Grab a coffee, this is gonna be a LONG one...

ok, soooo i haven't written on this thing in a while. sorry to let all of my devoted fans down...bwahha. here we go..

umm how should I do this, i think i'll start back in wanaka and move towards where I am today...

Wanaka, where i ended up staying for a week, is def. my favorite "town" in NZ. it has the best autumn foliage too---GORGEOUS colors. i have lots of great pics. lots of poplars and cyprus trees that were BRIGHT yellow. when we drove back down to queenstown we passed all of these vineyards and the grapes looks amazing in these shades of red, orange, and yellow----way better than GREEN! god forbid. we also stopped along the way at this fruit stop---i found my new favorite fruit--PEACHERINES. thast right folks, nectarines and peaches COMBINED! talk about GENIUS.

met this swedish girl at the purple cow--the backpackasss at wanaka and we went to a movie today--The changeling---BLAH. so anyways, she was pretty cooky. just strange. so anyways, we go to the movie and come back to go to bed. i'm laying there and then i look over--she was next to me---and i realize she is ASS naked in her bed. mind you, there are 6 other people in the ROOM and some hostels, such as the one we were in, dont give you sheets to put between yourself and the comforter---SICK. so that means her swedish ass was all over that thing. GROSS. that is the perfect example of why i have slept in my beautiful, perfect, sleeping bag for the past 5 months.

so my friend shannon got a 'job' working for accomdation at BASE which is like this franchise hostel all over NZ, and i think the world---i feel like they were in EU? who knows. anyways, they are known to be just MASSIVE and gross. so she was moving over there so i helped her bring her stuff over and we walked in her room-----------SICK SICK SICK. it was like 10 beds and they were all people working for accomdation so NO ONE cleans the room. there was trash everywhere and it smelled...eww so sick.
it worked out ok though--i think?

so lets see--i'm so scattered right now....dont know where i start??

um, right now i'm back in Queenstown staying witgh my friend becky. we went to middle school and HS together. she saw some of my pics online and recognized them because they were outfront of her work...bwahaha. so now i am staying with her. so the first night i was here i was telling her about shannon, because becky knowns julie who introduced shannon and i...GET IT? prob not. so anyways, i was like yeaaa my friend is coming...she worked up in Pahia balahaah...she kknows julie" and becky was like "ohh ok, i wonder if she knows MY friend shannon" HA! crazy. so becky and shannon met WAY back on the stray bus. soooo crazy.

then, after that, becky and I go to thsi place called winnies that has great pizza. low and behold, who sits next to us, the damn german girls from able tasman--the one that put on makeup to talk on the computer. my back was to them and i didn't' feel like interacting so we never talked.

speaking of makeup, i have gotten into this habit of going to the pharmacy to put on perfume and makeup. i am literally homeless.

one thing that i find really interesting, and love to watch, is how people cook in hostels. you are surrounded by people from all over the world so they all cook different thing...english ppl LOVED baked beans and toast. japanese, asian love rice (obv) and are just so quiet its crazy. you can always tell who is american by Peanut butter AND how they use their fork and knives. irish love boiled eggs. germans eat a lot of carrots.

i dont like brushing my teeth around a lot of people. i feel like they judge me if i go to fast..........

i need a haircut REAL bad.

i'm getting really sick of sharing rooms. it might even be strange now to be in a room by myself. thats atleast one thing i am looking forward to.

oh man, what else....so i was in qtown for a bout 2 days before i left to go WAY down south for 4-6 days. my friend beth happened to be on the same bus so that worked out great bc honestly, its has gotten old having the same convos with people. and the convo's all change depending on how long you have been traveling. people that JUSt got here or who have only been here for like a month want to chat your freakin brains out...people who have been here for a long time, like myself, are more like, hey hey, lets get a beer and just sit ??? it gets tiring introducing yourself. i should start makign up crazy lies about what i do at home, my age, where i'm from. the other day when i was with beth i didn't want to talk to this guy so i almost started fake talking in some african language........in my mind that is. ok, that was a major tangent. so yea, we left to go down south--went to milford, tuatapere, curio bay, the catlins, and dunedin. met this nice bloke named nick at one hostel...he was a kiwi. the hostel we stayed at in invercargill was like an old insane asylum. beth and i were freaked out. anyways, nick gave me a massive list of sweet kiwi bands so thats awesome. this belgium guy made us watch silence of the lambs...had nightmares for a little bit.

