Boggle!

When I was a kid one of the things my family did regularly was sit around the kitchen table and play Boggle. It's one of those things that slowly stopped happening and the memory faded away. This past weekend I was helping friends decorate their Christmas Tree and we ended up closing the evening out by sitting around the coffee table playing Boggle. I can't believe I forgot how much fun it is to play, and how "just one more round" became over an hour of play.


This is the game we had at home:


It's been updated to a more "modern" blue, but the game is the same.


So much fun - I think I need to own it now and make all my friends play word games with me.

I CAN HAZ GREEN CARD?

Yes, I can!

After over 5 years of jumping through all the hoops, I'm finally a Permanent Resident of the United States!

Prop 8 - the musical!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Les Misbarak

Banning books

I don't ban books, but as a librarian I am constantly selecting books for my library. When I choose to not purchase a book for the library, is that akin to banning it? I don't think so.

Here's an interesting post from a bookseller that discusses the act of selection and it's relation to banning.

Best baby halloween costume ever!

Delicious lobster baby!

200!

As of today I have completed 200 books this calendar year. 26 more and I'll beat last year's total, and that's even with a month where I only read about 6 books due to traveling.

Book 200:



You can always track my reading online and see how I'm doing.

Neil Gaiman!

Last night I went to see Neil Gaiman read and speak at the Gershman Y. For those who don't know, Gaiman is one of my favourite authors (along with Terry Pratchett, Lindsay Davis, Robin McKinley, and a few others). Gaiman is on a tour across the US reading a chapter of his new book "The Graveyard Book" at each stop. Last night was Chapter 2 - The New Friend. He read the chapter in it's entirety (took about 45 minutes) and the audience was engrossed all the way through. He's a fabulous reader and storyteller (and this is coming from a girl who falls asleep within the first 5 minutes of an audiobook no matter how interesting). He makes each character sound different without using silly voices (although his portrayal of the Sleer was actually chilling) and he has a fabulous way of engaging the audience and bringing the test to life. Yes I'm a fangirl, but I swear it's the truth.

Here's a blurry photo of him reading:



After the chapter we watched a trailer for the movie version of Coraline and then Gaiman came back out to answer questions that had been handed in by the audience earlier.

All in all it was a fabulous night, and Gaiman ranks right up there in terms of public speaking with Pratchett (who I introduced at the library a few years ago). I've never heard someone who was so good at public reading before.

If you want to follow along on the tour, the Mouse Circus website is posting a video of each chapter read along the tour by Gaiman. By the end of the tour you will be able to see him read the whole book

Oh, good lord, no.

I laugh so I don't cry...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

10 Great Countercultural Children's Books

Occasionally I head over to Woot to see what they have say. This is today's post. I was meh at the beginning, but laughing out loud by the end.

10 Great Countercultural Children's Books

1. William S. Burroughs’ The Little Engine That Shot Its Wife
2. Green Eggs And Ham On Rye by Charles Bukowski
3. A Clockwork Orange: My First Book Of Colors And Time by Anthony Burgess
4. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Esther by Sylvia Plath
5. Justine And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by the Marquis De Sade
6. Franz Kafka’s Metamorphs #1: Insectified
7. Henry Miller’s The Cheerful Little Tugboat Crosses The Equator
8. The Horse And His Boy by Peter Shaffer
9. D.H. Lawrence’s I’ll Love You Forever
10. How The Grinch Stole The Best Minds of My Generation by Allen Ginsberg

What to do when your book gets slammed

The most brilliant use of negative reviews I've seen in a good long while.

Drink the Neil Gaiman kool-aid

Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, and Neverwhere was the first book of his that I read. For a limited time only, Harper Collins is offering the complete novel for free to read online or download. Check it out.

Things that make me smile

I get a lot of publisher catalogues at work. This year the most eye-catching catalog covers come from Independent Publisher's Group. Actually, IPG usually has the best covers, this year I've just managed to remember to scan them in. Don't these covers make you WANT to see what's inside?

This one makes me giggle and crave a croissant at the same time


And this one is disturbing and brilliant as well

Let's Dance!

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Fortune cookies in China

A few months ago I read Jennifer 8 Lee's book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which traces the history of Chinese restaurants in the United States. It was then that I learned that fortune cookies are not Chinese at all - they were invented in America by Japanese bakers. Anyway, Lee took the opportunity while traveling in China to hand out fortune cookies to people there and recorded their reactions.

Richard Dawkins loves his anti-fans!

I just saw this video of Ricard Dawkins reading out some of the hatemail that's been emailed to him. Surprisingly hilarious!



p.s. interesting fact I just found out: Dawkins is married to Lalla Ward, who played Romana in Doctor Who.

Jane's Addiction

This one is for sebethis, who is somewhere between Philly and Chicago right now, preparing for her big move to London. I'm sorry I lent you Spaced and you ended up watching that all night instead of a repeat viewing of Pride and Prejudice. Actually, I'm not sorry at all because Spaced rocks. Anyhow, here's something to have with you when the Jane Austen marathon picks up again



This is from Mostly Water Theatre Company, as heard on The Irrelevant Show

BBQ Madness

Now that I have a patio, I have also acquired a BBQ grill. And now that I have a grill, I think I need a swashbuckling BBQ sword!



Yes, the mask is included :)

Happy Birthday to me!

I love birthdays. I love them so much I spend about a month celebrating mine. We started back on the 12th with a birthday picnic and things really kicked into high gear today. Yes, today is my actual birthday. Yippee!

I spent the day doing fun things like going to Klondike Days (now called the Capital Ex) with my sister and wandering the midway, zoning out with a good book and a slurpee, and doing Taste of Edmonton with the family and stuffing my face (4 different ice creams!).

One of the reasons I love my birthday so much is that this is the time of year I fly out to Edmonton and visit the old stomping grounds and touch base with all my friends back home. I got here yesterday and I'm spending the next week hanging out, eating my face off, shopping, and generally having a great time.

Life is good.
.
.

Dr. Horrible!

Free 'til Tuesday - check it out!

New comic obsession

I was at ALA this past weekend in sunny Anaheim. Aside from getting my grubby little hands on the new Terry Pratchett book (and 70 more pounds of books), I stumbled across a web comic called Sheldon. The guy was right next to my standby Unshelved booth, and I picked up a page with sample comics on it and thought they were adorable. I don't think it's really a library cartoon per se, but it is in the middle of an adorable summer reading storyline. Go to the site, the strips start on June 25, 2008. Here's some of my favourites so far:

The president's daughter

Last year at ALA I picked up an advance copy of Long May She Reign by Ellen Emerson White from the magnificent folks at Feiwel and Friends. It's taken me a year to get around to it in my quest to finally read all the books I actually own, but I've been saving the best for last. Long May She Reign is the long awaited (so long that I thought there were only three and maybe the author had died or stopped writing back in the 80's or something) fourth book in a series about a teen girl who's mom runs for and wins the presidency of the United States.

I remember reading the first book back when I was about ten or eleven and then devouring the series as it came out. It's not a fluffy girl book either - Meg, the president's daughter, deals with a whole bunch of shit, especially in the later books - including her mom's attempted assassination and her own kidnapping and torture. But she's a believable girl dealing with extreme (yet believable) situations and I'd love to have her for a friend.

This fourth book picks up right where the third left off, which Meg and her family dealing with the physical and psychological effects of her kidnapping. I'm only about 150 pages in so far, but I've been sucked right back into her world.

If you've never read the series before (and you don't have to be a teenager to love them), Fiewel and Friends is re-releasing them with nifty new covers on July 22.

It's the High School Tonys!

High School Tony Awards Honor Nation's Biggest Drama Club Nerds

Grrr

Well, I woke up chipper and disgustingly perky this morning, and then I went to Lowe's. I wanted to get the Bug Off Instant Screen Door for the back door so we can keep it open in the spring without the mosquitos swarming in and attacking my roommate en masse.

I checked online to see if they had it and then headed down. I ended up waiting 15 minutes in the door section for someone to come help me, and when someone finally did show up he was not even from that department, he was from the garden department. He had absolutely no clue what I was talking about and kept pointing at random doors and asking if that's what I wanted. I kept explaining what I need by name and description and offering to show it to him on their website.

He finally called a manager who goes through the whole process again, and then looked in their catalogue (finally) and saw that they should have 3 in stock. Of course, neither of them has heard of what I'm looking for, and they don't know what the packaging looks like, and they spend another 15 minutes wandering down aisles looking for it. Garden guy also called another store which had the screen to have them describe the packaging to him.

