October 11

This weekend I went down to Floriade on Sunday. Floriade is pretty much just a one-month (mid-September to mid-October) flower festival held in Commonwealth Park in the city centre region of Canberra, next to Lake Burley Griffin. I entered the gates (they have that part of the park fenced in), and it pretty much had a fair atmosphere, with flower beds galore everywhere, with tons of tulips, pansies, irises, etc., and them some booths and shows and a few vendors and stuff. The flowers were pretty neat and you can tell a lot of work went into designing the flowerbeds. Most of the flowerbeds were themed according to different countries' colors, flags, etc. I guess that makes a lot of sense, considering Canberra is Australia's capital city. I spent maybe an hour in the park, walking around and taking a few pictures. I was disappointed to notice that many of the tulips had already faded and the dead flowers had been picked, and all the daffodils were done already too. However, there was a nice variety of irises, tulips, and pansies that were still thriving, and the flower beds were definitely beautiful.

Monday I found out my grade from my second Intro to Exercise exam. It turns out this time the class did much better (averaging 61%!), and my grade was better also. I ended up getting a 43/50 (86%), which is really good for anything here in Australia. I was defnitely happy.

I haven't solidified any more plans for New Zealand yet, but I have been looking around at my options online and in my New Zealand travel guide. I think at this rate I'm going to end up renting a car in New Zealand and exploring just the South Island for 8 days. Paying for a rental car and gas would be cheaper than any of the tour packages, and it would be the most fun. It would give me the opportunity to go running in national parks, and hiking and looking at birds and stuff too. check back for more later when I figure out exactly what I'm doing.