USA-01 (San Francisco and Houston)

I arrived in San Francisco on the 24th of March, earlier than when I left (thanks to the International Date Line).
San Francisco is quite a big and interesting city, as you might imagine, with a lot of things to do. The hostel I stayed in also had a lot of different activities.
I did a lot of walking around, where I saw some interesting areas in the city, such as Pier 39, with lots of sea lions, Fisherman's Wharf, the crooked section of Lombard Street, the Golden Gate Bridge, many parks, etc...

Sea lions at Pier 39

Fisherman's Wharf

Golden Gate Bridge

The crooked section of Lombard Street

I also went to the California Academy of Sciences, in Golden Gate Park, a museum of natural history, with a lot of different expositions, including live animals and aquariums, a planetarium and a research area. Later I walked around in the park and saw the bisons in the bison paddock.

Dinosaur skeleton at the Academy

The aquarium

The bison paddock

Another popular place I got to visit is Alcatraz island, with its famous prison, where many problematic criminals, including Al Capone, were held.

Alcatraz Island

A cellblock

To visit some of the places outside of San Francisco, I took a tour to Yosemite National Park, and appreciated all its beautiful landscapes, including many waterfalls, and also found out some things about the native indians from the area.

Me at the national park

A waterfall

As I said before, the hostel had a lot of good activities too, the highlights being a movie night and a karaoke night.
On the 1st of April I flew to Houston, in Texas. My stay there was quite brief,  so the only special thing I did was visiting Space Center Houston. The visit included a guided tour to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, where I saw the Apollo Mission Control Center, the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility (with many vehicle models), an example of a Saturn V rocket (used by the Apollo Moon missions), among other things. Apart form this, there were also other exhibitions about space exploration, life in space, and other things.

The Space Vehicle Mockup Facility

Part of a Saturn V rocket

Space suits

On the 3rd of April I flew to Rio de Janeiro.

New Zealand-03 (Queenstown and Auckland)

Hi, welcome back. Today I will talk about the last two cities in New Zealand I visited.
I arrived in Queenstown by plane on the 16th of March. Queenstown is a small but very nice town in the South Island, surrounded by beautiful mountains and rivers. It is also considered the adventure capital of the South Island.
One of the things I did was take a tour were I visited the area around, and saw a lot of beautiful and breathtaking landscapes, including more Lord of the Rings locations.

Some scenes were filmed in this forest

I also had some fun in the city itself, such as visiting a haunted house, eating the famous local Ferg Burger, and going on a bar crawl at night, which included an ice bar.

The Ferg Burger

Ice statue at the Ice Bar

Lastly, I tried flyboarding, which I had never done before. It was really cool and exhilarating.

On the 21st, I took a plane back to Auckland, where I stayed three nights. There I visited the zoo, where I finally got to see a kiwi (and other animals, of course).

Kiwi head (unfortunately, it was too dark in the exhibit for me to take a picture of a real one)

An australian emu

On the 24th, I left New Zealand, and flew to San Francisco.

New Zealand-02 (Rotorua and Wellington)

Hi, welcome back, and sorry for the long waiting time. Today I'll continue talking about New Zealand.
On the 6th of March I arrived in Rotorua. As soon as i arrived I smelled sulphur in the air, because Rotorua is a very geologically active area, with a lot of geothermal places. I visited two of these areas, Wai-o-Tapu and the Waimangu Volcanic Valley, and saw a lot of geysers, mud pools, hot water springs, etc...

A (very hot) mud pool

A geyser in eruption

Frying Pan lake, the largest hot spring in the world

Another interesting thing I did was go to a Maori village (the Maori are the native people of New Zealand), and experience some of their culture and costumes, inluding ceremonies, weapons, games, traditional cooking...

Dinner  being picked up. It was prepared by burying it in the ground with hot stones.

Show with traditional dancing, games, instruments and weapons

I also went on tours to other places such as the Hobbiton Movie Set, in Matamata (used for the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies), and Taupo, where I did skydiving for he first time in my life, jumping from an altitude of 15000 feet (4,572 km).

Me next to a Hobbit hole

Hobbiton

Me skydiving over lake Taupo

On the 11th a took a (long) bus tour from Rotorua to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. There I did another Lord of the Rings tour, where I visited some of the film locations, the studios, and the Weta Caves, home for the Weta Studios, a special effects studio that has made effects for a lot of movies, from The Lord of The Rings to Avatar.

Statue of Gollum at the Weta Caves

Reenactment of a scene from The Fellowship of the Ring

I also hired a mountainbike and went on a tour around the tracks in the city, visiting Mount Victoria and other places.

View of the city from Mt. Victoria

Lastly, I went to the Te Papa museum, with a lot of expositions, from giant squids to traditional Maori culture.

A Maori waka (canoe)

A giant squid

On the 16th I flew to Queenstown, in the South Island.