Some other guy showed up and knew exactly what I was looking for and led us right to it (right on the end of an aisle in the door section) but it was the wrong size. At this point (at least 45 minutes from when I started looking for someone to help me) the guy who actually works in the department showed up and told me that they don't have it in, the computer inventory is wrong. Argh!

I left the store in a really pissy mood, came home, and bought a brand new Bug Off screen door on eBay for half the price.

This day had better get better.

Happy Spring!

The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and I've been wandering around outside in short sleeves. Of course, that's because I'm in the sunny south - here's what it looked like in Edmonton yesterday:




Hee hee!

Book of the Week

I'm going through our paperback order list to decide what to buy for the library, and this title just jumped out at me



Where DO they come up with these?

(and no, I'm not buying a copy, although it is tempting...)

Happy National Library Week, part trois!

Happy National Library Week, part deux!

Happy National Library Week!

Set phasers to do me

Best geeky tagline ever!

Especially since it graces the cover of a book called Cosmic Sex

Statistic I would like to see evidence for

Philadelphia has some interesting ads in it's public buses. On the one I ride to work I often see this one:



Now that's a statistic I find hard to believe - almost 50% of black children in Philadelphia are aborted? Really? Considering the source is the Family Life Educational Foundation, which is a affiliation of some hard-line pro-life groups (according to the City Paper), I highly doubt this is what it seems.

Citizenship

Today a friend of mine became a US Citizen and I went to the ceremony to cheer her on. I have never been to one before and thus have never heard the Oath of American Citizenship before. Here it is:

Oath of American Citizenship

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

Wow. That's pretty heavy and something that I don't know that I can say and mean at this point in my life. In contrast, here's the Canadian oath:

Oath of Citizenship - Canada

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

Short and much less specific than the American one - follow the law and live up to your responsibilities. Nothing about enemies (foreign or domestic) or abjuring anything or serving in the army. You don't have to give up anything to be a Canadian whereas you have to renounce all previous fealties to be an American. And you don't have to swear under god - bringing religions into politics always kind of creeps me out. Even if I wasn't a Canadian to begin with, I think I could easily say that oath. The American one I'd have to seriously think about.

Things I love today

One of the shows I really got into this season was Journeyman. It starred Kevin McKidd (from Rome) as Dan Vassar, a reporter who suddenly begins traveling backwards in time. It was a well-plotted, fabulously acted, thoughtful show, so of course it was canceled. At least with the writer's strike the network actually showed all 13 episodes produced, which was great because it actually works as a self-contained miniseries in some ways. Anyways, I just found out that you can watch all 13 episodes online at hulu. It starts fairly slowly, but by about two or three episodes in it becomes riveting. The way the backlog built up on my Tivo I ended up watching them all in about a week, and it was just beautiful.

Here's the first episode, and then head over to Hulu to watch all 13 if you want to.

Run, Fatboy, Run

Last night I took my free movie pass and borrowed my friend's boyfriend and went to a preview showing of Run, Fatboy, Run. I was very excited for the movie because of Simon Pegg (and once I realized he was in it, Dylan Moran). Once I found out the director was David Schwimmer I became a bit less excited, although I shouldn't let the fact that I hated his character on Friends colour how I view him as a director.

This was a basic paint-by-numbers Hollywood underdog romantic comedy. Basically - boy leaves pregnant fiancee at alter, spends next five years regretting it, girl meets new man who is perfect and runs marathons, boy decides to run marathon to prove his love to girl and win her back. I'll let you figure out what happens in the end - it's not a surprise. Not as sharp or witty as Shaun of the Dead (admittedly hard to top) or even Hot Fuzz. We were talking about it after the show and the best we could come up with was "cute". A pleasant way to spend a few hours but ultimately forgettable. The best lines came from Dylan Moran (not a surprise) and Thandie Newton spent the movie looking pretty and concerned. Simon Pegg was Simon Pegg - I'd watch him read a phone book, so I enjoyed him in this, even though his character was pretty two dimensional.

In a weird sponsorship deal, the promo people from Wired 96.5 were there before the show giving out Run, Fatboy, Run water bottles and sweatbands and tons of radio station freebies. Not quite sure why a "Hits and Hip-Hop station" was sponsoring this movie, but I did get lots of free swag (which I will promptly try to unload on other people).

RIP Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke died last night.

I remember that my dad gave me Childhood's End to read when I was a kid - it was one of the first science fiction novels I read. Dad and I would have discussions about Clarke's outlook on what the future was like as opposed to other writers such as Asimov. Clarke was one of the authors who made me fall in love with golden age science fiction. His The Nine Billion Names of God is my all time favourite short story.


Clarke's Three Laws, published in Profiles of the Future (1962):

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The Librarian returns

All that is cheesy good fun that you can find about librarian action heroes on the small screen is returning with The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice. Noah Wylie stars as a mild-mannered librarian (although I don't think he actually has a library degree) who works at the New York Metropolitan Library as guardian of mythical treasures. Of course, every so often he has to go out and retrieve said treasures from that hands of assorted bad guys , always with the help of a feisty female sidekick. The first one, Quest for the Spear, was adorable and silly and cheesy enough to supply a whole chain of Domino's.



The second, which had super-stick figure Gabrielle Anwar (who's way better on Burn Notice) replacing kick-ass Sonya Walger as the femme du jour, was just stupid cheesy.



Hopefully the third will get back some of the sheer irreverence and fun and goofball cheesiness of the first. Either way, you know I'll be with a group of fellow librarians throwing popcorn at the screen and snickering about inaccurately portrayed library stereotypes. It'll be a great time.

Match it for Pratchett update

There's now a website and a facebook group for the Match it for Pratchett drive to donate to Alzheimer's research. Thanks to Neil Gaiman's blog for the info!

Match it for Pratchett

One of my favourite authours, Terry Pratchett, was diagnosed a few months back with early onset Alzheimer's disease. He's just donated 500,000 pounds ($1 million) to Alzheimer's research and it would be cool if 500,000 fans each donated 1 pound in his name to match the donation. I'm going to donate right now - if you want to make a contribution head over to the Boing Boing post to read more about the drive and link to the donation site for the Alzheimer's Research Trust.

Arrgh

I don't remember if I've posted this before, but I was poking around online last night to find out if any of my bands had new albums out, and I found this:



Originally done by the Arrogant Worms, Captain Tractor took this song and made it their own.

New Zealand odds and ends

I've realized that I never mentioned which tour company I went with in New Zealand and I've been asked a few times. Susan and I decided to go with Haka Tours because a) it went all over the place and did a bunch of stuff we wanted to do, in a small group and b) it was relatively cheap. In general we were happy with them - we did have issues with Steve, our tour leader on getting places on time sometimes and the previously mentioned drunken day that pissed a bunch of us off mightily. There were some issues where we were not informed of itinerary changes before we actually got there, and breakfast was pretty paltry. Aside from that, it was a good group of people, we did some amazing things, and we saw a huge amount of the country.

I have found a page in my journal where I jotted down quick notes along the way. In no logical sort of order:

-On some of the mountain roads (that aren't dirt or gravel) there are technically two lanes but each lane is too narrow for a full-sized car (or van) so it's really 1 1/2 lanes. I don't know what would happen if there was oncoming traffic.
-All the hostels have little swap libraries where you can leave a book and take a book. Very handy.
-I need moisturizing cream a lot and am shedding less. Something in NZ is good for the skin!
-Crocs flip flips are wonderful shoes for any terrain, as well as shower stalls
-There are bumblebees everywhere on the South Island
-Toilets have two flush buttons, one for a little flush and one for a big flush
-I'm completely addicted to peanut butter and nutella toast for breakfast
-They don't have gingerale (that I've seen) but ginger beer is popular in bottles
-Sprite is called lemonade (either that's a kiwi thing or it's a British thing I picked up from our group)
-There are a ton of one-lane bridges on the main highways
-There's road construction everywhere!

