What I did on my birthday

On my birthday I woke up at 5am and by 7am I was walking up a mountain. Seriously. I was doing the Tongariro Crossing. It's considered on of the best day walks in New Zealand. The walk takes you through a valley between mountains and then up the side and into a crater. On top of the crater it is possible to see mount doom, real name mount nagarua(maybe), and also it's supposed to give some great views of the whole park and area. And when NZer's say day walk they mean day walk. The walk took me 7 hours and at points I was on all fours climbing up rocks.

The first part of the walk takes about an hour and is a slight incline. This slight incline leads to the devil's staircase. Let me tell you it's not called the devil's staircase for nothing. It's just a piles of stacked rocks going up the side of mountain. It's windy and very steep at points. I took my time and many breaks and after an hour I was finally off the staircase. I must admit that most of the time that I was on the staircase I was thinking to myself that I sure know how to pick a crappy brithday present for myself.

After the staircase I found myself inside of crater. It was completely flat which was a nice change. It took about a half hour to walk across the crater and I was able to catch my breath and talk to the two girls that I had walkedup the staircase with. By the time we made it across the crater a cloud had settled in on top of the next incline. The next incline was the ridge of the red crater. It was basically up hill for a half hour but the really difficult part was that now that the cloud was sitting on the hill the wind was really strong and it was really cold. The ground was frozen and the two girls I was with decided to turn around. So I walked up the ridge by myself. I was kind of nervous because I couldn't see very far in front of me and the wind does push you around. It's not like the ridge is very wide either. If two people walked side by side up it, one would eventually fall. But I made sure that I could see people in front of me and behind me so that if anything happened someone would see. I also had my cell phone and an emergency number....just in case.

After about a half hour I made it up the ridge and to the top of the red crater. This is where I was supposed to be able to see all of these great views. Unfortunately the cloud was still sitting there so all I could see was cloud and I was cold so I kept walking.

Walking down the other side of the crater was fun. It's all gravelly so the fastest and funnest way to get down is to just dig your heels in let yourself slide down. As I was doing this I could see the cloud moving so every now and then I could get a good view. Luckily I was able to take some pictures but I couldn't see Mount Doom.

Once I got down the crater I was in the spot called Emerald lakes. The entire Tongariro Park is a volcanic area and the lakes inside of the park are all emerald colored or deep blue because of the sulfur and acid that rises up from the ground. I had lunch at emerald lakes but then decided I was cold so I kept walking.

The rest of the walk was downhill. There were points where you could take a break and enjoy the view but I was freezing so I kept walking. The last hour of the walk was inside of a beach forest. There were waterfalls and other good things but it was the last hour of a 7 hour walk so I was more interested in finishing than enjoying the scenery.

Surprisingly my legs don't hurt too much. I am ridiculously tired still but other than that I am fine. This walk has taught me many things for me: I don't like 7 hour hikes (they are way too long) and hiking on your birthday no matter what your age will make you feel old by the end of it(my knees were killing me). I am very proud of myself for doing the Crossing. It was the last thing that I wanted to do in New Zealand and to be honest I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. We all know that me and exercise aren't friends but I enjoyed the challenge of the Crossing. Bearing that in mind I will never do anything again that uses the words devil and staircase in the same sentence to describe it.

After the hike I met up with a girl that I had met on my bus. We went out for a drink, which turned into a couple since it was my birthday. It was a good time. We met up with another girl and we just sat around talking. I laughed a lot and then we went to the dance club I busted out all of my corny moves (the lawnmower, the sprinkler) and had a good time. All in all it was def a memorable birthday and I guess if I couldn't spend it with my friends and family then I might as well have climbed a mountain to pass the time.

I leave Taupo in a couple of days to venture onto the east cape of NZ. I will be passing through Napier again and seeing some great beaches. There are no more adventures for this trip, just relaxing and seeing the sites. Here are the pics from the crossing. Enjoy!

A view of one of the mountains when I started the walk

Just a small part of the devil's staircase. It's blurry but you can make out the zig zag that is the path.

This is supposed to be the picturesque spot with the views but instead there was cloud, but this was the highest point and I just climbed up to it on my 23rd birthday so I wanted a picture. The people around sang happy birthday to me and I even got a cookie. Good times with strangers.

Emerald Lakes through the cloud

One of the pics I took as I was sliding down the crater and as the cloud opened for a bit.

Emerald lakes as the clouds opened a bit

I don't know if I will ever be eye level with clouds again. Depsite the lack of a view the fact that I was walking through clouds is pretty amazing to me.

Unfortunately the wind caused my camera to think that it's brand new batteries were dead so that's it for the crossing pics. It was a good day. Oh and one more thing:

I LOVE PIMENTO LOAF!

Goodbye South Island

After I left Christchurch I headed to Kaikoura. I was only in Kaikoura for a day but it is a beautiful little spot. I was able to go whale watching in Kaikoura which was an experience. The said that there was a strong motion sickness warning so I took one of my magic pills and figured that would be the end of it. Oh no. While the boat is moving you have to seat inside and all of the doors are closed, which means no air movement. Heading out to where the whales were meant that we had to break over some waves. So for twenty minutes it felt like you were on a roller coaster. We spotted the first whale. It was a sperm whale and it was a pretty amazing site. We were no more than 50 meters from this massive whale. When it surfaces it only shows about 1/3 of its body but the money shot is when it gets ready to dive again. That's when their tale flips out into the air. I was standing there feeling the motion of the ocean and not feeling good about it when the whale went for its dive. I was speechless. I got a huge smile on my face and decided that this trip was worth it. Then we all had to get back into our seats so we could go see if we could find another whale. Another 20 minutes of the ocean and I wasn't feeling great and people around me were getting sick and I was thinking again that it wasn't worth it. Then we got out and saw another whale that yet again made it all worth it.

At this point we had been on the water for about an hour and a half. They had said that usually they see about two whales per trip. So I was thinking that we were going to head back to land. Instead they said that there was a dusky dolphin sighting around here and that we were going to check it out. For another half hour we traveled around and I sat there having a serious debate with myself. I was feeling ill but I had taken the medicine so the illness I was feeling was probably not physical but mental. So I just sat there and put my head down and took a nap for a bit. When I woke up I felt much better and the boat was surrounded by 100 or so dusky dolphins. I went out onto the deck and the crew members played "What a Wonderful World" over the loudspeaker as we all took in the magic of seeing 100plus dolphins swimming around and jumping in their natural habitat. It was a really great experience that brought a huge smile to my face. All in all despite the motion sickness it was worth it. It was a nice way to end my trip to the South Island.

Yesterday I took the ferry and today I am back in Wellington. I am staying at Ed's house and took today to meet up with the cleaner's from Base and hang out at Eat. While I was at Base I ran into some of the people I had cleaned with and we caught up on each other's travels. It was really good. Unfortunately my stay in Wellington is really short. I leave tomorrow for Taupo. I have already been to Taupo but the reason for going this time is that there is a day walk there that is considered one of the Great Walks of NZ. It is called the Tongariro Crossing. It takes between 6-8 hours and the terrain can be quite steep at times but the benefit is that the environments you cross over are amazing. You go from flatland to walking inside a giant crater to getting a view of some lakes and seeing the Mountain that was Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. A lot of travelers have done this walk and have raved about it so I am excited to finally do it. I will be doing it with another girl a met so it's a bonus that I won't be doing it alone.

