Things I haven't mentioned

This one's for Ben Gallup. To copy him: Cars become topologically inconsistent when there's ice.

Part of the Cardrona slopes

On the left you can see the winding path with high banks that I spent my second day of snowboarding doing. There were lots of hills made to get you off the ground and I learned to freak out a little bit less when airborn.

Greece? Really?

I attempted a half pipe for the first time. It didn't look so bad until I was halfway up the side and I realized the slope was completely vertical. I wussed out and turned around. I tried one more side before just boarding down the middle. I should've tried the one on the right instead.

Holy shit! All the tubes are clogged.

Me: Just checking, the name Lone Star... there's no New Zealand significance to it.
Bartender: No. It's just a theme.
Me: Yea, ok. I wasn't sure but then I saw the fake nine-banded armadillo behind the bar and was pretty sure this was a Texas thing. As a representative of the great state of Texas, let me tell you that we're flattered there exists a bbq restaurant 9000 miles away named Lone Star.


Saturday I went snowboarding at Coronet Peaks. The mountain itself was nothing too special. Peak to base is only about a 1400 ft drop (as for comparision for the New Englanders, Loon Mnt is a 2300 ft drop) but it had a lot trails (same acreage as Loon). What saved it was all the trails were Blues and Blacks, nary a Green (easy) path on the mountain. The only difference between the Blues and Blacks was the Blues were groomed. The mountain was full of nice, wide, fairly empty, fairly steep runs. The only problem with the mountain is there are absolutely no signs. They go through the trouble of putting a trail map and even naming the various "paths" but that's the last you heard of these names. Once away from the peak, it's just you and your sense of direction. Fact is, the mountain isn't that segmented into paths. It's more of just a wide open mountain where the paths are pretty inter-connected. The only problem is you can end up places you don't want to be. I had to take my board off and trudge up and across parts of the mountain to get back to a lift a couple times and that was exhausting. Oh, and it was about 40 degrees and sunny all day long.

Saturday evening I went and had dinner at a place called Boardwalk. Lamb! There's a lot of sheep here so I figure the lamb is a good bet. I had a plate with three kinds of lamb and a couple glasses of Pinot Noir (apparently, NZ is known for their Pinot Noir). As I was finishing up my dinner, the table beside me said that there was a glass of wine left in their bottle and they didn't want it to go to waste. I happily obliged to being in the right place at the right time. They were a lady and two guys all Aussies in their early 30s and they asked me what I was doing in New Zealand. I gave them my spiel and told them how I had pushed back my start date to have a few weeks off and the lady said "Good for you!".

It was funny. The night before at the bar when I was meeting younger people, I'd tell them I was there for three weeks and their response would be "Why so short?". I'm quickly getting annoyed with these teenagers who think they're cool because their parents send them traveling around the world for months at a time.

Me: I dunno. I think three weeks is a pretty long time to not be working.
Snide girl: I know people who have never worked a day in their life.
Me: Uhh... yea, I don't think much of those people.

Anyway, the trend has sort of been that the Aussies I meet in Queenstown are just here on a little vacation. They're either a little older than me or near or past retirement. They've been pretty cool, down to earth, and fun to talk to. The Europeans I run into are mostly younger than me and are either 1) bouncing around finding work where ever they can in this resort town or 2) in the middle of a three to twelve month paid-for vacation. The former group's not so bad but the latter group just likes to list to me places they've been or are going to be go. It reminds me of the website "what white people like" when it talks about travel.
I've also liked the handful of New Zealanders I've met. Queenstown, being a resort town, is even worse than most of New Zealand (as one guy put it "Kiwis are getting to be an endangered species in New Zealand" and he wasn't talking about the bird. He said a lot of NZers have moved to Oz or Dubai).

