Queenstown and other funny stuff

Hello all!!

I apologize for the delay in postings. I have to admit, a lot of the things I do on a daily basis are not all that exciting as I spend my days reading journal articles and developing evaluation forms, etc. Not all that exciting and certainly not an adventure.

However, this past weekend my family flew into Queenstown, New Zealand which is about 3.5 hours west of Dunedin. It is known as the adventure capital of the world and I must say, it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

I arrived the first day and rode the Gondola up to the peak of the mountain where I was able to take some amazing pictures as well as climb aboard the "Luge" which basically is a track where you get on this little scooter type thing and ride down the mountain with a helmet hoping you don't plunge to your death.

The next day my parents and I took a drive up the lake where we got to walk the woods where Lord of the Rings was filmed. In fact, Wolverine is being filmed here now and we saw a ton of filming crews out in the streets. We walked through the forest which was unbelievable and saw several of the spots seen in Lord of the Rings movies including the talking trees!

We then climbed aboard a boat that traveled around 60 mph up the river with twists, turns, and nearly darting us into huge boulders. We were able to see waterfalls and glaciers, and water so blue you would not believe!

The next day we went to a farm where I was able to see and feed a sheep!!! I love them...I would actually like to have one as a pet now! So cute and they really do BAA!! Anyway, after that we went to the Original Bungee Site where I strapped on the harness and bungeed 154 feet off the bridge into the river where I was actually able to touch the water with my hands...it was a THRILL!!

Ok, so on to the funny interesting things on New Zealand. 1) yes, the water in the toilet does actually flow counterclockwise AND there are 2 options for flushing a 1/2 or a full flush...you can guess which one you use for what! 2) they take the whole left side of the road thing seriously meaning you also walk on the left, not the right of the sidewalk...you learn quickly as you end up walking into almost everyone 3) phone rates are insane!!! the cell phone is 89 cents a minute and 30 cents per text. you can't buy monthly plans unless you want to pay $200/month for about 200 minutes. Internet is even funnier as you pay per month as to how much you want to download (e.g. if you plan on downloading only 2GB worth of information a month you pay less than if you wanted to download 10GB/month) 4)Women do not wear bras...so I'm hangin loose! haha..just kidding! 5) you order coffee not with cream because cream is like a thick butter here...if you want coffee with "cream" you order a flat white. if you want black coffee it is known as a tall black.

I think that's all for now but I"m sure i'll update you with more!

I hope you enjoy the videos and pictures!