so at the same hostel, beth and i "splurged" and paid for a 4 bed, instaed of a 6 bc we wanted to lessen the change of having a snorer in our room. around 9 Pm we meet the ppl in our room. i thought they were germans, but they were duthc--man and a woman, around our age. just friends. so they were really nice and funny. BUT, at one point they started talking dutch and then told us what they were laughing about and they ended up telling us that the man is a big snorer and was taking medicine and that she had a cold and snored the other night---so beth and i about die. so that night, SHE snored ALL night. the loudest EVEr. ALL NIGHT. i ended up waking up and just reading at 4 am. and sometimes i would say "OHMIGOD" just loud enough to wake him up so that he could tell her to shut the fuck up. needlesstosay, beth and i were tired dogs the next day.

so we went to dunedin the next day and my friend Louis, from camp, happens to be studying abroad there. he lived ina house with 3 other girls and an argentina man. they were all greattt! got along really well with all of them. they had comfy couches and beth and i slept great. louis even left the last day we were there but they let us stay there anyways which was aweeesome! another insanely crazy thing...so beth and i are talking to his roommate carrie and were talking about "the dutchies" the snorers in the hostel before, and how we were so exhausted...and she was like "ohh ya/ i'm hanging out with these dutch peoplei met down south tonight" IT WAS OUR DUTCHIES!!! ha. they ended up coming over. the girl kept appolgizing for snoring. ha. very nice people. but i wanted to rip her nose/throat out.

found this great cafe that had this bomb ass lamb salad. just for the record, everyone should eat lamb, BECAUSE, there are SOO damn many here. i will never feel bad about putting that meat in my mouth. overpopulation. my friend mike was also in dunedin--hes from san diego. so we met for a bit with his friend. OH and we went to the Speights brewery tour---speights is the "NZ Beer" it was really good---at the end you get to try all the beer and the last 10 minutes the guide, who i'm pretty sure was a MAJOR cokehead was like "ok, tap is all yours, drink what you can in 10 minutes" needless to say, we got wasted. it was beth, louis, and his roommate claire and I. we just skulled beers back. yummmy. real fun! went to bed real early that night.....

oh, the driver going down s. was named "Gollum." they all have nicknames, anyways, right at the beggining of the ride, his ipod was fucking up and he got so pissed and TOSSED that sucker out the window off a flippin CLIFF. yeaahhh KIWIS!! i love kiwis.

I had already been to dunedin back in feb. and i wasn't that impressed---i loved it this time. LOVED it. nice college town.

so i am driving back and get this call from my friend Austin---the berkeley guy. but it wasn't austin, it was freakin MARK! my friend from home. he and austin were on the same treck, the milford treck and met. crazy, again. so now mark is back here in queenstown with me which is awesome---we just have a jolly time together.

so the night before my cruise to doubtful sound shannon, becky, beth, mark and i went out to this irish pub for dinner...which lead to mark and i taking shots of jameson......which lead to another bar.......which lead to me being absolutely pissed drunk. drunkest i have been here by far. just glad to didn't lose anything. i really haven't gone out that much since i have been here--like that alteast. i wouldn't feel completely comfy with people i just met, y aknow? i woke up at 7 for my bus ride and was jst completely wasted. i feel right when i got up. what a freakin mess. got on the bus and was scared i was gonna puke. but it was all good. i just passed out. the driver, watsie, kept coming up to me saying "hows your health there mate?" he was trying to help me. that was the first thing he said to me today when he picked us up " HOWS YOUR HEALTH!?!' thank god my hangover was gone by like 2 and we weren't even in the sound yet. because we had to take a bus, to a boat, then to a bus again...NUTS.

