Heading to the Cook Islands for New Years!

Happy Cubic Eve!

Cubic eve?

Yup. Today is Cubic Eve. New Year’s Eve’s Eve’s Eve. Tomorrow is Eve’s Eve, and then, of course, it is New Years Eve. The drunkest day of the year. Even more so than Halloween – my favorite day of the year. Last year I spent New Year’s with my roommates in Harrison Hot Springs (foreshadowing my New Zealand experience, but I’ll get to that later). The year before that was in Vancouver, but all I remember is lying on the club’s floor in a vail and a tiara too drunk to stand. My friend Brad and I drew the stamp on our wrist to get in – front of the line no cover – and already earned Super VIP at the other… alternative… club in town. Oooh a new memory of that night just came back to me. Lying on the ground of a parking lot waiting for my drunk friend to drunk-drive me home. Stupid, yes. I think we went through a red light, if I remember correctly. Please don’t drink and drive.

This year I get to spend New Years with one of my bestest friends, Emily Kydd. She always gets angry when I don’t use her name on this blog, so Emily Kydd – Lord of the Rings obsessed Pacific and Asian Studies Student and the University of Victoria – and I are spending a week together in the Cook Islands! Celebration! She’s technichally on an “internership” there, but we all know she spends all of her time at the beach while the children needing AIDS education wait for her, until she feels guilty and actually does her job. The gauge of how much truth to that assumption will be tonight when I see how tanned she is. Anyway. That’s what I’m doing this year.

Shoot I only have 14 minutes of Internet left.

Since its been several weeks since my last update, I thought it was about time I did.

We left off at my Surfing lessons on Mount Manugani (however you spell it). Considering I was born there, I probably should know how to spell it. The highlights from those few days were going to the salt-water hot springs with only cold water to shower ourselves off after, using a coat hanger to unlock the car after Hanna locked the keys in the trunk, and sleeping in my tent during torrential rain. Fun times.

After that we headed to Hot Water Beach. It’s basically a beach formed over hot springs. You did a hole in the sand, and lie in it. We used a frying pan. I have a feeling that I’ve already wrote all this. Shoot, I did. No time to delete it, 10 minutes left. We went dancing that night out in Tauranga that night at a club called Coyote. Fill in the blanks

We then drove to Rotorua. It smells like egg farts there – from the sulfur springs. We had our second thermal bath there at super hot, hot springs full of green algae. Sort of gross, but whatever.

Oh yes I forgot to tell you I’ve gained 15 pounds since I started this whole travel thing. I really need to cut down on my desserts (which is basically 2x per day).

Eight minutes.

At our campsite people had loud sex in a camper van. There were three people driving around, and one of them was fortunate to be locked out for a good half hours while the other two put the suspension to good use.

Then we drove to Raglin – a cool surfer beach. I should say hot surfer, but it was cloudy and cold out. I want to start surfing. Sigh. After our beach trip we headed over to Waitomo caves. I went caving and rock climbing, and it was epic. I’ll explain it in more detail when I have time. Speaking of time, I’m nearly out. I’ll leave you with the satisfaction of knowing that one of my new years resolutions is to update this blog more often. My other is to get a six pack. I’ll let you decide how realistic they are. I think getting a six pack was my resolution last year.

Sigh.

Happy New Years!