Home, Sweet Home (July 27th, 2006)
Queenstown, New Zealand







I was taking a power-nap on the flight down to Queenstown when the pilot came on the intercom to announce that we were getting ready for landing. I opened my eyes, looked out the window, and saw an unending range of snow covered mountains. If I had been walking about the view would have put a hop in my step, instead I just smiled like a goofy American tourist.

Although I'm going to be spending the next six weeks here, I actually did almost zero research to see what Queenstown was like. Whenever I hear of ski resort towns, I immediately picture Whistler, Canada. Sadly, this is no Whistler. The most obvious difference is that there isn't any snow in Queenstown. That's not really a huge disappointment, but I was expecting something a little more base of the mountain-ish. It has a nice downtown, though, and it's only a five minute walk from my lodge. Also, no snow means it's actually a little above freezing here (every degree counts). Unfortunately, the common area in our lodge is at about the same temp; there's nothing like getting bundled up so you can go get a glass of water.

I wandered down to the local grocery store and thoroughly enjoyed touring the entire place. I haven't heard of most of the stuff here, and even the familiar things are different. For example, instead of "Rice Crispies" they have "Rice Bubbles". (Oddly enough, they're WAY cheaper than any other box of cereal. Looks like I'll be having a lot of Rice Bubbles down here.) I met Colin and Gavin (the guys who are running the program) and they gave me a quick walk around to meet people from the 11 week course. They also told me that I'm the second American in the group and everyone else is looking forward to having someone else to pick on. :) After a quick hello I returned to my room and attempted to unpack. I managed to empty my snowboard bag before crawling onto my bed. Someone else will be in the room when the course begins, but since I'm here first I get to claim the larger of the two beds. Tomorrow will be my first day on the mountains, I'm exhausted but I can't wait to get up there.