Live the Life you Love

To everyone who reads this religiously, or in leiu of the news or as a procrastination tool, I sincerely apologize for my lack/poor quality of posts lately.  The good news is that it is because I have been having a lot of fun, and of course working really hard the past couple of weeks.  My last pay check was 86 hours in 2 weeks, and the second best part (the $$ being the first), is that I really love work.  I work with the greatest people ever, I serve the nicest people from all around the world, we have live music and quiz nights, and I have been learning to make yummy coffees and bartend.  It's quite the dream come true.  AND while I am not working I am dancing, responsibly enjoying cocktails with friends, laying on the beach, and hanging out with the best boyfriend ever.  THIS IS THE LIFE.

A few things that stand out:

• Spending the day on the beach of Lake Wakatipu with Jeff and Sophie (my most amazing American bestie), eating ice cream and playing football. 
• Going out on Sunday to celebrate a co-workers birthday only to be a table away from Elisabeth Moss (Peggy on Mad Men) (Sophie has a pic!)
• Brainstorming for Jeff's Mom, Sister Laura, and Brother Tom's visit to New Zealand in 4 weeks!!  We are so excited, and we want to take them EVERYWHERE! so we must strategize and choose wisely.
• Playing frisbee golf with Jeff and some work friends, and tripping over a root, and taking off a nice chunk of toe! AND performing really poorly at frolf.  It is so nice to be able to drink beers and play frolf in the middle of the park though.
• The weather can vary from day to day, and last week it was cold enough for snow to fall on the really high mountain tops!  It was breathtaking and made me very anxious for winter here.
• Jeff and I have been spending alot of time pondering whether to buy season passes for snowboarding or not.  Input is welcome!
• I have been going to basketball everyweek, playing for Hilton's team Blue Thunder (not nearly as serious as it sounds) and we won last week! wahooo! Although, no one is as competitive as Jeff and I.
• Joining the event center gym, where they have this amazing pool with waterfalls and a lazy river (and actual workout stuff too) and an adult hot pool... I can spend hours there without breaking a sweat hehe
• Jeff is training for the Routeburn Classic, which is an annual run of over 30k up the mountain and back down.  It is going to be pretty intense so he has started training rpetty hard already.  You can click on the link to read more!

Sometimes I feel like life moves way too fast here, but its a good fast, the kind of fast I was looking for, and not the fast I was feeling at home.  Here I don't read as much as in Nelson and I find myself watching weeks wiz by and wondering where days have gone, but it's not because I was doing laundry or watching tv or sleeping, it's because I am swimming in the lake, hanging out with new friends, dancing on tables with Sophie, or eating ice cream with Jeff.  Sometimes I feel like I don't see Jeff a lot because he works days and I work night, but we have so much fun when we do hang out.  I can't wait to have life a little more settled so we can do some of the awesome hikes around here and get some proper pictures, but for now I will post some on my flickr and possibly on facebook.

Hope everyone is well at home, and I love hearing from you!!  Miss everyone, and hope you are keeping warm as February begins!

Cheers!

Queenstown - "The Adventure Capital of the World"

So apparently time runs a little faster in Queenstown... We have already been here for 2 weeks!  And I have not blogged once! It's way too easy to keep busy here, and I'm worried that I might blink and September will be here, or maybe things will start to slow down now that we are settling in, but I wouldn't count on it.  It is difficult to go into great detail about the past 10 days, so, again, I am going to try to highlight some of the more interesting moments using bullets (sorry).

In somewhat of a chronological order

• Jeff and I went out for our first Fergburger (The "best burger in New Zealand").  I think its a law that everyone that comes to Queenstown must try one because there is almost always a line outside, and people wait up to an hour for this burger. (It is open from 8:30am-5am).  It was delicious, but because of the sauces, the meat itself was not much more than any other american burger.  It probably is the best burger in New Zealand though.  While we were there we saw Gabriel, a boy we met on the Heaphy track.  He and his other French friend invited us to Cowboys for a beer (A bar Steve and Laurie had suggested to us on our way to Nelson from the Heaphy).  Cowboys is a really awesome bar with pool, shuffle board, and a mechanical bull.  We let some older man play pool with us so he bought everyone a liter of beer and I got to watch all of the guys attempt the bull ride.  It was a great night that started off with an impromptu trip to Fergburger.
• When something is going on in Queenstown (as there usually is on the weekends) everyone goes, so we thought we'd try our hand at properly attending the National Rugby 7s Tournament.  It is all of New Zealand's regions playing against eachother in a 2 day tournament, but it is a 7 on 7 game and is shorter in duration. We went with Dan, and you pay $10 to enter and because it is early afternoon you have no intention of drinking until you realize that is basically why everyone is there.  Dan and Jeff split a 6 pack of cans for $20.  Sadly, that isn't too outrageous for Queenstown.  
• I started my job at the Pub and I love it alot.  All of the people there are so nice and friendly, and they are from all over the world so they give some great insight and ask some funny questions about the US.  They come from the UK, Canada, South America, South Africa, NZ, and the US.  We went out with all of them and some of the other hotel people, and Jeff got along with all of the guys great, and from what I remember (or have been told) Ashley, Fran, and I spent a lot of the night dancing, telling boys they can't dance with us, and yelling I love you.  It was really fun, and apparently quite funny to watch.
• Jeff got a full-time job at Hertz rental cars working as a customer service agent or something?  Today is his 3rd day he seems to really enjoy it, and he will get to learn how to drive manual, well other than his motorcycle.  He teases me because he makes more money than I do, but I think I win after tips.  Either way we both have really perfect jobs that will let us enjoy Queenstown, its activities, and save for travelling once we leave New Zealand.
• Jeff's mom, sister Laura, and brother Tom are thinking of visiting in April/May which is super exciting, and I hope my mom will get a chance to come out too.
• We have a hotel co-ed basketball team, so there has to be 2 girls and 3 guys on the court at all times or you have to play a man down. So I heard this mentioned and wanted to go so that Jeff could play, and they said it was fine if he played as long as I played.  Jeff missed most of the first game because he was working, but when I got there I found out there was only one other girl there for our team so we had to play the entire 40 minutes!  I made one basket and we lost by one shot the first game.  There wasn't enough people to make up 2 full teams next game so they asked us to fill in so Jeff got to play, and I ended up playing a whole entire other game.  We got killed that game, probably because I took it easy :).  The second game had some aggressive boys so I backed off a bit because I have a tendency to get hurt in basketball.  I was fortunate enough to just be super super super sore for the next 2 days, and I will be there next week, and was even invited to play net ball on Wed nights (mostly because they need girls, and I have no idea how to play).  Jeff didn't like it as much as I did though, which I assumed he wouldn't when I knew there would be 4 girls on the court and most of the people hadn't played basketball before. There wasn't a strong defense or much strategy and he wasn't getting much playing time because there were so many guys, so it wasn't ideal for him, but I think there are more serious leagues coming up for him to join. 

That's about it for now, and I need to get ready for work, but Jeff suggested we start a little chart with the differences/similarities between a city like Philly and Queenstown to paint a better picture of the city, and speaking of pictures I will get some up here soon!

Love and miss everyone so much!!

Cheers!