Dunedin

After Christchurch we headed to Dunedin. It was really nice because all of the sudden there were people around and it wasn't so depressing. The night we got in was the night of the Ireland and Italy game! We didn't have a place to stay that night so we just showed up and went to the hostel we were staying at the next night and asked to leave our bags there. We figured we could just sleep in a park...ha. So when we got there the guy said he had two cancellations and we could stay there...for $50 each. We decided to do it because we had nowhere else. It turned out that the guy had rented out the bar that had just closed below him and so he had mattresses set up everywhere. Steve slept in the dungeon, the basement of the bar, and I actaully slept in the hostel in an all girls room. We met a girl there from Florida an d she works for the TV show Survivior! She tests all the challenges, how cool is that?!?! Anyway, she's really cool and we spent most of the night out with her. She didn't have a ticket to the game so we met these Irish guys and they found her a ticket, not crazy expensive either. Steve and I bought tickets and so we went to pick them up and then just hung out until the game. The town was FILLED with IRish people. I would say we maybe saw 30 Italians? It was really cool and the whole city just had such a fun vibe. Even the police were cool. No one, that I saw, got arrested. And they were just hanging out as well. At the game the security guards were taking people's pictures and it was jsut really cool.

Now the game...so much fun! The stadium was built just for this so it is new and has a roof, which kept it a little warmer. Our seats, AMAZING! We were 4th row behind one of the tryzones. It was so cool because it was the tryzone where Ireland scored all their points the second half. Ireland ended up winning and the whole city was just a huge party afterwards. We went to a bar with a a live band and there was an old guy there who knew ALL THE WORDS to almost every song. Very impressive. The whole crowd was great and fun to be around.

The rest of our time in Dunedin was great as well. They have a huge railway station which is pretty, there is a lake that is pretty, and we went on the Speight's brewery tour. IT was so fun. It was full of history and the beer is great. There is a natural spring that runs underneath the brewery which is where they get all the water. There is a spiget outside as well where you can fill up your own water. We also went to the steepest street in the world, Baldwin Street. It was really cool. Then we TRIED to bike to a beach called sandfly bay. It was about 8 miles away but we didn't realize you pretty much had to go up a mountain to get there. We got halfway and didn't think we'd get back before midnight if we went the whole way. But we got to the top and the views were gorgeous.

Dunedin was great and it was nice to spend a decent amount of time there. Now we're in Queenstown...the adventure town. I'll post more soon!