All-expenses paid trip to Luxurious Cardrona Ski Field!

I've thought of so many interesting ways to start this journal today, but I am too exhausted to  go into so much detail today. The range of emotions I've felt in the last 19 hours is intense but normal for me. I truly am a morning person; I'm elated and lively and ready to take on the world, but by night time if I haven't conquered the world already I just can't be bothered. 

I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Cardrona today. I suppose you could call it another babysitting job. I went with Matt, Craig, Luke and Tony to Cardrona for a guys' day out, the deal being they would pay me $200 to drive them home from the Cardrona hotel after having an evening of drinking. They picked me up in the truck around 9:30am, after I had a good rest and breakfast. I don't think I've ever gone 5 days straight in a proper winter season without skiing. I suppose the last time I did that was when I started the job at Schiff and had to train during the day for two weeks straight, but that was the end of April! 

We arrived at Cardrona around 11am, after about an hour's drive from the BP in Frankton. It was an all-expenses paid luxurious day out for me and I was excited to ski Cardrona for the first time. The morning started with a short black, to make sure I had an even bigger boost of morning energy. We kept up a good conversation on the way up as well. 

We first headed down the hill to the lift, reaching a mid-sized queue, and skied together over to Captain's and did three more runs together, then the boys went for lunch and I continued exploring and video taping the scenery. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather – it was cold but the air was calm and the bright blue skies were open to us, as we were on top of the world, able to view the rest of the snow-capped mountains spanning miles and miles around the south island of New Zealand. 

Just before 2pm I stopped by the adult snowboard lineup and asked for Phil. I spoke with a guy named Nick who was nice enough to give me Phil's number and let me know that even though it was his scheduled day off he was on a level 2/3 private until 2pm ('Typical,' I responded). Luckily I am able to recognize Phil's riding from a mile away and skied over to the bottom of the nearby lift where he was talking with his two clients. I waited until he was done speaking with them, during which time one of the girls from the creche called up to see if I could nanny for, I think she said a little girl who had chicken pox, though she had a rather strong accent. I told her I was working 9-5 so I wouldn't be able to, but thanked her for calling. 

I was really happy to see Phil; he had definitely become one of my best friends of my last season in Park City, and he is always good company. It's easy to have respect for Phil because he does his job well, and has a genuine concern for people, which comes out in the way he speaks with  them. On the way inside for lunch I also ran into Kyle and Mike and Kate Wilwert, who were teaching at Cardrona for the week because some of their clients from Mt Hutt wanted to bring them there for a week! It was a Park City reunion!

After being well-fed with some nasi goreng (how could I turn down Indonesian food?) I was happy to take a few more end of day runs at 3:15 when it wasn't so crowded. I did three runs off Captains where I just flew right back onto the chair. At 4pm I met up with the guys to get our shoes on and they had two beers to wait out the traffic and we left the mountain at 5pm. 

We arrived at the Cardrona Hotel, one of the few buildings left from the New Zealand gold rush of the late 1800's, and sat outside by the fire until a little after the sun went down and then went inside to sit by the fire. I had a nice hot mulled wine while outside, and Tony had ordered a big bowl of chips. Inside I had a cup of mango strawberry tea and at 7:30pm began to watch the All Blacks game vs the Springboks. 

Things were pretty mild until we got to heading home. I had some trouble getting used to the truck, and was startled to find out it was an automatic, and the cabin light didn't work so I had to shuffle my things around in the dark and find the seat controls. I almost left without Luke because I didn't realize they were serious about grabbing some bottles of Jim Beam and cola for the road! It didn't bother me at all, though the conversation did get a bit messy on the way down. I honestly couldn't tell if they were making fun of me driving slowly, or whether me going 60kph in a 100kph zone was too fast since they kept telling me there was no hurry. 

At one point I had to stop short because a pitch black furry animal about the size of a fox or possum had jumped out in front of the car and crossed the road. I had to stop all the way because the suicidal little thing pretty much jumped back underneath the car once it had reached the other side of the road and ran back to its original spot. None of us could figure out what it was!

Having left at 8:30pm we arrived back in town at 9:30pm and I dropped them off in Cow Lane to head to the pizza place, while I went home to drop off my skis and change my clothes. I'm not sure why I was chilly when I got back to the house – maybe it was all the wrestling in the dark trying to get my skis and boots out of the back of the truck, but I needed to take a warm shower and change my clothes. Refreshed, I headed back to their apartment building to drop off the truck, gladly relinquishing my driving responsibilities, and walked to Cow Lane.

Starving as I had been all evening, I wolfed down practically the entire pizza they had left. I shouldn't have eaten that much, yet all in all it wasn't all that much food volume-wise, and it had so many different toppings it couldn't help but keep my taste buds' attention! Shrimp, mushroom, sausage, pepperoni, veggies, cheese and thin crust – yum! I felt more like it was distasteful to eat that much rather than feeling any guilt about the caloric intake. I wanted to stay out for a little while and knew I needed energy to do so! I did feel a bit guilty about eating and drinking so much on their dime though – they had bought my coffee, lift ticket, drinks at the Cardrona hotel, then given me practically that whole pizza, two vodka club sodas in Cow Lane, one more at Barmuda and we had all done money shots, as per my request, which was $50 for the lot of us. Still, I knew that they wouldn't have spent the money if they didn't think it was worth it, and I was pleasantly congenial about them making sexual jokes, though I think it was farther than the women would have liked. Still, what happens on a guys' day out stays on a guys' day out. It's odd how I am always around guys, and even though they poke fun, and make dirty jokes, I still feel more comfortable around guys than women. Oh well. 

After they left for home I left Barmuda and stopped in to say hi to Chris, a bartender at Mini Bar, who I met while in the office last week. I checked Winnie's to see what was going on, and almost missed bumping into my friends from the hostel. I really wasn't feeling the vibe in Winnie's at all so in a way I was kind of disappointed to see my friends there, since I had wanted to hang out with them.

I'm just so very much not into a scene like Winnie's, not at all. It was almost bliss when I walked into Surreal, and though I didn't know anyone, I liked the vibe better, and got there just in time to see a fight break out! Feeling a bit better about Queenstown's nightlife – hey, there's a foot for every shoe – I wandered across the street but Pog's was closed, then back into Cow Lane to check out Tardis, which had a DJ playing loud thumping music, but no real character to the place. I liked Debajo a bit better – I really enjoyed the music, though the bar itself was a little empty. I was sorta happy for that; I was able to dance a bit, just to get my blood circulating again before heading out into the cold, without anyone knowing me or caring that I was out alone. 

I left Debajo at 1:27am and walked up the hill back home and arrived at 1:43am, so 16 minutes door to door. My plan to warm up in Debajo worked quite well, and the warmth lasted at least as long as it took to warm up walking up the steepest part of the journey just up from Frankton Rd. I'm happy that even though it's purely up hill it's still closer than walking from Banjo's or the Bowling Club to my apartment in Kirwan last year. 

This journal is so boring – the writing is dull and everything in it is personal, but that's ok.

(Note: This entry was edited from its original draft)