It's me again!

Whew! What a week. Well, I guess it wasn't that exciting. This week was supposed to be my last week at my job, but on Friday I decided I had had enough and quit on Friday. Its been really nice having the week off so far and seeing as it is supposed to rain all week, I'm appreciating the ability to be indoors. Now I just have to find a productive way to spend my time.

Friday a friend and I went up to Mt. Eden for a picnic dinner. It was awesome being able to look out over the city and I finally got to check another tourist thing off my list. Wednesday we are going to the Zoo!

Blurry view, but you can see where our perch was

Clearer view of Auckland at night!

Sunday I volunteered again on the start boat and it was a beautiful day out! I even got to drive the boat! (Not really that exciting because its about to fall apart and goes extremely slow, so I think they were just happy they didn't have to hold the steering wheel for forever. Its so old they couldn't even get it to turn off and had to pull a spark plug).

I still haven't heard back on the job, but I keep thinking no news is good news. I plan to use the rest of my week speaking with some agencies and looking into some jobs for when I come back in a few weeks. That's right! My family comes on Saturday and I get to go traveling with them!!!! So excited!!! Other than that, life is still amazing! I'm having a blast with my friends and not ready to leave at all!

I know its been awhile....

So I apologize, I know it's been awhile. Unfortunately when I got back from my trips my computer died and I had to get a new hard drive installed. Since my computer was pretty much wiped clean I had to wait until today where I could reinstall all my programs. Therefore, I finally have internet again!! Woohoo.

Gisborne was a lot of fun. It was significantly better than our last road trip. The first night we stayed in a hostel that was pretty much a shed on someone's front lawn. The bathroom (in another tin shed) didn't even have a light in it. It was absolutely freezing and no one got any sleep. We woke up and our boss moved us to a motel which was a million times nicer. He said it was because all us girls "kept complaining" but he wanted to move just as badly. Apparently all of NZ had TERRIBLE weather that week, but it was absolutely beautiful the whole time we were there. Apparently there was even an earthquake in another town a few hours away that was felt there, but we completely missed it.

My co-workers and partners in crime on our road trip to Gisborne!

I caught an early bus back (everyone else decided to stay for the food and wine festival) so I could get back to Auckland for my flight to Queenstown. Queenstown was INCREDIBLE. I had been before, so I didn't expect to be that awed by it, but it is still an absolutely beautiful city. I can't even count how many times we said "how can this even be real?" when looking at the scenery. It was great seeing friends again, even if i had only known them for a few days before. It was like we had never been apart. Since I wasn't in such a rush to do all of the tourist things it actually felt like a vacation instead of traveling and it was really nice.

Right when I got there we went and did the luge again. It was definitely more fun with more people. Then we went out that night to celebrate one of the girl's birthdays. We dressed up in flourescent and made quite a scene. The next day we took a drive on Devil's staircase and went to a beach for a picnic. Unfortunately it was raining so we had our picnic in the car. It actually turned out to be a blast and we probably laughed the whole time. We had a lazy day the rest of the day and then coincidentally ran into a few guys that were also part of our group up in Auckland. It was a complete renunion at that point. The next day we went out for a ribs lunch and then played frisbee golf. Everyone was a bit skeptical because they had never heard of it before, but by the end they were completely in love with it. I was really sad to leave but unfortuately had to return to the "real" world.

Ugly town, isn't it?

getting ready to luge!

Lift up to the luge track. Another ugly backdrop!

getting ready for the fluorescent party!

Where we had our picnic! The sun came out for a few minutes!

Chilling by the beach!

The whole gang! The camera was tilted so everyone decided to lean to make it look upright. This was at the start of frisbee golf!

ugly backdrop for frisbee golf, huh?

The view from our hostel as the sun was setting. It didn't look real to us either.

Picnic in the back of the van!

While I was in Gisborne I found out I had a pretty good shot at a job in yacht design. They keep delaying the date when I will find out, so I am trying my best to patiently wait, but so far I am thinking no news is good news. Because of this I have upgraded to a smart phone so I can constantly check my e-mail. As nice as it is, I am so ready to switch back to my "dumb" phone.

In the meantime I am still at my job doing door to door sales. I will keep doing that until my family comes in a few weeks (YAY, can't wait!) and then I will try for a real job if this other job doesn't turn up. I'm still having a blast and making new friends. Halloween was a lot of fun. We were really impressed at the awesome costumes that came out of people having to be resourceful.