Nothing out of the ordinary

This should be a short one, as I've done a whole lot of nothing since the last time I wrote a blog. I've been hiding out in Christchurch since my nightmare of a ride ended. My days have been filled with couches and televisions, a couple of nice days in town and a night or two out with friends. It's been really wonderful to have some downtime as I have a packed two weeks that have just begun.

Christchurch was cloudy most of the days that I was there, so I spent a lot of time getting pictures into my blog and working on fun things like taxes! By the way, I've gotten photos put into all of my New Zealand blogs, so if you go back in time, you can see a few of the shots that I have taken. The past week or so has been quite boring with a bit of normalcy thrown into the mix as I have hung out with friends and seen nothing out of the ordinary.

The only fun thing that I did accomplish was getting a new tattoo. I've been wanting one since the beginning of my travels, but have lacked the time and imagination to figure out what new permanent fixture I wanted on my body. Unfortunately, when you get something like this, you're not able to be in the water for at least a week after. As most of my destinations have been beaches, I couldn't take care of business until now.



Sunday was a beautiful, cloudless day out in Christchurch. A friend and I decided to spend the day in the park and art galleries in the area. Around 4pm I came up with the idea of my new ink...a quote that a friend graciously gave to me in the form of a neckless last summer. This phrase is the epitome of the way I feel about my travels. So within an hour of thinking of it, I was in the tattoo parlour preparing to be a human pincushion. It turned out beautifully and I'm so happy with the result. Just another addition to the many souvenirs I have attained throughout my travels. It was my Valentine's Day present to myself.




The day after, I set off for Queenstown. I had originally planned to come down by bus, but a flight just sounded so much better and more efficient...so I took it. I flew down in the company of the most lovely 80 year old woman. She was sitting next to me on the plane and told me of her similar fear of flying. We kept talking for the duration of the flight and she helped me through the spiralling decent into the valley by holding my hand. I was quite a sight; panicked, so early in the morning. I helped her with her bags and her daughter gave me a driving tour of Queenstown and a ride directly to my hostel.

The town I'm in is gorgeous! It's somewhat like Tahoe with it's huge peaks surrounding a perfecly blue lake. It is the outdoor sport capital of New Zealand, so basically a huge REI. This is wonderful in my opinion. There are outdoor stores and activity booking shops galore!



I came down here to meet up with a friend flying in from the states. Brad got here yesterday afternoon and it's very surreal to have a piece of home with me at this point. I picked him up yesterday from the airport and we've wandered the town. Today was a preparation day for our four day hike that begins tomorrow. We had a cloudless sky all day today and took a hike to the top of the mountains surrounding the town. We took in the view of the lake and paragliders slowly making their decent (crazy people!). The weather forecast for our hike is rain, rain, rain, so lets hope Mr. Weatherman is wrong. I'll get back to the blog as soon as we get back and let you know how our possibly very wet adventure went!