travel plans

• so here's my plan so far: three and a half weeks in new zealand, followed by five weeks in laos. in new zealand, i'll visit auckland, the bay of islands, matamata, wellington, and . . . some places on the south island, as yet to be determined. i have plane tickets for the major moves: chicago to auckland, auckland to bangkok, bangkok to vientiane, bangkok to chicago. as of right now, i'm planning on trains and buses for most of the rest of the trip, except that i'll probably want to fly between (somewhere on the south island) and auckland so as not to burn up too much time in nz with back tracking on the way to laos.
• also, i got a new camera - the battery is charging now. once it's ready, i'll post some photos of . . . my luggage? there's not much in my apartment that i'd care to photograph and then plaster all over the internet. let's just say i didn't do all the pre-trip cleaning that i would have liked.