Book of the Week

I spent the weekend reading the new book by Stephenie Meyer, The Host



Sebethis got the prepub at ALA and lent it to me - the book actually doesn't come out until May. I started reading at 10 pm on Saturday and couldn't put it down. Literally - I finished at 5:30 am Sunday morning, which pretty much shot my weekend, but it was worth it. I'm no good at booktalking, so I'll just steal the description fro Stephenie Meyer's site:

"The Host takes place after a bodysnatchers-style invasion of the earth. We (the humans) lost. Our narrator is Wanderer, one of the invading "souls," who struggles to navigate all the bewildering challenges that come with living inside a human body. She was forewarned about these challenges—the overwhelming emotions, the stunning physical responses, the glut of senses, the too vivid dreams and memories... However, there was one challenge Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body, human survivor Melanie Stryder, refuses to fade away into oblivion the way she should. Melanie lingers as an angry presence in Wanderer's head, holding on to her human secrets and filling Wanderer's thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves—Jared, another human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer yearns for the man she's never met. Outside forces combine to make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, and, working together, they set off to search for the man they both love. It's possibly the first love triangle that only involves two bodies."

I loved this book and urge you to go out and read it when it comes out (or find some lucky person who got a prepub and beg to borrow it).

True Dat

Things that happened while I was gone

A house blew up. Seriously. A house about two blocks from mine blew up a few weeks ago. Turns out there was a crack in the gas main under the sidewalk in front of the house and it leaked in and boom! Thankfully no-one was hurt as the homeowners were out, but their poor cat died.

Back Home

I'm home, and pretty much over my jet-lag. I'm going to be updating my travel diary over the next few days in chronological order, so scroll down (or check the blog if you're getting an RSS feed) and find them on the day I actually wrote them in my low-tech spiral notebook, now lovingly transcribed for posterity's sake.

Day 26

Wednesday Feb 20 - my longest Wednesday ever!

Woke up at 7:30 to find out that Jess had spent the night after her fall sleeping on the floor. I did final packing and then headed down to have the last breakfast of the tour: peanut butter and butter and nutella sandwich and a cup of tea. I'm really not eating healthily on this trip :) Ronnie, Norrie, and Andrea were also at breakfast and Ronnie gave Susan and me going-away presents. Susan got a paua shell pen and I got a sheep and sheepdog tic-tac-toe set. It's adorable. Ronnie is one of the nicest people I've ever met, with a wicked sense of humour once you get to know him. Norrie's a love also. I'm so glad they were on the tour with us.

When everyone finally emerged and ate we piled into the van to head for Auckland and the airport, where Susan and I would be dropped off for our flight to LA. Along the way Sarah M. Kier, and I were in the same row and ended up snuggled together under a beach towel. While we were chatting Steve-o turned off the main highway to go someplace special because I had been disappointed that since the itinerary changed I missed the Cadbury factory in Dunedin. We went to Candyland! It's a candy store/factory somewhere between Raglan and Auckland. The girls had fabulous time shopping for all sorts of sweets. I got lots of candy and lollipops, and Sarah M. stocked up on the local equivalent of pixy stix. We spent the remainder of the drive trying to make out tongues go different colours. She was blue, I was orange, and Susan was pink. The store was super cheap and I walked away with lots of candy for only 10 dollars. One last group picture and we were on our way. We pulled into the airport at about 2 and said goodbye to everyone as they were heading on to Auckland to disperse from there. Lots of hugs, and I think even a tear from Susan.

We were really early for our flight, which was at 6, but with Steve-o at the helm early is way better than the alternative :) We paid our departure tax (New Zealand charges $25 to leave the country - kind of like the toll to leave New Jersey) and then plunked ourselves down in front of the check-in counter to wait for the Air Pacific people to show up. A really nice security guy came by to make sure all our liquids were in a ziploc bag and at 3 the counters opened. Our check-in guy was really slow but nice, he gave us exit row seats and let our bags through even though they were slightly over the weight limit. We had three hours to kill but the Auckland airport is really nice with lots of stores, so we had fun. I was on a quest to get a free New Zealand baseball cap from the Regency Duty-Free store, since I had clipped a coupon for it when I arrived in New Zealand. The first Regency was out of stock but the second, past security, had two left. They had to go find them since evidently the promotion had been canceled and most stores were completely out of stock. So I bought some chocolate and got my hat. The flight to Nadi was only about half full, so Susan and I spread out and we got our own rows. Dinner was delicious - a fish filet stirfried with vermicelli and ginger sauce, cold rice salad, and a pavlova. When we got to Fiji (still hot and humid) we had about an hour or so and then onto an Air New Zealand flight to LA. If given the choice I would fly Air Pacific any day over Air New Zealand - the flight attendants are nicer, the food is better, and planes are better as well. We had a pretty dinky plane (2-3-2 seats) and only a large screen up front to watch "Balls of Fury" (again) on. And the flight attendants were snippy. Oh well, I managed to sleep for about 6 or seven hours, and since we crossed the International Dateline we landed in LA 4 hours before taking off in Auckland. Susan and I made it to the hotel, collapsed for a few hours, and then headed down to the fancy restaurant (because we couldn't be bothered to expend the energy to find anywhere else) for a nice dinner. Then back to the room to spread out on luxuriously sized (double) beds and both conked out by 7:30. Tomorrow we part ways and fly home.

Day 25

Tuesday, Feb 19

Woke up at 8 am - Steve-o had just left to go surfing and get bread (I have no idea in which order). I had leftover BBQ pork and rice for breakfast, which was surprisingly delicious, and a feijoa smoothie. We loaded the van and waited to see where to next. We headed out to see Steve's dad's house, then to downtown to wander for about an hour. I window-shopped and found a card that was one of a set of pictures that I fell in love with in Wellington but didn't buy. So now I'll be able to frame this one. We then got on the road to Raglan, which was supposed to take 3 1/2 hours but ended up taking about 5 - partially road construction, partially having to change a tire on the trailer. Along the way we stopped at a place that Steve-o said that white people used to herd Maori and make them stampede over a cliff.

We got to Raglan, home of some of the best surfing in the world according to Steve-o, and went shopping for BBQ food as the lodge had a grill. Sarah w. and I split a box of burgers (I ended up eating 2, she had 4) and I also got a green salad as by this time my body is beginning to crave veggies. We all took turns grilling our food and I also had the last of my second bottle of smoothie. Sat on the deck and chatted, then back to the room to do final packing for the flight back to LA tomorrow. My biggest task - making sure that each bag doesn't go over the weight limit. Wandered back out about 10:30 and the drinking games were beginning - this one was called Ring of Fire. I headed up to take a shower instead. The showers here are weird. You have to have two taps going in order for the hot water to work, so if there's only one person in the shower you have to have the water running in one of the sinks as well or you'd only get cold water. I ended up back in the room chatting with Andrea and Susan then to bed on my cool loft bunk at about midnight. I woke up slightly at 3:30 to a loud thump. I thought Jess had tripped going up the bunk ladder so I went back to sleep, but it turns out that she actually fell completely off the top bunk onto her head so hard that Norrie two rooms away was woken up. Susan and Andrea got up to see if she was okay since she didn't move for about 5-10 seconds after the fall. Susan thinks she might have given herself a mild concussion (to go along with the Vietnamese water parasite worms - long story) and stayed up most of the rest of the night to make sure she was okay. Jess really does seem to have the worst luck, even though tonight was mainly due to her being amazingly drunk (again). The t-shirt she was given by Ronnie and Norrie really does epitomize her.

Day 24

Monday, February 18

Turns out that yesterday Steve-o said to meet back at 1 pm (yesterday) and he'd take people around the city if they wanted. Well, Fran, Joe, and Sarah W. showed up at 1 (a little late) and no Steve-o. They waiting a really long time for him to show up, which he never did. Turns out he met up with some friends and spent the with them - then came back to the hostel much later on bragging about how much beer he'd drunk with them. Not impressive.

We all decided to come back to the hostel at 1 pm to see if Jess is back from the High Commission.Susan and I headed out to the shops - she wanted to go to the Billabong store and I wanted to go to a design store (Beckon) she had found the day before to get an envirosak. We wandered and windowshopped, stopping at Civic Square to see Fringe HQ (two little sheds). Got back to the hostel at i and Jess had her new passport. Susan and I ran accross the street to HK Barbeque to grab some lunch for the road (some kind of home-style noodle dish for her, fried rice and pork for me) and then back to the van to get on the road to New Plymouth. Including occasional bathroom break, it took a little over 5 hours. We got to New Plymouth and ended up at the Edgmont Eco-lodge - really far away from the centre of town, but cute. It's like summer camp - we have cabins with 10 beds each and the bathroom are in one seperate building and the showers are in another. The boys immediately started playing soccer (football) in the field outside the cabins. Kieran has actually spent his life playing semi-pro football, so he was in his element. The girl's were getting ready (including Vickie and Jess in full 80's flourescent getup) and after the game we drove into town for all-you-can eat Chinese buffet. I was still full from my lunch and just had tea and bits of Ed's dessert. It looked like pretty appalling westernized Chinese food so I don't think I missed much. We then headed off to Woolworths to stock up on chocolate (okay, the chocolate was just me). Steve-o, even though we asked for bread for breakfast, did not get any. Back to the lodge for a shower and a nice night in reading in bed. Ronnie and Norrie's snoring drove Kieran and Sarah into the other cabin - thank goodness for earplugs.

