Saturday, October 24, 2009
Changes
I'm sure some of you already have heard the news through the grapevine, but for all you who haven't there has been some big changes to my traveling plans. I am back in the states. I flew in yesterday, and it was a really weird flight. Arriving before I left is just strange. Anyways I am still planning to recap the end of my trip via the blog so there will be a few more posts. Plan on them to be full of fun as I have spent the last week of my trip on a non-spontaneous road trip around the entire south island with 4 1/2 friends. It feels good to be home!
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Spontaneous Road Trip
Hopefully the pictures will make up the lateness.
Everything has been going really well the past few weeks and there have been a lot of changes to my regular routine. The biggest change is that I am no longer living the janitorial dream. The main reason is that my flatmate Matt hurt his back really bad snowboarding to the point where he was going to be out of his job so long that the cleaning company deemed it more economical for them to hire someone fresh. Matt has been my ride most nights to work. Not always, but at least 4-5 times a week, which made the hitchhiking ventures acceptable in my eyes every couple of times a week. With him out of the job I would have been constantly hitchhiking to and from work, which usually takes an hour and a half. Adding this time on to what I’m being paid for cleaning it works out to me getting paid just over 6 dollars an hour. Minimum wage is $13.50. Not really worth it. I was ready to be done too, I grew pretty tired of improvised sign language with my Portuguese colleagues and the task of cleaning in general. The situation proved to be a great experience and perfect for skiing which is the main reason I picked Queenstown.
Skiing has been amazing lately. Spring conditions and good moods by all on the mountain are constant. The scene is very relaxed and its normal to see people skiing beer in hand dressed in silly costumes. Obviously I’ve partaken on occasion. The park has been great lately. The park crew recently turned the beginner park into an intermediate rail garden, which has consumed most of my time. Don’t worry I’ll never be a park rat. Give me powder over jumps and rails anytime. I’ve definitely gotten a lot better skiing here for the season and am extremely anxious to get home for another season and continue to ski. Yes that means I’ll be returning to NH in December, but only for a brief stint then its on to the west coast.
I went swimming with Bronwyn and Martijn in Frankton a few weeks ago. The facilities were amazing. One of the nicest indoor pool set ups I have ever seen. Bronwyn swims all the time to stay in tip top chef shape. I dug deep to find my Concord Sailfish Swimming roots, but gave up after 5 laps and made my way to the Jacuzzi. I forgot how demanding swimming is and it made me feel out of shape. I could vacuum for hours though.
My parents sent me a really nice care package stuffed full of Granite State Candy, A Book, Specials shirt from the Wilson’s, newspaper clippings, and Bindings. It was very kind and greatly appreciated. I had the bindings shipped over because I found a pair of Rossignol Scratches in the local Salvation Army for $90. I would have been losing money by not buying them. They have proved to be a vital part of my park skiing antics. The skis I traveled over with were all mountain skis. The bindings on those skis had been giving me problems all season. Along with the skis, I found a shirt that was made for my Dad. Its a picture of a man golfing with the slogan "Work is for people who can't Golf", I love Salvation Army. Another notable purchase was a Wheres Waldo Book. The specials shirt led to a bizarre meeting with an old man named Gary who happened to be wearing a specials shirt the first day I wore it. He was pretty drunk and kept shaking me in disbelief while singing special songs. He also asked me where my ladies were at about 20 times. He seemed nice, but I decided not to introduce him to any ladies I was with. The book was one I’ve planned on reading for ages, but never managed enough motivation to start it. It’s really small print and about 1100 pages. Its different, but I would recommend any book by Ayn Rand after reading half of Atlas Shrugged and another one of her works titled The Fountainhead. If anyone is looking for an entertaining biography read Mr. Nice and you won’t be disappointed.
I haven’t been out in town for about 3 weeks because it’s so expensive, so I’ve been making my rounds to house parties. The only noteworthy party was one where we celebrated Garsmas. I’m still not entirely sure what Garsmas is, but it was a great time. I guess it was a cross between Thanksgiving and Christmas for the lone reasons that there was a cardboard manger, and we ate turkey for dinner. A better explanation is it’s just an excuse to have a house party. The manger was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen because baby Jesus was replaced by David Bowie (refer to the pictures below).
