It's been a while since I've had a chance to update, so the next few posts are going to be a bit disjointed. Here's the plan, so you can keep it all straight: I'm going to write this post just to talk about our move to Queenstown a bit and what we've been doing the past couple days. The next post is going to be the Tongariro Crossing-dedicated post I promised a couple weeks ago. Finally, there will be a third post (which I will probably not get around to today) that will pick up from Hamilton and take you through the rest of our trip to Queenstown. From then on, my posts will be less postmodernly-nonlinear and more normal.
Here we go:
Two days ago we arrived in beautiful, stunningly-scenic Queenstown. Queenstown is a smallish city near the bottom of the south island. Despite its size, it's quite a bustling place. It's one of the top tourist towns and the adventure capital of New Zealand. Here you can skydive, bungy jump, parasail, white water raft, jet boat, river surf, street-luge down the side of the mountain, paraglide, ski (in the winter), go mountain biking, and pretty much any other insane activity the Kiwis can dream up. It's also a good base for exploring the many national parks that are only two hours' drive, or less, from city center.
Geographically, Queenstown sits on the edge of the massive Lake Wakatipu and is surrounded by the Remarkables, a large mountain range. Yesterday we rode the gondola (a ski-lift but without the skis), up to the Skyline. The Skyline features an impressive (and expensive--$60 for lunch!) buffet restaurant, a large observation deck and viewing center, and also serves as a base for street luging, bungy jumping, and paragliding.
Here's the view of Queenstown from the observation deck. The little orange blip towards the right is a paraglider.
We originally took the gondola up to do some luging. There are two 800 meter tracks, which wind halfway down the mountain through tunnels, over bridges, and around bends. We did each track once, and it was pretty awesome! Here's some other people coming down the track so you get an idea of what it's like:
While we were at the Skyline, we noticed the paragliders. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I managed to convince Alexa to "think about" doing paragliding at some point during our stay in Queenstown. If convincing her to think about it seemed impossible, then what happened next was nothing short of a miracle. We went to the kiosk just to enquire about the price and what the experience was like in case we wanted to come back at some point, but the skilled salesman convinced us to do it that day! That's right, we pretty much jumped off a mountain! Paragliding is basically skydiving, minus the free-fall and from a much lower height. I told Alexa the next natural step is skydiving, but she's not having it, and there probably isn't any convincing her of it.
Here's photographic proof of our paragliding, though:
It was tandem, in case you're wondering who the two insanely-enthusiastic guys are. Apparently they just can't let you jump off a mountain on your own.Aside from pulling insane stunts like riding luges down the side of and jumping off of mountains, we've been doing the mundane tasks of apartment and job-hunting. Incredibly enough, we've already had some success!
I'm writing this from the comfort of our new studio flat. Our very OWN flat. It's not shared. There is no Ornery and there is no Silly. It's clean and it's comfortable, and we can see the Remarkables from our living room window! We have our OWN kitchen and our OWN bathroom and our OWN everything! The only other person around is the quiet, friendly landlady who lives upstairs. It may not seem like a big deal, but after three months at the Pickled Parrot it's pretty amazing to have our own space. What's even better is that we're not paying much more rent than we were in Wellington, so it's quite a bargain. It also came fully-furnished and included a bunch of sweet kitchen gadgets.
Check it:
On the job front, I applied for a job the day we arrived, interviewed for it yesterday, and I start on Monday. Not too shabby, eh? What's more, the job has 100% less toilet-cleaning than my job at the hotel. What, oh what, could this glamorous job be, you ask? Am I a copy-writer for the local newspaper? Am I an assitant at one of the many extreme-sport kiosks in town? Am I a taxi driver? Did I open my own business? Am I the CEO of a brand new, up-and-coming multinational business?!
I'm afraid not. I'm also afraid I don't know why I included taxi driver in the list of glamorous jobs. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
As of Monday, I'll be a cashier at Fresh Choice, the only grocery store in town. Woooooooooooo!!!
On the upside, I'll have between 40-45 hours a week right from the start, unlike in Wellington where I was barely scraping together 20 hours for the first month and a half, and I'm making a bit more per hour than I was making in Wellington. Plus I get a 5% discount on groceries. Yeah, I know, big whoop. 5% is sales tax in Maryland. Still, I'll be hauling in a lot more money than I was in Wellington so we can live a bit more extravagantly. Last night, for instance, I cooked actual food--chicken parmesean--instead of some combination of gross meat, pasta, and frozen vegetables. We even bought wine and beer. Oooh. Ahhh. Having our own fridge where we don't have to worry about Orneries and Sillies stealing our food is a plus too.
Alexa's prospects are looking good as well, as she's landed an interview at a nannying agency on Monday.
Anyway, Alexa is growing bored with my blog-writing and wants to go out and find the Remarkables Shopping Center, so I'd best be on my way. For now, enjoy all the sweet pictures. I was quite generous with pictures for this post, eh? It probably has something to do with the metric shit ton of coffee I drank this morning. Enthralled by the shiny new coffee press in our flat, I filled it to the brim and consumed enough caffeine for about ten people. Weeeeeeeee!
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