Boys on bikes... Day 78

Today was pretty fantastic. I am also very proud of myself for still being awake right now (10:14pm), as I went to bed around 5am and had to wake up at 9am. That's less than four hours when you take into account actually laying there for a bit before going to sleep. I feel like last night's mediocre amount of sleep may have broken this vicious sleep cycle that is taking over my life. After classes today, Gia, who is the closest thing us exchange students have to a local mum, took myself and my friend Heather to lunch at a Malaysian restaurant. I was pleasantly surprise, minus the fact that my chicken still had skin and bones... you can't win everything. After lunch I went downtown to find out about renting a car for the aforementioned trip to Franz Josef Glacier. The rental car Gods are out to foil my plans. Luckily, my aforementioned friend Heather is going, so it worked out. Something about me not having a credit card. Whatever. I am pleased that I could rent a car at the tender age of 19... if I had $2000 for a security deposit or a credit card.

I saw something pretty cool today. I shall first tell you that it was a chilly fall day. I will proceed to tell you that people everywhere were still riding their bikes, because that's what the good people of New Zealand do. They aren't as lazy as our countrymen. The next thing I tell you, I wish I had a picture of. It was two college boys on one bike. One guy was doing the riding of the bike and the other was sitting on the handle bars. I didn't even know that people above the age of ten could do this successfully, as in without falling off. And they rode some distance, they passed me when I was at my bus stop, then my bus passed them approximately 15 minutes late. High five for economical travel. I was only confused by one thing. Only one of the guys was wearing a helmet, the one sitting on the handle bars. I guess he was most likely to be accidentally catapulted into traffic if they made a quick stop.

In other news, I became facebook friends with one of the ladies that I was on Vorovoro and she tagged me in a photo, which I am wavering in between liking and disliking. I like it because it is a picture of myself, and frankly, who doesn't like pictures? But I dislike it because while I am smiling, I have a slight pained expression. Not like I'm in pain, but like I do not want to be in this photo, so my face is protesting. I am quite proud of my improvised hair tie, which is a palm frond. Zoom to my shoulder and you can kind of see it. Oh and I added the black and white, I think any photo looks better in black and white, hands down.One thing I am grateful for... Leftovers. I made an amazing dinner yesterday, which I am now finishing for dinner today, consisting of chicken risotto (okay, the rice part came out of a box, but I did the rest) and corn, which I sort of combined into a crazy mixture of food and added a thing called "tasty" cheese, which is actually a flavor here. "Hello delicatessen employee, may I have 100grams of tasty please?" But really, how can you turn down a food that has tasty right in the name? It's practically a guarantee...