Rotorua is smelly AND awesome!

Today was great!  All of us hung around today at the hotel room until around 2:30, then Brad drove my parents and I to the Polynesian Baths.  These are basically mineral pools that are heated by thermal activity under the city.  We went into the adult pools, so there were no little kids, and we could hang out in any of the seven pools.  Three of these pools were acidic and good for your bones and muscles, while the other four were alkaline and good for your skin.  The acidic ones were waaaay hotter and I could barely handle it!  So my parents and I went back to the coolest one of the alkaline pools after hanging out in the hot ones, and just hung out for an hour or something until Brad picked us up at 5:30.  We met Macy and Sean, this really cool couple from the New Plymouth area, and talked to them for about an hour.  Macy has a friend who's daughter lives in Christchurch, so I gave her my email.  Yay I have a contact down there now!  After the pools we went back to the hotel and were promptly picked up by this awesome guy who took us to the Hangi/Maori cultural experience for dinner.  All of that was great and we got to really learn about Maori culture, music, and food.  I tried doing the Poi dance, I suck, but I'll post the video later anyway.  Brad and my dad did the Haka, it was really funny but cool.  We all ate a lot of good food while visiting with some awesome people from Germany and New Zealand, then watched the cultural experience.  Oh and I finally got to try "hokey pokey" ice cream, which is seriously the best thing ever!  It's basically vanilla ice cream with little burnt sugar chunks, or something?  I'm not really sure but it's delicious!  Anyway, tomorrow we'll be leaving Rotorua after a nice, relaxing stay here, so I'll tell you all about our travels.  Best wishes for your week, and it's almost the weekend for you guys over there!  Much love....

Rotorua

This is the third day we've spent at least part of the day in Rotorua and the first thing that comes to mind to tell you guess is IT'S RIDICULOUSLY STINKY.  Other than that, there's some pretty sweet Maori cultural centers here, as well as mineral baths.  Today we might be going to the Polynesian Bathhouse, where we can hang out in seven different mineral baths for as long as we want, so that should be relaxing.  I also might finally see a kiwi bird which I'm really excited about, but we'll see.  In other news, their tomato sauce still tastes funky and their chips (french/steak fries) are rather abundant.  Okay have a good one, bye!

almost a week down... (cont'd)

After Auckland was when the real fun began (which was yesterday).  We drove south to Raglan, which has the longest left (wave) in the world.  Dad was really excited about this because he's a goofy foot, so we were trying to get down to this place called Indicators and turned down Willy Wackin' Road (we've been told if the Maoris catch you taking abalone from a private reef they chop your willy off?), which was basically a crazy dirt road that was mostly covered by jungle and guarded by a dog that wasn't scared of getting run over.  We go carefully down this road, and all of a sudden the road just stops and turns into jungle at this guys house.  It was scary, so we start to back up and get out of the place.  Brad was driving and stopped and said that he didn't think he could do it.  Immediately dad goes, oh come on! and jumps out of the car and gets into the driver's seat.  Mind you, this is the guy we haven't allowed to drive after almost getting us in a car crash straight out of the gate in the driveway of the car rental place in Auckland.  So he starts backing up and isn't looking (obviously), and within the first 10 feet runs into a tree.  I yell tree! he slams on the brakes and into the tree.  Now we have a dent in the car and not a very redeeming moment for dad.  That was.... interesting, but we fixed the dent for the most part.  So Raglan was fun?  Question mark?  Anywaaaaay on to Kawhia (pronounced KAR-fee-uh).  To get there we had to drive down an "unsealed" road (unpaved) for 20 km, and mom was super freaked out about that.  On the way to Kawhia we stopped at Bridal Veil Falls, which took a whole 5 minutes to walk to (supposed to be a 10 minute walk), then 10 seconds to walk to the viewpoint (supposedly a 1 minute walk) then back to the top of the falls, a total of 20 seconds, which was marked as a 2 minute walk (see a pattern?).  The falls were AMAZING and I have pictures that I will soon post!  From the falls, the road to Kawhia turned out to not be so bad and was VERY scenic.  For example, I saw a falcon/hawk bird eating a rodent ten feet from the road, it was intense.  Finally we make it to Kawhia, find the beach, walk over a dune, and dig a big hole in the sand.  Weird, right?  NO!  Because this beach is actually a thermal spot and at low tide you can dig a hole that fills up with warm water that you can just hang out in!  Coming here I thought the water was going to be luke warm, but when we started digging we had a hard time because the water was burning our feet!  It was crazy, but luckily some people next to us told us to dig a cold channel our main tub, and after that it was awesome.  We then waited until the tide flooded our hot tub and we had to leave, then watched the sunset from the sand dune we walked over.  From there (dark, again, before we had a room) we drove first back into Kawhia, then to Te Awamutu, then finally to Hamilton after giving up on finding a decent room at the aforementioned.  No here's where the fun starts.  It's late and we need a room, so we're looking.  Dad says that there's a place called Chloe's that's supposed to be nice, but he keeps pronouncing it Chole's, like some sort of mexican restaurant or something.  Brad and I think this is absolutely hilarious and are still cracking up about it.  Anyway, we don't end up staying at "Chole's" and stay at some other, kinda shoddy place.  Immediately we rearrange the couch so it's in a more appropriate spot, then continue with our night.  Dad and Mom go to bed and eventually Brad and I lay down in our beds, when I spot a bone next to Brad's bed.  "Um, Brad, there's a bone next to your bed"  Brad looks over.... "I'm gonna try to ignore that Harmony.  I don't want to know who butchered a chicken in this room."  bahahah we think the bone is HILARIOUS!  It was "choice."  The beds were as well; we called them the extra-firm tofu beds, or Mario bros spring boards, or jello beds.  They were crazy.  The whole situation was just pretty great.  Anyway, the next day we get up, go to a cafe for breakfast, then leave towards Matamata, aka HOBBITON!!  Brad and I went on the tour and it was super cool, I have lots of pictures of it that I'll post later, I promise!  It was sooo cool.... oh man.  For sure.  At this farm we also got to a sheep being shorn and I got to hold a baby lamb, have it suck my thumb and feed it from a bottle!  It was so cute.  From there we had lunch at some bar and eatery, which was yummy, then came to Rotorua and found an AWESOME place to stay, and here we are!  So everything's going super duper and New Zealand is awesome.  Oh, and a few weird things: shrimp cocktails aren't shrimp cocktails here, they're actually a few pieces of shrimp in a tub of tomato sauce and mayonnaise (dad found out the hard way, bahahah!).  Tomato sauce is catsup!  The pastries here are awesome!  Maori pronunciation is really hard (wh="f" sound, among other things).  The thong song is HILARIOUS.  Marmite looks disgusting but I have yet to try it, but I'll post a video of it for sure.  Does anyone know what a Pom is?  because the cellphone "guy" here says "so easy, even us Poms understand it." ???  The "best" fish and chips place charges for tomato sauce, my laptop is broken, this irish pub in Auckland had a live band, and the Student IT store in Auckland can totally suck it for trying to screw me out of my money, but the good fellows at Logical Systems rock!  

