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Sooo I might be a little sick today.....my throat hurts and I think it might be from walking around in shorts in freeeeezing cold winter windy New Zealand weather (apparently I'm seasonally challenged when it comes to packing). But it's all good because I'm still having a blast, just now I've thrown a few hundred throat lozenges and glasses of orange juice into my daily routine. Half of the people in my group are sick though so I think it was sort of inevitable....
On the up side, I'm getting better at pool. I've been playing with people that really know what they're doing and its forced me to step it up a notch. Molly and I are hooked. We are going have to go to skeezy bars around Carrollton just to find pool tables when we get back!
Last night we went to this club called boogie nights (but we almost didn't get in because one of the girls didn't have close toed shoes) and had a blast. It was packed and the dj was playing random seventies and eighties disco music out of a big orange vw van....and everyone was dancing. It's way different than the US
because even the guys dance, everytbody gets really into it...and its total goofy dancing so no one is worried about looking good. The floor lit up and they had an old school fog machine...what fun!
Yesterday was our first day back in Christchurch and we went to the Antarctic center. They have this "arctic storm" simulation room where you start off at in a freezing room filled with faux snow and little fake caves and ice slides...and then the 'blizzard' sets in and it gets loud and dark and FREEZING. It only lasted for a few minutes, but that was plenty long enough to slide my Antarctica a little farther down on my 'places to visit' list. The whole ordeal was kind of cheesy but I had fun.
Swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura didn't go exactly as planned. We woke up at the crack of dawn and drove to the dolphin enounter center where we were split up onto two seperate boats. Almost the entire group got onto this mini cruise ship kind of thing with a glassed in center and bright shiny lettering on the side. About seven of us were leftover and we got put onto
this ragged little skipper thing with only a little bit of plastic to protect us from the elements and a crazy daredevil driver who found that making us go airborne every few minutes and doing abrupt ninety degree turns was immensely entertaining. It would have been a blast if every single one of us didn't get seasick. One guy sat at the edge with a plastic bucket for most of the morning and threw up at least four times. We all had to run for a bucket at least once, but most of us managed to keep it down. They feed us ginger cookies to make us feel better and kept on jumping the waves at top speeds. Molly was the only one who felt ok and she dispersed her dramamine and water bottle throughout the group. The ocean was gorgeous though. You could look in one direction and see rugged mountains that looked like they were floating in the clouds and then turn the other way and the clear turquoise-blue water looked like it went on forever. Apparently the water was too cold even for the dolphins, because we only spotted three or four, not a group big enough
to go swim with. But we did see lots of seal pups playing on rocks with their moms and dads lounging nearby. If you look close enough to the first pic on here you might can see some of them. After a while we all got used to the roughness and started fooling around and making fun of ourselves for being so lame. It wasn't quite the same experience the cruise ship guests had (they even got to swim with a few dolpins) but it's something to laugh about.
Before we headed back to Christchurch, our wonderfully entertaining field guide, Fraser, had to leave. He was absolutely insane and so much fun, but at the same time knew a ton regarding New Zealand conservation/ecology/tourism/rugby etc. It was so quiet on the bus with him gone 😞 Tomorrow we have lecture for four hours...boo. Double boo because it's Sunday and who wants to wake up for a lecture at eight on the weekend? Then the final on Mon and then on Tues we head to Melbourne!! I'm so pumped about Australia but I still need about a lifetime extra to explore New Zealand! Okay I'm running up this internet bill to new heights so I better stop for now.....LOVE and HUGS to everyone!
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Susan Grizzard
non-member comment
What have you done with my daughter?
Jessie, Thanks for keeping us updated. I love to read your blog. But why do you have time to write but Molly doesn't? Has she forgotten about me? Did ya'll leave her somewhere in the outback and she has no computer access? Tell her , that her Mom says "hi" and not to forget to come home. Or at least give me her new address so I can come visit! Love, Susan