Day 23

Sunday Feb 17

Woke up at 8:45 to find that there was still no breakfast, even though Steve-o said that it would be there at 8:00. Got down to the kitchen at about 9:15 and there was some breakfast stuff there, but no nutella (boo!). I headed out to see Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand, but got distracted by a really nice farmer's market in the lot right next to it. After looking arund at all the nice fruit I headed to the grocery store to buy more feijoa smoothie and Timtams. After dropping stuff off back at the hostel I headed back to Te Papa, intending to have a quick look around. Instead I spent around 2 hours. It's a pretty great museum. I then wandered up Cuba Street and went to Satay Palace for roti chennai with lamb curry for dinner. Wellington is truly the city of authentic Malaysian restaurants. I then headed down Manners Mall and inadvertently across on Lambton Quay, ending up at Parliament. Then around and down the way I came. At one point I actually thought I had gotten turned around because all the stores started repeating themselves. Back to the hostel to get ready for the Wellington Fringe Festival show "Around the World on 80 Quid" I made a silly mistake and thought I had read the start time as 6:30, so that's what I told Norrie (who decided to go to the play too) and I said I'd meet him there. He got there at 6:05 and I got there and 6:10 and the play had started at 6:00. We both managed to get in and not miss too much. It was cute and Fringe-y and at times I could barely understand the performer, his Irish accent was so thick. It was only an hour long, so when we got back to the hostel in time to go for dinner. Andrea had suggested a Maori restaurant called "Kai in the City". Susan, Ronnie, Andrea, and I headed out to find the place (it was only a couple of blocks away) but when we got there we found out that it was closed for the night for some reason. We ended up at HK Barbeque - Ronnie and Susan to have bubble tea to go, and Andrea and I to sit down for dinner. Roast pork and duck over rice - yum. We had a nice chat and then bought charity chocolate at the till. When we got back we all decided that we all wanted to stay in Wellington as long as it took for Jess to get to the UK High Commission and get a new passport, or at least get the gears moving, even though Steve-o had told some people that he wanted to get on the road early. We didn't really care that he wanted to spend more time with his mates in the next place (that's what I heard he wanted to leave early for, anyway) - Jess's situation is more important, and if we're going to be delayed anywhere Wellington is a great place to kill some time.

Going offline, maybe

I'm about to leave Wellington, and I'm not sure what the internet situation will be in the next few places before I fly home, so this might be my last post until I get home and start updating the travel blog again. Have a great MLK Day, for those of you in the States!

EDITED: I mean President's Day. Evidently American holidays confuse me.

Day 22

Saturday February 16

Today I am very angry. I woke up at 8 and there was no Steve-o telling us the swimming was on, so I went back to sleep assuming it was off because the weather was so crappy. I woke up again at 8:30 and bumped in Susan in the bathroom and asked her if she had heard anything. She said no, and I crawled back into bed. I was woken up by Susan about 15 minutes later saying that the swimming was on and that we were supposed to have been at the Centre 20 minutes ago. Turns out the Steve-o had left his phone in one of the bedrooms and proceeded to go out and get stinking drunk the previous evening, coming home at about 6:30 still drunk, and according to someone on the tour, still drinking. His phone had been ringing all morning but since he didn't have it he didn't answer it. And he was too drunk to wake up and check with the Dolphin people. Susan found him fast asleep at 8:40 and he said he lost his phone and made her phone the Dolphin Encounters people, who were very nice. They gave us 10 minutes to get down there - they had been trying to get a hold of Steve-o since 8:00. She went around and woke us all up and we all scrambled to get ready and packed (as the van was going to have to be loaded up while we were gone). Steve basically told Susan that we'd better get ourselves down there - he had no intention of driving us even though we had no idea where it was. He finally got into the van but was way to drunk to drive so Steve (Baby Whale) had to drive with Steve-o calling out half asleep and totally pissed directions from the back seat. We made it to the Centre with just enough time to get into our wetsuits snorkels and onto the buses, missing the training and safety video (Steve-o's only response to that when told later was "good thing you didn't have to watch the boring film"). When the buses pulled out to go to the wharf Susan noticed that the van was gone, so Steve-o must have driven it back to the hostel - good thing no-one else was in there with him. I tried to get over being angry because I wanted to enjoy the trip. We were split up into three boats with 13 swimmers on each, plus spectators. Then we cruised around for about 1/2 looking for dolphins. The ride was a blast - the water was really choppy, so the boat was bouncing all over the place, like an amusement park ride. We found a pod and jumped into the water. It was rainy and cool, but the water was surprisingly warm - about 17-18 degrees (Celsius). I found myself panicking a bit with breathing through the the snorkel, so that round was was more about me getting used to breathing and the mask than the dolphins. We got back on the boat and circled around to the front of the pod again and went back into the water. This time I really enjoyed seeing all the dolphins around me - we were supposed to hum or sing and entertain the dolphins so they would hang come to see us. After some random noisemaking I settled on "Mairsy Doats" for some reason and sung my little heart out. We went into the water four times and each time the dolphins came closer. At one point I turned around and there was a dolphin eye about one foot from my face. They move so fast in the water - they were gliding all around us. I wanted to touch them, but wasn't sure if it was allowed (see - watching the film would have been useful!). Norrie said later that he actually held on to a dorsal fin for a second. It was so cool being so close to dolphins (and snorkling was fun too). After our last swim we came back on board and stripped off our wetsuits and wrapped ourselves in warm blankets and had hot chocolate and gingernut cookies while taking pictures of the dolphins through the rain. They were leaping all over the place. Hopefully my underwater camera took good pictures.

We got back to the hostel (a fairly long walk in the rain as Steve-o was certainly not there to collect us)to find that the others on the tour had packed up the stuff people didn't have time to pack in the frantic rush of the morning and gotten everything loaded onto the trailer. Everyone was upstairs in the TV room watching "Coronation Street" (I think possibly the only show on the air in New Zealand). Steve-o was sacked out behind the couch. We were all pretty annoyed about how unprofessional he was that morning - being drunk, not being able to take a call he knew he was expecting almost making us miss an activity, making Susan do his job, not being able or willing to drive us there, and not even being in any way apologetic for his actions. Steve-o said we were going to head out right away for Picton, but even an idiot could see he was still drunk even though he said he was fine and was acting like nothing had happened. Sarfah M, Kieran, Norrie, and Ronnie and I were of the opinion that we did not want to get into a vehicle with him driving. Kieran told him he would drive and it didn't take much insisting to make Steve-o agree. Add that to something we were annoyed about - Steve-o not being able to to his job and one of us having to drive for him - now and earlier this morning. We all got in the van and Kieran drove off. We stopped at a seal colony (one seal) and then for lunch at a place called "The Store". I had had a peanut butter and jam sandwich when we got back because I was starving, so didn't need any lunch. Then we pushed on to Picton - Kieran was a great driver. By that time it was about 4 pm and Steve was sober, so he took over to get us to the ferry. We stopped at the town centre until it was time to board, and I passed Steve-o on the street at one point and he asked how I was and I told him I was annoyed and proceeded to tell him what I thought of his behavior that day. He tried to defend himself at first instead of acknowleging any error on his part. He said that he had gone above and beyond the call of duty plenty of times on the trip and that he's been working his ass off etc... and can't he get cut some slack for one mistake. I said yeas he had, but it doesn't excuse him not doing his actual job - which he was paid to do etc.... I also told him he was unprofessional that morning being too drunk to drive and making Susan do his his work and that an apology would be appreciated. He grudgingly said "Sorry Dena". I told him it would be nice to apologize to the whole group. I don't think he did, though. We got in line for the ferry, and since Andrea flew up to Wellington instead of coming with us to Kaikoura the ferry lady said he was due a refund of $45, which he didn't bother to take. We figure that would have been his payment for the crayfish right there, so oh well... The ferry was pretty small compared to the one we took south. Ronnie, Norrie, Fran, Susan and I sat on the top deck playing silly drawing games and watching Susan fold origami. The voyage was pretty rough and even I was feeling a bit queasy. Thankfully Ronnie had worked on cruise ships and was able to tell us where the best part of the ship was to sit to combat seasickness (the rear looking out past the ship).