so, DOUBTFUL SOUND!! its in fiordland natl park and is absolutely the most breathtaking thing i have ever seen. you can't imagine that its on earth. when we first saw it, from the bus, i got goosebumps--brilliantly beautiful. so i did the overnight cruise---the day cruise would not be worth it. met some other solo backpackers and we stuck together. they were OK---one girl was from sacramento and she was about my age and was just here for a few weeks. she was the kind of person who shold wear ribbons in her hair---so innocent in a sick way. and i hated how she talked. her lips smacked together in an odd way. THEn there was this one chick from seattle who was in her late 20's, early 30's...her face kind of looked like someones hand smashed it and then twisted it to the side a bit. it was just all crooked. and she also seemed like the kind of woman, at that age, that still wears large white underware. gosh i'm a bitch. but i guarantee you thats what she was wearing. dont worry, i'm not done...

i also had a stalker on the boat. this man from toronto with crazy eyes. at first i thought he was just SUPEr, overly nice, and maybe he is, but i dont think so. so it started with me taking pictures outside and he was standing behind me. he goes " let me have your camera" and so i gave it to him...then he was like "stay there do what you just did" and he started taking pictures of me. so A) that is STRANGE and B) they weren't even cool pictures. so then whenever i went somewhere he would be there about 5 minutes later. during dinner he would keep looking at me and give me a thumbs up asking how i liked it...EW. so i woke up like 5 times thinking he was in my room watching me. i snuck off the boat and saw him once again ebcause he kept asking me where I was goin next...yea right fucker, like i'm gonna tell you where i'm going........WONK WONK!

there were also these power lesbians on the boat from the states. they were pretty interesting and super intense---one of them had done a freakin marathon in ANTARCTICA. nuts.

this morning we had to wake up at 6am...the anchor comes and wakes you up. but the fiords looked spectacular in the morning sun. great weather--the cruise the day ebfore us didn't even have a sunset. LUCKY DUcKS! one thing they did that was cool was when we got to this cove and they turned off the entire boat. everyone came outside and it was just SILENT. all you could hear were the hundreds of waterfalls around yhou and the birds. ooo i also so an active fault line which was pretty cool.

another part of the trip that was a bit dodgey was when we went out to sea, the tasman. the water was INSANELY rough. i thought i was going to puke. i almost fell down but this old scottish man grabbed me from behind and was like "WOOAHH LITTLE ONE! YOU BLOODY HELL BETTER STICK WITH ME OR YOU'LL BE DONE FOR!!!" so i stayed with him. we went out to see this sea lion colony. this prob. sounds like im jaded, BUT, i'm way over sea lions and seals. i have seen so damn many since i have been here. i want sharks and lARGE whales.

what else........umm if i stayed any longer in NZ i would def. just have to stay in one spot and work. i have seen EVERYTHING i 'need' to see. i think my next big trip will either be to S. america, or I will do Thailand, cambodia, Laos each for a month......i have heard thats a great trip. possibly viet nam.

hummmmmm what else................supposed to get snow tomorrow. mark wants me to wake up at 7 am to watch the damn soccer game. i think i'm going to. he said he would make me pancakes if i came. thats just so early though...........

still cant believe i only have 3 weeks left. i could DEFINITELY stay longer. i think i am done moving around for a bit though---it will be nice not digging through my stinky backpack. my shoes also smell SO bad. ew. i have't worn tennis/hiking shoes this much since like 5th grade.

anyways, i think i'm gonna go now. this is insanely long. i'll be in qtown till sunday morning...then to christchurch for the week. pretty excited! then i'll be meeting beth in wellington...basd;lkajsd yada ydada. hope everyone is well!!!!! heard the weather is SUPA!!!!!!!!!! xox


lovelovelove!