Photography

I've not long woken up - had a bit of a lie in which was good and a change from my usual 6.30am start. I've got the house to myself for the weekend as Amie, Hannah's friend, left for Wellington last night, and Hannah and Leon have been up north on a wee holiday. I'm glad to say I took charge of the heater that was in Amie's room and put it in mine ( thanks Amie :P )

It's pretty rainy today so I'm not sure of what to do. I've got a whole day and night to kill, so I'll either head into Auckland city centre, or go into Henderson town centre (which is a 5 min bus ride). It's one of those Greenock days were the rain just drips and drips and doesn't stop; I don't know if I want to be walking in the city in that. There's a wee Christian book shop I've spotted in Henderson that I'd like to take a gander in, so maybe I'll head there.

I've also downloaded the Pope's new encyclical onto my laptop, so I'll need to start reading that, sounds quite interesting.

The past few days I've just been in the office doing this and that. Nothing too exciting or strenuous, but more relaxed as it's still school holz, and will be for another week. I suppose I should make the most of it before the hard work starts. Yesterday, Cameron came picked me up from work and we headed first to 'Woolworths' (the shopping market), and then to his friend's house. He had arranged a wee get-together with his friends so I could meet some more good folk. And good folk they were, I felt right at home. One of the girls, Rebecca, is doing a degree in Theology and is a teacher, one of the guys has travelled through Europe, staying with various retreat centre's and Catholic communities. We just sat about loads of Catholic/theology/faith stuff, and I was a happy girl. The gang at the Logos centre are still quite young and predominantly into youth work (obv), but no one is really into Theology, so it's been a little difficult trying to 'be myself' as it were. They're more 'liberal' whereas I'm more 'traditional/orthodox', so you can imagine my glee last night, when I found like-minded folk

On Sunday I'm going to see a Theologian and Philosopher by the name of Fr Dominic Faure, from the Community of St. John, who was handpicked by Mother Teresa herself, to do the spiritual formation of all the sisters and nuns of her order. He travels all over, and he's in Auckland this week doing lots of talks. Cameron's arranged for a couple of his friends to pick me up tomorrow (Sunday) and take me with them, which is a really nice thing to do cause I don't even know these folk. And then, I've been invited on Monday night to have dinner (at the same place I had dinner last night) and talks with Fr. Dominic. It's going to be good!

I spent some time looking at flight prices for Queenstown, and my boss thinks I should take some extra time to see the place down south, so I'll be going for 9 or 10 days which should be awesome. And Alex, my mate who's living and working at the ski resort said I can hopefully get a free pass! Yaassss! So flights are around £150 which is still a bit pricey for my budget, so I'll keep looking. I can't wait to see the rest of the country, I miss the experience of last year, of jumping in a van and exploring and sight-seeing, so hopefully next month I'll get to do that a wee bit!

Anyways, this is a long enough update. If anyone's on Skype, add me: cheryl.johnston. (remember the dots).

I think I may head to the city and brave the wet weather. I am a tourist after-all!

Here's a few pictures from the last few days:

Some of the youth using my laptop to watch youtube (there comps are blocked)

Henderson train station (I leave for work at this one)

A nice wrap the Vinnies lady bought me cause I was doing contracts for her.

One of my colleague's neice's, Loretta

Cameron and Pink Pather (you wouldn't think this guy will be an ordained priest next year!)

Lupe, Jo and Maddie posing. They've been renivating the old chapel.

That's me at my desk!

And that's yer lot!
Speak soon, Gb love ya's xx

Photo update ahoy!

Today I went to the mall, checkout out the Vodafone shop, but no luck with using my iphone with their sim. Rubbish. It's been on and off raining today, and it sounds awesome cause we have metal roofs.

Hannah (my host) has went to a wedding with her husband, so her friend Amie who's been staying over, and I, have been watching some films - Slumdog Millionaire and The Spirit, been good.

The one problem I'm having over here is that I'm falling asleep at like 6/7pm. Because it's winter, and the sun's going down sooner, my body clock is telling me it's bed time. It's not good. I'm fighting the tiredness but I just want sleep.

Anyway, here's my day, well not my day, more just the highlights!

Last year in New Zealand, we all went to this shop and loved it, its the equiv of a big cheap ASDA

New Zealand Beer!

There's so much Dairy Milk choice, and I love Pannacotta (Italian desert), and Jack D with coke (this bottle is the equiv of two drinks, works out at 1.50 UK!

The pound is 2.5 stronger than the NZ dollar, awesome!

Church tomorrow and another chilled out day, oh and I got socks! Woo! Oh, and Sensodyne and a new Colgate electric toothbrush on the cheapy cheap!

Gb x

I decided to upload all my photos so far to my online photo album. It may take some time to load as there's quite a few, so be patient!

Paste this into your browser and look for the Africa page!

http://public.fotki.com/vexred9irl/holidays/

xx

Hey everyone, hope you're well!
Last night I arrived in Sydney airport around 10pm, and stayed up pretty much all night to meet my diocese of Paisley. Their flight was heavily delayed so I didn't meet them til 10am'ish. I was so happy and glad to see everyone and all the priests. Lots of hugs and chats about where I'd been. There's a few priests here - Fr. Andrew Coleman, Fr. John Morrison, Fr. Frank Hannigan, Fr. Gerry Gallagher, Fr. Stephen Baillie, and Fr. Euan. So we got on the coach and 2 hours later arrived in the diocese of Wollongong. It was a quick procedure, but basically just met the parish priest at St. Francis Assisi and then headed off in our inidividual groups with our family house sharer pilgrim. Basically for the next few days we're staying at various parishiners homes. I'm with Jenni, Clare and Denise, and the house we're staying in is HUGE!!! This family are proper rich, with their own pool table and gym. I think we got the best deal! Plus, there's WiFi!!!

