I've found Paradise

It's Thursday evening here in New Zealand around 5:30pm, and because of my handy new Timex Ironman watch I can flip back to USA time with a click of a button - its 11:30pm yesterday for you guys! It has been a couple of days since my last post because time really does fly when you're having fun, and with all the daytime adrenaline pumping activities and the evenings festitivies there hasn't been much time to write. Thankfully my watch also tells me what day it is, or I might completely lose track of time here in paradise. I have spent a good majority of my first week here in NZ wondering why more people don't live here. Timmy was telling me that Washington DC has a larger population than the whole county of New Zealand. With amazing mountains, lush forrests, the MOST beautiful beaches I have ever seen, and some of the hottest, tannest, scruffiest, fun-loving and funny men I have met, I'm surprised there hasn't been a serious American emmigration. Although there are some things Americans (like myself) would hate; what I like to call "New Zeland time", everyone takes forever to do everything; the metric system, I never have any idea what temperature something is, how tall something is, nothing.
After my last post at the Maori camp, we headed early the next morning to Rotorua where I hopped off to white water raft. Six beautiful male instructors got us all suited up in flotations devices (they don't call them life jackets anymore because they will not save your life if you're too dumb to not swim when drowning), booties and helmets. Although the trip was brief we took the raft down the largest waterfall that commercial rafts can go down in the world. Our guide, Chunk, didn't seem to take anything too seriously as he was really hungover, but we all survived. Then we headed back into Rotorua to pick up the other bus members who didn't raft and then we all headed to a town called Taupo. While the others went skydiving (I didn't do it, since it costs $300 and I've already done it twice), I grabbed a coffee and went to the grocery store with a girl name Verina I met on the bus. When the rest of the crew came back that night we all headed to a Bar called Mulligans (because my new busmate shares the same last name), where we all wore different hats provided by the bar - I rocked the pink cowboy hat most of the night - and told the locals it was my bachelorette party as I was marrying a native Kiwi (what they called people from New Zealand) I had only known for two weeks.
Very early the next morning we hopped back on the bus which at this point is growing very smelly, and headed to National Park, where I had been hoping the weather would hold up to hike the Tongorria Crossing an 8 hour hike through three volcano craters, one of which was Mt. Doom from The Lord of the Rings. Luckily we got the OK to hike and headed up around 10am. The 500 steps in the second hour nearly killed me. Most of the first 3 hours was uphill which prompted the guides to create fast and slow groups so we all could go at appropriate paces, (of course Captain Competitive was at the front of the fast group), and after about 4 hours we arrived at the summit, which is about 2,000 meters high (as previously mentioned, I have no idea how high this is.) The views were breathtaking and of course, knowing that The Lord of the Rings was filmed there was pretty awesome. The last 3 hours we got caught up in a serious downpour where I got to test my brand new Marmot raincoat which held up perfectly, unfortunately my shoes and pants didn't. I arrived back at the hostel looking like a drowned rat, to my 5 other roomates, another load of laundry (that is the territory that comes with having only 3 pairs of underwear) and a hottub (which I got in immediately.)
Ok what day am I up to - Tuesday I think? It's a tough life out here, I can't even remember what I ate for lunch, nevermind what I did two days ago! So we left National Park and heading to Wellington. On our way we stopped at a beautiful waterfall and a hot spring hole that supposedly had natural healing powers. There were so many people crammed into this little hole that I think my healing power went to someone else. We arrived in Wellington, a city that reminded me of a combination of Denver and San Fransico, around 2:00pm. After getting set up in the hostel, headed straight to the National Museum. It was a really modern museum with a lot of touch screens and interactive exhibitis which certainly made it more fun than your typical museum. At 5:00 Tim, Emer, Liz and I did a little shopping so I could satisfy my desire to fit in with the other "fashionable" backpackers, but when I came out of the store and was asked what cute things I bought, I pulled out a pair of black running pants and two athletic shirts - I just can't get the practical thinking out of my head!! We then ate a delicious dinner at a Malaysian restaurant, and took the WEllington cable car up to the Botanical gardens to watch the "California Deamers", a 1960's cover band. At the end of the rivetting performance we walked through the gardens which are lit up amazingly by the city. In an failed attempt to catch the Cable Car back down to the city, we got lost in the dark part of the gardens, Liz fell in a hole, and we had to spend $25 on a cab to get us to the Cuba street bars. After a couple of bar hops, and no cute men to prowl on, I headed home for the evening.
Yesterday morning I caught the 7am ferry to the South Island. I sat outside for the 4 hour ride because the mountanious coastline was amazing to watch. We landed in Picton (to those of you who know me, you probably can guess why this town held a special significance), but only stayed there briefly on our bustrek to the Abel Tasman national park. After a long day on the bus and a quick grocery store stop, we arrived at Old MacDonald's farm in the Abel Tasman Natiional park last night around 6pm. Our busdriver, Metro, made us some mussels and we all hung out around a fire pit and ate our homemade dinners (I had a bowl of cereal and a roll with turkey on it.) Old MacDonalds is a little more rustik than some of the other hostels. This whole hostel jumping experience has been like one big camping trip - you never really feel clean, there are bugs in your room, the food is sparse, you are bunked up with lots of people - you get the idea. At 9am this morning I set out to do a 3 hour hike through the park, which was spectacular. The scenery is like paradise - white beaches, blue/green water, lush green jungles - and the best part is (as I previously mentioned) no one lives in New Zealand so it pretty much felt like our own private island. When we got to Anchorage bay we hopped on a catamaran and sailed around the island for another 4 hours. Even though I got a ridiculous sunburn on my stomach (which is still white and pasty from CT temperatures) it was overall an specatuclar day.