Hockey has sadly come to an end. But our team triumphed in the tournament and managed a podium spot coming in third. 1st or 2nd would have been better, but 3rd was an impressive feat for our team. We won a case of beer, and a trophy made of golden spoons. They might have been wooden ones spray-painted, but I doubt it. Even though the league is finished, people still play pick up every Tuesday. I’m not sure how I missed this in the first weeks of playing hockey, but every Friday and Saturday the rink has Disco Ice Skating. You really can’t go wrong with an ice rink, smoke machines, disco balls, and a good playlist.
I did a hike with Bronwyn one day to the top of the Gondola. She hadn’t been to the top and it’s a really easy hike to do. Most of the other ones require planning from the day prior. It was a beautiful day in terms of blue skis, but one of the windiest days I’ve ever experienced. Neither of the mountains opened. At one point the wind sounded like a 747 no more then 500 ft above my head. One unlucky employee that had to drive to the mountain even though it was closed returned down from the mountain rear windowless. I still find it hard to believe, but its true. It was really windy. The hike turned out to be pretty lame. After hiking for 5 minutes we got to a dirt road that doubled as a hiking trail. We ignored the signs saying no walking, and returned down via a downhill mountain biking track. The hike down made me respect downhill mountain biking a million times more. I struggled enough on the way down trying to walk, grasping how someone could do it on a bike escapes me. I’m pretty fearless, but I don’t think I’d try this particular track on a bike.
I’m going to try to put potentially the best 36 hours of my entire trip into words. I’m sure my description won’t do it justice, but I’ll do my best. Last Friday I got up to the mountain around 11 AM. It was a crappy day, but I had nothing else to do. I ran into two kids named Shawn and Nick. I had met three days prior skiing. They were up at the mountain early practicing for a rail jam they were going to in Dunedin later that night. They had told me about the rail jam the day that I met them. I told them that I would be interested in going, but unfortunately they didn’t have any room in the car. I wished them luck as they were heading in the change out of their gear and I was heading out. I made two runs and found them waiting at the bottom for me. Turns out the kid who was going to drive bailed on them, and now there plan was to go into town to rent a car and make the 3 ½ hour drive to Dunedin which meant they had room for me to tag along. Without hesitating I agreed. I called my boss to see if he could cover for me and he could. We met up with two other friends of theirs named Morgan and Joel, and before I knew it I was in a car with 4 other people I barely knew on my way to Dunedin. We hit it off immediately and the drive was filled with general road trip tomfoolery. At one point Joel was going to streak through a field or sheep naked, but he bailed after merely taking off his shoe. It was still funny. The drive was beautiful and surprisingly we didn’t get lost. Until we got to Dunedin at least. It was strange to see streetlights. We arrived to the rail jam pretty early and checked out the set up and mingled with the other competitors. It was situated right in the middle of Otago University, where Lyndsey studied, so the venue was packed full of rowdy college students. The atmosphere led me to try front flips and rodeos over the entire setup negating to even touch the rails. It was enough to get me through to the finals, which was my goal from the beginning. Rails have never been a strong aspect of my skiing prowess so I wasn’t planning on winning in the first place. I just wanted to have a good time and it was a great time. It was by far the most fun I’ve ever had competing in a rail jam and the set up was great. All competitors were given free drinks from the neighboring bar. Most were enjoyed after, but I couldn’t resist a few during. Its important to stay hydrated right? It started raining at one point which wouldn’t have been so bad if I had came prepared. Oh well. We had plans to drive home after, but we were having so much fun that we decided to go out and explore the city. Our plan changed from driving home after, to sleeping in the car for a few hours after partying and then driving back. That quickly changed as well. We were literally wondering the streets asking random people we encountered where the good bars were or if they knew where we could find a house party. Luckily we found someone willing to bring us to a house party. The house party turned out to be the best house party I’ve ever been too. It put parties at UNH to shame. It was in an old colonial style house with high ceilings and music was provided by not one, but two DJs. The house was overflowing with people, and how or why the police didn’t shut it down baffled me. I wasn’t to worried about that for the time being. I ended up meeting a nice kiwi girl there who was kind enough to welcome us all into her apartment for the night. It turned out being the most ridiculous apartment for any college student. It came equipped with a pool table and two extra king size mattresses so we all managed a great night of sleep. We woke up around 930 and quickly realized we weren’t going t make it back to QT for a day of skiing. Instead we ventured off to roam the streets of Dunedin to find our car. I was still wearing my snow pants and an overly large green shirt I borrowed from Shawn. I was walking barefoot as well because my shoes were soaked through from the rain. We were a sight to see, and got a lot of bizarre looks. We stumbled across a really cool Saturday market. We roamed through looking for some food/water to cure our hangover. Morgan had already cracked a beer in attempt to ease her pain. We found our car and decided to drive around in search of the steepest street in the world. We found it and conquered it with screams as if we were on a rollercoaster ride at six flags. Our next mission was the beach, which was beautiful. The waves were huge, and the surfing looked amazing. We sat in silence for nearly an hour taking it all in. After the beach we found the local Salvation Army and browsed for a bit. I was disappointed, but found a tape loaded with sing alongs for the ride home. Radio signal was non-existent for 90% of the drive. On the ride home I dozed in and out of sleep, but there was still some stupid fun to have like when we stopped near a damn, found an echo spot, and yelled funny sayings for nearly a half hour. Oh the joys of road tripping. I’m sure you get a sense of how fun it was from reading this, but I assure you it was way more fun.