This evening we're going to the family's parents house for dinner (they're italian too, so it should be great food!) Unfortunately I'm only staying for 2 days in the diocese whilst everyone else stays for 4 days. I have to make my way to Sydney University on Saturday to meet up with the International Liturgy Group.

I'm a little sad I won't be staying with my diocese, friends and priests, but I'm hoping to meet up with them during my free time. That's basically a case of organising times and meeting places and chatting to my youth officer, Christine to try and arrange something.

I'm missing my friends though (the ones I've been travelling with for 4 weeks). I won't see them until the flight back home in 2 weeks, but I'm sure we're all going to have a fantastic time. I'm so so excited, and I'm so so blessed to have this opportunity!

And my folks gave me some pennies for passing my degree - woo hoo!

Here's some more photies from the past weeks:

Speak soon, God Bless x

G'day! I'm now in the very very nice city of Melbourne!
To finish off where I left off - Christchurch is a rubbish town! Full of rubbish tourist shops and Japanese/Koreans. Not much to the city despite my previous entry of there being lots of restaurants. Plus the weather was terrible when we were there - we were glad to get on the flight!

We arrived in Melbourne, and Elisa's family came to pick us up. They hired a mini-bus so we got to their house in Cranbourne and were fed some proper food (Dutch soup and garlic bread-twas lovely!) (Elisa's from Holland). So we've been staying in a proper house the past few nights and had proper food and proper showers and it's been great. The houses here are so huge, and the area is really nice too. On our first full day here we headed into the mall and I bought some nice wee shoes to wear with my kilt for WYD, also bought some nice tops. The next day Elisa's cousin took us to a wildlife farm. We saw snakes and lizards, koalas, dingoes, emus, turtles, parrots and fed kangaroos from my hands!! They're so cute! Afterwards we went to watch the 'Penguin Parade' - everyone sits at the beach and waits for the sky to get dark enough to watch the penguins come out of the sea and go back to their home in the bush. It was a nice thing to see and they're so small and cute too!

We then headed to Shane's house (E's cousins) to book our flight from Melbourne to Gold Coast where we're going on Friday for a few days. The gang's going surfing there, and supposedly there's so much to see and do there. I also booked my flight from Gold Coast to Sydney as I have to leave earlier than the group to meet up with my diocese (5.30am 10th July Sydney Airport)

Unfortunately this computer doesn't have a card reader, but here's some photos from snowboarding! I miss boarding soooo much! I posted my shorts and goggles home the other day to save some room, so mum you'll be getting a package in next week some time. I'm also going to post my boarding trousers today..

Photies:

Speak soooooon, Love and kisses, God Bless x

Hey everyone, hope you're all well? The last few days have been awesome with many activites and alot of road tripping south! We left Rotorua and travelled to Taupo where me and the boys did quad biking in the mountains - it was absolutely amazing! The girls did skydiving - and there was no way I was going to try that! Afterwords we drove to River Valley next to Taihipe. We arrived at night so didn't get to see the scenery, but the next morning we were amazed. We were in a huge valley which had a river flow through it (hence the name) and it was here we did Category 5 White Water Rafting (cat. 6 is the highest) So.. as some of you are aware, I have two fears: deep water and leeches - this place had both in the same place. Hand on heart though, I absolutely loved it, despite it being 5/6 degrees celcius and sooooooo cold! Part of the rapids had a 2 and a half metre drop! I'm very glad I did it in the end!

Next day we drove to Wellington and got the ferry to Picton. I met a mad swearing scots-man on the ferry - he was Scotland personified, and the boys had no idea what he was talking about, quite funny. So 3 and half hours later we arrived on the south island in a little eery town called Picton. There's been a lot of mist around so it looked like the 'Silent Hill' movie at night! Slept the night in a car park and woke up to a gorgeous harbour with mountains and blue skys - lovely!! So that was today (it's quite difficult remembering everything we've done!) So.. we left Picton today and drove through the mountains to Westport and as it's my birthday (now) we're staying in a little lodge by the beach. We managed to do a washing, and the boys cooked a beef stir-fry with noodles. I went out to get my washing, came back in, and they had the candles lit and lots of balloons everywhere! This site has WiFi access too, so everyones been on my laptop uploading their photos to Facebook etc. Hence, this post has a few photos!! (You lucky folk!!)

Tomorrow, as it's my birthday, we might go quad biking again, but we might go on a caving expedition somewhere. There's so much to do in the South Island so we have a lot more time to do things and spend in places, so hopefully we won't be rushing away from places too much!

I can't believe we've been here nearly a week, time is flying by so quickly!
There's a little bit of talk about going to Bangkok for a few days after Sydney as supposedly it's dirt cheap and our flight goes via Thailand anyway, but that's just a suggestion and depends entirely on everyones money situation!!

So.... I think that's a long enough update!! Hope you're all well..

Here's some photies...

God Bless x