The last couple days I spent in Queenstown waiting for Laura. I met some other Americans who have been studying in Auckland, John and Josh. It seems that the few other Americans I do meet are always from California. I think I've met only one other eastcoaster. We played a lot of cards. I've come to really like gin and rummy and spoons. The last night I spent in Queenstown we decided to play spoons, only instead of having them right in front of us, we put them across the room. We were only able to play one round because we all were injured and bloody from rug burns and pushing each other.

A really good day was the day I decided to hike the Ben Lomond trail. It was supposed to be really hard and take 6-8 hours. I have realized something about myself though, I really like hiking more than any other activity I've done here. It clears you mind. So I started up the trail which is actually a mountain. It was pretty much uphill the whole way (which is hard on your lungs), and then downhill the whole way back (which is hard on you knees). But it was worth it. At the top of Ben Lomond's peak, I met a Japanese girl named Mika. She is in New Zealand studying English and she works at Fergburger (bless her soul). Fergburger, by the way, is a legendary burger place in Queenstown. My real reason for climbing the mountain was so I could justify eating a whole burger and fries there. The night before my hike though I found out that Fergburger was closing for a couple days to renovate. I was eating dinner at the time when Josh and John told me, so I had to throw dinner away, and we all rushed over to Fergburger. I really wanted the Little Lamby, but all they had left was the Bambi burger. So I settled for that.

Anyways, so I was talking to Mika, and we decided to hike down together. It was a long hard hike, so we went to get a beer. Mika then invited me to have dinner at her house. So later that night she picked me up with her friend Naho. She said there was a change of plans: her house was too small so we had to go on her friends yacht and eat tacos. She asked me if I was okay with that, and I was. :) So I met Louie, a Kiwi fly fisherman who owns a yacht that originally comes from Washington D.C. We drank rum and cokes and ate hokey pokey gelato (which is a NZ flavor of ice cream: creamy vanilla with butterscotch pieces). Then Louie invited us to the yacht club for more drinks. Little did I know what was about to go down. I met the bartender, Blake, a kiwi who also works on yachts and paraglides. Laura had just gotten back from her hike, so I invited her to come to the bar. Blake and her really hit it off, and I decided to go home since we would be leaving in the morning. So I get back, and Josh, John, two of their friends who had joined them Evan and Kayln, and Danish guy were like WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN. And then we decided to go out and drink some more. So we did. I may or may not have gone swimming in the lake that night.

The next day I found out that Laura and Blake hit it off more than expected, so my ride to Dunedin was delayed. But we still had fun, we went on a rope swing and jumped in to the lake, bummed around Queenstown another day, and Laura agreed that we would leave the next day. Yeah right. She's still in Queenstown and I'm in Dunedin now. All because I met a Japenese girl on a mountain. Sigh.

Dunedin is an okay city. A lot of Scottish influence. I just got back from the Cadbury chocolate factory. I ate all my chocolate samples already. I'm so sick. Next I think I will go walk up the steepest road in the world and maybe go see some penguins.