Roto and Welly

As usual many interesting things have been happening with interesting people.  But also many cold things with cold people because these southern parts are in winter time, and I must say I am not a fan.  At the end of classes and before finals started I was forced to do a classic Wellington sight seeing trip with Caitlin to climb to the top of Mount Victoria.  Well I though oh sure, sounds great a little hike and a great view of the city.  What I got was an hour walk up hill both ways just to get to the hike, and then climbing a mountain, oh and did I mention that in true New Zealand fashion is was raining.  And in classic Wellington fashion this rain was of course sideways.  Because here rain does not fall straight down, that would be silly and boring.

A comical depiction of a well known scientific fact: Wellington rain does not fall from the sky, it attacks your face.

Deceptively Smiley

So after finally making it to the top (and learning that they used to do day trips to Antarctica from Wellington before global warming made it too dangerous and was a fun sucker for the rest of us) and enjoying the views and a few moments of sunshine and some slight feelings of accomplishment, we headed back down the hill for some Vietnamese lunch and back to the world of learning and responsibilities and such nonsense.

So we soon had more than enough of such things and decided smack in the middle of much exam sitting and paper writing there was a nice little trip to Rotorua, also known as Smelly Town run by Mayor McStinks-a-lot.  Thanks to a completely unnecessary amount of geothermal activity the entire city smells like rotten eggs in a good spot and death farting when you hit a bad patch, which you do, frequently.  Just walking down the street thinking "Ah this isn't so bad, I think I'm actually getting used-" BAM! You are holding your breath for the next 30 seconds and wishing you had some steel wool to scrub your tongue with.  But really it's a nice place, though pretty touristy.  There are lots of gloriously fun things though like the swoop (pictured) which is a fun name for what is basically a monstrously large swing.  By monstrously I mean they lift you 150 feet into the air by a crane and lashed together in what seem to be a mix between a sleeping bag and overalls, and then one of you has to pull to the cord to send you free falling.  That was Hope's job.  And the entire experience was as fun as it looks.  The face in the picture is mostly because I was unaware that Hope had already pulled the cord and found it somewhat startling to suddenly be flying towards the ground.  Totally worth it.

There were also cows.

The very daring Mikayla did work up the nerve to bungy jump.  And she did it over a donkey.  And a very pretty steam since I got to see the views once I made it up for the swoop.  Even after making herself jump off a platform 43 meters in the air, the big swing scared her, but we were all very proud, especially since the girl before here didn't manage to jump at all.

Some of the most interesting stories from Rotorua though have no pictures to go along with them.  First there was Tom taking us to go see the glow worms,  I'm not convinced that he wasn't trying to kidnap us, and it didn't help that at one point he asked if we could stop by his house for a minute and on the way home he took us to the liquor store.  More importantly when we got to the area where the glow worm caves were supposed to be (a dark empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere) he wasn't sure where to go or where the caves where exactly.  So we headed down the steps to the waterfall and when we reached the bottom our flashlights revealed something interesting.  The path way was completely underwater at the foot of the steps, and just on the other side of the meager railing was the fastest moving rapids I have ever come across ready to sweep us away into darkness.  Tom casually asked if we minded getting our feet wet and when he met silence he suggested we turn off the lights and check to see if there were any glow worms on the rock on either side of the stairs.  Luckily there were and they were really pretty, I felt like I was in Avatar.  And then Tom took us back home safe.  Luckily.

That night however we were not so safe because not only did our hostel have a sugar ant infestation (woke up with some even in my bed not to mention everywhere else) but possibly an infestation of the dead variety.  At one point I heard someone get up and walk across the room, but the door never open.  Curious I turned over and saw a man standing in the room relatively near my bed.  Freaked out I flipped back over, but after awhile I heard sleep breathing and just assumed the Canadian Carsten was sleep walking.  When it continued I started to wonder what I should do and if he was ever going to get back in bed, so I glanced over at his bed, and sure enough he was in it and there was no one in the room.  Now normally I would just assume I am just hearing and seeing things, but the next morning Mikayla greeted us with "You guys, last night something really weird happened"  Apparently around 4am she woke up to a light on her face form the open door.  As she watched it slowly shut from the and latched (which you have to have a key for) but she didn't hear any footsteps move away form the door in either direction and the floor was quite squeaky.  We mostly just figured it was weird and jokingly mentioned the "haunted" hostel to our driver taking us to the Swoop place.  She promptly replied "Oh yea, I get a weird feeling every time I go in there.  It makes my skin crawl, it's a really old hostel too so I'm sure someone has died there at some point."  So that was fun.

I just like this picture as it is a pretty accurate representation of our friendship.