We all get along really well, and I’ve stumbled upon a new circle of friends. I’m a bit bummed that I didn’t meet them earlier in my trip. I ride with Shawn and Nick pretty much every day now and we always have a great time. We’ve been attempting to learn Ski Ballet, which has led to many good laughs. If you want to be impressed type Ski Ballet into youtube. I met up with Shawn yesterday and rather then hitting the big jumps in the park, we decided to partake in a pond-skimming contest. I had never done one before and have always wanted too. You win by being entertaining so Shawn tried to cross on one ski and I tried to backflip out. We both failed. It was a ton of fun and set the mood for the rest of the day.
All is well with me and I hope everyone is doing well. Hopefully I didn’t take to much time out of anyone’s day with this massive post. Enjoy the pictures.
Pat
Everything has been going really well the past few weeks and there have been a lot of changes to my regular routine. The biggest change is that I am no longer living the janitorial dream. The main reason is that my flatmate Matt hurt his back really bad snowboarding to the point where he was going to be out of his job so long that the cleaning company deemed it more economical for them to hire someone fresh. Matt has been my ride most nights to work. Not always, but at least 4-5 times a week, which made the hitchhiking ventures acceptable in my eyes every couple of times a week. With him out of the job I would have been constantly hitchhiking to and from work, which usually takes an hour and a half. Adding this time on to what I’m being paid for cleaning it works out to me getting paid just over 6 dollars an hour. Minimum wage is $13.50. Not really worth it. I was ready to be done too, I grew pretty tired of improvised sign language with my Portuguese colleagues and the task of cleaning in general. The situation proved to be a great experience and perfect for skiing which is the main reason I picked Queenstown.
Skiing has been amazing lately. Spring conditions and good moods by all on the mountain are constant. The scene is very relaxed and its normal to see people skiing beer in hand dressed in silly costumes. Obviously I’ve partaken on occasion. The park has been great lately. The park crew recently turned the beginner park into an intermediate rail garden, which has consumed most of my time. Don’t worry I’ll never be a park rat. Give me powder over jumps and rails anytime. I’ve definitely gotten a lot better skiing here for the season and am extremely anxious to get home for another season and continue to ski. Yes that means I’ll be returning to NH in December, but only for a brief stint then its on to the west coast.
I went swimming with Bronwyn and Martijn in Frankton a few weeks ago. The facilities were amazing. One of the nicest indoor pool set ups I have ever seen. Bronwyn swims all the time to stay in tip top chef shape. I dug deep to find my Concord Sailfish Swimming roots, but gave up after 5 laps and made my way to the Jacuzzi. I forgot how demanding swimming is and it made me feel out of shape. I could vacuum for hours though.
My parents sent me a really nice care package stuffed full of Granite State Candy, A Book, Specials shirt from the Wilson’s, newspaper clippings, and Bindings. It was very kind and greatly appreciated. I had the bindings shipped over because I found a pair of Rossignol Scratches in the local Salvation Army for $90. I would have been losing money by not buying them. They have proved to be a vital part of my park skiing antics. The skis I traveled over with were all mountain skis. The bindings on those skis had been giving me problems all season. Along with the skis, I found a shirt that was made for my Dad. Its a picture of a man golfing with the slogan "Work is for people who can't Golf", I love Salvation Army. Another notable purchase was a Wheres Waldo Book. The specials shirt led to a bizarre meeting with an old man named Gary who happened to be wearing a specials shirt the first day I wore it. He was pretty drunk and kept shaking me in disbelief while singing special songs. He also asked me where my ladies were at about 20 times. He seemed nice, but I decided not to introduce him to any ladies I was with. The book was one I’ve planned on reading for ages, but never managed enough motivation to start it. It’s really small print and about 1100 pages. Its different, but I would recommend any book by Ayn Rand after reading half of Atlas Shrugged and another one of her works titled The Fountainhead. If anyone is looking for an entertaining biography read Mr. Nice and you won’t be disappointed.