Okay, that's it.  I'm sorry it's so long but I haven't had free internet for the past four days and I had to catch up on everything.  KASSI I LOVE YOU AND HERE IS YOUR SHOUT-OUT!  I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!  And I miss you Darlee and Rikki, Taylor, Ean, Leia, Tiger, and I guess Millie too, as long as she's not acting too sketchy.  Okay I'm off!  Hope your having a good Tuesday, I know mine has been nice!  ( :

almost a week down...

Hola!  These past few days down here have been pretty crazy and filled with lots of driving.  After the Bay of Islands we drove north to 90 Mile Beach, which seriously lives up to its name.  You can't see the end of this beach in either direction, and we got to drive on it!  It was my first time behind the wheel on the right side, which wasn't that weird, but then again there were no lines or signs to abide by, so whatevsies.  We've been looking for an ice chest down here for a few days now, which are apparently called chilly bins-- the most hilarious thing ever, it's so cute!  So now chilly bin has turned into a joke about anything cold, even though we still don't have one (we mostly just use the trunk, it works just as well seeing as how it's freezing here).  The same day as 90 Mile Beach, dad and I went on this walk in the forest/jungle to a viewpoint, then mom and Brad picked us up and showed us this crescent waterfall they had found, which was pretty cool.  Later in the day dad, mom and I walked up this huge hill to the Rainbow Warrior memorial, and I was super stoked seeing as how Ean works for Greenpeace.  So I got lots of pictures while up there, then we all took off to the hotel.  Brad and I have decided that it's important that we get a room before the sun goes down, because if we don't everyone starts freaking out.  It can be funny and has worked out so far, but not without worries.  The next day we headed towards this forest that was supposed to be pretty cool that a lady told us about at the gas station at the Rainbow Warrior thing.  To get there we crossed a river/ocean/lake thing on a ferry and bought some hot chocolate, mandarins and kiwis from some lady running a cafe from a van and some guy selling fruit from the back of his truck.  It was pretty hilarious because everyone on the ferry was eating mandarins, but they were delicious!  We met some really cool German girl with a car that had a funny paint job and history, as well as some guy from the South Island with long braided hair, he was super nice and said we'd like Raglan.  I think it's only cause it was a total surfer town and he was oh, so obviously a hippie. haha.  Anyway, off the ferry and towards the forest we go!  We get to the forest and it's pretty crazy jungly: drive drive drive drive, pull over to the side of the road, walk about a 45 minutes on a trail (which was supposed to be a 5 minute walk?) when all of a sudden this HUGE tree just pops up around a corner of jungle.  It was nuts!  Just a complete pillar of tree-- I have pictures I'll post later.  But it was awesome!!  Anyway, after that we headed towards Auckland again (where our driving experience improved, a bit) and stayed there in a hostel/hotel type thing.  Our room was kind of a chilly bin but it was fun and the people in the morning were friendly (the wingnut was VERY friendly).

New Zealand is NEW!

Yesterday I arrived in Auckland, where I went through a nice screening of whether or not I was a terrorist or something.  There were some complications with my length of stay, but thanks goes out to Jose in San Francisco for helping me figure everything else.  After having my hiking shoes severely cleaned and checked for any biohazards (and having my bags sniffed by an adorable beagle), I was in!  I met up with my parents in the airport (the took another flight and arrived about 45 minutes before me), then sat around for our shuttle to our rental car.  Just letting everyone know, McDonald's is just as bad in New Zealand as it is in the US.  At the rental car place we hung out for about an hour while dad asked a million questions and mom was trying to get a phone to work, we were finally off on our own!  This is how it went: Dad almost killed us before we even made it out the parking lot because he didn't look to the right before he tried to pull out.  The first hour in the car was horrible, Dad basically came within an inch of everything on the left side of the car.  That was fun.  So mom took over driving and I passed out for two hours while we drove to Paiha (I think that's how it's spelled), which is in the Bay of Islands.  It's beautiful up here and the place we stayed in is pretty awesome.  Today we might go kayaking and then drive north towards the tip of the north island, then go to 90 Mile Beach.  Hope all is well back in the US.  I'll have pictures soon!

P.S.- Oh and everything takes about two extra hours to get to because we suck at driving on the left side.  Stupid Brits and their colonization.