Weekend #2

The adventures have never ceased here... And I love it. At the end of each and every day I feel such an intense desire and longing for a few more hours to have a couple extra conversations with people, to see one extra neat thing in this fabulous place. But alas! All we get is 24 hours so better make the best of it! And so we have. The University had planned numerous different activities in the evenings for the first two weeks of class to give us plenty to do. We all discovered an amazing New Zealand band during this time from Alex's kiwi roommate Joel. They are called six60 and are totally amazing. I fell in love with them from the first song I heard. So of course we all immediately got tickets and headed to the concert five days later. It was on a Friday night, we took the metro bus downtown and walked for what seemed like an hour until we reached the tent where it was being held. A tent yep, but the setting did not take away from the music or the experience at all. One of the most fun concerts I had ever been too. We also met a couple sweet kiwis while waiting in line that happened to be in my biology classes. Again, I love this place. We still hang out with them :)

The night before the concert I had gone out on my own little adventure to pick up my cheap as rock climbing shoes that I had bought on trademe.co.nz which is kind of the equivalent to craig's list back home. The deals are great though, I got basically new climbing shoes for $40...which with the exchange rate is even better! Ha. But the trip going to get them was quite an experience... Hopped on the bus at Ilam thinking I knew where I was going to come upon the pleasant realization that I had no idea where I was... and it gets dark right around 6pm so I was in the dark. Jumped off the bus when the bus driver said I might be close to my final destination. Fortunately for me kiwis are amazingly kind and I harassed about ten to fifteen people asking for directions and after running in the freezing dark around god knows where New Zealand I finally found the house, collected my purchase and bought myself TimTams as a reward for not dying. And ate all of them immediately... (they are these amazing cookies for any of you that don't know)... The point of this story being that I had just showered prior to my leaving and after all the running around in the dark coldness I got sick the next day. Still went to the concert after downing a couple Vitamin C pills and ten gallons of tea. And then of course all of J-flat was also sick from doing way too much all week and not sleeping enough. But that didn't keep us from going to the concert or heading up to Hamner Springs the next day. Ilam apartments organized a free bus for us up north about two hours drive to a cute little town of Hamner where they have this little park of hot springs. Most people paid the $14 dollars to get in the springs but Zak, Brandon and I decided to save money and went exploring instead. Which was so worth it! The views were amazing.

And then we got lost... Story of being a bunch of stupid Americans running around the beautiful nature that is New Zealand. Then realized we had to make it back to our bus before it left without us... Ran down a muddy hill.... Cut through someone's yard... Eventually found the trail back and had an amazing time doing it all.