Bungyyyyy!

This past weekend was filled with adrenaline producing fun. I began my weekend early Friday morning with an amazingly scenic drive to Queenstown. One of my favorite things about New Zealand is how blue and clear water is. We drove by rivers and little lakes and they were all stunning and bright. One of the rivers was as greenish blue as the turquoise Crayola crayon color. It was amazing.

It looked a lot greener to me but still beautiful

I also realized that I really love car rides. I think in the past two years I have taken to not liking car rides as much because most of them involve driving through New Jersey and then the PA turnpike which is a road work fiasco but I really love car rides in New Zealand because they are windy and beautiful and there are no sixteen wheelers or gross factory smell.

Upon arriving in Queenstown, Tucker, Kevin and I went white water rafting. We originally wanted to go black water rafting (so the same thing but in a cave) but they were not open. White water rafting was great and I wore a wet suit for the first time. The water was really cold but we all went for a swim anyways. I couldn't resist swimming in beautifully blue river water. We rafted for approximately two hours and through some grade 4 rapids (there are 6 grades, but no one really goes above grade 5), so in short, we were sloshed around for some time. Our guide was pretty awesome and he made the trip all the more fun by allowing us to turtle (flipping the raft). He also had us paddle really hard into a rock, which resulted in some Matrix actions where everyone in the boat flung forwards, except for Tucker who fell backwards and out of the raft. After the two hours we arrived at the other end of the river where there was a SAUNA. Oh gosh it felt so good to be warm.

Grade 4 rapid. So. Awesome. 

That night after a proper shower back at the hostel, we went out for Ferg Burger. I had a tropical swine burger that was delicious and possibly the biggest burger I've ever seen in my life. It was the size of my face, and i'm not really exaggerating much at all. I actually could not bite through the burger so I had to eat the burger from side to side, which ended up being something like "bite of lettuce and tomato" then "bite of beef and pineapple" (YES! there was pineapple!) and then repeat. Anyways, it was a delicious and filling meal, especially since I hadn't eaten since 9am that morning.

After returning to the hostel we played the post-it game, which I think is called 21 questions or something, but basically you write a person on a post-it and stick it on someones head and then the person tries to guess who they are by asking "yes" or "no" questions. I was some interesting characters including Sarah Palin, Tiger Woods, Lara Croft (from Tomb Raider), and Puff the Magic Dragon, and a few others. We played for hours and it was so much fun.

Seems appropriate for a bathroom at the bungy :)

Then comes the most exciting part of my weekend. THE NEVIS BUNGY. I had wanted to bungy jump since I knew I was coming to New Zealand and the time had finally come and I was scared out of my mind. I was not so scared about the actual jump but more so of something not being attached right or something like that. The ride to the bungy pod is about 40 minutes and the entire time I was just sitting silently on the bus thinking "what did I just get myself into?". When we finally arrived, they quickly put us in a full body harness and shipped us out to the bungy pod in a cable car that Kevin decided to shake and sway on the way over. In the pod everything went by so quickly. They put those towel like things around your feet and then had you wait your turn. I was second to go, after Kevin. It was my turn and I climbed into the chair where they attach the bungy cord to my feet. Everything moved so quickly, probably for a reason, so people wouldn't freak out. Once I was attached, it was off to the plank I go...

3, 2, 1... and I jumped. I don't know how I did it because I don't think there is anything in this world that could convince a person that it is a good idea to jump off a plank 134 meters (440 feet) off the ground while attached to a rubber band, but I jumped. The first two or three seconds was absolutely terrifying. I just kept on thinking "Sh*t %$*# AHHH! Oh no oh no.." and then after those two seconds my thought became "WHOAH HO HO! I'M FLYING!!!" and it was the greatest feeling ever, and then my third thought was "Whoah... why am I bouncing? Flying was fun..." But yes, the ground rush was amazing and there was a lot of adrenaline and it was honestly not as scary as I thought it would be. Bungy jumping is definitely one of the coolest things i've done here and I'm really glad I did it. There are pictures and a video of my jump on Facebook. :)

The hike. 

After the bungy we went home and went on a hike up the gondola. I am really glad I did the hike but it was incredibly steep and I still had a cold and couldn't really breathe and I was kind of grumpy until I got to the top, and then the view was totally worth it so I was happy again. I look a little like i'm about to keel over though in the pictures taken after the hike. Anyways, Fredric, Grace and I hiked back down a little later while Tucker and Kevin went luging. We all took hot showers, played more post-it game and then headed out for dinner at a Thai restaurant. That night we played an epic game of charades. While bungy jumping was an AMAZING experience and white water rafting was also great, playing the post-it game and charades was also the most fun i've had in a while. Epic weekend.