I haven’t been out in town for about 3 weeks because it’s so expensive, so I’ve been making my rounds to house parties. The only noteworthy party was one where we celebrated Garsmas. I’m still not entirely sure what Garsmas is, but it was a great time. I guess it was a cross between Thanksgiving and Christmas for the lone reasons that there was a cardboard manger, and we ate turkey for dinner. A better explanation is it’s just an excuse to have a house party. The manger was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen because baby Jesus was replaced by David Bowie (refer to the pictures below).
Hockey has sadly come to an end. But our team triumphed in the tournament and managed a podium spot coming in third. 1st or 2nd would have been better, but 3rd was an impressive feat for our team. We won a case of beer, and a trophy made of golden spoons. They might have been wooden ones spray-painted, but I doubt it. Even though the league is finished, people still play pick up every Tuesday. I’m not sure how I missed this in the first weeks of playing hockey, but every Friday and Saturday the rink has Disco Ice Skating. You really can’t go wrong with an ice rink, smoke machines, disco balls, and a good playlist.
I did a hike with Bronwyn one day to the top of the Gondola. She hadn’t been to the top and it’s a really easy hike to do. Most of the other ones require planning from the day prior. It was a beautiful day in terms of blue skis, but one of the windiest days I’ve ever experienced. Neither of the mountains opened. At one point the wind sounded like a 747 no more then 500 ft above my head. One unlucky employee that had to drive to the mountain even though it was closed returned down from the mountain rear windowless. I still find it hard to believe, but its true. It was really windy. The hike turned out to be pretty lame. After hiking for 5 minutes we got to a dirt road that doubled as a hiking trail. We ignored the signs saying no walking, and returned down via a downhill mountain biking track. The hike down made me respect downhill mountain biking a million times more. I struggled enough on the way down trying to walk, grasping how someone could do it on a bike escapes me. I’m pretty fearless, but I don’t think I’d try this particular track on a bike.
I’m going to try to put potentially the best 36 hours of my entire trip into words. I’m sure my description won’t do it justice, but I’ll do my best. Last Friday I got up to the mountain around 11 AM. It was a crappy day, but I had nothing else to do. I ran into two kids named Shawn and Nick. I had met three days prior skiing. They were up at the mountain early practicing for a rail jam they were going to in Dunedin later that night. They had told me about the rail jam the day that I met them. I told them that I would be interested in going, but unfortunately they didn’t have any room in the car. I wished them luck as they were heading in the change out of their gear and I was heading out. I made two runs and found them waiting at the bottom for me. Turns out the kid who was going to drive bailed on them, and now there plan was to go into town to rent a car and make the 3 ½ hour drive to Dunedin which meant they had room for me to tag along. Without hesitating I agreed. I called my boss to see if he could cover for me and he could. We met up with two other friends of theirs named Morgan and Joel, and before I knew it I was in a car with 4 other people I barely knew on my way to Dunedin. We hit it off immediately and the drive was filled with general road trip tomfoolery. At one point Joel was going to streak through a field or sheep naked, but he bailed after merely taking off his shoe. It was still funny. The drive was beautiful and surprisingly we didn’t get lost. Until we got to Dunedin at least. It was strange to see streetlights. We arrived to the rail jam pretty early and checked out the set up and mingled with the other competitors. It was situated right in the middle of Otago University, where Lyndsey studied, so the venue was packed full of rowdy college students. The atmosphere led me to try front flips and rodeos over the entire setup negating to even touch the rails. It was enough to get me through to the finals, which was my goal from the beginning. Rails have never been a strong aspect of my skiing prowess so I wasn’t planning on winning in the first place. I just wanted to have a good time and it was a great time. It was by far the most fun I’ve ever had competing in a rail jam and the set up was great. All competitors were given free drinks from the neighboring bar. Most were enjoyed after, but I couldn’t resist a few during. Its important to stay hydrated right? It started raining at one point which wouldn’t have been so bad if I had came prepared. Oh well. We had plans to drive home after, but we were having so much fun that we decided to go out and explore the city. Our plan changed from driving home after, to sleeping in the car for a few hours after partying and then driving back. That quickly changed as well. We were literally wondering the streets asking random people we encountered where the good bars were or if they knew where we could find a house party. Luckily we found someone willing to bring us to a house party. The house party turned out to be the best house