Wednesday, May 16: Christchurch - Melbourne

Woke up damn early at 4:00. Got to the airport at 5:00 and was on board at 7:00. Arrived to Melbourne at 8:30 (local time). Very surprisingly I met at the money exchange at the airport Ben, Nir and Nadav, who apparently flew in from Auckland at 6:00. Also (not surprsingly) I met up with some friends of my parents - Harry and Mariana (whom I had already visited a year and a half before) - with whom I'm gonna stay while in Melbourne. The rest of day included catching up on some TV shows (thanks need go to big brother who put those episodes up!) and then at 19:00 I hooked up downbtown with Nir and Ben to figure out what's next. I did recall from my last visit that there was this really good icecream place near a train station. Indeed, I managed to find it, and while it was very good it wasn't quite as I had remembered it. (I think that's becasue last time I came here straight from the US where the icecream is mostly crap). Still, I had my three scoops, and funny enough (for the other guys) the cone broke! But, using my juggler's instincts I managed to grab it before it fell on the ground (and after it had made a big mess out of my shirt).This brought up some funny memory when nadav dropped his three scoops on the ground a while back. PICTURES ALERT: I have posted some photos (mostly of myself...) at http://www.ist.caltech.edu/~idaniel/Data/NZ%20Pics/ in a file called "May 3-11.ZIP". It includes some photos from Nelson Lakes hike and from my solo hike at Nina Valley and a couple of others.