So the next blog will be after the Crossing. The Crossing is the last big thing that I have planned for NZ. After that I am just cruising with the bus. Here are some pics to keep you going.

A place we stopped at between Christchurch and Kaikoura.


The wizard!

A whale surfacing


The money shot

One of the many Dusky Dolphins jumping (I feel he was just jumping for me)

The Kaikoura mountain range

All of these pictures make me feel like a very luck girl for having the chance to travel to New Zealand and take them. It's starting to hit that I will be leaving this beautiful country in less than a month. I am excited to see everyone but I am starting to get a little sad that this experience is winding down. But I will not think about it all yet. That's what Fiji is for. For now I will enjoy the rest of my time here and soak up as much of this beautiful scenery as I can. Peace out.

Christchurch

I made it to Christchurch and I think it is my favorite city in NZ. It's the most populated city in the South Island and it is full of characters. The main gathering place in the city is Cathedral Square. There is (of course) a cathedral but there are also vendors and street acts all around. It was a fairly nice day out yesterday so I hung out in the square...and I met the Wizard. The Wizard is mentioned in my lonely planet tour book and he is def a celebrity here. Everyday at around 1pm he blows a horn and stands up on a green ladder in the square and starts a speech. He wears a black robe and a black wizard hat. The speech I heard yesterday from him was quite entertaining.

According to him, religion is just a form of baby farming. Also women are the cause of all of the worlds problems. As he puts it women are a pain in the ass but we can't help it because it's just in our nature. Also before priests were in control men were hunters and gatherers. After the priests were in control men had to become farmers and interested in agriculture. And the women domesticated these men, hence animal husbandry. Also motherhood is the cause of all war since if every mother has more than two babies they need more space and the only way to get that space is to go to war with their neighbors for their land.

Also the Greeks invented "motherbloody nature!" which according to the wizard is a worse thing than gods. So essentially, gods were invented by priests, nature was invented by greek businessmen, therefore everything is bull designed by rulers.

According to the wizard he is the official wizard of NZ. Apparently he has a piece of paper from the Prime Minister saying it. And if you have a piece of paper saying something it must be true. The wizard then went on to explain how he was going to turn the Earth upside down. Essentially he wants to turn all of the maps south side at the top. It was pretty interesting.

The wizard is about 70years old and he is quite an interesting guy. Whats great is he takes himself completely seriously so when he talks he conveys his ideas with great conviction. It really does captivate you.

Tomorrow I am going to a rugby game. For 20 bucks I get two free beers at a bar, a ticket to the game and a return bus. Not a bad deal. The next day I am leaving Christchurch for Kaikoura which is my last stop in the South Island. It's sad to think that this trip is almost over but I will be glad to get out of the South Island. It's getting cold here. The north should still be warm though since it is farther away from antartica. After Kaikoura it's back up to Wellington for a couple of days and then I start to slowly make my way back up to Auckland to fly out.

But for the rest of this afternoon I am going back to Cathedral Square and I am going to listen to the wizard again. Peace out

No Penguins

Before I explain why I didn't see any penguins check out my favorite picture from the bungy:

That's the view from the cable car about five minutes before I jumped.

Ok back to the penguins. After Dunedin I got back on the bus and headed to Curio Bay. On the way to Curio Bay we stopped at a beach and walked around. We turned this corner and all of a sudden there were sea lions no less than 20ft from us just chillin on the beach. Our driver told us that there was no worries as long as we didn't get between the lions and the water. Also if they started moving around or roaring at us we should really move away since they can run faster than us any day of the week. Here's one pic from that excursion (no zoom was used either, this was how close I was to them):
I was really amazed at how calm everything was. I would never had imagined that I would be able to get this close to wildlife outside of a zoo. And that's part of the beauty of New Zealand. They respect their animals and they want to protect them and they understand how to cohabitate with them without either side being caged in.

After we got back on the bus we drove for a little bit until there was a traffic jam,

hahah it was bound to happen in NZ. We had to share the road with the sheep and slowly make our way through them. It definetly put a smile on my face.

After the sheep fiasco we made it to Curio Bay. Curio Bay is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It's on the bottom of the South Island which means that it's close to Antartica. That means that despite the fact that Curio Bay is a beach it is freezing! Swimming in the bay were Hector's dolphins, the smallest in world. If you braved the cold water you could go in and they would swim around you. I didn't go in because I was on a mission to see the Yellow-Eyed Penguins which had a colony about a five minute walk from where we were.

The thing with nature is that it is not on a very strict time schedule. I got to Curio Bay at 5 and was told that the penguins could come ashore anytime between now and dusk, which is around 9. So I decided to just hang out at the colony and wait. The only problem was that a Southerly was coming in. A Southerly is like a Noreaster for us. There was wind, hail, and rain to be expected. So here I was standing in the mist of the rain, freezing waiting for the penguins when a rainbow appeared and I decided to take a picture of it:

When I was done taking the picture, my camera crapped out. The cold and damp conditions made it just shut off and refused to turn back on. So I sat there in the cold thinking if it was worth it to wait out here for possibly another 2 hours to see penguins that I would have no hope of capturing in a picture. The idea of a hot shower won and in I went so no penguins. I figured that I would probably see them at Milford Sound which is where I was going the next day.

Milford Sound is not actually a sound but rather a fjord. The difference is that a fjord is carved out by a glacier and that a sound is carved out by an eroding river bed. Anyway Milford Sound is located in the fjordland national park which is a huge park in which nature is untouched. Milford Sound is the most accesible fjord and the most touristy. I was staying here for two nights at the local(and only) hostel which operated on a generator that turned off every night at 11p and didn't turn back on until 6am. I was pretty much as far away from civilization as i ever have been. The first day at Milford I took a cruise around the sound. To see all of these cliffs rising out of the water and tower over you and to see all of the waterfalls is a very humbling experience. It made me feel very small in the grand scheme of things and I was in awe of how nature by itself can create such phenominal things. During the cruise some bottlenose dolphins swam around the boat and were doing jumps and flips. I also saw more seals, but the penguins were no where to be seen. it was still a great cruise. Here are some of the pics.

The next day I went back onto the Milford Sound but from a different angle. I tried kayaking for the first time. The weather was just as beautiful as the day before and the whole experience was really relaxing. We kayaked for about two hours and then went ashore in the sound and had lunch. The wind was picking up so our guide had us hold our kayaks next to each other and we put up a sail and sailed our back to where we started. Then we just kayaked around some more and enjoyed the beautiful day. Milford Sound gets about 8 meters of rain a year so the fact that I had two beautiful days in a row is pretty lucky. Also the more rain it gets the more waterfalls sprout out so next time I am in NZ I will def come back and hope that it's raining so I can see more waterfalls.

Retelling this to everyone I realize that I have done a lot in a week. I guess that's why I feel so tired. This is the kind of pace I am going to have for the rest of this trip. I am back in Queenstown right now for a day and then I am heading to Christchurch. I think I am going to stop there for four days. There is a really good rugby game that is being played on March 4th. I want to go to it so I am going to try and get a ticket.

I hope everyone had a good week and enjoys the pics!

