Bonjour-Mundo!

That’s right folks, good old southern hemisphere for you. Winter in June. And the Kiwi’s know how to have a blast in the snow…in fact they seem to love the cold as everytime we go into a backpackers we find the windows open, along with no heat. Crazy people.

Anyhow, Em and I spent the last few days in Queenstown and had a great time. The city seems to be like the Aspen of New Zealand. Ski town with lots of fancy places to stay, definitely it’s fair share of fine dining to go with them, but luckily for us, also a few good cheapies and affordable hostels. The city is nestled in the mountains a looks out upon Lake Wakitupo, just beautiful.

The first night we got in was their mardi gras celebration. The evening started off with a more family oriented version of a mardi gras parade with people in masks, big puppet type things, colorful characters on stilts and the like. Lots of kids carrying little hand made lanterns as well. Then everyone met up in the center square where there was a huge bandstand set up with free live music all evening. There was also tons of food and drink stalls set up down the street. Lots of cheap yummy food, everything from beef bomber sandwiches to pumpkin soup, to waffles to thai and indian food. They also had mulled wine by the truckload. Something I’d never had before but have taken a liking too. Hot red wine with some spices, tastes kind of like cider. Works wonders for keeping warm outdoors in a freezing cold winter night. Although I ended up dragging Emily in as I was shivering, we had a great night for the most part.

The next day had more festival stuff, including crazy races and relays, a slip and slide, a drag queen obstacle course race, and lots of races involving guys dressed up in snickers bar costumes. All super fun to watch. We also took a gondola up to the top of a mountain overlooking the town. Gorgeous views. We also LUGED! Really good time, not quite on ice like the olympics, but on a concrete track around the mountain on a kind of laid back sled on wheels kind of thing. It reminded me of those sit and skate orange scooter things from the 80’s, not sure if anyone else knows what I’m talking about. Anyhow, it was great fun.

Today we wandered around and went for a hike up in the hills. A lot of the hike was through super dense forest, kind creepy, I expected some sort of creature from lord of the rings to jump out at me. But it was fun, and although the clouds were to low to see much from the top, what we could see was cool. Only problem was the ice, a lot of the track was icy, and I managed to slip quite a few times, once majorly biting the dust for a nice muddy bum, shoot. So much for my one pair of clean pants. Opps.

Anyhow, I am headed to the states tomorrow! I’ll probably post one last blog once I’m back. I’ll have plenty of time on my million hours of planes to think of something clever I hope. But I’m excited to see you all soon! Have a wonderful day!

First off, edit…in the last post I mentioned that the south island was a world heritage site, I meant the west coast of the south island, not the whole south island. Just fyi.

So, I have officially decided that I want to move to Wanaka (rhymes with Monica) and be a ski bum. How much fun would that be? Em and I had a wonderful time in the little ski town and an even better time on the mountain. The first night we were in town we went to this old little movie theatre. Although the film we saw was extremely bizarre and didn’t make any sense, the movie theatre was great. You sit on old comfy couches and arm chairs, there was even an old vintage vw bug you could relax in. Then, they have an intermission with fresh baked still warm from the oven cookies and homemade ice cream! Yum! It was great.

The next day we hit the slopes. We went to a place called Cardrona, and it was fantastic. We were acutally on a mountain, none of this silly Minnesota hill stuff. Seriously, we were above the clouds, it was incredible. At the top of the run I felt like I practically had to pinch myself to realize I actually was in this awesome place, skiing in New Zealand. As you go down the mountain you look out on what I believe were the southern alps, if not, still just spectacular snow capped mountains, majestic as any I have ever seen. I was breathless everytime I saw them. The day was perfect for skiing as well. Blue skies and sunshine, mid thirties, not cold at all. It was wonderful. The only complaint I would have is that Cardrona doesn’t like to label their runs…you’d go over a ledge not really knowing whether it was a green, blue, or black dimond. Not exactly the best way to do things, but hey, it made for an adventure…or something like that.

At night we even found a bar that was playing Desperate Housewives! A little dose of home, only they shut it off when Grey’s Anatomy came on! Boo! Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

For now we are in Queenstown, a great little town surrounded again by beautiful mountains and Lake Wakitupu (sp?). Winterfest is on and we’re having a great time. Hard to believe we’ll be back in summer weather in just a few days!!

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