Franz Josef

I hiked the Franz Josef Glacier yesterday. It was pretty cool, and the sites were incredible. It wasn't my most favorite thing that i have done here, but how many people do you know that have hiked a glacier? Yeah that's what I thought. I took about 40 pictures... they just won't do this place justice. It is so beautiful here, I can't get over how blue everything is; the sky, the water, the mountains, everything is SO blue and if it's not blue then its green, like Kermit the Frog green. All the plants and trees look like someone colored then with a green highlighter.

So my crew left on the bus this morning, I am staying a day longer because I have so much time until March. My friends Sophie and Thurstan came in on the bus yesterday, so I will be traveling with them on their bus now. Sophie is 19, from the UK, and fresh out of Uni. At times I forget that I am six years older then her but she is hella cool and is alot of fun to hang out with. I met Thurstan on the Tongiraro Crossing in Taupo. He is also very nice and has crazy curly hair. I was kind of bummed to leave Sarah, Ben, and Stu because they have all been so fun, I have never laughed so hard in my life. Ben and I decided that doing the Thriller dance at the bar last nite was a good idea (who knows why) we had the entire bar watching us... check youTube for a video, someone had to take one (now i can't run for office!) I will meet up with Ben and Stu in Queenstown and I will have a night with Sarah in Wanaka.

Ok, so a few of you have sent emails about the comet. I did see the comet in Wellington. Mike, Deb, Ethan and one of their friends and I went out my last night there to see it. Nothing crazy, just a white streak in the sky... it would have been cooler if it was flaming or something but I can't always have what I want you know:)

And now for the absolute BEST highlight of my trip that I forgot to tell you all about in my Wesport blog... I taught a Japanese girl how to use a can opener. We were all making dinner in the kitchen. While I was opening a can of tuna, I made a remark about how much the can opener sucked and it was hard to use. So the Japanese girl comes over and goes, "I try?" and I'm thinking ummm ok I guess she wants to see how much the can opener sucks. So I say sure, she grabs the can and picks up the can opener and is staring at it was absolute amazement. And she's turning it around in her hand and is opening and closing the handles. So now I think to myself, holy shizat this girl doesn't know what a damn can opener is.... so i show her how to clamp it onto the can and twist the twister thinger. and she looks at me with wide eyes and a huge smile and goes OOOOOOH! like she just won a million bucks or something. I didn't even realize what was happening until i started eating. I was like oh-my-god I just taught someone how to use a can opener... RANDOM. The next day we stopped at a cafe on the way to the lake and she asked me what wedges were... so I told her to buy them and get sour cream to put on them... she really enjoyed that, like a kid on Christmas morning. You know, it's amazing what people just don't know. I'm sure I'd be the same way if I went to Japan.

Things that I miss at home:

1. Toilet seat covers (seriously, that is not a joke)
2. Having one faucet at the sink, they have two faucets here, a hot and a cold
3. My down pillows, the pillow here are like sleeping on a stack of newspapers
4. Friends (the tv show) they have the show here, but the voices are at a higher pitch or something, for example, Joey Tribiani sounds like he got kicked in between the legs
5. Ketchup... the stuff here is really sweet

Oh and an FYI, the carrots here are AWESOME. I don't even like carrots and I've been eating them non-stop here. Mom, if we lived in NZ when I was a kid, I would have eaten my veggies! oh and even better, there is an ad running on the tv right now for the Hogan's Heroes box set!