After the bungy

Since my last post I have hopped back onto the bus and made my way to Dunedin. The bus ticket I am using right now is the one that I bought off of a girl for $200 less than what it was selling for. We ran into some problems with the transfer of the ticket though so for the next week I am Natalie Roper (which is fine because it makes me think of Threes Company). Anyway, on the way to Dunedin we stopped at a place called Tunnel Beach. Basically in the 1800s this guy owned the land. The beach was and still is surrounded by sandstone cliffs, making acces to the beach impossible. So the guy carved a 10m tunnel through the sandstone to get to the beach. He then gave the beach to his daughter for her birthday so she would have her own private beach (Daddy'll do it). The beach is now public and even though there is a tunnel it is still pretty hard to get to. It's a 20 minute walk downhill to get to the beach and then to get back up the hill it takes about another 40 minutes. Crazy.

After the tunnel beach walk our driver took us to Baldwin St. Baldwin St is in the guiness book of world records for being the worlds steepest street. It didn't look that steep but I didn't try to walk up it since I had just walked uphill for the past 40 minutes. After Baldwin St. I went to the Cadbury factory and took a tour. I enjoyed free chocolate and I got to see all of the cadbury chocolates that we don't get in the US. I had no idea that they made more than the eggs that I get at Easter. It turns out they make loads of chocolate but they only sell certain types where there is no competition. So since in the US we already have Mars bars we don't Cadbury's Moro's (which I think are better).

Yesterday I went to the Speights beer brewery for a tour. Speights is THE beer in the south and it was cool to get a tour and some free samples. They are very proud of their beer here. The great thing is that both the Speights brewery and the Cadbury factory are only a five minute walk from my hostel.

Dunedin is the third largest city in NZ and it contains the University of Otago, which is the largest Uni in NZ. It's got some really cool architecture and things like that. I'll post pics soon.

Tomorrow is the day my family has been waiting for. I will be seeing penguins. And if the weather is nice I will be able to swim with some dolphins. I am heading to a place called Curio Bay. It's population is 11 people (no lie). After Curio Bay I am heading to Invercargill which is as close as I am going to get to Antartica and the southernmost point that I am travelling to. By the end of the week I will be in Milford Sound. Milford Sound is actually a fjiord and is supposedly something that you have to see when in NZ. My plans are to stay there for a couple of days and kayak the sound. Then it's back to Queenstown.

I don't think I will have cheap internet access until I get back into Queenstown about a week from now so yet again this is goodbye. But don't worry I will have tons of pictures to share!

Thanks for all the comments about the bungy jump. They all made me smile and made me realize that I can't wait to come home and see everyone!

Molly's Right!

When I was in Auckland for the Big Day Out I bought a ticket for the Nevis Bungy jump in Queenstown. I bought it in Auckland because I knew that if I waited until I was in Queenstown to buy it I would chicken out. Up until about a month ago the Nevis Bungy Jump in Queenstown was the tallest bungy jump in the world at 134m(440ft). It was created by the guy who created the whole idea of bungy jumping AJ Hacket. In fact bungy jumping was created in Queenstown so what better place to do it. And since my motto is go big or go home I had to do the biggest.

So to get to the place where I jumped we had to hop in a car and drive 45 minutes into the mountains. You actually jump from a cable car that is suspended between two cliffs and you get to the cable car via a gondola. I was so nervous last night that I had to have a few drinks which turned into a lot of drinks because it turns out that everytime we told the bar tender that my Kiwi bus driver has big boobs we would get free beer until the keg runs out. I booked the jump for 8am because I wanted to get it over with. Anyone who has waited in line with me for a roller coaster knows how anxious I can get so I didn't want to spend a whole day worrying about the jump. By 9:30 I was harnessed in and in the cable car. Let me tell you, 134m is HIGH. We were suspended over a river that was so clear you could see the rocks at the bottom. I knew no one in the cable car with me but that didn't stop me from freaking everyone out. I started mumbling to myself how stupid this is and asking myself why I was doing it and then I turned to the other people and asked them if they realized how stupid we were all being right now. I was about to chicken out when the bungy guy chose to tell me that there were no refunds. So I was jumping.

I was third to go and the first girl. They have you sit down and they start strapping you ankles together and hooking everything up(oy I am getting anxious just writing this down!). They asked me if I had ever done this before and I laughed and said no and I will never do it again. Everyone was looking at me and I could tell by their faces that I must have had a very worried look on my face. Then I stood up and hobbled(because my ankles were now connected to bungy cord) over to the edge. Some choice expletives escaped my mouth and then I made the mistake of looking down. I stopped dead in my tracks and said there's no way I can do this it is too guy. Luckily the guy told me to just look straight ahead which helped. I hobbled to the edge and started bugging out because I wanted to hold onto something as I jumped. I had a shoulder harness on and asked the guy if it was ok if I held onto it for dear life as I fell. It was all a go and then the countdown from five began. The thing is at this point, even if I didn't jump I would have been pushed. They don't mess around. So as they said one I jumped. Albeit I didn't jump gracefully with my arms out. I jumped with my arms gripping my harness like they grip the shoulder pads of my backpack and my legs never fully unbent. It looked like I fell sitting.

Yes I did scream and it was loud. The freefall lasts for about 8 seconds and you actually bungy twice since the nevis is so high. You rebound back up about 40 m after the intial 134m drop and then you fall the 40m again (the first bungy was only 43m fyi). By the end of the 8 seconds my scream of fear had turned into a "whoo hoo!" scream. The fun wasn't yet over. Because the Nevis is so high they can't lower you down. Instead after you jump you have to be raised back up to the cable car. So here I am hanging upside down. There is a cord that you can pull so your legs are released and you get pulled up in a sort of sitting up position. But my hands were firmly glued to my harness so I just hung there spinning around repeating to myself "pull me up pull me up pull me up." At this point I had to keep my eyes closed because all of the spinning around was not helping my stomach. Finally I was pulled back up the 134m upside down and deposited back onto the cable car. I immediately went over to the trash bucket and thought I was going to throw up. The fact that the cable car swings after every jump wasn't helping things either so they put me onto the gondola and I arrived safely onto land where I watched my dvd and finally felt relieved that I had did it and that it was all over.

I will never bungy again. It was a once in a lifetime experience that I loved but will never ever do again. I got my free t-shirt and I splurged on a cute sweatshirt and that's it. 8 seconds of freefall is a loooong time.

On a completely different note, before I left Wanaka I went to this place called Puzzle World. It is full of optical illusions but the best part is that the cafe had all of these mind games that we could do. So I sat there with my cup of coffee and played all of these great games. It reminded me of going to Northhampton and playing in the toy store there. Good times.

ps...I bungy jumped!!! Who would have thought I would ever do that? No worries. The rest of this trip will be spent with my feet planted on the ground (until I fly to Fiji).

Wanaka update and random pics

There really isn't much to do in Wanaka besides sit by the lake and enjoy the view. I did a walk around the lake which was nice. Another thing that I have done is go to the local movie theater. It is called cinema paradiso and is great. There are no movie seats, just couches and they back cookies that you can buy at intermission. That's right. Each movie has an intermission where you can chug on some free water or buy a beer. Me I just stick with the cookies. They are delicious.

