Moldy Grape Juice

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Side story:
While working as an assistant in one of DePaul's computer labs last quarter, I found a book lying on a table with no one around. I waited to see if anyone would claim it, but as the labs closed I figured I should walk it to the lost and found. I took a closer look and noticed a big sticker on the cover. The book was "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", and the sticker read "I'm Free! I'm not lost. Please pick me up, read me, and let me continue on my journey." So, I kept it.
There was a website listed on the sticker called www.bookcrossings.com, and on the inside cover there was a pin number coinciding to the books identity: 162-1928771. If you go to the website and type it in, you can actually see where all the book has been and what whoever picked it up had to say about it. It's sort of an interesting idea, promoting free knowledge and all that stuff. If you think it's neat, you're a communist. Trader.

Anyways, I mentioned before Christina, the girl we'd met on the high ropes course in Taupo. Well, I brought the book over to New Zealand with me thinking I would do something romantic like leave it on the top of some unreachable peak, only to be discovered years later by a bearded fisherman blah blah blah. So just to make conversation I mentioned it to Christina and she shattered everything by asking, "Well, umm...you could just give it to me?" and of course you can't say no to the Dutch. They spit when they curse.
The only reason I bring this up is because she just updated her portion of the books travel log, and it reads as follows:

"Read this book a while ago and loved it. I have copy at home, but didn't
bring it when I went travelling. When the movie came out I suddenly wanted
to read it again and, lo and behold, it fell right into my lap 😉 I'm
almost through it and I'm enjoying it just as much as I did when first I
read it 😊"
By Dweia from Birkeroed, n/a Denmark
Book Rating: 10 out of 10

So, she lied...her name is Dweia, not Christina. Damn dutch...kidding.
Anyways, I thought it was neat (Martin dies is dead so I've got nothing to worry about) and worth mentioning.

I'm currently at Rain Forest Backpackers in Franz Joseph Glacier, a town about halfway down on the south island. It's appropriately named, as it really is in the middle of a rain forest. The drive here was pretty spectacular, even though I slept through a good portion of it. I don't understand how a rain forest exists in freezing weather...I suppose we all associate them with warm climates, but it's exactly how you would imagine one to look. Very drizzly and exotic. Even before the rain forest though was an amazing hour drive along the rural coast. It was out of a car commercial. Huge waves bashing up on a beach that quickly fades into a bright green pasture. It was nice.
Tomorrow we wake early to take out for Franz Joseph, the glacier the town is named after. We'll be doing a 3-quarter day hike onto/up it. I really have no idea what that consists of...I'm assuming we take a boat and some ice picks? Someone told us that it's been moving at an astronomical rate lately, so we may get shut out. Apparently it's currently travelling at 6 meters a day, where as most glaciers move 1 meter a year.

We haven't really done a lot since we arrived on the south island, yesterday. I have a feeling it's going to be much more laid back than our packed-in north island trip, which is fine with me. Things down here are much more spread out than on the north island. Only a fourth of the population lives down here, so towns and attractions are few and far between (huge mountains). We took the ferry from Wellington, down to the south isle to a town called Picton. The ferry was actually really nice...had a theatre, a touring band on board, and a bar. It was about a 5th of the size of a cruise ship, which is still quite large. We were to pickup our rented car on the other side. We had someone waiting for us at luggage pickup. They held a sign with our names on it, which made us all feel pretty important. I made sure a few people noticed..."Does that say Osborne? Oh weird, I think it does!" I slipped a 20 in his pocket and told him to tell the missus I said hello.