party I’ve ever been too. It put parties at UNH to shame. It was in an old colonial style house with high ceilings and music was provided by not one, but two DJs. The house was overflowing with people, and how or why the police didn’t shut it down baffled me. I wasn’t to worried about that for the time being. I ended up meeting a nice kiwi girl there who was kind enough to welcome us all into her apartment for the night. It turned out being the most ridiculous apartment for any college student. It came equipped with a pool table and two extra king size mattresses so we all managed a great night of sleep. We woke up around 930 and quickly realized we weren’t going t make it back to QT for a day of skiing. Instead we ventured off to roam the streets of Dunedin to find our car. I was still wearing my snow pants and an overly large green shirt I borrowed from Shawn. I was walking barefoot as well because my shoes were soaked through from the rain. We were a sight to see, and got a lot of bizarre looks. We stumbled across a really cool Saturday market. We roamed through looking for some food/water to cure our hangover. Morgan had already cracked a beer in attempt to ease her pain. We found our car and decided to drive around in search of the steepest street in the world. We found it and conquered it with screams as if we were on a rollercoaster ride at six flags. Our next mission was the beach, which was beautiful. The waves were huge, and the surfing looked amazing. We sat in silence for nearly an hour taking it all in. After the beach we found the local Salvation Army and browsed for a bit. I was disappointed, but found a tape loaded with sing alongs for the ride home. Radio signal was non-existent for 90% of the drive. On the ride home I dozed in and out of sleep, but there was still some stupid fun to have like when we stopped near a damn, found an echo spot, and yelled funny sayings for nearly a half hour. Oh the joys of road tripping. I’m sure you get a sense of how fun it was from reading this, but I assure you it was way more fun.
We all get along really well, and I’ve stumbled upon a new circle of friends. I’m a bit bummed that I didn’t meet them earlier in my trip. I ride with Shawn and Nick pretty much every day now and we always have a great time. We’ve been attempting to learn Ski Ballet, which has led to many good laughs. If you want to be impressed type Ski Ballet into youtube. I met up with Shawn yesterday and rather then hitting the big jumps in the park, we decided to partake in a pond-skimming contest. I had never done one before and have always wanted too. You win by being entertaining so Shawn tried to cross on one ski and I tried to backflip out. We both failed. It was a ton of fun and set the mood for the rest of the day.
All is well with me and I hope everyone is doing well. Hopefully I didn’t take to much time out of anyone’s day with this massive post. Enjoy the pictures.
Pat
Pictures
Panarama from Remarables. If you look really close you can see my house.
Artsy
Joel Breaking into a Dam for no reason
Fence full of shoes
Pictures
Snowpants...Tall Tee....Ocean?
Loading up at the rail jam
The Set Up
Shawnanigans
Team ASB with our Golden Spoons
Pictures
Garsmas Manger
After a short hike at the Remarkables
Snow in Town...Thats the Gondola line
Masterpieces by yours truly
mmmmmm
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
No Friends On A Powder Day
So maybe I lied about the two week thing…sorry. Either way it’s been a great past two weeks, and after skimming through my journal all the details of the weeks are fresh in my mind.
Matt and I went fishing a couple of weeks ago. It was the second time in the trip that I have made it past Frankton and Queenstown, and it was amazing. My expectation of what the rest of NZ will be like is extremely high. We headed up to Moke Lake around 6 at night just before dusk, which is prime fishing time. Unfortunately neither of us caught anything, but that didn’t really matter. I just realized I already wrote about this. This blog really is accurate.
Our landlords are officially gone out of the house and it was good to call their bluff about the furniture. They sold some of it, but nothing that important. We lost a couple of couches, pots and pans, the TV, and the Coffee Table among other little things. It worked out because all it took was a trip to the local Salvation Army to get most of it back. We didn’t find a new coffee table, but we have boxes and duck tape to solve that problem. We have a TV, but it doesn’t work so we just put a picture of man skiing on it and constantly joke about how the same show is always on. Its good not watching TV, I’ve really started to appreciate the Radio. Jacob brought a balance board back from work so that serves as our entertainment most nights. We all got good pretty quick and ended up buying a basketball to balance on rather then a piece of circular PVC. The best thing about the landlords leaving was that we can use the downstairs shower now. It has a proper showerhead that works. It’s a lot better then the upstairs shower. The one downside is the washer machine is gone. Its quite an adventure to do laundry now. It entails hitchhiking to and from town, which is no easy task for someone that likes to wait until all my clothes are dirty and do one big wash.
