.

We had a wonderful rest of the time in New Zealand. Friday morning, we drove from the Fox Glacier to the Franz Josef Glacier and up to Greymouth, where we caught the Tranz Alpine Train from Greymouth back to Christchurch. It was a picturesque ride through the Southern Alps, Arthur's Pass, and back to the Christchurch on the East Coast. Our tour group who we had gotten to know over the past 5 days was so nice and we all sat together on the train. There were Marie and Carmel from Sydney, Fred and Veronica from Hong Kong, and Harel and her parents from India. The train rolled through the mountains and it was nice to sit on a train for a change instead of riding in coach buses. Fred had us laughing with stories about things from Hong Kong. He knew all of the old folk songs, like "Ole Susannah" and "You are my sunshine" because of the American GI's who had been in Hong Kong years ago! :)

While on the train, we also met a nice couple, Barbara and Bob from California. They had not spent much time in Christchurch and asked for a recommendation on a restaurant. We told them about a yummy gourmet pizza place that we had happened upon and gave them the name and address in case they were interested.

Once we returned to Christchurch and had gotten settled in a bit, we also decided to go to the same restaurant. It has about the most delicious pizza you would ever taste. I think there were over 40 different types on the menu! When we were being seated, Barbara and Bob walked in and we were able to share dinner together. I got the Spanish style, with salami, capsicum (bell peppers), and herbs! As we were leaving the restaurant and parting ways, they paid for our dinner! We insisted that they not people, but they would not hear anything else. It was very nice of them!

We left VERY early (6am) from Christchurch and found out that our connecting flight from Sydney to Melbourne had been cancelled for some reason. Thank goodness our flight was 30 minutes early and Paula and I used our Southern charm to get the last two seats on an earlier flight so we could make it make to Melbourne earlier. We were in kind of a rush because the pharmacy in Clayton closed at 2pm and we had to make it down there to pick up our extra bag that we had been storing before the pharmacy closed.

When we arrived to Clayton, we had a lunch with the French girls and had many good-byes from the pharmacy staff. We also went over to the residence hall and said bye to one of our friends there.

As Paula and I had left so early, we did not shower Saturday morning, so once we made it back to our hotel near the airport, we got ready for dinner. We went out to a FABULOUS Indian restaurant last night with Aude and Christelle (the French girls), Sophie (one of their friends), and Brodie and Amy, who are a pharmacist and a pharmacy student from Monash. We ordered the banquet style and got tons and tons of Indian dishes to share. Paula and I were starving as we didn't eat until about 9:30pm, but it was delicious! Amy dropped us back by the train station and we headed back up to our hotel last night around 12pm.

Thank goodness our hotel has wireless access and free pick-up from the airport! All said, we went to the Melbourne airport three times yesterday! :)

We fly out this afternoon for Honolulu and arrive there the same day at 9:30am, due to the time change. We are really looking forward to our Qantas flight to catch up on movies and sleep!

I hope everyone is well and I will post again soon!