Best. Weekend. Ever.

The following all happened in the time span of two days. It is incredible. It is unbelievable. But it is all incredibly, unbelievably true.

Ok that may have oversold it just a little...

But not really.

Friday: 8:00 am
We all loaded into James' van, Helen (lovingly named after our slightly psychotic math instructor) prepared for a road trip. We drove about two hours to Hamilton where the temple is at.

10:00 am
We finally arrived at the temple just in the nick of time. I don't think that I have mentioned this before but James' father used to be a race car driver and the roads in New Zealand are very, very windy and sometimes very narrow. Driving with him is always a mildly terrifying experience. But we arrived at the temple in one piece (probably due to divine intervention) and it was so beautiful. Once we got there, we were able to do baptisms for the dead and it was so wonderful. The Temple workers were so sweet to us and we were so glad we had made the trip down.

12:00 pm
After a nice little lunch in the temple cafeteria, James took most of us down to Rotorua while some of the others stayed behind to do another session. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Hannah Montana, Drake and Josh, and Keenan and Kel. I think that may have been Janessa's favorite part of the trip thus far.

5:00 pm
The girls finally showed up and James told us to get dressed because we were going to the lake. Most of the girls responded with, "Ew, I hate swimming in lakes." Or, "Lake water is gross." haha. Being born and raised in Moses Lake finally came in handy! I love lakes! No matter how green or smelly or algae-filled. Though thankfully, this lake was none of the above.

Testing the water. Though it was indeed blue, it was freezing.

But we are super hardcore, so we got in anyways.

Sweet as action shot, eh?

6:30 pm
Once our  bodies were thoroughly frozen from the lake, we headed to some top secret hot pots that James new about. There are hot pots every where  in Rotorua so the whole place smells like rotten eggs 24/7. Delicious. But anyways, dem hot pots felt mighty fine and so the smell was quickly forgiven. James told us to rub the white clay from the walls of the pots all over our faces. Apparently it is a very natural mad mask that will make you beautiful. Fingers crossed.

The most wonderful thing about the hot pots was that we got to take in all of the natural beauty that was surrounding us.

What an opportune time to spread white crap all over my face. Kylie for the win.

7:30 pm
We headed back to our super sweet motel for some Hell pizza. It is seriously delicious and the pizza has awesome names like "lust", "gluttony", and  "grim". By far the best kind was "Pandemonium". It had chicken and dried cranberries and cheese and... I dunno  I didn't make it, but I certainly did eat it. Best part: the pizza boxes have pop outs to create little coffin boxes for your leftover pizza. I know. To die for right. hahahah. nailed it.

Hell pizza - where they make one hell of a pizza!

Saturday 7:00 am
We woke up to James in our room telling us he was gonna take whoever wanted to go to the market. It was odd since he wasn't supposed to pick us up until 8:00, but James' Adventures aren't something to be missed so Brittany and I loaded in the van to check out the market scene. I got some nice Maori fry bread (yeah it was a scone and not as good as grandma's), but James was pleased that I was into "cultural experiences" which apparently eating Maori fry bread is, so all was well. Around 8:00 the other girls joined us at the market and we spent about another hour wandering around with them.

9:00 am
Ok, prepare yourselves because this is the best part of the adventure (I know, you thought the hot pot hotties would be the tops, but you would be wrong.) I have one word for you: ZORBING. Man's greatest invention! Here's what happens. You take a huge plastic blow up ball. Then you fill it with water. Pop some people in there, push them down a steep hill, and what have you got? THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD!

Andrea and I were maybe kind of excited. The other girls took some convincing, but they were definitely glad they did it.

The group waiting for our turn to Zorb

Let's be real, anything that starts like this, you know you're gonna have a good time:

The first Zorb hill we did was straight down. Here are the Zorbs at the top of the hill.

Still rolling

The end

The other choice of hill was the sidewinder. Don't worry, we did both.

See the zig zaggy path? So awesome.

That's great, you're thinking, but what is it actually like inside the zorb? Great question. I would describe it as a human laundry machine in the most fun way possible. It feels a little like this:

That section at the end where you just hear water and see something black? That's Andrea sitting on my head. Hi-larious. I love zorbing.

After you reach the bottom, the people working there are quick to unzip your zorb (say that ten times fast) so they can get a picture of your reaction. One of the employees there was this single dude from Maryland that kept telling us how hard it was for him to find people to hang out with. He was disappointed we would only be in Rotorua for the day. Tough break, kid, life is hard. Yeah so anyways, there was plenty of awkwardness when he unzipped the zorb and popped his head in as we were trying to readjust our swimsuits. "Don't worry," he told me, "your make up looks fine." Oh phew...

regaining composure

two thumbs way up for zorbing

 

photobombed by Andrea's lover from Maryland. Also check out my sweet ninja kick. Skillz.

