Wanaka continues to produce

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  Wanaka, New Zealand
Friday, August 11, 2006

Things are going real well. I'm tired all the time, never at 100% energy because the snowboarding is extremely tiring and waking up early a lot... partying may also have something to do with it as well! The winter here is ridiculous, it has almost never rained in town, it's usually a sunny day at 5-10C which may not seem warm to you heat-wavers, but it's real nice for biking, and the mountain is a steady -5 to 5 C which is also perfect.

It's been real fun getting to know the people living at the hostel, it's an interesting mix: a French guy who lives within sight of Mt. Blanc, three Swiss bakers/mountaineers, 5 English people, one Scottish, one Irish, two Tazmanians, many Japanese, one from Colorado and a now good friend and roomate originially from Hawaii but living in San Francisco (Haight St!), a couple of Dutch, and a guy from between Australia and Tazmania on some island, a Canadian who's from Lakefield just near the cottage who happened to live in montreal at the same time and was a lifty at Mt Tremblant during a year i had a season's pass there. Things are real relaxed. The friend from Hawaii and i made a giant vat of chili, so once in awhile everybody eats together, and we often go to bars together. With 20 odd flatmates there end up being a lot of birthdays as well. My humour goes down particularly well with the British :)
There are many very attractive plans floating around - like an offer to live at the same place as the Tazmanian guys during their summer and work in their friend's cafe and surf most days away... i hate my 'hangnail' semester of school which i have left!

A bunch of us went skiing yesterday and the conditions were really bad and icy, but i was able to outspeed everybody (who are much better than me with the powder/mogel/jump stuff), when they all asked i explained the difference between eastern and western canada, and told them that we practically play hockey while skiing out east, and somebody took it literally and was really shocked to hear it! I started laughing and explained that i was just embellishing.

It's really nice to live somewhere where you really fit in, people wear their snowboard gear everywhere, have boards strapped to their back in the grocery store, everybody is happy to be here and are constantly able to make the best of everything and go for good experiences. It's existence is based on it's temporality but i guess that's the beauty of this paradise. Definately is fun to be a part of and will be real hard to leave in 3 weeks, but i'm also eager to check out crazy animals and the barrier reef in australia, do more wwoofing - i've checked out some places in the wwoof book - there are a couple that run wildlife nursing stations, horseback riding places etc. So the problem comes down again to ridiculous choice... I'm going to try to borrow a friend's camera and upload some pics.

hope you all are great and tanned!

Danielle

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