Welcome to the "Real World" Love

Well the last few days were a doozy!  Ashley graduated on Wednesday which meant an early morning for us!  Christchurch (where she went to school) is a good hour or so drive, and we had to be seated by 9:20am.  So I was up early (with a bit of a stuffy nose) at about 6:30am so I could do a quick work meeting before we left but it turned out the whole nation had an internet outage! Crazy crazy little country. Anywho...off we went to see Ashley graduate and start off in the real world...

After the ceremony Ashley, her friend Kara, Andrew and I all went to snap some pictures of Ashley in front of her school signs.  Then we went out to lunch at an Irish Pub and had the special...lunch on a stonegrill.  It's basically this slab of rock that's super hot and they bring your food out raw on it and it cooks right in front of you to the temperature of your liking.  Pretty cool.  And the deal wasn't bad for NZ food haha...about $20 per person and $5 for a pint ;) Ashley, Kara and Andrew all had the surf and turf and I was boring and got chicken.  I don't know why, I was just craving it (haha).  After stuffing our faces Andrew and I napped at Kara's place while Ashley and her went to the mall.  I couldn't go, or I'd buy and I didn't come here to spend money on clothes!

After a good nap, we got ready to have a night for Ashley.  Booze here is ridiculously expensive. When first arrived last Sunday and we walked in to the airport in Auckland, we noticed that Kahlua was 2 for $60! For the same amount we buy 1 for $15 in the US...insane. We've decided wine is the way to go here.  We all ended up spending some time at one of Ashley's friends houses and then walking to a local pub for a few drinks.  After a fun night of dancing and some karaoke we went back to Kara's to sleep.

In the morning, Andrew and I were up before everyone...again. So we decided to walk over to McDonalds...which is WAY better here.  They have a separate cafe inside with pastries!! I had to take a picture haha.

After McDonalds we decided to take a walk around the mall.  Everything was REALLY close by so we had plenty to see.  We left the mall, trying our hardest not to go in stores and spend money, and decided to walk to the corner dairy to get some ice cream :) We had two flavors...Goldrush and Hokie Pokie.  Both pretty good but Goldrush was my favorite of the two.

After ice cream we left and went back to the mall because everyone was still asleep at the house. We went in to a few stores, spent most of our time in the book store...and then ate some sushi. It was so tempting because there were little stands for it everywhere!  The odd thing (because there seems to be one around every corner here haha)? They have a lot of chicken sushi! Very strange.  No shrimp or crab...which are my favorites...so I just had salmon.  Wasn't the best. But oh well.

By this time I started to feel quite ill...not from the sushi, but from my little stuffy nose...which had now turned in to a full out cold :( So we went back to the house to wake the girls and get on our way home.  Once home I slept the rest of the day to try and get rid of this cold...no such luck.  Today, I slept in and relaxed...drank lots of fluids...and hoped to get better..I think my head cold will be gone by Sunday...I hope...