Eventful Queenstown Weekend

My work week was typical 9 - 5 without much excitement beyond a dance party or two in Strike Bowl. But once Friday hit time went flying and now its all the sudden 4:30 pm on Sunday afternoon.

Friday morning I came into town early to get some work done on my paper (that was a joke I didn't get around to actually writing it until Saturday evening). But none the less I hung around town until noon then met Janelle to go up to the top of the gondola for zip treking. http://www.ziptrek.com/queenstown-new-zealand if you are interested. We did it as a famil (lovely little perks of the hospitality industry) so we were able to go for free. It wasn't high adrenaline but it was a lot of fun and not at all freaky. You felt very safe the whole time.

At about 4, Danielle arrived to Queenstown from Dunedin (she is originally from Southern California) for the weekend and we went mini golfing to pass the time until Ingrid arrived at 6:30 from Christchurch (originally from Wisconsin). We headed up to the top of the gondola so they could get the aerial views of the city, had some Indian for dinner (which I have had more Indian food here than I ever had in the states) and went up to my place to get to sleep early since the morning was going to come very soon for them.

Saturday morning I shipped both Danielle and Ingrid off in a taxi at 7am. After wards, I promptly went back to bed. Danielle and Ingrid were gone from 7 am til 8 pm so I had time to write my paper. After about 200 words I thought my progress had been good and went to do some souvenir and birthday shopping. Got Danielle and Ingrid a little after 8, just missing the shuttle back to the hotel. So we had ice cream as an appetizer for dinner and bought the required ingredients for banana pancakes. We made a delicious pancake dinner and since I cooked, I didn't have to do the dishes! :-)

This morning Danielle and I woke up with knots in our stomachs not sure if we were ready for the day ahead. We all went to breakfast at Halo: The Forbidden Bite before dropping Ingrid at the bus stop to get back to Christchurch. Danielle and I then made our way to check in for the Canyon Swing. For those of you who aren't sure as to what that is: http://www.canyonswing.co.nz/ You are attached to a cord (kinda like a bungy) at your waist and you either jump or are released from a platform. You free fall for 60 meters before swinging over the Shotover River in a 200 meter arc. There are many choices of ways to jump and I encourage you to watch the videos on the website of all the different jump styles. The guys that work that are hilarious and are very encouraging for people to do the scary jumps and not the wimpy ones. I of course chose the wimpy one! But these guys love their job so much that they actually tricked me into doing a scarier one. If you check out the website, I chose the cut away. For the cut away you're sitting up right and are released looking forward. Obviously the guys knew I was pretty gullible and told me that I had to lean back and cross my legs over the rope so I don't get hurt. Thus putting me into the Elvis Cutaway position. They took me from a "one underpants rating" to a "four underpants rating". I'm glad they did it though because I now have higher bragging rights :-). Danielle on the other hand is a gymnast and decided to go off the edge in flips. I swear she's crazy! But she loved it so much that she went again, but doing backwards flips instead.

We were both so proud of ourselves for 1) not chickening out and 2) not making too much of a scene as we fell that at lunch we deserved a drink. We had a more relaxed afternoon and took a cruise out on the lake before getting Danielle back on the bus for Dunedin.

Tonight, I will hopefully be making more progress on my paper (who knows maybe I'll even finish it!), eating some dinner and getting to bed early. All the adrenaline from the morning has drained me.