Bungee Jumping Capital of the World

We are spending New Years and the few days after in Queenstown, which is in the South Island. We flew into an itty-bitty airport and were ready for another cute little village. The deceivingly small town is apparently one of the extreme sports capitals. As we drove through town, scoping it out for ice cream places and shops, we found groups of schoolies (kids who just graduated high school) setting up their tents in the parks and preparing to party. Of course Audrey and I were like, "okay, bye. We can go and see the town on our own." We took the tamer approach and spent a quiet New Years watching the fire works across the lake (19 hours before our Chicagoan counterparts).

This is the view from our apartment:

To our surprise the schoolies and locals were out and about today . We made our way over to a beautiful mountain, and took a gondola up. We planned on having a picnic on the top of a mountain to follow through with the Schield tradition of doing nothing but eating on our vacations. When we finished our lunch we saw a little sign that said, " Paragliding!" As always, Audrey and I begged our parents to please just let us have one little ride, and to our surprise they allowed us to go on the ride of our lives. We hiked the steep hill

to a point where we, strapped to our guides, ran off the cliff and were soon flying over the mountains, lake, and town. I was prepared to be out of my mind in fear, but it was actually just exhilarating. We had a little photo shoot in the air and enjoyed twisting and swirling while performing tricks in the air, catching the next thermal (what they call the winds). We stayed up for about 20 minutes and gracefully floated back to the ground. It was amazing, and we definitely got our extreme sporting out of the bungee jumping capital.

It's So Pretty Here

Eyjafjallajokull volcano has nothing on the Maori names around here.

It's sunny and beautiful in Auckland

and on the road. It's obvious why they filmed Lord of the Rings here. Every were we turn is another picture worthy view. We drove from Auckland to the Coromandel peninsula, and Audrey and I were staring out the window the whole time. We went to a hot spring beach, went snorkeling in the South Pacific, and climbed down to a secluded waterfall and all we could say the entire time was, "Gosh, this is so pretty." We have decided that it would be the perfect setting for the television show Lost because it has a mix of tropical forests and sloping hills that look like they're straight out of the French countryside.

LA to Auckland

After an amazing few days in LA visiting with friends and adventuring with cousins, we took off for New Zealand. The flight was long and I think Nina and I spent most of the time either staring blankly into space or rearranging ourselves. By the time we were off the plane, we had skipped Wednesday completely, although I do not understand the date line logic completely. Then we headed straight for the coffee, but we were completely lost. Apparently there is completely different coffee lingo down under, and I am beginning to feel totally out of my element. Apparently a “long black” is a large cup of black coffee, a flat white is strong black coffee made with espresso beans and topped with steamed milk, and a short black is a small cup of espresso coffee. I think I'll stick to the flat white to be safe for now. Once in downtown Auckland we went off exploring and found that the people were as charming as their accents and the landscape was as hilly as it was breath taking.

Packing

Today was day one of packing. I realized that waiting until a week before we depart for New Zealand was probably not the smartest idea when my floor was littered with everything from clothes to batteries to tie dye duct tape. After trying to stuff everything I own into a carry on sized bag, I began to see how three sweatpants and four bat mitzvah sweatshirts were probably a little excessive for the mid summer weather we are anticipating. Hopefully the kiwis won't mind the same pair of shorts and perhaps a tie dye duct tape dress.