There is another girl that got off of the Kiwi bus and is leaving tomorrow. Her name is Beatrice. We were talking in the kitchen today when one of the receptionists walks in and asks if either of us wants to work for accomodation today since they are understaffed. I said sure but that I had to finish my coffee first. Before she left the reception just asked my name and I told her. Then i turned to Beatrice and said that it wouldn't be the first time I worked for accomodation, I had done it in Wellington at Base Backpackers. Beatrice's eyes lit up and she said "So you're the Elyse!" I was a little confused. She explained that she had worked for accomodation at Base right after I left and that everyone had kept on asking her if she knew me. Apparently they talked about me and told her my plans and everything. And every time she met someone knew they asked if she knew elyse. Hahah it even turns out that when we were in Franz Josef someone asked if she knew me! In Germany there is a drinking song that has the chorus "Who the F* is Alice?" Beatrice is German and as she was relaying to me how popular I was she ended by singing the chorus of the song. We both laughed a lot and then I thanked her for giving my ego a huge boost. We then started talking about the people back in Wellington and it turns out my window war guy is still in Wellington and still closing the window every night.

I leave Wanaka tomorrow and head for Queenstown. Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world so use your imaginations to figure out what I am going to there! (Hint: I haven't done it before). After Queenstown I will see penguins and take lots of pictures I swear. Here are just some pics from the last couple of months. Peace out!

My Christmas Card for next year.

Ed and Kirstee

The view from my tent at the first camp site that I stayed at for a night.

My tent at my campsite in Napier where I stayed for two weeks

The beach in Napier where I soaked up the sun

Mike from the tent pegs story

The first Mainfreight truck that gave me a free ride to Auckland for the Big Day Out

Me feeling very excited and wicked cool that I am going to ride in the front of a truck

A glacier in a rainforest

Before I could walk on the glacier I had to get to it. On the way from Greymouth to the Franz Josef glacier there is a place called Cape Foulwind. After about a 20 minute walk around the cape not only did I find a sign letting me know that I am never really that far from home but I also found a fur seal colony. This is just one of the pics I took but it gives you an idea. The seals just chill on these rocks that are surrounded by beach and the Tasman Sea.

After we saw the seals just chillin by the sea we (the bus) got jealous and decided to chill out on a little alcove beach for a bit. It was pretty nice and basically epitomizes my trip, I walk and I sit on beaches.

Once we were on our way past the fur seal colony we stopped for a night at Lake Mahinipua. There is nothing at this lake besides a pub with an 80 year old named Les who loves the Kiwi bus and for the past 20 years has let them stay there and cook them a bbq. Every night is a different theme for the bar. Our theme was guys in drag girls in trash bags. Needless to say the whole point of the night was to take advantage of the great drink deals (I got a free pitcher for doing the dishes after the bbq). It was pretty fun. I met these three girls while there and we had a good time. Belinda, the girl that has low cost written all over her, did the glacier hike with me.

Still not to the glacier yet. Before we got to Franz Josef we stopped at a place called the Bushman's Center. It's basically a place dedicated to honoring the hunters of NZ. NZ has no native mammals. All mammals that are here currently, like deer, were introduced by the English settlers in the 1800s. Deer are actually a pest in NZ since they eat the natural vegetation and destroy the balance. So it became legal in the 70s to openly hunt deer. After awhile the bushman realized that there was money in deer meat and decided to start deer farms. Now instead of killing the deer they just had to capture them. Before net guns were invented they captured the deer by chasing them with a helicopter and having the passenger in the helicopter jump out of the copter and onto the deer. It sounds a little barbaric but it was also really braveto jump out of a copter. Anyway at the center they have a wild boar. He was pretty tame but his teeth are wicked sharp.

Now onto the glacier. I was very nervous about doing a glacier hike. The full day hike takes 8 hours with about 6 hours of ice time. The extent of me actually walking for 8 hours straight is nil so I was a little worried if I could do it. But the motto for this trip is go big or go home so I signed up for the full day hike. It was completely worth it. The interesting thing about the franz josef glacier is that it is one of only three glaciers in the world that is situated in a rain forest. Fox glacier is another one, which is only 26km from franz and the last one is somewhere in South America so this hike was very unique. Franz Josef is also moving at its fastest rate in 10 years. So basically I walked on this moving thing and I paid for my guides to carve out steps so we could climb up it. When I get home I can explain better how a glacier winds up in a rain forest. The gist is that since the Southern Alps are on the west coast of NZ they cause the clouds to have to move over them to get into the middle of NZ. For clouds to get higher they have to dump rain, hence the rain forest. When the get even higher the rain turns to snow and this snow gets compacted into the valley causing the glacier to be created and sustained for thousands and thousands of years. So basically you look to one side and there is this huge block of ice and when you look to the other side there is this huge beautiful rain forest. This oddity made it possible for me to hike a glacier in shorts. When we were starting out it was hot and by the time we made it to the highest we were going to go, which turned out to be around 450 meters, it was cold and windy. And by the time we started to walk back down the glacier the wind had turned warm again. It was definetely a surreal experience.

Once we were on the glacier our guide took us to these narrow crevices. We all climbed in and shimmied along and then climbed back out. It was amazing to realize that I was completely surrounded by ice. And when I say these crevices were narrow I mean that we had to turn sideways to get through them.

I have lost a little weight since I have been in NZ. Because of this, my pants started to droop as we were walking along. At one point my shorts, which at first ended at my knees, were now ending at mid shin. I didn't have time to stop and fix them so I just kept going. Well to get out of one of the crevices you had to basically stradle the hole and take a big step up with your right leg. I did it and heard a rip. Yep that's right. I tore a hole in the crotch of my pants while on a glacier. No it wasn't breezy. Luckily no one noticed since we were all too busy worrying about falling on the ice and subsequently down

deep crevices. Walking on the glacier was definetly on of my top experiences while in NZ. Theres so much more to write about it but I think it will be conveyed better when I am at home and explain it in person.

I am now in Lake Wanaka. I am going to spend a

few nights here since there are some walks around the lake that I want to do. Also I am planning on letting my legs rehab from the climbing of the glacier for a couple of days and just enjoy the lake by way of the beach. Since I found a place that can post pics I will post some pics from the past couple of months too. So enjoy the glacier pics and look foward to some random pics. I miss you all!!

Nelson and beyond

The only thing semi productive that I did in Nelson was to call Tania. Tania is the sister of one of the truck drivers that I got a ride with. He gave me her number before I left him. When I called I just asked Tania if she had any suggestions of what I should go see. She wound up picking me up and showing me some beaches that I wouldn't be able to see without a car. I then went back to her house and had a bbq with her and her family. I am consistently amazed at the friendliness of Kiwis. I am also amazed at how I didn't hesitate to call Tania. Back home I would have never called. It's just too random and awkward and she would have been suspicious of why I was calling. But traveling on my own I am looking for any chance to meet more people. And even though I am traveling alone, I never really am alone. There are always people around and it's just whether I choose to talk to them or not.

Anyway, the next day I hopped on the Kiwi bus. The first stop was the Abel Tasman National Park. I laid on the golden sand beach and watched the speed boats and kayekers. I have been on a lot of beaches lately and for good reason. The farthest point between land and beack in NZ is 130km. Since I have been traveling around the coasts I am always within walking distance of a beach. After Abel Tasman we stopped for the night in Westport. Since I have the time I stayed an extra night there. There isn't too much to do in Westport but I did walk to where the Buller Gorge River meets the Tasman Sea. It was a pretty great view. There were beach and mountains all in one view.

Mountains. The thing about mountains is that the bus has to drive up and over or around them. That means the trip is full of windy roads. That views are amazing but my stomach isn't impressed. It feels like a prolonged roller coaster (minus my screaming). I thought I had finally outgrew my motion sickness but I think I got it for life. I might actually have to break down and buy motion sickness pills. I do not want to be the girl who threw up on the bus.