We arrived at Wellington a bit after 9 and went to Base Wellington, which is the crappiest of the bases. A out-of-order elevator, some out-of-order toilets, and the last time we stayed there Fran and Jess had items stolen out the shower (underwear and money, respectively).Anyway, Jess was taking a shower before meeting up with a friend and someone stole her bag out of the shower with all her credit cards, money, and passport. I saw her running down the stairs to reception crying. Steve-o was doen there and basically said "Bummer" (well, the kiwi equivalent thereof). He told us what room he was in and that he'd probably be out all night with friends. Basically no help at all. The rest of us scoured the hostel looking in trashcans and bathrooms and around the outside to see if maybe the thief had dumped the bag anywhere (no). Jess called the police to file a report and her parents to help her cancel her cards and call the consulate. Not much more we could do tonight, and tomorrow is Sunday, so off to bed. All in all, a pretty downbeat day (except for dolphins!).

If it sounds like I'm being really hard on Steve-o, I was pretty mad today - mostly at him and also at the fact that his actions today made me take another look at how the trip's been run so far and the other times that we've been late for things or there's been no breakfast and such and re-evaluate how I felt about the trip, which really annoys me.

Day 21

Friday, Feb 15

We left early today to get on the road to Kaikoura. We're supposed to swim with dolphins tomorrow but the weather is cold and rainy with a strong Southwesterly wind., which make it look like the sea will be too rough. Steve-o threw out the idea of snorkeling with seals and spearfishing, or sea kayaking or ocean fishing instead. When we actually got to Kaikoura (which means "eat crayfish" in Maori) the weather wa such that all of that got tossed out except sea kayaking. Susan, Joe, Steve, Vicky, and I decided to do that. We had a few hours before we had to meet up, so I headed down to the main street. There are some cute art galleries and a library and some bars and shops, not a lot. I really liked some of the art prints and decided to go back the next day to get some. The walk back up the hill to the hostel was pretty strenuous as it was amazingly steep. We headed back down to the i-Site for 4:30 and took off for the launch site. We're using tandem kayaks, and the stronger paddler gets to go in the back, and that person is in charge of steering with the little rudder as well. I got to go in front of Matt, on of the guides. We had to carry the kayaks down to the beach and there had been large swells the past few days and there was seaweed washed up on the shore. This is massive , beginning to decompose seaweed. We had to walk over it in barefeet or socks and that was pretty gross. Once over, however, we set off towards some seals basking on rocks. We were in a protected bay, so even though it was pretty windy and the ocean was rough it was pretty smooth for us. I figured out how to cheat at paddling by putting my hands closer together on the paddle. It made my arms ache less while paddling, but also made the strokes less powerful. We had a good time and we saw a seal playing in the water just in front of the kayak and also a cormorant. I had my waterproof camera, so I hope the photos turn out okay.

After kayaking we headed back to the hostel to shower and change and then relaxed as Ronnie, Susan, and Steve-o made a dinner of crayfish and jambalaya and soup. We were all welcome to taste it. Turns out I don't despise crayfish as mich as other crustaceans, even though I think they look repellent. I don't mind the texture that much and they only taste vaguely of the ocean. Ronnie made a magnificent cream sauce dish that was delicious. The jambalaya was way too fishy for me.

And here begins the Steve-o drama. Earlier that day he had been talking about going spearfishing to get some butterfish for dinner and maybe find some crayfish in the ocean. He stopped in at a friend's fishing charter business and came out with a bag of crayfish which he said we could all try. After dinner Susan said that he was telling her that he wanted to be reimbursed for the crayfish (he actually got them for free , but they were payment for a $40 debt the fisherman had owed him). He also complained about spending lots of money on the sashimi at the salmon farm and not getting anything back. Now, he'd only complained to Susan and a bit to Ronnie that night. We all got together afterwards and discussed the fact that he had not once said that he expected or wanted to be paid. We had thought, and he gave the impression, that it was part of the tour. I think that if someone expects to be paid back, they should mention up front - if for nothing else than that way people can decide whether they want to take part in it or not. So hearing that he was complaining to just one or two of us, and not talking to all of us, made the evening end on a bit of a downer. He also told us that the Dolphin Encounter people would be calling him at 8 am the next morning to let him know whether the swim was on for the next day. Then the young'uns and Steve-o went out partying and Susan went to bed and Kieran and Sarah M. and I curled up and watched the John Cusack movie "Identity", which freaked Sarah out so much that she didn't want to go to the bathroom alone.

Day 20

Feb 14 - Thursday

Slept in a bit this morning, which was lovely. After a leisurely wake-up Sarah W., Fran, and I headed out to Science Alive!, the hands-on science museum. It was a longer walk than anticipated, but we definitely saw some non-touristy parts of Christchurch. Actually the walk was only about 20 minutes, but it seemed longer. The weather was grey and spitting, but it cleared up nicely. We were some of the only people in the museum, so the attendants were very frequently asking up if we had any questions. I think the were bored. One girls who worked there was from Timmins, ON, working abroad for a while. We played with the exhibits and the Sarah went off to find lunch and Fran and I played a round of glow-in-the-dark minigolf. Well, we messed around with the balls and clubs, but I don't think what we were doing in any way involved golf of any sort. Good thing we were the only ones on the course. After whacking the golf balls around, we heading back upstairs to play on the vertical slide (the largest one on the South Island). It was pretty scary and lots of fun. It's like a mini Drop of Doom, and it's just you and a wooly blanket going down the drop. After the slide we climbed the climbing wall. I decided to put my sandals on because climbing walls in bare feet sucks. I made it though the easy and medium walls, and fell of the hard wall. Fran, who was just climbing in bare feet, found it too painful to get to the top. Whe we were done sliding and spinning (unfortunately the human gyroscope was out of order) we wandered back downtown. I stopped in at the Air New Zealand office and Fran carried on. I found out later that she got back to the hostel and realized that she had left her key at the museum, so had to walk all the way back to get it. I csrried on to Cathedral Square and browsed the market - I bought a "magic" hair clip and one of the skirts I'd been eyeing the day before. Then I sat and watched Kenneth Lightfoot, a street magician. His show culminated in him throwing a playing card on the roof of the information centre (very high up). The onwards to the Art Centre, which is actually the old University of Canterbury. It's now shops and galleries and workshops and studios. I saw some nice stuff visited the Fudge Kitchen which gave out a ton of free samples. I bought three different types of fudge - orange chocolate, manuka honey, and hokey pokey - the national ice cream flavour of New Zealand. It's caramel with pieces of sponge toffee swirled in. After walking around the Art Centre I visited (briefly) the Christchurch Art Galley, the Centre for Contemporary Art (COCA), and the public library. I also poked my nose in a few stores including Farmers, a department store with a great clearance sale on. Then back to the hostel and chatted with Sarah W. and Fran about books and TV shows. Out to the internet cafe and then back to teach Kieran and Sarah M. how to upload their pictures to Flickr. Susan, Ronnie, Fran, Steve-o and his friend Tika all went out to a Japanese restaurant called Ebisu. It was like a Japanese tapas restaurant - interesting food, but the service was pretty crappy. The back to the hostel to repack and then bed. Happy Valentine's Day!

Day 19

Wednesday Feb 13

We woke up early and walked over to the Church of the Good Shepherd in Lake Tekapo, which is a really old (by New Zealand standards - 1935) church.Then on the road for a very long ride to jet-boating. Alpine Jetboat was in the middle of nowhere near a town called Springfield on the Waimak river. It was a relatively sedate 25 km trip up the river with truly magnificent scenery - sheer cliffs and jutting rocks coming right down to the river, with forested hills and wide sandbars (well, pebble bars). It looked like something out of a movie. Actually, although Lord of the Rings was not filmed there, the Narnia movie was filmed not far away. It seemed like the ride back was a lot faster and more fun that the other direction, and we did a lot of 360 degree jet spins. I think the general consensus is that it was worth it for the scenery, but the adrenaline rush was pretty low.

