AND THEN THERE WERE THREE

hello superstars!

it has been a while since i posted
ok
recap

last you heard i was jumping out of planes in Taupo, yes?
k, well... after that we came to Rotarua and spent alot of money doing cool touristy things.
then we went Wwoofing at this really cool place between Hamilton and Auckland.
then we went to Auckland for one night and picked up Mim's sister (who shall hence forth be known as Em) who flew in to visit for her spring break.
woot woot.
then, the three of us drove to Raglan with the intention of becoming hardcore surfers.
unfourtunately, most of NZ was attacked by gale force winds and torrential rainstorms, so actually we spent a lot of time hangin out in our cool hostel, talking to sad surfers, playing cards and scrabble, reading, and basically not being hardcore surfers.
so we left there after only two nights. which is too bad, cause it definetly had potential to be the coolest place yet.

then we went to Waitomo and we did a black water rafting tour.
which was completely awesome. first we got dressed up in horrid damp wetsuits and purple pants and a harness with a very cool repelling device that i'd never seen before, and a helmet with a light on it. then we repelled down into this cave and walked through glow worm caves for a couple hours. and in certain places you get in a little black tube and lazy river through the caves. and it's very dark and scary but also you can see around you since the glow worms are so bright. then, there were these two little tiny off-shoot caves and our guide was like "if you want and extra challenge, try to crawl through there".

here i should mention that i have a pretty intense fear (verging on phobia) of being in small spaces where there is water and darkness. i can handle MRIs, but tiny rock caves and some little dutch man telling me "yeah you might fit through" is just not my thing. but you only live once, right? so i crawled throught the first one and got stuck pretty permanently near the end and my heart rate was up around the 250 mark because i was so scared and there was a lot of wiggling and nervous laughter and then i was free! yeeah! it was like being born. litterally. then there was another little cave and the beginning of it was underwater. and that almost made me poop my wetsuit. but i did it anyways. and it was bigger so it wasn't so bad. kinda cool actually. heart rate still pretty high though.

so anyways
that was pretty cool.
i'm all about the "face your fears, you only live once" deal
apparently.
and also the "i'm never gonna see anybody here every again so who cares if i make a huge ass of myself?" slogan factors in to a lot of my decisions.

anyways, then at the end of the caves we climbed out of the cave and that was pretty cool too. climbing in rubber boots and a wetsuit up slippery limestone is surprisingly more challenging that most other climbing that i've done. but pretty cool.
and the guide was using one of those Petzle D belay devices... or whatever they are called... those new cool ones that can hold ropes that are only like 9mm thick, i think. so that was neat to see, cause i'd never seen one before except in magazines.

then the next day we came back to rotarua because i had some unfinished business with the moutain biking trails here, and Em wanted to come here too cause it's a pretty cool city. despite its pervasive and absolutely disgusting stench of sulfur.

you see, the first time we were here i really wanted to try the biking because i'd heard that this place has some of the best trails in the world. but i totally chickend out because biking on my own scared me a lil bit and it was raining just enough that i was able to convince myself that it wouldn't be fun. then (last time we were here) on our last night here i met this guy who has travelled all around new zeland on his own for five months with a station wagon and his mountain bike and i was so jealous.

so again, i had a "face my fears" moment.
and yesterday morning i rented a bike for a couple hours and i hit those trails so hard they didn't know what'd hit them.
it was AWESOME. there is this absolutely enormous network of trails south of Rotarua. i could have spend DAYS in there. but alas, i only had two hours. which was still enough to get pretty substantially lost about four times and meet a lot of local kiwi bikers who were able to tell me exactly where i was. and eat a banana. and figure out the map! but then still get lost again.
definetly i like biking on my own... it wasn't nearly as lonely as i thought it would be. and i didn't fall down and break anything and have to wait for strangers to save me. and i didn't have to try to keep up! i went so slow! it was so cool!

anyways
then we went white water rafting in the afternoon. and we were supposed to be there at 3:30 but we turned on highway 36 instead of 33 and didn't realize it for a long time. and it was sortof mim's fault because she was driving and sortof my fault because i was the official navigator and i was napping and when she said "this one here??" and pointed at the sign i was like "zzzzzzzzzzzyeahzzzzzzzzz" because i assumed that she was pointing at a 33 instead of a 36. i blame her. she blames me. really it was hilarious. we called them from the road to explain and they were so nice and basically just made fun of us the whole time but didn't get mad at all. even though we were 20 minutes late and held up A LOT of people.

ps. mim should drive nascars. holy moly she is good.

rafting was pretty fun though. we went over the highest commercially raftable waterfall in the world, 21 ft. i think that's pretty cool. and i didn't fall out. and we didn't flip. and also, it involved another lovely wetsuit/helmet combination. which i think is definetly my best look.

then i had some pretty hardcore intentions to do some pretty hilarious st patty's day celebrating, but alas, i passed out on the couch at 8pm due to total body exhaustion and partying with strangers just didn't seem too appealing.
all in all, it was a pretty fantastic day.
today we are headed down towards Tongariro National Park and tomorrow we are gonna do The Crossing (this eight hour hike that is apparently a "don't miss").
so hopefully that is cool and we don't die or fall into the volcano or anything.

anyways
i have naught much else to say

EXCEPT THAT
holy moly wanna hear something weird?
so, at home, where you are, daylight savings time just began, yes? well here, it just ended. SO, now for me to figure out the time where you are: kingston is ADD EIGHT HOURS, SUBTRACT A DAY, and victoria is ADD FIVE HOURS, SUBTRACT A DAY. which means that the time difference is actually LESS, but the inconvenience of phone calling is actually MORE. it's all very strange and confusing, i think.
but anyways

i don't have anything else to say
and i need to pack
and it's 7:30am so the kitchen is open now
and i'm STARVING
and oh my we need to book our hostel for tonight.
oops. forgot to do that.

and so i go now
you really should all post comments because:
a)i am curious to know who all is reading this
b)it does wonders for my self-worth

ciao