Today I got back on the bus and left Westport. We did a walk on Cape Foulwind which has a natural fur seal colony. So at around 10 this morning I got to see seals in there natural habitat. Pretty cool. (Man I have the life). And if you are wondering where the pics are, the comps I am using lately can't upload them so it looks like you'll have to wait a bit.

The south island mentality is kind of like the mentality of the south of the US. Everything is a little slower and the towns are a lot smaller. Mullets are in abundance and their accents are different from the North Island. NZ has 4 million people total. Of that only 1 million live in the south so things are really spread out.

I hopped off the bus again to stay a night in Greymouth. It's basically the last stop before I hit the boonies of the South Island. The next stop is Lake Manipua, which has an 80 year old ex pro rugby player and that's about it. The kiwi bus riders are the only people that visit it. After a night there I am heading to the Franz Josef Glacier. That's right, within three days I will be walking on a glacier! I am very excited because I can basically guarantee that walking on a glacier will be a once in a lifetime experience. After Franz Josef I head to lake Wanaka. There are some walks that I want to do there so I am planning on spending a couple of days. After Wanaka is Queenstown. I am pretty sure that I won't have internet access until Wanaka or Queenstown. (Don't worry mom I am pretty sure my phone will have reception).

So this is good bye for a week or so, this time not self imposed but location imposed. Feel free to comment amongst yourselves while I am gone!!

And another thing about the wine tour...

New Zealand doesn't believe in screens for their windows or doors. It is perfectly normal for birds to be walking and flying around shops and such. Well at one of the wineries we were about to leave and I felt something in my hair. My hair is down past my shoulders now and I am still getting used to it so I thought it was just a bug. I could feel my hair moving around around a lot so I put my arm up and shook my hair...no lie...out flew a bird! It was a small bird but a bird nonetheless and me being in a wine induced mood just started saying a "a bird just flew out of my hair," in a high pitched voice. It was pretty funny and I can't believe I forgot about it last time I wrote.

I leave Nelson tomorrow. The hostel I stayed in was real nice. It had free breakfast and coffee (instant but I'm learning to love it). It also had a pool, sauna, and hot tub. It's like club med for backpackers. I talked to a lot of different people too. It's nice that I have been traveling for four months because now I can share my stories with the other travelers. Before when I first started out I listened a lot and I was jealous of the stories that I didn't have yetm but now I think I have some pretty good ones that I love to share.

Tomorrow I go back on the Kiwi bus. The first stop is a place called Westport. I know nothing about it except that it is an old mining town. I am going to stay there for a couple of days and check it out.

This weekend is Waitangi weekend. The Waitangi treaty basically was the treaty that had the indigienous people, the Maoris, sign over the land to the British. The treaty is much desputed because the treaty that was sign by the Maori was written in there native language, Maori. But when the treaty was translated to English some key words changed and gave the Brits more control (total control). The way the Maoris are portrayed to the tourists and the way that the Kiwis I have met think of the Maoris are completely different. There is an underlying racism that most non Maori kiwis have of the Maoris. I would love to write more but my time is up and the space bar is acting funny, mainly its running off on its own. Peace out

Finally in the South Island!!

I took the ferry over to the south island last thursday. The boat looked like a cruise ship and it would have been nice to walk around and see all of it but the body of water that we were crossing, the Cook Strait, was a little rough that day so to keep my motion sickness in check I had to find a nice comfy chair and sleep the three hour voyage away.

When I got to Blenheim I found out that all the vineyard work was taken. So instead of grape picking I went on a wine tour. It was a really good deal. It was a really good deal. A van picked me up from my hostel and then me and two other people visited four wineries. I didn't get to see how the wine was made but I did get to taste lots of wine. I know you are supposed to taste the wine and then spit it out, but come on, I had a driver and everything was already paid for. We spent a half hour at each winery and tasted at least 4 wines from each one. The two other people on the tour were from Turkey and England. They used to work on a boat and shared some crazy stories and we all started getting tipsy on the wine.

At one winery we finished the tasting a little early. Right next to the winery was a local distillery so we went over there and they gave us free shots. It was great. I just walked around and pointed to a bottle and then they gave me a shot glass filled with it. I trield their zambuca and had made a comment that it tasted more like Jagermeister than other zambucas. The driver, George, looked at me and laughed. He said that all of a sudden I had an opinion. I laughed too because he was right. At each wine tasting someone would ask me what I thought and I always didn't really have an opinion. I know nothing about wines and this was the first time that I was tasting most varieties. But shots and hard alcohol I know plenty about so I def had opinions then.

The tour last 3 hours and I was dropped off at my hostel at 5. I just chilled out enjoying my typsy ness when Jacky, a girl I share a room with, invited me to come along with her while she got her haircut. So went to another room where Camillo cut Jacky's hair. Camillo shared the room with Oscar. While Camillo was cutting Jacky's hair Oscar and I realized that we had both went to Big Day Out and we started to share our stories and talk about the bands we say. After the haircut we all went out for drinks. Camillo understands English but he doesn't talk it so Oscar was the translator for the night. So I spent the night drinking and hanging out with some very interesting people.

Besides this one fun filled day I haven't done much of anything in Blenheim. I leave tomorrow to go to Nelson. One of the truck drivers that I got a ride with has family in Nelson so hopefully I will meet up with them tomorrow and they will show me around town. I think my plans to travel with my friend Victoria have fallen through so most likely within a week I will be back on the Kiwi bus and onto more adventures.

Random questions: Who was in the super bowl and who won? Who won Survivor Guatamala? I know I can use the internet to answer these questions but i don't want to waste the time.

Big Day Out among other things

Big Day Out was amazing!! I took a bus from the house I was staying at and got to the concert about 11 am. I didn't leave until 11pm. There were soo many bands. The way it was set up is a lot like ozzfest or warped tour. There were five stages plus a tent set up that had djs spinning club music. There was also this thing called a silent disco. It was a dance floor set up with headphones and you could just dance around to the music in your headphones. I didn't try it but it looked really weird to see all of these people bopping around with no music around. The Living End came on at 1pm so I went and hung out on the floor until they came on. They were great and I def want to see them again. The crowd was really good too. I was on the floor for the bands that I saw and it got pretty crowded but nobody was being stupid. If someone fell someone else helped them up. It was really good.

Some of the weird things to me about the big day out was that the water was free. It was great that it was free because it was really hot especially since I was jumping up and down on the floor for most bands. Hahha i hope no one was worried that because I was going to this concert without knowing anyone I wouldn't participate. I def did. Another cool thing about the concert was that they had free carnival rides and a free water slide. I was just amazed at how once you got inside the festival things weren't overpriced and there were free things to do. I did buy a Big Day Out t-shirt and a compilation cd of the bands that played to remember the concert. It was well worth the money and the trip back up to Auckland.

I ran into the Scottish girls while at the Big Day Out. We hung out for a bit and I decided that I wouldn't head down to Wellington with them. They were going to take their time going down and I just didn't feel like hopping in a car the next day. I had already checked with the girl, Ana, whose house I was crashing at and she said it was no problem if I hung around for a couple more days. I told Ana how much I appreciated her letting me stay at her house for free without even knowing me and she said not to worry, that it was the Kiwi way. The hospitality and niceness of strangers that I have seen in the past couple of weeks has amazed me and I really hope I take some of their ideals back home with me. I called the truck driver who gave me a ride up to Auckland and he hooked me up with a ride to Wellington. So on Monday I hopped back on the trucks and caught a free ride back down to Wellington.