I went to watch the All Blacks vs Wallabies (New Zealand vs Australia rugby) match Saturday night. I had inquired the day before about good places to watch it and wandered in and out of the various places that had been named until I found an appropriately large crowd to blend into. The bar was half kiwi, half aussie which made for a fun atmosphere. They naturally divided themselves in the bar and I was standing in the middle where the two groups merged gleefully telling people beside me "I understand about two-thirds of what's going on here". But, as with most sporting events, if you know when to cheer, everyone quickly considers you part of their group. Lucky for me, it was an exciting match. The All Blacks scored two tries in the second half for a nice come-from-behind four-point victory. So, I went to another bar and did some shots with some happy kiwis. I got home around 2am, having officially shifted my clock. But, after waking up around 5am that morning, snowboarding all day, and then drinking, I was pretty exhausted.

Sunday morning I woke up to do the previously photo-documented Canyon Swing. The first thing that afternoon was a jet boat ride. It's this 20-passenger boat with dual inboards combining for about 500 horsepower. It goes up to 50-60 mph and can run in about 4 inches of water. The guy takes you on this river in this canyon swerving as close to rocks as he can. Sometimes the pass was about 2 boat-widths wide. The guy was pretty good at controlling the boat while fish-tailing. It was a fun ride.

Next we were going to white water rafting but the roads to where the rafts put in aren't accessible this time of the year so I guess we're gonna have to use a helicopter.

OK, helicopters are awesome. I rode in the front (being the "big guy" is the gift that keeps on giving) and part of the floorboard was see-through up there. It's just cool how gently the helicopter takes off and moves around. It floated us over some mountains and to the spot we were putting in.

I've heard really good things about white water rafting but I can't say it was that much fun for me. The ratio of paddling to cool rapids was extremely high and the guy running our boat was a bit of an ass. So, I'm going to chalk it up to just a bad version of a cool thing.

Afterwards, I was sitting on a wooden fence watching the river and got to talking to these two 40 year old guys (one kiwi, one Aussie). They had been hiking around the river and had seen us on the raft. It seems the area around the river is open to anyone but you actually have to have a permit to do anything on the river. We agreed that it was strange a company could comandeer a river and we exchanged the info that in the US and in Oz any river navigable by boat is public property. Another funny exchange is when one asked me how much vacation was mandated in the US. He guessed three weeks. I told him there was no such thing in the US but that most of my friends had either two or three weeks.

The other people in my group were pretty cool too. There were a couple late 20s couples, a few young Irish people, and a few older couples and everyone was pretty friendly. On the bus ride back I had most of them turned around listening to me describe life and the lack of space in NYC and how I "really wanted to chase a kiwi".

Monday I went snowboarding at Cardrona. The day started out upper 20s, windy and cloudy, but the sun came out after an hour or two and it turned into a nice day again. It had about twice as much acreage as Coronet but I spent almost my entire day doing a single run which was this novice snowboard park of sorts. The whole thing was this winding path with high banks where you could go sliding across. Throughout it were all these hills where you could get air multiple times in a row. My day ended after I was off the ground for about 4 seconds and then completely ate it on the landing knocking my breath out.

That night I went to the Lone Star restaurant, had some more lamb, and chatted with the Canadian bartender.

Me: So, why'd you choose here?
Her: Well, this is my second go here. The first time was for a boy... and that didn't work out.
Me: It usually doesn't.

She was from Edmonton and she was impressed that I knew it to be located in Alberta. People in New Zealand have asked me what I think of McCain's choice of Palin and a Canadian is impressed when I know where one of their major cities is located. Funny, that.

Anyway, whe was kind/aware enough to turn the TV to the Giants vs Rams game (tape-delayed) without me even asking. I wish I could've stayed and watched it all but at 10pm, I was already needing some catch-up sleep.

I got up around 7am this morning (latest I've slept since getting here). I called the hanggliding place at 9am to learn that it's too windy today so we'll try for tomorrow. So, I've been sitting here typing instead. My acrobatic prop plane ride happens at 4:15pm so I have some time to rest up. I think I'll venture into town and visit the kiwi park at some point today as well.