The Future Clears...

*** Trivia question answer from last post: I meant to rip off the tagline from one of my favorite low-budget 80's movies, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, which reads "In Space, No One Can Eat Ice Cream." I had no idea, though, that Killer Klowns was, in fact, parodying the tagline from Alien, so Jeff wins the prize. Good job, Jeff! With our powers of movie knowledge combined, no feat is too grand...***

Last Thursday marked a monumental shift in my stay here. Since June 26th, I've been trudging complacently through the seemingly interminable number of school weeks ahead of me, as I had no idea what day my last final would be scheduled for. Now, though, I know for certain that I'm leaving this country on November 4th, and depending on whether or not I stop in Fiji for five or six days afterwards, I'll be back in Oregon sometime thereafter. With an end-point in sight, I've rationed my time accordingly:

- August 25 to September 1: Mid-term break (Auckland and Wellington trip).
- September 1 to October 8: Last half of semester.
- October 8 to October 29: Scheduled time for finals during which I have none (trip to Australia? Thailand? Indonesia?).
- October 30 to November 4: My finals. Shit, man.
- November 4 to November 10-ish: Fiji, Travel home.

What seemed like eternity is now a strictly regimented period of 10 weeks. Now all I have to decide is where (if anywhere) I want to go for the 3 weeks before my finals. The NZ dollar is sucking it up right now, and $.68USD is $1NZD, so plane tickets are cheap. Suggestions? Advice? I need some help here!

Also during last Thursday was the discovery of an AUTHENTIC baja-mexican restaurant downtown. It was incredible. I literally ate an entire bottle of salsa, and spared no flattering adjectives in the lofty compliments I showered upon the manager when he questioned me (as an official American from the West coast) about the quality of the food. Then, on the walk home, as my body still tingled with the glory of a spicy after taste, someone from a passing car pelted me in the side of the head with a snowball. Where the snow came from I have no idea, but it was a fitting conclusion to a memorable evening.

This weekend I head into the mountains with 11 other people. In total, four of us were Americans, three were Swedish, two were Norweigan, two were from Japan, and another was German. It took nearly 7 hours to drive 120 miles, because the roads here are such a joke (highways are only mentioned in fables and mythology). We finally reached the Mt. Cook Base Village, only to discover 3 feet of snow covering every conceivable tramping track. The hostel was pretty cool and lodge-y, but six Australian mountain climbers were lost on the mountain's slopes due to a blizzard, so rescue helicopters were roaring around everywhere and the front deck had been converted into the rescue teams' operation center. We all felt slightly out of place, which was remedied by several cases of Speights.

In the morning, the sun revealed an incredible view. I stayed in a building at the bottom center.



Of course, there was three feet of snow covering everything, but that didn't stop us from tramping around on a little 5 km loop. I mean, in all likelihood it would have stopped me, but I really am a huge sucker for peer pressure. I'm still exhausted. As you can likely presume, adventures, hijinks, and language barrier-botched conversations ensued. I would be more descriptive, but I have to cook dinner for everyone now, so please excuse me.

Oh, and the lost climbers were found Sunday afternoon. Wohoo! Plus, most of the weekend was spent agonizing in a mental frenzy over the possible capture of Bigfoot in Georgia, and I didn't have internet so I had to sit around for eons (or as close to "eons" as 48 hours can get) until I arrived back to look up the results from the press conference that the backwoods hunters had arranged. For those who haven't been following this breaking news story, they were: inconclusive.