After the boating we went back to the van to meet up with the folks who didn't go on the boat - poor folds had to wait for us - and we headed out to Christchurch. Steve-o had been going on and on about how much of a shithole Base Christchurch was, but it's actually really nice. The counter people were friendly and the rooms were big and clean and the beds are really comfy. It's right on the North side of Cathedral Square, so it's right in the centre of everything. We had a nice view of the side of the cathedral from our room. We got there around 3:30 and Susan and I immediately headed out to the craft market being held in the square. Some nice stuff and I found a stand with really nice reversable wrap skirts which I decided to come back for the next day as they were busy getting ready to close up and I couldn't make up my mind. The market runs Wed-Sat from 10-4. We wandered the streets for a while window shopping. Susan peeled off and I got a kebab wrap from a truck in the square. It was really good - they put barbeque sauce and tzatziki on it and somehow the flavour worked. It was also really huge. I sat on a bench eating and chatting with other group people as they walked by. The back to the hostel to get online briefly and then back to the room, where Sarah W. and Fran were lying and reading. I picked up my book and when I glanced back up they were both fast asleep. I went for a shower at about 10 pm and when I got back they were just waking up. We chatted for a bit and then Sarah got dressed to go out and Kieran and Sarah M. got back and we all just chilled out reading (and playing Tiger Woods Golf on his PSP in Kieran's case). Nice low-key evening.

Photo issues

I'm having issues uploading my photos in Christchurch, so there might be a delay before any new ones get added. Sorry.

Day 18

Feb 12, Tuesday

This morning packing was the first time I've had to unzip the expansion on my suitcase due to shopping. Breakfast of toast, and then since we had some time to kill waiting for Andrea, Ronnie, and Norrie to come back from their flight and cruise to Milford Sound, Susan and I went back to Lick for second breakfast. I had a gelato toastie, which is a sweet brioche filled with a scoop of gelato (I had coconut marshmallow) and poached fruit and then toasted until the outside is hot and the inside is still frozen. Yummy. I shall be going on a diet when I get home because the food here is so delicious I cannot resist anything. Susan had a espresso with two scoops of gelato in it. Then into the van for the trip to Lake Tekapo.

Our first stop was at a farm stand (Sarita Orchards) for people to stock up on fruit and sweets. Andrea bought and shared dried kiwifruit, which is odd and candy-like. We then stopped in Cromwell for lunch (for some) and window shopping (for others). Back on the road again until our next stop, which was a Salmon farm. - we all had fun throwing the feed into the pool at the same time and causing a frenzy of salmon. Then Steve-o bought a box of sashimi to share. It was really good but not exactly what I was used to. The fish was firmer (a bit chewy) and tasted a bit of ocean. Very good, though. Susan bought a box for dinner ($20). One more stop, this time at Lake Pukaki, which is a brilliant blue. We got a group shot and were on our way again.

Lake Tekapo is tiny - Franz Josef was two streets big, and Lake Tekapo is one very small street. It's pretty much a rest stop on the way to Christchurch. I made some instant noodles (spicy thai coconut chicken flavour) and we all gathered around to watch DVDs of the various events people have done during the trip. Then off to bed in our primary colored bunk-bed dorms. It's like being in kindergarden.

Day 17

Feb 11 - Monday

Slept in 'til 9:30 - the latest so far. The bunkbeds in the dorm are really wobbly and whenever Norrie shifts in his sleep I can feel it up top. Not the most restful of nights. Susan and I went shopping in the morning (I bought a top and a hoodie) and then she went off on a winery and cheesery tour. I booked hang-gliding for 3:00 and lay in my bunk reading and napping until I had to leave. Got picked up at 3:00 by the Skytrek guys - I think I might have been the only hang-glider for they day with them. We ended up driving one of the pilots home, so I got a tour of suburban Queenstown. Evidently even thought the city only has a permanent population of 15 thousand, 30 thousand tourists come in each day. I truly believe that there are more tourists in New Zealand than actual residents.Because of the wind conditions the hang glidewould not be from Coronet Peak but from the Remarkables mountain range instead. We drove up the ski access road which is full of hairpins, unpaved, and with no guardrails. Probably one of the scarier parts of the adventure :) When we got to the takeoff point, some 2000 feet up, one of the guides popped me in my harness and took a few pictures while the pilot was putting together the hang glider. The glider was extremely light, about 70 pounds. After it was assembled we practiced the takeoff procedure - basically two steps and a run until the glider takes off. The takeoff is down a pretty steep hill, so it is pretty scary to contemplate the gilder not getting airborne and just falling headfirst down the mountain.We got hooked up, got clearance form the airport to take off, and the started the two steps leading up to the run. The glider caught the wind so fast it was like "Step, step, flight!" We launched upwards so fast I didn't have time to run. It waswindy enought that we got some good altitude . I think hang-gliding is the closest you can get to being a bird. It was so beautiful and peaceful and you could feel how the slightest shift of weight altered the course of the glider. I think we glided for about 15 - 20 minutes before we came in for a landing in a field of sheep (yes, sheep!). I like is better, I think, than the skydiving becuase I had more time to enjoy it, although the skydive was definitely more adrenaline filled. Argh, can't decide! $45 for a disc of pictures and video (Queenstown is not cheap) and then we drove back into town.

Right as I got back into the hostel, Norrie, Susan, and Ronnie were going out for a walk so I tagged along and we strolled about checking menus to see where we were going to eat later on and ended up at a gelato place called Licks for evening snack. Then back to the hostel to meet up with everyone to go ride the Skyline Gondola up the hill overlooking the city.

While waiting for everyone I called my sister , who told me how cold Edmonton was. Hee hee!

We headed up the gondola, which was scenic, and it turned out that the luge, which we all wanted to do, had closed at 7. We had missed it by about 1/2 hour which was annoying. We took in the view and took some pictures and shopped in the gift store (found another sheep on a leash) and then headed down. Susan and Ronnie and I headed to a Chicago gangster themed restaurant called Laurentio's. I had venison, which was magnificent. Then back to the hostel, where we had a whole group of people sitting in the hallway drinking and not moving an inch to get out of the way of people who needed to walk down the hall. I was so tempted just to step on all their legs on my way to my room. Evidently during the night a couple of Danish guys were screaming at each other on the balcony right next to our window. I didn't hear a thing, but I did get woken up every time Norrie rolled over.

Day 16

Sunday Feb 10

Today the full-day canyoners (Ronnie, Norri, Jess) left at 9:00, the guys flying planes (Ed, Steve) left early as well, and the rest of us had a leisurely morning before heading out at 10-ish (Steve-o time, so more like 10:20). We went to a place called Puzzling World - which has a bunch of illusion rooms and a huge two story maze. The three interactive illusion rooms were really cool and then we went into the Maze. Susan and I stuck together at the beginning but then it started raining and she decided to hide under shelter and then left via an emergency exit door. I decided that littl rain wasn't going to melt me so I stayed in the maze. The object is to find all four corner towers (in colour order if you're extremely logical and maze oriented, which I am not) and then find your way out. I managed finally to find all the towers, but that took 45 minutes and then as I was trying to find my way out I heard Susan yelling that the van was about to leave. I ended up cheating by dicking under a divider and then taking an emergency exit to get out in time. Oh, and the washrooms were really cools this a roman baths illusion.

Susan and I really wanted to go to a sheep farm while in New Zealand - me especially because I promised Liz that I would try to get a picture opf me with a sheep on a leash for her. The story behind that is that one of the New Zealand county books in her library has a picture of a little girl walking a lamb on a leash on the front cover. She's been going on about me walking a lamb in New Zealand ever since. Anyway, Steve-o mentioned a cruise from Queenstown to a sheep farm, so we booked it for 2 this afternoon. Now we just had to make it to Queenstown in time.

We made it to Queenstown at a bit after 1, and after checking in to the Base Discovery Lodge and dropping off our bags we had 5 minutes to make it down to the wharf. Good thing Steve-o took is there via a shortcut. The steapship we were going to cruise on, the T.S.S. Earnslaw, has been in service for 95 years, and it still has the original engines and boilers. To maintain top speed of 11 knots, it takes 1 ton of coal per hour being shovelled into the boiler manually. We cruised across Lake Wakatipu (gorgeous) to Waler Peak High Country Farm. It took about 1/2 hour, which I enjoyed while also enjoying a pesto, brie, and cucumber sandwich.