They also have hot tubs that you can chill in between runs. So considerate, right? Blessed Zorb people

I LOVE ZORBING. Everyone needs to try it. Maryland man was telling us that he's working on getting it started in Park City so everyone pray for that.

11:00 am
We realized we had the rest of the day ahead of us and so James suggested we drive to Matamata to see Hobbiton (which is where Bilbo Baggins lives. The Shire, if you will). Brooke and Janessa, aka, LOTR fans extraordinaire, were stoked beyond all reason. The rest of us were less so, but we were down to make them happy. We found out the Hobbiton tour would give us a discount, but only if we all went. So I bit the bullet and paid my dues to let my dear roommate's dreams come true haha. No, really when it came down to it I figured Hobbiton is likely the only thing I would ever even mildly recognize from the movies so it might be kinda cool to see. I have never felt like more of a loser than I did while buying my ticket and I have done some pretty loser-ish things. Good news though, it turned out pretty awesome. They told us some little known facts about the location and the making of the movie and everything. I had a gingerbeer at the Green Dragon. Visited Samwise and Bilbo's hobbit holes. Yeah, I'm basically gonna be like crack for all the LOTR loser boys back in Provo. Win!

Yes, in the background is "the tree". Ya know, the one Frodo and Gandalf smoke on. Oh you don't? Yeah me neither, but I think that's what our tour guide said. Hold up, my roommate Brooke is currently trying to fact check me on this.

* Fact check by Brooke: It is Bilbo and Gandalf smoking underneath the tree, which is on top of Bag End.

Whatevs, I was close.

But really, I quite liked Hobbiton. It was gorgeous and the little hobbit holes were so cute and small. There were flowers and butterflies flittering around everywhere you looked. And just as I started appreciating it, a magical thing happened. A cat appeared out of nowhere! She was crazy amounts of precious and I decided right then I could live quite happily in Hobbiton forever.

Magic! also... Zorbing: Great on the soul; bad on the hair.

Totes adorbs

supes presh

This is the hobbit hole of my choice. I would paint the door pink and live happily with my precious kitty forever.

*Funny side story: we had to take a bus ride to get to Hobbiton. The bus driver was supposed to serve as our tour guide and tell us about the farmland where they built Hobbiton and how they came to choose it for the movie. Well, our bus was super full and mostly full of foreigners whose English was not great. Anyways, we are on this dingy little bus with a horrible old intercom system and everyone was talking to their neighbors making it very hard to hear the bus drivers little fun facts.So what did he do? It went something like this: "I have really interesting things to tell you if you would all quit talking to your neighbors." "Apparently some of you have decided to provide your own commentary, so I am just going to stop talking now." "People will you please stop talking!" "You all could have learned a lot of cool stuff from me but you wouldn't be quiet long enough to listen." I have never been more heavily berated in my life. Aw, scratch that I forgot about math with Helen. Man I bet they would get along great!*

The day ended with stopping for ice cream on the way back home to Auckland. This place sells 7 scoop ice cream cones. I regrettably only got two.

Dag that was a long post. 

But I think you will agree. 

Best. Weekend. Ever. 

School is for Fools. Look at me!

This is a picture of my official last day of school. What did we do at school all day long you ask? Well, it went a little something like this...

We started by defying gravity. We fit all nine of us on this table without any balloons popping. Pretty impressive, eh?

Andrea expertly balanced ping pong balls and marbles.

And then found herself a cute new accessory while Sara pondered the meaning of life.

We then experimented with love potions, aka baby powder, detergent, water and food coloring. They didn't work. But they also weren't really love potions so who can blame them?

We dropped water on coins and competed to see who could fit the most. Way more fun than anticipated. Try it.

I got 41 drops of water on my penny. Biggest life accomplishment thus far. Dare you to beat it.

We put M&Ms in water to see what they would do. SPOILER ALERT: everything dissolves but the chocolate.

Brooke making close observations and/or sleeping

We then moved on to drowning ginger nut biscuits. The dark stuff on the bottom is the dye and sugars. This experiment worked like the movie Supersize e should have and I haven't been able to look at a ginger nut since.

We got to race cars down a ramp! I don't actually remember the point of this lesson... But it resulted in this sweet little short we like to call "Crash Landing".

A plethora of color coordinated fruit

Get yourself some milk, food coloring, and detergent, and you've got yourself one ca-razy Friday night!

Harry vs. Voldemort

who says science is boring?

Not us. obvi.

We made these wicked as noise makers and then perfected the art of noise making. Our lungs got quite the workout that day. 

If we're being real though, it was Rachel that truly perfected it.

Social Studies: We watched Pocahontas to learn about Respect for Diversity. Note to self: calling people savages = not cool.

We also used M&M's to map out populations around the world. And then we ate every single citizen. Muahahaha.

We made salt. Yeah, that's right. Made it. Eat that. With salt.

This is our puppet Ricky. I lovingly referred to him as Franklin the entire time.

We spent on class period learning to teach Science with the use of hand puppets. It was... creepy, to say the least.

