In Wellington

Today is Saturday and I got to Wellington yesterday. Before I got to Wellington, I white water rafted! I hopped on the Kiwi bus and we were driven to River Valley. It is a small hostel whose sole purpose for existence is to house people who are going white water rafting. The hostel is in the middle of nowhere and the bed situation was very interesting. About thirty of us who were on the bus walked into this giant room that contained eight enormous bunk beds. Each bed fit four people. We all just started laughing and decided if this was gonna work, we were all gonna need to drink a little. So we spent the night just hanging out drinking and playing cards. It was really fun. The sleeping wasn't too bad except that some people thought that that night would be a good time to hook up. Needless to say they were pretty embarassed the next morning. We woke up around 8:00 but since it had been raining all night we didn't know if we would be able to raft. The guide came by a half an hour later and said it was a go, so I squeezed myself into a wetsuit (no pics of that ever!) and we were ready to go. We hopped onto a small bus to take us up the river. I was really nervous. The rapids were grade 4 and 5, which is the highest grade before it's classified as waterfall. And to add more adrenalin we found out that someone drowned last week. By the time I was getting into the raft I was seriously considering not doing it. But I got in...in the front.

Our guide took us through some smaller rapids so we could get the feel of it...then he flipped the raft over so that we could get a feel for falling out. The water was cold and your first instinct was to breathe in, which is bad because then you inhale water. We body surfed down the small rapid and then the guide showed us how to help each other into the raft if we actually did flip. We then started doing the rapids and it was so much fun. We kept paddling and then the guide would scream hold on and then we would put death grips on the ropes attached to the raft. We went down a four meter drop which was awesome. It was weird being in the front because I say the dips and everything and I got most of the water in my face. We almost flipped over once. We went down this one rapid and my side went up in the air. I lost the rope in my left hand, but held on for life with my right. Everyone else on my side held on also then the raft leveled itself out without any of us falling in. It was a rush.

At one point we had to get out and carry the rafts because the river was to rough due to the rain. We carried the raft over rocks, which were falling. It was insane! When we got back into the raft we went down another rapid and then the raft pulled to shore. Our guide pointed up to a ledge about 30ft up and said "You don't have to jump off of it, but it's obligatory." We climbed up the ledge and started jumping. I, as usual, did a death scream while I was falling but it was fun. White water rafting is definitely something I want to do again in the states. It's a rush.

It's labor day weekend in NZ so I'm gonnna just chill out and start looking for a job on Tuesday. Wellington is a cool city, but it is really windy. I feel like I'm back in Southwest at UMass. It looks like there are a lot of jobs here so I'm pretty confident that if I really get out there I will find something. And yes Mr A I am looking for stages to sweep, although the theater doesn't look to be that popular here, but we'll see.