Now I am in Wellington and am crashing at Ed's apt. I got to Wellington yesterday and am leaving tomorrow for the south island. In Wellington I have just been catching up with the people I met here, I went to Eat and hung out there for a bit and then me and Ed and his friend Vivan went to the bar and Vivan attempted to explain cricket to me. I understand most of it but the games are so long, some last days, that I don't think I could ever get into it. I have gotten into rugby though and I going to try and go see a game while I am in the south island. I am catching the ferry across to the south island in the morning. The ferry looks like a cruise ship and even has a movie theater on board. It should be a fun ride if the weather is good. Once I get to the south island I am heading straight to a town called Blenheim to try and get some work in a vineyard for a week just to get some more cash.

I had a bit of a scare this morning. I broke out my lonely planet book and called the hostels in Blenheim to book a weeks accomodation. They were all booked up. I panicked for about five minutes about what I was going to do since I had already bought the bus ticket to Blenheim and I didn't want to lose that money. So I went to the info office in Wellington and they helped me by calling around to some other hostels that aren't in the lonely planet and within ten minutes I had a bed booked. As they say here, it was sweet as.

That's as far as my plans go for now. I might travel around with Victoria but if our plans are too different then I will just hop on the Kiwi bus and travel around that way. I'll figure that stuff out while I am in Blenheim.

My pics are taking too long to upload so they will have to wait for another time. As for my grad school apps, they are all in and I am just waiting on word if I got in or not. I don't think I will know until I get back home which is fine with me.

3 weeks, 7 books and a box of wine later...

I am back from my self imposed blogger exile and I have much to write about. I'll start where I left off...

My Kiwi Christmas was good. I spent Christmas Eve just hanging out at the hostel and saying goodbye to the cleaning team. One of the workers, Sybil actually gave me a card and a necklace as a good bye present. It was very nice of her and completely caught me by surprise. Another thing that caught me by surprise was a package sent to me from my friends from home. It had lots of stuff in it but the most important thing it had was Mike & Ikes. They don't have them here and I was definetly craving them so I am forever grateful to Michele, Steph, Breanne, and Erin for filling the hole in my soul that can only be filled by Mike & Ikes.

Ok so Christmas day I spent at Kirstee's house. Kirstee is Ed's girlfriend and Ed and I worked together at Eat. The day was good. I ate and drank lots and then just chilled out. It definetly never really felt like Christmas. The weather was just too good and there was no 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story.

The day after Christmas Ed, Kirstee, and me drove to a camp site four hours away from Wellington. I can't remember the name of it but it was someone's farm. We could see the beach from where our tents were set up. It was awesome. I do have pics but this computer is being tempermental so I can't put them up right now. The next day Ed and Kirstee dropped me off in Napier at the Westshore holiday park. I went from rolling hills and full view of a beach to setting up my tent in front of the billboard for Westshore Holiday Park. It was an interesting transition.

Westshore did have a kitchen but it didn't have pots and pans available for use. So for my time being at Westshore I survived off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It wasn't bad though since all I did was lay on the beach and read. The thing that made Westshore great for me was the people. Some of the people live there permanently in caravans. When they saw I was on my own they made sure that I knew that they were looking out for me which made me feel very comfortable.

One of the guys, Mike, is 65 and had told me that if I needed anything in town to just let him know and he'll get it for me. This was extremely nice since town was an hours walk for me. I had heard taht we were going to be getting some wind storms and decided that I needed to better secure my tent so it didn't collapse on my. I knew I needed more tent pegs so I asked Mike if he could get them for me when he went into town. He gave me a weird look and said that I could get them across the street at the gas station. I went to the station and asked for tent pegs. They pointed me to a shelf but I couldn't find them. Finally the guy asked me again what I was looking for and I said tent pegs. He said that they didn't carry them. So being really confused I decided to just walk into town myself and get the pegs. After awhile I remembered what was on the shelf that the gas guy had pointed too...tampax tampons!! Poor Mike thought I had asked him in my American accent to by me tampons!! Neither of us mentioned the fiasco again and Mike still talked to me so he didn't take too much offense.

New Year's Eve was def one of my more memorable nights in NZ. Pete and his wife Meryl live permenantly in the holiday park. Pete invited me over for a bbq. After the pb&j sandwiches I was eating, this bbq was a feast. I had shrimp, but it was a whole shrimp eyes and all and I hat to take it apart myself. I also had steamed mussels which were really good. And then (cue heavenly music) Meryl gave me a cup of coffee. This was the first caffeinated drink I had in over a week. So I rang in the new year sitting around a table talking to Kiwis. Pete broke out some moonshine rum and I sat there and listened to some great stories. One of the men there, John, is from Wales and comes to NZ every six months. At one point him and I started talking politics and it wound up with me chanting no taxation without representation. It was pretty funny. At midnight there were fireworks and sometime after that John gave me some good advice. He said I will get the most out of this or any other experience by just sitting around a table and talking to people. It's not about the activities (although they are fun) it's about listening to other peoples stories.

Right after new years I decided that I would only camp for two weeks instead of three. The wind storms and sleeping on the ground were wearing me out. So after a few more nights of talking to John and listening to his war stories, he was in the royal marines in the 60s, Mike drove me into town. For the last week I have been hanging out in town and staying at a hostel. It's smaller than any of the others that I have been in and it's very relaxing. I was right down the street from the aquarium so every night I could hear the seals making those seal noises as I fell asleep.

Now I am in Auckland for the Big Day Out tomorrow!! I will finally see the Living End which I am psyched about. I am also psyched that I got a free ride to Auckland from Napier. I just called up a freight company and asked if they had a truck going to Auckland. They said yeah so I hopped on and rode overnight to Auckland. I haven't slept in 24 hours but it was well worth the experience. Someone in Napier heard I was going to Auckland and called up one of his friends who lives here. So as soon as I am done with this blog I am going to this girls apartment to crash for the time taht I am in Auckland. I will leave here in a couple of days and catch a ride with two Scottish girls that I met in Napier down to Wellington. After that I was going to buy a bus ticket to travel around the south island but instead I talked to this girl Victoria that I met when I first got to NZ and we are going to travel around together in her car. It will probably be more expensive but it's a new experience and my instinct tells me its the right thing to do.

When I get back to Wellly I will post the pics and update everyone on Big Day Out. Until then I expect many comments!!

christmas

It turns out I will be having a Kiwi Christmas after all. Ed's girlfriend, Kirstee, invited me to her parents house for a christmas bbq. I am excited to enjoy a christmas outside in shorts. It should be interesting. It works out well since me, Ed, and Kirstee are all driving to Napier together the next day.

That's right...I am leaving Wellington. It has been fun while I was here and I enjoyed being settled for a bit but now it's time to move on. So right after Christmas I am heading back up north to the east coast of NZ to a town called Napier. There I will camp, yes tent and sleeping bag camp, for 3 weeks. I am really excited about it. I am looking foward to having nothing to do, not even anything touristy. And the camp site I am going to isn't geared towards backpackers, it's more for the locals so I will be meeting more Kiwis which is always a plus. The cool thing is that there is a hostel attached so I still have access to toilets and a kitchen. So its roughing it but not really roughing it. The best part is that I will be out of the hostels for a bit. No window wars for me for awhile.

