Weekend Three: Sky Diving, Bunjee Jumping, and Rubbly Bits, Oh My!

This past weekend was quite crazy.

Things started off well on Wednesday night, which has pretty much become the standard 'going out on the town' night for my group. Things only got better in the form of a previous kiwi from the first night out. He was, in fact, not exaggerating when he previously claimed he managed a bar. It turned out to be a gay bar, but that (along with free champagne) turned out to be my favorite part of the night. I befriended a gay Indian Kiwi that is a Solo Cup Dealer. Beer Pong is huge here and since Solo Cups aren't sold anywhere on the North Island there is a huge market for them! I also picked up some NZ slang, some odd facts about NZ in WWII, and some other random odds and ends about NZ. I also discovered that going to bed at 4am means that I do in fact still maintain the capacity to sleep through my alarm clock going off placed at the opposite end of the room, 2 people knocking/shouting at my door and me responding to them, and 2 phone calls made to my room. I woke up unpacked at 7:50 with our bus leaving at 8. Fun ensued.

After spending 5 hours on the bus catching up on the sleep I missed the night before, we arrived in the Taupo Volcanic Region and ski-lifted our way up Tongariro. A storm was moving in, so my friend Steven made me a poncho out of a garbage bag which I forgot to take off in several pictures! Because of the incoming storm and the enormous number of bugs at the top of the mountain, I really couldn't fully concentrate or appreciate the landscape or what Dr. Parker was telling us about all the different lava flows. After narrowly avoiding having to walk all the way back down the mountain as they wanted to close the ski lift because of lightning, we bussed our way into Taupo and our motel. From there we hiked into town and ate at Macdonalds. Food is just so expensive here I can't get over the sticker shock of spending 20-30$ NZ for dinner. Macdonalds runs about $10NZ in comparison, and is soooo much nicer then Madonalds back home.

Woke up Friday morning and discovered that Kiwis simply do not know how to cook eggs. The hotel eggs at breakfast were just as gross as those at Wier House, but I ate a lot anyways to store up energy for all the hiking that was planned. We spent the morning hiking Mount Ngauruhoe (which is the stand in for Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movie) and listening to Dr. Parker's lectures on pyroclastic flows and such. We made a drinking game out of his lectures, every time he used the word 'rubbly' we took a shot of water. Needless to say, we stayed very very well hydrated. By the end of the day we were exhausted and returned to our motel. We completed the night by trading massages, ordering pizza, and watching "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

To be finished tomorrow morning....