Sadly Tom had to call his trip short. His grandfather got ill and he decided to go back early. It was sad to say goodbye, but I am confident we will meet up again in the near future. I really hope we do. I met up with him for a last night on the town and it was a good night. We pretty much went to every good bar in town. It was a lot of fun, but sad to say farewell.
Now that I don’t have a skiing partner, it’s back to riding with snowboarders. It really is strange how many more snowboarders there are here compared to skiers. In my last post I said that spring conditions had arrived, but that was a false alarm. It must have been a warm spell because it’s been cold the past few weeks. Not only has it been cold but it’s been windy and snowing. The mountain ended up closing for 4 days in a row. Technically it didn’t, but when the only thing open is the magic carpet and the beginner lift, I consider it closed. Sav and I tried to go up one of those days and ended up calling it quits after one run. It was really disappointing as we caught one of the early busses with plans to ski for a full day. We left and hitched our way over to the other mountain Coronet. Its elevation is a lot lower so the cloud cover wasn’t as bad. Unfortunately the second we got to the top they put all the lifts on wind hold. It was an awful day.
Two days later the weather made a turn for the better. Not only was the weather good, but because the mountain had been shut for so long there was 30cm of fresh NZ powder. I wasn’t about to miss this day. Matt and I were on the mountain and in line at 8:30. The lifts don’t open until 9 and we were still 30 chairs away from first chair. Fortunately for me the majority of the people in front of us were snowboarders. The best terrain off of the lift at the Remarks is accessible after a long traverse, and its hard to traverse quickly on snowboards. I ended up being the 5th person to the steepest face and had amazing turns the whole way down. There was no way I was waiting for Matt and headed right back up the chair for more. I decided to make the traverse again, but this time instead of going back down the face, which was already tracked out, I headed out to a bowl called homeward bound. When you ski this part of the mountain, you have to take a shuttle back up to the chairlifts. The shuttle doesn’t start running until 10 and at this point it was 9:20. I figured first tracks down that were worth the 20 minute wait for the shuttle, and once again I had first tracks down some of the best terrain at The Remarkables. Matt met up with me while we were in line for the shuttle and we decided to head over to the other side of the mountain once we got off the shuttle. That ended up being a poor decision. That side of the mountain was exposed to all the wind from the recent storm and was extremely icy. We immediately headed back over to the side we started on. As we were getting off the lift ski patrol was dropping the rope for the Chutes. The Chutes are about a 10-20 minute hike depending on how motivated you are, and defiantly the best terrain at the mountain that you can hike too. There were about 50 people in front of us all funneling into the single track boot pack ski patrol had set while making sure The Chutes were safe. Instead of waiting, I decided to make my own boot pack around the mob of people waiting to hike up. Some might say it’s a dick move, but there are no friends on a powder day. At that point I was about 25 people back from the front, and after some more strategic boot packing I was the 10th person to the top. Unlike most of the people at the top I wasn’t about to wait around so I immediately strapped in and dropped in. There was only one guy who dropped into Elevator Chute (the main one) before me and he really wasn’t that far in front of me. Maybe 2 turns ahead. Regardless the Chute is really wide and there was plenty of virgin snow to enjoy. I couldn’t stop myself from screaming in ecstasy at the end of the Chute. It was the most satisfying run of my trip. Actually it was the most satisfying day. I hiked back up to the Chutes again, and the second time around I hiked out of bounds to some Chutes that weren’t patrolled by the mountain. They were perfectly safe and I had anther epic run. Thanks for establishing a good hiking mentality in me Uncle Pete. If I never felt the need to keep up with you in Colorado who knows if I would have had that epic run down the Chutes?
During the massive spring storm it managed to snow in town. Although it didn’t accumulate it was a spectacular sight to see. I would have loved to see people drive the roads around here with snow on them. I imagine it impossible.
We had our “where are you from” costume party this past weekend and it went really well. One of Lyndseys friends from Bowdoin actually made the trip over. We had met briefly before, but we really just knew each other as acquaintances of Lyn. I think she had a really good time at the party, but unfortunately her vest was stolen with her cell phone and other things in the pockets. I felt really bad and am extremely suspicious of the new kids downstairs. They are awful roommates. They barely speak to us, and have no respect for other people’s property. I don’t have very much stuff for them to be respectful of, but Matt has two kayaks in the house that they deemed appropriate to crash down the stairs into the door. Needless to say there is a huge hole in the door now. No one in the upstairs house is a big fan. I was exited at first because they were skiers, but I have no intentions of skiing with them in the future.