Speaking of the window wars. ..the other night I was sleeping and John, my window war enemy, came in and walked to the window to close it. I popped out of bed and asked if he wouldn't mind keeping the window open since it gets really hot in the room overnight with eight people sleeping in it with no window open. He said he guesses so but that he likes it shut since it's so loud outside. He had a valid point. The backpackers is right in downtown Wellington where all the bars are so you can hear the music all the time. It doesn't matter if he had a point though. I said back to him that there were at least two people in the room who snored (him included) so the chances of it ever being quiet in the room were impossible so we might as well have some fresh air. Obviously he couldn't argue with my flawless logic and since then he has left the window open. The kicker to the story is the very next night a new person stayed in the room and as he went to bed he closed the window. Same war just a different enemy.

The King Kong premiere was good. There wasn't that many people but it was still nice to see everything done up. They had the red carpet and they did up the embassy theater to look like a 1930s theater. Besides having the stars walk down the red carpet they also had extras dressed in 30s garb walking down to go to the movie it was nice. Here is the only pic I got though.




Ok so before I leave Wellington there some more

pics to show. This one is NZs parliament building known as the Beehive. I didn't go inside...it felt a little too educational.

Below is a pic of one of the trees that I wrote about before. This is the NZ Christmas tree in full bloom.

So that's it from me for awhile. The plan while in Napier is to try and stay as far away from computers as possible. I think I am a little too connected and although I love sharing my experiences with everyone I think it'll be better if the blogs are longer instead of me blogging so much.

I hope everyone has a good holiday season and enjoys the cold weather for me. Happy New Year!

Peace out.

Eat Christmas Outing

A couple of weeks ago my boss, Nic, handed me an invitation to the eat Xmas outing. She did't tell me or Ed what we were going to do. It was a surprise. The plan was that we were going to meet at the shop at 12:30 and do the outing and then open the shop at 5:30. So yesterday I didn't work for accomodation (which was fine with me since they keep on putting me on bathrooms) and instead I went to the outing. It turns out the outing was going sailing and it was awesome. We get on the boat and the pass out some beers and we just relax and sail on the Tasman Sea. We sailed out to the middle of harbor and out to an island. Apparently this is the island where all animals entering NZ used to be quarantined for 3 months.
We sailed around the island and then attached the boat to a buoy so we could enjoy lunch. The lunch consisted of more beer and cheese and crackers and strawberries and chocolate. Yummmy. We hung out on the boat for about an hour and a half just talking. It was really the first time that we were all just hanging out outside of work and it was fun. There's a part of Wellington called the Hutt and we were comparing it to NJ. The Hutt takes a lot of flak from Wellington kind of like how NJ takes a lot of flak from the rest of the states. It was pretty funny to talk about. Unfortunately my sunglasses were a casuality of the outing since they fell off of my head and into the water. We started sailing back around the island and heading toward the harbor again when I turned to Ed and said how I really didn't want to go to work after this. Not even ten minutes later Nic told us that we were going to keep the shop closed and go out for more drinks and dinner instead. Woo hoo!!

But before we could go out we had to get back. The ride back was interesting. It started to rain a little and the wind really picked up. It turns out that to catch the wind one side of the boat needs to be in the air. For the whole way back we were all riding on a tilt. So essentially one side of the













boat was always leaning into the water. If you tilt your head a little and look at the picture you'll see what I mean. For the pic on the right, the woman on my left is Nic my boss and Ed is the guy. The shirt I am wearing is free because it was left in a room and was brand new. It had a tag attached that explained that it wouldn't fit into their bag so they hoped that someone would take it. I always have followed directions well. No comments about the picture, I know it's a bad one of me.














The guy with the pink crown on is Norm. He is my other boss and Nic's partner. In NZ they have these things called Christmas crackers. Two people hold an end of this long tube and pull. Once they pull a the tube cracks and out comes presents. Everyone got a different colored crown and then some plastic toy. I got a thimble. Norm got crabs. The woman in the grey sunglasses is JoJo. She is from the Hutt and Norm kept on making comments about the amount of peroxide in her hair. His jokes definetly reminded me of the Jersey girl stereotypes back at home. The guy in the yellow crown who is steering is Barty. He helps out at the store when it's busy. Basically what he does is try to have all the customers buy mushroom burgers since they are the most expensive. Normally we sell five mushroom burgers in a day. When Barty worked once they sold 30. The other guy in the picture is Mark. Despite the fact that Norm was calling himself El Capitain, Mark was the only one who actually knew what to do with boat.

Once we safely docked we all met up at the pool hall and drank some more and played some pool. It was fun except for the fact that I am terrible at non-American pool. The balls are smaller and the table is bigger. It's wicked hard. After some pool we went out to eat at this place that would be considered a pizza and pasta back home. Norm and I started talking about pizza and the differences. Here they only have gourmet pizza. It is impossible to just buy a slice and it's unheard to just get a plain pizza (you will also get weird looks if you call it a pie but that happens in some parts of the US too). Norm was explaining to everyone how he was in the US once and got a slice of pizza. He said how he was amazed at how big it was and he had no idea how to eat it. I explained that what he should have done was use the paper plate,fold the pizza in half and eat it. They were all flabbergasted by this idea. Eating gourmet pizza involves knifes and forks since there are lots of toppings and since there basically is no crust. Well halfway through dinner I showed them how I would normally eat the pizza. The were amazed as to how I folded the pizza. Norm equated it to watching Asians using chop sticks, "It's an art form."

It was a pretty funny night. I got made fun of a lot for my accent but it was all in good fun. The best part of the night was the fact that Nic and Norm footed the bill. It was a totally relaxing day and it was good to just hang out with some more Kiwis.

Wednesday is the King Kong premiere. The red carpet is going right down the main street where I work and the movie is premiering across the street from my hostel. I have to work the whole day which I was kind of bummed about until I heard that Jack Black won't be at the premiere since he is doing SNL. Since he won't be here it means that he won't come into eat and fall madly in love with me at first sight and wisk me away to the premiere and after party and a quicky marriage at the library (where the justice of the peace is always in). I'll take a break from work and take some pictures of all of the other people that are going to walk the red carpet though.

I am not a morning person

The only person who might actually think I am a morning person is my mom and she thinks that because she has found the key to making me talk in the morning...coffee. When I wake up and come downstairs there is always a coffee there waiting for me. As long as I have coffee I can hold a conversation with ease. Anyone who has had to deal with me in a work capacity knows that I do not function very well without at least one cup of coffee. So I guess I should say I am not a pre cup of coffee morning person.

Anyway there is no way for me to get a cup of coffee before starting work at the hostel so I am always a little grumpy. What adds to the challenge is that I am sleeping in the same room as the other workers. One of them, Gareth, is an extremely nice Welshman. Unfortunately Gareth hasn't figured out that I am unable to form sentences let alone smile within the first few hours of getting up. Every morning when I wake up Gareth rolls over and starts talking to me. Inevitably he tells me I am not my cheery self this morning and I try with all of my will not to tell him to just shut up and leave me alone until I wake up a little more. Usually I just grunt. Poor Gareth then usually runs into me after my cup of coffee and then I am all smiles and I am able to hold a conversation with him. It must be really confusing for him. Maybe I should put a disclaimer on my bed. "Warning: Dangerous to talk to before 1pm."