"It ain't easy being brown!" - Franklin

Though my puppeteering skills were described as, "glorious" (no exaggeration), I think I will leave the puppets to the creepers and pedophiles out there.

 

 

We also built this bad as rocket, mate. Flash, eh?

And yet it somehow turned out to be so disappointing.

*Note: the outfit that appears in that video is the result of an awful awful sunburn, an alarm missed, and having to walk an hour to and from school. I  am aware that it is horrendous. 

And that's what I learned at school. Any questions?

Experienced Trampers Only: Part Two

So where was I....

Oh, right. THE WATERFALL.

So we have been intense mountain man hiking for three and a half hours about when we finally reach a cute little waterfall. That blessed man James says, "Alright girls, this is where we will stop for lunch. Jump in and take a swim." I could not get out of my soggy tennis shoes fast enough.

*funny side story- when we met that morning we asked James if we should wear our swimsuits under our clothes the whole time and he said that it would be easier to change when we get there. Well once we got to the waterfall, James is like, "Find a bush and change into your togs." and there are literally young men everywhere! I had to make a miniature hike of my own just to find a tree that would actually cover me. But yeah, much easier than just wearing them under our clothes that would be getting wet anyways, right? so funny.*

Discussing cliff options. Notice my low pointing hand. always the daredevil.

Anywho... I jumped off a little mini cliff (I contemplated going off the high one, but my legs were pretty shaky by this point because  I may or may not be somewhat out of shape and I felt like falling off a cliff just wouldn't be great) right into the glorious mountain water waiting below. Yeah, we may not be in Utah anymore, but it was still totally freezing, which was pretty refreshing for my sweaty self until I lost the feeling in all of my limbs. But I digress...

the waterfall

At the waterfall we finally got some real New Zealand education. The boys taught us this awesome as game called Pukena (which may or may not be how you spell it, I have absolutely no idea.) Also, awesome as is an expression commonly used here. You can add as behind any description here and it's basically the equivalent of saying super or very. For instance, super cute = cute as, crazy hot = hot as, and very, very ugly = fugly as. I love it. Anyways, I was totally planning on posting a video, but evidently computers hate me so go to my roommates blog to watch the videos here.
We even talked them into doing a haka for us and there is a video of that too.

Are they not the cutest things you ever did see?

hiking with style

When James decided we had had enough fun he said it was time to finish the hike. We only had about 1 km left, and with my newfound hiking skills I thought to myself, ain't no thang.

This tiny wood beam was twenty feet up and the only way to get across. But James kindly informed us the last time he went, they didn't even have a beam. He is so hardcore.

there was rock climbing

And more rock climbing

Like I said, ain't no thang. I totally nailed it and even found time to enjoy the scenery. I felt like the cast of Lost hiking to the top of the mountain to shoot a polar bear or something (I never did quite get that show).

Where's Jack when you need him?

And had that been where the hike ended I probably would have declared myself a hike-lover for life. But it didn't end there. Duh.

The next part of our journey took us through a swamp.

Look pretty?

It wasn't.

Good news: James said they had just recently built the bridges so we didn't have to wade in the swampy nast.
Bad news: It was still gross and the sun was beating down on us.

We then arrived at a black sand dune.

deceptively small and beautiful

The boys were running, they were obviously immune to the sand's power-sapping capabilities

Good news: it was absolutely gorgeous. The sand was crazy sparkly, and heaven knows I like things to sparkle.
Bad news: This black sand dune was made by the devil. Walking in sand is hard enough in the first place with all the sinking in and what not, but then he thought, ya know what? let's make it black too. so it attracts the sun and burns people through their soggy tennis shoes. And also I am gonna place it at the end of a long hike so that they won't have a lot of leg strength to begin with. It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

We finally made it out of the black sand dunes to the tunnel.

Good news: It was shaded and would have been pretty dang cool to look at if I hadn't been too busy cursing black sand.
Bad news: It wasn't the end of our hike.

The end of the tunnel brought us out to the black sand beach.

not happy

Good news: I have no idea, at this point I was mad enough to punch a baby kitten in the face. Alright, maybe that was a bit overdramatic...
Bad news: I was still walking in black sand, my tennis shoes felt like they do at the end of a long day at Disneyworld when the first ride you go on was Splash Mountain, and also they were covered with sand. I was out of water and the sun was trying to eat me alive. Plus my face was all sweaty and so my sunglasses kept sliding off. Yeah, I retract my earlier retraction, I was definitely mad enough to punch a baby kitten.

And just when I thought I was about to die...

We reached the end. And I took my shoes off. And I had an orange. And suddenly life got a whole lot better and all baby kittens were saved from my wrath.

Moral of the story: 

ME - FOOD + SOGGY TENNIS SHOES = ONE SERIOUSLY T.O.ED KITTY PUNCHER

and also, I am a hiker, gosh dangit, and a darned good one at that.