Work hasn’t gotten any better and I have started the Job hunt around town. I plan on staying in QT for at least another month, but after that I have no idea. I have lots of potential plans, but which one will take course has yet to be decided. It really depends on whether or not I can find a good job around here. Whether or not that happens will also lead me to decide if I will be returning for Christmas, which is still up in the air. There was one pretty funny moment at work the other day. I walked into the Hostel and approached the front desk to receive my “magic” key from the girl at the front desk. I had seen this girl around the hostel for the past 2 months, but for some reason she didn’t recognize me. When I reached over the desk to grab said “magic” key and said something like “I’m really not looking forward to cleaning today” she looked at me confused. She asked me if I was a cleaner, which I respond yes too. She then looked even more confused and told me that she didn’t think I spoke English for the past 2 months. She assumed I was German or Scandinavian. I took it as a compliment and we continually joke about speaking English whenever I see her.
Last night I played hockey and finally scored not one, but two goals. I’m starting to really pick up this formal hockey thing. If it wasn’t for the 6 AM practices when I was young I think I could have had a lot of fun playing hockey competitively. Indoor soccer came to an end. I got pretty sick of playing on a basketball court so I’m not very upset. Hockey ends next week and I’m already upset about that. I definitely plan to join a league wherever I end up living in the near future.
My cooking skills have further increased in past weeks and I am starting to hone in on the timing aspect of it. There is still plenty of room for recipes in my culinary bag, but I figure those will come with time. I will post a few pictures of my creations.
Pat
Matt and I went fishing a couple of weeks ago. It was the second time in the trip that I have made it past Frankton and Queenstown, and it was amazing. My expectation of what the rest of NZ will be like is extremely high. We headed up to Moke Lake around 6 at night just before dusk, which is prime fishing time. Unfortunately neither of us caught anything, but that didn’t really matter. I just realized I already wrote about this. This blog really is accurate.
Our landlords are officially gone out of the house and it was good to call their bluff about the furniture. They sold some of it, but nothing that important. We lost a couple of couches, pots and pans, the TV, and the Coffee Table among other little things. It worked out because all it took was a trip to the local Salvation Army to get most of it back. We didn’t find a new coffee table, but we have boxes and duck tape to solve that problem. We have a TV, but it doesn’t work so we just put a picture of man skiing on it and constantly joke about how the same show is always on. Its good not watching TV, I’ve really started to appreciate the Radio. Jacob brought a balance board back from work so that serves as our entertainment most nights. We all got good pretty quick and ended up buying a basketball to balance on rather then a piece of circular PVC. The best thing about the landlords leaving was that we can use the downstairs shower now. It has a proper showerhead that works. It’s a lot better then the upstairs shower. The one downside is the washer machine is gone. Its quite an adventure to do laundry now. It entails hitchhiking to and from town, which is no easy task for someone that likes to wait until all my clothes are dirty and do one big wash.
Sadly Tom had to call his trip short. His grandfather got ill and he decided to go back early. It was sad to say goodbye, but I am confident we will meet up again in the near future. I really hope we do. I met up with him for a last night on the town and it was a good night. We pretty much went to every good bar in town. It was a lot of fun, but sad to say farewell.
Now that I don’t have a skiing partner, it’s back to riding with snowboarders. It really is strange how many more snowboarders there are here compared to skiers. In my last post I said that spring conditions had arrived, but that was a false alarm. It must have been a warm spell because it’s been cold the past few weeks. Not only has it been cold but it’s been windy and snowing. The mountain ended up closing for 4 days in a row. Technically it didn’t, but when the only thing open is the magic carpet and the beginner lift, I consider it closed. Sav and I tried to go up one of those days and ended up calling it quits after one run. It was really disappointing as we caught one of the early busses with plans to ski for a full day. We left and hitched our way over to the other mountain Coronet. Its elevation is a lot lower so the cloud cover wasn’t as bad. Unfortunately the second we got to the top they put all the lifts on wind hold. It was an awful day.
