New Zealand: like Lord of the Rings, only better!

Saturday, 2/23 8:20 PM.
New Zealand is my favorite place in the whole wide world, end of story.

Queenstown is ridiculous, it's the "adventure capital of the world," and seriously, it lives up to its name. Everywhere you look, there's people falling out of the sky: parachuting, skydiving, bungeeing, they're everywhere! It's ridiculous. Because I'm here and because I had to at some point in my life, I sucked it up and paid about half of my life savings to partake in the adventures, and I can now officially say I have survived skydiving!!! It was the coolest experience of my life and I have absolutely no qualms about the price I paid anymore. It was incredibly thrilling, I got one of the most gorgeous views in the entire world, and it was something I've wanted to do for a long time. I'm out of words to talk about what an awesome experience it was. I'll explain more when I have more time to update and more money to spend on internet.

Today we went out to do the Rob Roy hike, but it was dumping rain and we had to drive on a pebble road for about 20 kms. Still, after driving almost 2 hours to get out there and risking our lives because we switched drivers and the two American guys are a) still learning to drive stick and b) still learning to drive on the left, we decided we had to go out and do the hike. We came back completely drenched and cold and drippy, but it was a gorgeous hike and gorgeous scenery. Cheesy, but true: it looks exactly like the Lord of the Rings scenery! Not kidding! The whole country is full of gorgeous lakes and sweeping landscapes and edgy mountains and it's all just so vibrant and alive everywhere. I can't get enough of it. I'm looking into buying my first car ever with some other people here so we can travel for every second of our lives that we're not in class or writing papers or some other bother like that. Kidding, kind of. I haven't started class, but all I have to say is that they had better be really good to make me want to go to class instead of just travel this entire country top to bottom. I start class on Monday, so we'll see how that goes.

I cannot describe how happy I am here and how much I am in love with this country. I've met such great people, seen such cool things, done such exciting activities... It's exactly what I wanted out of my study abroad experience. It's totally wickedas. Note the use of NZ vernacular: they say "coolas" or "sweetas," as in "cool as..." or "sweet as..." but they don't fill in the sentence with what it's cool as. It doesn't make any sense, but it's totally growing on me, as have the terms "sunnies" and "tongs," sunglasses and bathing suit respectively. Love it.

Hope everybody else is likewise living it up, love love love!