Another guy in the room, John from Macedonia didn't heed this warning and we got into a fight this morning. I woke up and went to the tv room to watch the news and eat my cereal. The headline was about that person being killed at the Miami International Airport. The only info I knew at this point was that a person was killed and that he had a bag that was suspected of having a bomb in it. There was a guy on tv saying how the us marshals are instructed to shoot to kill in situations like this. Well John comes in and turns to me and asks me how it is possible that us marshals that are so expertly trained would have to kill someone. He wanted to know why they didn't just shoot him in the leg so he couldn't run away. Keep in mind this is only about fifteen minutes after I have woken up so the normally level headed me that loves having debates is not in existence yet. I turn to him and with a lot of attitude in my voice explain that the guy was suspected of having a bomb. The marshals don't care if he can't run away they care if he can't set the bomb off. John didn't like this answer and said that it doesn't make sense why such trained gunners would miss and kill someone. That's when I exploded and said that they did exactly what they needed to do, that they were instructed to shoot to kill. He said oh and that he still didn't think it was right. I felt like saying maybe you should see if you thought it would be right if that person were in Macedonia and was shouting that they had a bomb. But I didn't. Instead I just turned around and ignored him. He's allowed to have his opinions and I think I should be allowed to not have to talk about political things before my first cup of coffee.

We had a full room last night. That means that eight people were sleeping in this room. One of these people started snoring in the middle of the night. I don't mean lightly snoring either. It sounded like Gollum for Lord of the Rings was trying to escape from this guy's body with every breath. I had to actually leave the room and walk around for five minutes because if I didn't I was going to hurt the snorer. I guess you can say my patience is wearing a little thin with this whole hostel thing. It's just people seem to oblivious to the fact that seven other people are sleeping in the same room, less than five feet from each other. I know snoring is something that can't be helped but then this snorer woke up at 7am and started packing to leave. He had lots of plastic bags. So not only did he keep me awake through snoring, he then kept me awake with excessive plastic bag packing.

There's a window war going on in my room as well. With eight people in one room the room is going to smell if you don't let some air in. There is one window in the whole room. Everytime I walk into the room I open it. It's summer here but it still gets kind of cold at night. Each bed at the hostel comes with a top sheet and a comforter so it's not like with the window open you will be freezing. Well John from Macedonia apparently gets cold in the middle of the night. He closes the window every night. And every night I wake up in the middle of the night in stifling heat. So now the window wars have started. Instead of being adult-like and talking to him about it I will instead just wake up in the middle of the night and reopen the window. Gareth agrees with me. We even went so far as to try and barricade the window after we opened it with Gareth's bike. It didn't work last night, John still managed to close it. But tonight, oh oh tonight I will be ready to spring out of my bed and re open it. Ha!

I know all of this is a little childish but whatever. If I wanted to be a responsible adult I would have stayed in the US and got a job.

I definetly think that my next trip in NZ will be up North. I am going to buy a tent and a sleeping bag and go work on a farm for a bit. It will be hard work but it will be worth the experience and I will have an entire tent to myself so I won't be bothered with window wars or snorers. Since I have now had two mocachinos it is time for me to go be my post coffee social butterfly self and find people to talk to who will be utterly confused tomorrow morning when I yet again can't form sentences.

High School

So I know that I graduated high school awhile ago but through talking to some Kiwis I realize that high school at home and high school here are entirely different. A question that I have been asked more than once by traveller's from all over the world is if high school and college are really like the movies they see. I thought about it for awhile and I have decided that for me they were like the movies. Albeit the movies glorified and made a happy ending to all of the experiences, ie everyone realizes cliques are stupid and new found friendships and peace resound throughout the high school by the time the credits roll up, but all in all there were cliques and stupid fights and crying and dreaded gym class and that terrible teacher who told us we all had head up butt syndrome and by the time I got to college there were keg parties and frat parties and nights I would rather forget and other nights that I would love to live over and over again. There were all nighters and lots of coffee and all of us thinking we were extraordinarily deep people with these amazing ideas about changing the world. And all of these experiences can be seen in dozens of very popular movies. Just look at John Hughes and the Brat Pack and I think most of my experiences are covered.

Here high school is called college. It seems that college is about as far as most people go. A lot don't attend University, there are only a handful of them around New Zealand. Since the drinking age here is 18 they go out to bars instead of throwing house parties. Also there are no open container laws here so there is really no need for the sort of sneaking around that happens in the US. It's weird though talking to travellers from around the world and that they can relate to my past experiences because they have seen the movies. I, on the other hand, have no idea what their high school or college experience is like because movies aren't made about it. There is no media coverage about a Kiwi college. The more time I spend away from the US the more I realize how ego centric our country is. I have never really taken the time to look into other countries' cultures or media output. Other countries, however, are constantly bombarded with US culture. Hollywood is worldwide.

Ed, my co-worker, asked me a very surprising question. He said, "I'm not racist or anything but what is it like living with black people?" I then realized that since I have been in New Zealand the number of people that I have seen that don't have the same skin tone as me and that aren't Maori is close to zero. I hadn't really thought about (if this were an intellectual paper I would start talking about white privelege but luckily American Diversity class is over and done with). The problem with Ed's question is he wants to know what the entire US thinks about desegregation. I find it daunting to think that the answers I give are going to be taken as the answers that any American would give.

A little deep compared to my last blog but this is what this experience is about. Having some fun and learning some more about myself.

Just another drinking blog

Last night Ed and I had to close the shop. It was really slow and boring so Ed decided to open up a bottle of wine. He was having a house party that night so it was kind of like pre gaming. I know I know it is kind of bad ethics to drink while at work but I am on vacation in a different country and the lack of responsibility is nice. What are they gonna do, fire me? Anyway so I get back to the hostel after work and I run into a new guy that is cleaning for accomodation. I tell him about the house party and he tells me that the bar in the hostel is doing three dollar jose cuervo for the whole night. So me, Mark and his roommate go down and do some shots and then head to house party. I forgot that we could have gotten alcohol in the supermarket so we wander around Wellington for a bit finding a place buy some.

The house party was really fun. I was happy to just be hanging out with a bunch of Kiwis. Everyone was really friendly. It was nice to just be at a house instead of out at a bar. This guy Carmen was making a sangria-like drink that was incredible. As I was walking home at four am, without getting lost, I decided that I wasn't going to work for accomodation this morning. Instead I took the morning off and slept until I went to work at 1pm. I was hung over but not a bad hang over...just a headache and some of you know that that isn't bad for me.

I really do like working at Eat. It's definitely a job I never would have done at home and I like that it adds to the uniqueness of my experience. I will be glad though when the job is over. It's a little too much regularity sometimes. I am getting restless almost. I want to start travelling around again. It will happen soon enough though.

I don't really have any plans yet for Christmas. One of the guys who is working for accomodation, Mark, is planning on heading back up North to Whitianga, which was one of the first stops that I did on the Kiwi bus. He invited me along. He plans on staying there for a bit and then being in Wellington for New Year's. It's a possibility. I don't think I am going to make a decision on what I am going to do until the week before.

Speaking of planning, I have been superproductive and have already booked my accomodation for Fiji. I was able to book a private double bed room with ensuite for a week in a hostel on the beach for less than 200 US dollars. They also do free airport transportation. So that part of the trip is figured out. Whoo hoo.

Sadly I received news from Adena that my fish, Obtuse, has died. He was 11 months old and a very good beta fish. He now joins his brother, Acute, in the beta fish netherworld. Unlike Acute, Obtuse did not get stuck underneath a castle and suffocate. Apparently he died peacefully.