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Three years ago, a good friend of mine went to New Zealand for the first time to visit some distant relatives. Ellen was originally supposed to stay for two months, but she’s still not back yet! She ended up meeting a great guy there, so she stayed on in order to give their relationship a chance. Well, that turned out to be a great decision because they’re married now and have a one-year-old son — with baby number two on the way!

Of course, Ellen has been urging me for the longest time now to come and visit her in Christchurch. I’ve always wanted to travel to New Zealand, so this would be an ideal opportunity for me. There are so many things to see and do in Christchurch in the summer that I’m sure I could fill my entire vacation with completely different activities each day. For example, I’d want to go to the International Antarctic Centre, which is supposedly one of the top attractions in the area. I’ve also heard that jet boats are pretty wild, so I’d want to go for a ride on one of those too.

I’m sure Ellen would have a ton of other sightseeing recommendations, so all I’d really have to focus on is finding suitable accommodations for my family. I did some checking this morning and came across a site that specializes in helping travelers book cheap hotels in New Zealand. The site gives users two different ways to find cheap hotels. The first is by searching through “Last Minute Deals,” which is what you’d use if you need your lodgings within the next 21 days. The second is by searching through “Year Round Prices,” which can be used to make reservations anytime in the next 365 days.

I liked the rates that I saw for Christchurch, so I’ve already bookmarked CheaperThanHotels.co.nz for future reference. I know I’ll make it to New Zealand eventually, so I’m sure this site will come in handy for me at some point!

It appears that Isaiah Washington is not going to take his recent firing from the hit TV series Grey’s Anatomy lightly. The actor, who played Dr. Preston Burke on GA for the last three years until his contract was not renewed earlier this month, has come forward with his side of the story. Washington gave a phone interview to Joy Sewing of the Houston Chronicle in which he tells how the situation really played out. You can read the full interview right here.

In case you don’t want to go to the site, I’ll give you the gist of Washington’s case. Basically, he’s putting the blame for all of this on T.R. Knight (Dr. George O’Malley), saying that Knight viewed this as an opportunity to wrangle a salary increase and a bigger role for his character. Washington denies Knight’s claims that “everyone on the set heard” him use a derogatory word for homosexuals. Instead, Washington said the original incident was really just between him and Patrick Dempsey.

Personally, I don’t know what to believe here. This has turned into a gigantic mess, and I don’t think we’ll get to the bottom of it anytime soon!

Photo Credit: ABC publicity photo