Mr Sudocrem, I love You.

Another week has gone! On one hand it seems like the time has passed really quickly – I’ve been in New Zealand for 2 weeks now, but on the other hand it seems like I’ve been here for ages! I think that expressions/phrase is quite strange, “on one hand” and “on the other hand”. It makes sense I suppose, as you have two hands and two statements, but it’s strange. Anyway, back to the passing of time. When I was in America the time flew in, the three months went so quickly! But time seems to be going quite slowly here – maybe it’s because at the moment I’m just chilling out, going for little walks, sunbathing, doing slow paced things. Maybe once I get back on the bus and moving again, the time will go in more quickly. Not that I’m complaining! The fact is time will pass, regardless of where I am. I could be in Bangor or I could be here, so I’ll just be happy that I’m passing time in such a nice place!

Anyway, today was a nice chilled out day. I slept in today – back home if I sleep in then I don’t wake up until 3.00pm, literally. Here, when I sleep in, I wake up at 9.30am, which is what I did today. I just lay in bed until my new roommate came in at 10ish – I then felt obliged to get up and open the curtains. She’s from America and is here picking apples. Manual Labour in a foreign country, no thank you. I then got myself sorted out, had some Peppermint tea, chatted to Esther, messed about for a bit, had some microwaveable rice for lunch and then decided that I would walk to Huka Falls. Which I didn’t do. I changed my mind and decided to go sunbathe by the lake. So I headed down, in my swimming suit and a nice hippy summer dress. As I was the only person at the lake, I decided not to strip down to my cozzie, instead I pulled up the hippy dress and listened to music for a good few hours. I probably looked really strange. I was literally the only person on the entire beach and everyone walking past had jumpers on, because it was so windy. The wind was pretty epic at times, but it did die down and it was quite nice – besides the wind kept me from getting too hot! I went for a little paddle, I wasn’t feeling too adventurous because of the wind – I would have frozen if I had of went swimming!

So that was quite a nice way to spend an afternoon and I most definitely did not get burnt. Actually I did. But I’m not mad about it. There is very little ozone layer above New Zealand, which makes it much easier to get burnt, so at first I was really careful about wearing my sun cream, but I did start venturing out without any sun cream on and I never got sunburn. So I thought I would be fine. Obviously not. I am burnt, but it’s not really bad, it was probably a good thing that I had the sun dress on, my back and shoulders are totally fine. Really it’s just the backs of my legs, in the thigh area, there is a funny and totally slanted line across the backs of my legs where the sun dress was! Looks like I won’t be getting the short shorts out for a while! My face is actually quite “sun kissed” to put it in a way that won’t give my parents a heart attack – don’t worry I’m fine, I won’t get skin cancer and I’ll be more careful next time. I actually look a lot better with a tan! At home I’m all pale and pasty and I just look grossly unwell – obviously my fundamental features don’t change in the sun, but now I have a little red/brown face! I also have more freckles, which I am actually quite happy about – I think it looks rather nice!

After my sunburning sesh I came back to the Hostel and got a nice shower, then went for a walk around the town to try find somewhere to have dinner – Esther said that I should go get something nice for dinner, which was a really good idea. I do love my Uncle Ben’s, but a real dinner is always good! I found a nice Irish Pub that served Chicken Coujans (no idea how to spell that) but they wouldn’t let me order them because they were on the kids menu, I was quite mad about that, so I left and walked around every other restaurant in town, trying to find nice food. At this point in time I would have done anything for a wee Jamaica Inn. Chicken Coujans in a Pita with Sweet Chilli sauce, salad, coleslaw, mayonnaise, garlic bread and garlic chips. Probably the nicest thing I have ever tasted. But I couldn’t find anything even vaguely like that, so I just settled for a fillet steak with garlic chips and salad. I was expecting it to be man sized portions, but it was not. It was normal person portions, which was fine, I am a normal(ish) person, but I do like my man sized pub grub. Anyway after my dinner, with my wee pint of blackcurrant juice, I went for another walk and ended up eating a chocolate ice cream lolly, which I probably shouldn’t do because I’m supposed to be off chocolate for lent, but I was feeling sorry for myself. Comfort eating is such a reality! People say it isn’t but it so is and I am such a comfort eater! I always used to say that I comfort ate as an excuse for being a wee piggy, but now I am 100% sure that comfort eating exists and that I comfort eat! Ahh well, there are worse things that I could do!

After my insanely good eating fest I came back to my room, applied serious amounts of Vaseline Aloe Vera (it’s amazing, it’s such a nice moisturiser and it works as after sun and you can use it right after shaving your legs and it doesn’t cause a reaction. Fantastic.) to my red areas. It will be interesting when this sun burn turns to tan, there are a few white areas among the red so they will stay white while the rest of me turns brown! Nice! Then I read some of my book, listened to some music and here I am now, writing this Blog! The American girl just came back – that’s really rude, not calling her by her name, she’s called Molly (the only reason I can remember that is because I was listening to Molly’s Chambers by Kings of Leon last night) and I think she wants to get an early night, so I’ll probably go to sleep soon! However, I do need to apply some Sudocream – that is going to be seriously fun. I’m going to be sticking it all over my face too – thank goodness I am in a girl’s only dorm!

Update - I got talking to Molly, who is actually really nice! Totally not a crazy American! She was in Utah just before Christmas (when I was in Utah) but she was up in Salt Lake working in some outdoors camp for troubled teens. Basically kids with all sorts of problems go there and they get to realise their problems and sort themselves out – it’s probably a lot more technical than that, but I’m giving you the short version! We had a wee chat about Crazy Utah and the whole conservative mentality that Utah Mormons seem to adopt, so that was fun, high five for intelligent conversation! When she was apple picking she met a few Irish guys, who are actually really attractive, which is very annoying. Why are all the attractive Irish men in New Zealand picking apples? They should be in Bangor, Ballyholme preferably! After our chat I applied the Sudocream. Everywhere. Literally I just slapped it on, all over my face, except for my mouth and eyelids. I looked like such a spaz – I should get the pictures up, give you something to laugh at! So that was fun, as was trying to put on Pyjamas while covered in Sudocream! I do love Sudocream – probably one of mans greatest inventions. It does everything! Pure genius!

xx