Two days later the weather made a turn for the better. Not only was the weather good, but because the mountain had been shut for so long there was 30cm of fresh NZ powder. I wasn’t about to miss this day. Matt and I were on the mountain and in line at 8:30. The lifts don’t open until 9 and we were still 30 chairs away from first chair. Fortunately for me the majority of the people in front of us were snowboarders. The best terrain off of the lift at the Remarks is accessible after a long traverse, and its hard to traverse quickly on snowboards. I ended up being the 5th person to the steepest face and had amazing turns the whole way down. There was no way I was waiting for Matt and headed right back up the chair for more. I decided to make the traverse again, but this time instead of going back down the face, which was already tracked out, I headed out to a bowl called homeward bound. When you ski this part of the mountain, you have to take a shuttle back up to the chairlifts. The shuttle doesn’t start running until 10 and at this point it was 9:20. I figured first tracks down that were worth the 20 minute wait for the shuttle, and once again I had first tracks down some of the best terrain at The Remarkables. Matt met up with me while we were in line for the shuttle and we decided to head over to the other side of the mountain once we got off the shuttle. That ended up being a poor decision. That side of the mountain was exposed to all the wind from the recent storm and was extremely icy. We immediately headed back over to the side we started on. As we were getting off the lift ski patrol was dropping the rope for the Chutes. The Chutes are about a 10-20 minute hike depending on how motivated you are, and defiantly the best terrain at the mountain that you can hike too. There were about 50 people in front of us all funneling into the single track boot pack ski patrol had set while making sure The Chutes were safe. Instead of waiting, I decided to make my own boot pack around the mob of people waiting to hike up. Some might say it’s a dick move, but there are no friends on a powder day. At that point I was about 25 people back from the front, and after some more strategic boot packing I was the 10th person to the top. Unlike most of the people at the top I wasn’t about to wait around so I immediately strapped in and dropped in. There was only one guy who dropped into Elevator Chute (the main one) before me and he really wasn’t that far in front of me. Maybe 2 turns ahead. Regardless the Chute is really wide and there was plenty of virgin snow to enjoy. I couldn’t stop myself from screaming in ecstasy at the end of the Chute. It was the most satisfying run of my trip. Actually it was the most satisfying day. I hiked back up to the Chutes again, and the second time around I hiked out of bounds to some Chutes that weren’t patrolled by the mountain. They were perfectly safe and I had anther epic run. Thanks for establishing a good hiking mentality in me Uncle Pete. If I never felt the need to keep up with you in Colorado who knows if I would have had that epic run down the Chutes?
During the massive spring storm it managed to snow in town. Although it didn’t accumulate it was a spectacular sight to see. I would have loved to see people drive the roads around here with snow on them. I imagine it impossible.
We had our “where are you from” costume party this past weekend and it went really well. One of Lyndseys friends from Bowdoin actually made the trip over. We had met briefly before, but we really just knew each other as acquaintances of Lyn. I think she had a really good time at the party, but unfortunately her vest was stolen with her cell phone and other things in the pockets. I felt really bad and am extremely suspicious of the new kids downstairs. They are awful roommates. They barely speak to us, and have no respect for other people’s property. I don’t have very much stuff for them to be respectful of, but Matt has two kayaks in the house that they deemed appropriate to crash down the stairs into the door. Needless to say there is a huge hole in the door now. No one in the upstairs house is a big fan. I was exited at first because they were skiers, but I have no intentions of skiing with them in the future.
Work hasn’t gotten any better and I have started the Job hunt around town. I plan on staying in QT for at least another month, but after that I have no idea. I have lots of potential plans, but which one will take course has yet to be decided. It really depends on whether or not I can find a good job around here. Whether or not that happens will also lead me to decide if I will be returning for Christmas, which is still up in the air. There was one pretty funny moment at work the other day. I walked into the Hostel and approached the front desk to receive my “magic” key from the girl at the front desk. I had seen this girl around the hostel for the past 2 months, but for some reason she didn’t recognize me. When I reached over the desk to grab said “magic” key and said something like “I’m really not looking forward to cleaning today” she looked at me confused. She asked me if I was a cleaner, which I respond yes too. She then looked even more confused and told me that she didn’t think I spoke English for the past 2 months. She assumed I was German or Scandinavian. I took it as a compliment and we continually joke about speaking English whenever I see her.
Last night I played hockey and finally scored not one, but two goals. I’m starting to really pick up this formal hockey thing. If it wasn’t for the 6 AM practices when I was young I think I could have had a lot of fun playing hockey competitively. Indoor soccer came to an end. I got pretty sick of playing on a basketball court so I’m not very upset. Hockey ends next week and I’m already upset about that. I definitely plan to join a league wherever I end up living in the near future.
My cooking skills have further increased in past weeks and I am starting to hone in on the timing aspect of it. There is still plenty of room for recipes in my culinary bag, but I figure those will come with time. I will post a few pictures of my creations.
Pat
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