The farm looks like it belongs in England with it's genteel buildings and rose gardens and sheepdogs. We got taken down the display portion of the farm by Duncan, who first took us to feed lambs and deer and sheep. The deer had a little faun that we just beginning to lose it's spots, and the stag had quite an impressive set of antlers. The lambs were adorable. After feeding the animals were were shoen the original homestead, and then were served high tea - which neither of us were expecting and was delicious. The second half of the tour involved going into a pen of sheep (merino and other kinds) and petting and feeding them. Then we saw a sheepdog demonstration and then Duncan sheared a whole sheep. That was impressive. After the sheep shearing I asked if I could get a picture of me holding a sheep on a leash for Liz. Duncan went above and beyond the call of duty for me - he went and got a dog lead and manhandled it onto a sheep, then helped hold the rather irate sheep steady while Susan quickly snapped a picture. He was wonderful. Then Susan and I went into the gift store and bought a lot of stuff - Susan even bought a suprise to bring back home...

On the cruise home we had the cheesiest fun time. They held a singalong on one of the decks so Susan and I spent the 1/2 hour singing our little hearts out. After being dropped off we wandered around Queenstown for a while window shopping. Stores here are open very late, even on a Sunday night. Then back to the hostel to drop our stuff off and out again for dinner. We were pretty boring and went to Subway, but we did have a sandwich I can't get back home: Roast Lamb. After that it was off to the Internet cafe. It's really cheap here but godawfully slow - it took 2 hours to upload only 49% of 179 pictures.. Then back to the hostel and bed.

Day 15

Saturday, Feb 9

We actually left Franz Josef on time today - 9 AM. Steve was supposed to go skydiving over Fox glacier today but it was cancelled because of weather. It's beautiful in town, but I guess weather over the glacier is much different. There's actually a drought in New Zealand right now that is causing concern. Steve-o said that this is the first time that he's done this drive to Wanaka without rain in the summer. We started driving and stopped along the way at some scenic points. It's a really long drive, crossing the Southern Alps through the Haast Pass. At one of the waterfalls we stopped at people had made cairns and inukshuks out of th flat river stones that cover the river banks. Very cool. We stopped for lunch in a little town that I swear consists of two cafes and nothing else (except the gas pump in from of the cafe we stopped at). I had a very nice cranberry, brie, and pine-nut sandwich. New Zealanders sure are fond of brie. And meat pies. I've never seen so many meat pies on offer than in this country.

We made it to Wanaka at about three and Susan and I walked about town. It's very small and charming - like a ski chalet town, which it is in the winter. It also has very expensive clothing shops. I did get a very cute t-shirt, though :)

We got back to the motel and decided to go for a cheap curry for dinner with Ronnie and Norrie, as we were thwarted in our quest for curry the other day. We think the restaurant we went to was actually Nepalese, as all the pictures on the wall were of Nepal and the guy behind the counter was wearing a Nepalese t-shirt. I had a really nice Lamb Anarkali, which I've never heard of before. The mango lassi and naan bread was also delicious. Susan had the Lamb Rogan Jhosh, which was supposed to be mildly spiced but she thought was mild. To make up for that she then ordered another naan with the vindaloo sauce on it. Now that was spicy!

After dinner we went for a walk along the shores of Lake Wanaka, which was lovely. Along the whole sidewalk, to commemorate the year 2000, the city had installed tiles that listed important events in history going back 2000 years. Some of the facts were wrong (like the date of the Battle of Bannockburn) and some were reporting legend as fact (like King Arthur and Robin Hood), but it was really interesting nonetheless. I really liked that it did not focus mainly on European history, but incorporated Asian, Pacific, and African history as well.

We met up with the rest of the group at the hotel bar for a while and then off to bed. We have bunkbeds in the room with no ladders to the top bunk, so poor Ronnie and Susan have to kind of jump and hoist themselves up. I'm glad that I'm not in a top bunk tonight because I can see myself getting stuck up there.

Day 14

Friday, Feb 8

Andrea decided not to stick around in Franz Josef since she can't climb the glacier as she twisted her ankle a while back so she took the bus to the next town, Wanaka, instead. The rest of us (mainly) headed out to Franz Josef Glacier Guides for our 1/2 Day hike up the glacier. After some confusion on how to check in, we were kitted out in boots, crampons (specially patented crampons called Ice Talonz), and for some people a gore-tex jacket. We weren't allowed to wear cotton pants as the don't dry very fast if they get wet and they don't retain any heat when wet. Good thing I went clothes shopping in Nelson :). I was given size 3 boots and they were still too big, but they didn't have any smaller sizes so I was given an extra pair of woolen socks to pad the boots. We then loaded up onto a few tour buses to get driven to the base of the glacier.After a bit of a forest hike we reached the plain and river at the base of terminal face of the glacier. Because the glacier is so huge, the persective of what you are looking at gets skewed. I guessed that we were about a kilometre away from the glacier, but it was actually 2.5 kilometers away. We split up into groups based on quickness - I chose to go with the ultra-slow group because I was not sure how I'd be on the 45 minutes of climbing stairs hacked into the ice. I turned out to be the fasted of the slow group - not hard as my competition was a buncg of senior citizens and a glacier guide with a torn achilles tendon and a fractured ankle :)
Because it had rained really hard a few weeks ago the river at the base of the glacier at rerouted, which meant that instead of an easy hike across a rocky plain to the glacier we had to climb the valley wall, climbing up and down four ladders along the way. That was actually the hardest part of the climb up. Once we got to the glacier we put on our crampons... I mean Ice Talonz... and proceeded up the steps hacked into the ice face. Because the glacier moves about a metre a day, the guides have to keep coming out every day to recut the steps and assess which routes to take up. Aside from the fact that my legs were too short for some of the steps, I made it up okay. As we got higher up (we climbed about 400 metres) it got colder, and at the top I put on my jacket. We stopped for a snack break at the top and looked around a while, and then headed back down. By then my feet were really hurting because even with the extra socks the boots were too big and the socks had bunched at the front so my toes were being mashed with every step. The 2.5 km hike back to the bas was long and tiring. We got back around 2 and after lunch with Susan (shepherd's pie at the bar, even though the original plan was a curry from the sushi/curry/noodle van, but they didn't open until 6) spent about two hours sitting in the hot tub at the motel with Norrie and a girl from Luton called Sharon who was taking the Magic Bus around New Zealand. This made me less sore but much more sleepy, so when I got out I barely made it through dinner (mango and bread - really not hungry) before crashing in my bunk with a book. One of the things that is really nice about the motel room is that we got a kitchenette. Another odd think is that there is no shower stall, just a corner of the room with a shower and a curtain to pull around. Suffice it to say that the entire floor got soaked when someone took a shower. That being said, it's one of the best showers we've had so far.

Day 13

Thursday, Feb 7

We were able to sleep in (8 am) and leisurely pack. Our cabin was really nice and quiet (except for the extremely noisy cicadas, which are everywhere in the rainforest). We wandered down to the main group cabin for breakfast (peanut butter and nutella toast and milk tea. yum). The kitchens in these cabins are gorgeous - wood counters, clean, and lots of utensils, pots and pans, and dinnerware. I had an interesting conversation with Sarah (younger) and Ronnie, Norrie, and Ed (older) about recent immigrants and the rise of non-Christian religions (especially Islam) in the UK and it's impact on the status quo. It seems like the UK is 10-15 years behind North America in integrating and accepting minority religions (at least compared to big cities in North America).

We piled into the van and headed out to the Pancake Rocks, which are large rocks jutting out on the coastline that are layered and looks like pancake stacks from the side. We took the scenic path to see them, taking lots of photos along the way - it was so beautiful. I got back to the van first and sat with Steve-o chatting about the tour , our expectations, and how we were enjoying in. Fran said it best a few days ago when she described the tour as a road trip. We travel along stopping at interesting places as Steve (or any of the rest of us) think of interesting things to do. It took me a few days to get into the laid-back tone of the trip, but I'm really enjoying it now. Unfortunately I don't think the German lady, Andrea, is enjoying it that much - I think she was expecting something much more organized and regimented and focusing more on cities and culture. Anyway, we all piled into the van and headed out to where Ronnie, Norrie, Steve, and Jess were going to go heli-rafting in Whataroa. We were going to stop for possum pie for lunch, but were running late (big surprise) and spent too long at the Pancake Rocks. We got to Whataroa at 2, when we were supposed to be there at 1, and the rafters took off without lunch. We found out later that since they were so late getting started that they had about a kilometre cut off their journey to make it back down in time.

