Queenstown

We have been in Queenstown, New Zealand for a couple of days now. It is a really quaint little town, right on the lake with mountains everywhere. It is a very outdoorsy, and there are lots of hikers and backpackers in and out of town. Our first night here, we went to one of the local pubs for dinner. Our waitress was really nice, just talking away to us in her New Zealand accent. Then she asked where we were from, so we said Tennessee. She told us she was from Ohio and went to UT! How weird is that!? But even weirder, is that her New Zealand accent suddenly went away and she was as American as apple pie or Rickey Bobby. Maybe she thinks she will get better tips if she has a cool accent.

So yesterday we were free to do our own thing for a while. Then last night we took a boat to Walter Peak to have dinner and watch a sheep shearing show. We had a bottle of wine at dinner, and then Jake and I decided that watching sheep shearing would be way more fun with a cocktail. So we asked the shearer if we could take a roadie. After a brief education in what a roadie is, he was like, "Hell yeah you can!" I like the sheep shearer. His show was hilarious! He really needs to take his act on the road, but it would be pretty hard to do seeing as how he would have to travel with his sheep dog. And sheep. And farm. So yeah, that probably wouldn't work.

After the show we went inside to take our glasses back to the bar. We thought we had some time to wander around. I had been looking through my pictures and decided we didn't have enough action shots. So I decided that my new thing would be to jump in all my pictures (trust me - it seemed really funny after a few cocktails). So there are Jake and I trying like 20 times to get me jumping in front of the boat at the exact right time. In the midst of our awesome photography, we failed to notice that the boat was leaving us. Oops!! We ran over, and thankfully they were only a few feet away from the dock, so they backed up and got us. I told the boat guy, "Thank you! Don't tell my dad!" We looked up and Dad was standing on the top deck just shaking his head. We got the "Punctuality is a Virtue" speech for the millionth time. But the picture was still hilarious this morning, so it was worth it. I'm up in the air happy as can be, and the boat is taking off in the background. Trust me - it is a framer.

Today we took a 5 hour (yuck) bus ride to Milford Sound (beautiful!) for a 2 hour cruise. There were mile high mountains and waterfalls everywhere! I wasn't able to get great pictures though because of the Japanese. Now, no offense to my Japanese friends (wait - do I have any Japanese friends?? If I do, I apologize) but they will knock you to the ground, step on your face, and kick you in the teeth all in order to get 1 inch closer to something they want to take a picture of. When I was jumping off the bridge, Jake had 2 Japanese women literally jump on his back to get a picture. He almost went over the edge of the observation deck. So after sustaining a few war wounds and almost losing my camera over the edge of the boat, I decided to give up on the pictures and just enjoy the ride. Luckily, when Dad heard we could pay to take a puddle jumper plane back instead of sit on the bus for another 5 hours, he threw out that credit card faster than a Japanese person can go through a 2 gig camera card. Woo hoo! We were back in 40 minutes and got an amazing view of the Sound from up in the air. And I finally got some pictures without getting Kung Pow-ed in the face!