This was to be my first time driving on the left side of the road. Kelly refused to drive because I gave her so much guff about almost killing us a few times last week. I was extreeemely nervous at first, but it didn't take long to catch on. Our first and only stop on the way to Greymouth was a town called Blenheim. This is one of the main centers of New Zealand's top wine region, Marlborough. If you talk to anyone who knows anything about wine in NZ, apparently Marlborough is theee place to go. In this area, I think there were somewhere around 25 vineyards within a 5 km radius.
I was really excited because in Chicago, before I left, there was a guy at a wine store speaking highly of a wine not available in the states called Cloudy Bay, and it came from Marlborough. I also read about it in my budget travel guide as one of the wines you should definitely take back home, if any. We found it on the map and marked it as a definite stop.
The first place we stopped was called Hunters. After tasting, we all three agreed that the white wines were worth a purchase.
Quicknote: I wanted to select 12 quality bottles to bring home that wouldn't be available in the US, so that they would be at least somewhat special.
Well...I was the first to speak up and grabbed two. Sara and Kelly lined right up behind me. The woman swiped my credit card and threw them in a box. As she handed them over she was rambling on about this and that and somewhere in the middle of the sentence was, "blah blah blah much higher in the states than you'll pay here blah blah blah". I was instantly bummed out. I asked her, "Oh...well, where abouts in the states is it available?", hoping that maybe it was only in california or something. She replied, "Hmm...Illinois, I think?"
That's funny...cause wait, oh yeah! I LIVE THERE. damnit...
Sara and Kelly both put their bottles silently back on the shelf and walked out...laughing at my disgust for a good 10 minutes.
We eventually made it to Cloudy Bay. It was really nice and sentimental looking. I struck up a conversation with the woman behind the counter about what kinds of wines and flavours she enjoyed, hoping she wouldn't ask anything that would show I was just using terms off the wine pamphlet I picked up the vineyard before. I was really proud of myself though, because I noticed that all of their white wines were at least 4 years old. That was the first time we'd seen a white wine older than a year or two. Apparently, aging a white wine is sort of unheard of anymore, with new barrelling techniques and all...or something.
Anyways, she seemed pleased that I'd noticed and continued on with the convo. A few minutes later she mentioned that there had been an important wine tasting earlier that morning, and that they had actually sampled a bottle of the oldest Cloudy Bay wine in existence, the 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon. It's the only time they'd even made a Cabernet Sauv. She didn't even know it existed until the owner broke it out to be impressive. I acted really excited because I figured it was important, and next thing I know she sort of looked around the room and whispered, "Would you like to try it?" and disappeared into a backroom.
So, to cut the story short, we got to try a 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon that probably isn't even in existence anymore (because it's not supposed to be aged that long) and very few people know about. She told us that a few years ago a similar wine of theirs (not quite as old) had sold at a London auction for thousands of dollars. And because it's not available in the US, we are probably the only three Americans to have ever tried it. I'm important :-) And yes, it was phenomenal. I know jack about wine except that I like it, and this was the best I'd ever had without a doubt. We ended up leaving Blenheim with about 5 bottles of wine each.

I drove the 3 hour drive to Greymouth. The sun was already starting to set and we only had about an hour or so of daylight left. As soon as we left Blenheim, it was nothing but mountains among flat, empty plains for the remainder. There were no houses, no stores, no lights, no sign of civilization whatsoever for almost the entire drive. Well...about 20 minutes into it, we're all enjoying the scenary when Sara points out the the low gas light is on. Again...the south island is reallly spread out. Almost no one lives here compared to the population on the North. We started gettin a little freaked out, because we're in mountains, no cell phone service, no houses around for miles in any direction, and I'm not really an intimidating guy if any animal wants to eat us here in middle earth. I was driving, and established a few rules to hopefully make it as far as we could. No going over 100kmh (60mph), and no braking no matter how sharp the curve. It was a bit scary to skid into the other lane on turns but it wasn't exactly like there was much traffic to worry about. To end the suspense unexcitingly, we ended up making it to a hostel in the middle of nowhere, who told us that less than a minute more down the road there was a gas station. We maid it with the the gas meter saying we had a quarter tank below 0.

Uhgg.
Alright it's storming outside and I have to walk outside to get back to my room. It's about 1:31 AM anyways and I should really be getting sleep for the hike tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about it. I don't know when I'll get a chance to finish writing about my north island trip. there's too much more to add, really...and it's really hard to find the time. I'll just list a few of the activities really quick:

In Rotorua:
- Saw Batman Begins (really good!)
- Went Zorbing (down a hill inside a huge air bubble!)
- Went down the luge (side of a mountain path in basically a wagon with a steering wheel)
- Saw the boiling mudd pools
- Went to a Maori traditional concert and dinner
- Sat in the thermal spa's for the remainder of the night

ok, must go. Until next time,
Sammy Joe

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Comments

[Mom]

Cloudy Bay
I'm not much of a wine drinker but you've gotten me thirsty for some of these 12 exceptional bottles. If my name wasn't already on one, perhaps you can bring back 13? I'll share with you when we move you in! 60 mph w/ no brakes sounds a bit like jumping backwards off a falls in a cave that YOU led the group through. I think your Type A personalty came to the forefront during that flight over! Have more fun, know I miss you! Love Mom