The rest of us headed into Franz Josef (population of the whole area - 360) to check into our motel and get lunch. Franz Josef is all of two streets big - all of it geared towards trekking to the Franz Josef glacier. We ended up at cafe and I had satay chicken pizza slice. Pizza here is odd - the dough is more like a thick dense bread than the pizza crust that I'm used to, so it feels like eating an open face sandwich. Then off to the internet place to upload pictures and update the blog, as I've been really slow about it - at least I'm being pretty good about keeping a travel journal, so I can catch up later on. The motel, Chez Franz, offers free soup every night, so dinner was soup and some bread that we picked up in Nelson and some chocolate biscuits. More on the chocolate biscuits - Tim Tams - later, but I feel that I'm becoming quite addicted to them :)

After dinner we headed out to a few bars. Jess is very down today because she found out that one of the little girls in her Vietnamese orphanage that she works in died the other day. Home at midnight (late by my standards, early by the standards of most of the group, who were still at the bar when we left - Ronnie and Norrie didn't make it back until 3:30)

Day 12

Feb 6 - Waitangi Day

Today is Waitangi Day, which commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, where the Maori were pretty much screwed by the Europeans. Happy Waitangi Day!

I woke up to find my chocolate milk and last piece of pizza had been stolen out of the disgusting kitchen overnight. Grr. We got underway at 9 and drove towards Greymouth. About thirty minutes in, while stopped to drop off Steve-o's son's helmet, we realized that we had left all out breakfast stuff and our cooler behind at Fern Lodge. The last people to eat breakfast had not brought the box back to the van. We decided not to go back for it and continued on as going back would have added an hour to the journey. We headed on through New Zealand's second largest national park, Kahurangi Park. It's all native forest and is overwhelming. After a while of admiring the scenery I again fell asleep, waking when we stopped for a swim break. Well, it was supposed to be a swim break, but the bridge was way too high to jump off of, and it was virtually impossible to climb down the banks to the kiver. It became a scenic photo opportunity break instead, and Steve-o met some guys who were on their way to the starting line to compete in the Coast-to-coast race, which is a one-day triathlon of running, cycling, and kayaking from the west coast to the east coast of the South Island. Sounds gruelling - I'd love to see it on TV.

We dropped Fran, Joe, Steve, Jess, Ronnie, and Norrie of at "On yer bikes" for some 4-wheeling and the rest of us headed into town. We went to the Jade Boulder Trail - a greenstone museum. Well, it was actually a very large giftshop and cafeteria, along with a nice little museum, and two glassed in carving rooms. Noone was carving today, probably because of the holiday. By the way, when we stopped earlier of lunch we found out that because of the holiday the restaurant was adding on a 15% surcharge.

After the jade place, we headed out to the grocery store, and I peeled off the go to the "Warehouse" in hopes of cheap books, as I am running low. I found three I actually already wanted to read for %5 each, so I was happy. After all the shopping (we're doing a communal dinner tonight) we headed 40 minutes north to a retreat nestled in the rainforest called Te Nikei. It's gorgeous - little cabins placed throughout the forest. Susan, Andrea, and I are in Rata, along with some Swiss couples, a Japanese guy, an American woman, and an English girl named Hannah who's about to head over to Canada for three month working on organic farms across the country with the WWOOF program. We're upstairs in a loft area with six mattresses on the floor - surprisingly comfortable.

We headed down to the cabin with the most of the group in it to begin cooking dinner - the kitchens here are lovely. We made salad and burgers and sausages. After dinner we headed out for the beach. It's too dangerous to swim there, but it's the most amazing beach I've ever seen. It's all very small rounded pebbles which feel really neat, and the rock formations and waves crashing and sunset all made it so beautiful. We watched the sunset from the beach and then walked back up to the retreat. We missed the turnoff of the shortcut on the way back and ended up taking the long way, which is called the Truman Track - a native bush walk. It was gorgeous (I'm running out of superlatives). Susan and I relaxed in th upstairs lounge with Hannah, and Andrea was as happy as a clam chatting in German with th Swiss downstairs. So far this in my favourite place that we've stayed by far.

Day 11

Feb 5 (Tuesday)

Today teh group is supposed to go to Abel Tasman Park for the afternoon but Susan and I have decided to stay in town and shop. Steve-o took off for parts unknown with all the breakfast stuff still in the van last night, so it's leftover pizza for me! Susan had a n unopened litre of orange juice stolen out of the fridge sometime overnight. We headed into town about 9:30 and Susn decided to be touristy and brought along her little rolly luggage so we could put our purchases in it as we went. We were very dorky tourists - I even bought a bag and a skirt from a street vendor. We also went to the Nelson Provincial Museum as they had an exhibit of Da Vinci's inventions. It was pretty neat and you could actually play with some of the models, like the Archimedes Screw and the bridge made out of short logs. We found a Dutch Cheese shop and Susan stocked up on salty dutch licorice for her fiance, and I went to a bakery for a chicken, camembert, and cranberry panini. There's a lot of good food here :)
We also went to another grocery store to stock up on non-perishables and water for the next leg of the trip. Interesting note: In Nelson, Shopping carts are called trundlers.

We got back to the hostel and made dinner (butter chicken and a 1/2 pineapple for me). The rest of the group was back by then - turns out they didn't go to Abel Tasman, just to a closer beach, so I'm very glad that we stayed in town. Nelson is really nice - the architecture is a mishmosh of various European and old west American styles. Very odd and charming.

Jess and I talked about the fact that she's been working in a Vietnamese orphanage for the last few months (and is going back after this trip). It very depressing. She's working with little kids who have a variety of developmental problems, and the ones that don't will probably be sold into the sex trade when they hit 7 years old or so. Jess is an amazingly strong person (as well as the most energetic party girl in the group). We began talking about microloans and NGOs and by sheer coincidence I happened to have in my bag a book called "Banker to the Poor" which I picked up at ALA, written by a Nobel Peace Prize Winner that she had written in her notebook to research. She is now the happy owner of that book. To illustrate her other side, Ronnie and Norrie saw a t-shirt in the shops that they had to buy for her with the following slogan on the back: "In order to be old and wise you must first be young and stupid"

Day 10

Feb 4, Monday

We woke up at 6:15 in order to be ready to go catch the Interislander ferry to Picton. Today we're leaving the North Island and heading South. Left late, as usual, but did make the 8 am ferry. The ferry is huge! It has 10 decks (including car decks) and a movie theatre, bar, a couple of cafes, and a cafeteria. I stood on the sundeck and watched Wellington disappear and then headed down to the reclining chairs and had a nice view of the sound in front of us. Of course, I then fell asleep for most of the three hour trip :)

When we got off the ferry we had the choice between a straight fast drive or a scenic windey drive to Nelson. Despite the motion sickness sensitive people in the van we went for scenic. We took off along the Queen Charlotte Drive and it was definitely windey. It was also beautiful, with amazing views of the Marlborough Sound. We stopped at a scenic hike. I did not go all the way up it as there were too many stairs. Instead I took pictures of plants, the very odd looking outhouse, and my knees. My right knee is starting to turn interesting colours from the bang it took during sledging.

After everyone got back we went to the Pelorus Cafe for lunch. They're really big into meat pies and quiches here. I had a venison pie and a custard slice. The pie was quite delicious - the first time I've had venison. The slice was interesting, it's got the phyllo layers like a napolean, but the inside is pudding and the topping is cream cheese icing. We took the food down to the riverside and had a bit of a picnic. As I did not have my bathing suit on I sat in the shade with my food and a book and watched some of the rest of the group hurl themselves off rocks into the water. Then it was on to Nelson. We arrived around 3:30 and checked into the Fern Lodge. We then walked into the town centre, only to find that it was Nelson Anniversary Day and most businesses were closed for the holiday. We did find an open pharmacy and I got some hair clips and more earplugs and one of mine disappeared in Wellington. I've discovered that earplugs are a very good thing to have when sleeping in noisy hostels. Susan and I found a Countdown (grocery store) and stocked up on food for dinner and then it was back home. The kitchen in the hostel is disgusting. Ther's no dishwashing liquid so you don't know if stuff is clean. There's not enough cups and mugs and cutlery. Flies everywhere and the fridges stink. I made (after waiting for free oven space) a smoked chicken pizza and I bought a fruit smoothie made with a fruit I know nothing about - Feijoa. I have no idea what it is, but it's delicious. Then I finished my book and went off to bed. This is my first time on a top bunk and it was kind of wobbly when I climbed up there, so I was a bit scared. Of course - Ronnie, who was below me - then decided that shaking the bed to startle me was quite alot of fun :)

Oh, and while we were walking about town Susan found a $20 bill on the ground!