I've Killed Someone...

Good "morning" everyone. My apologies for the late post, we had a travel day yesterday and had to be up at 5am so I was running on 5 hours of sleep the entire day and by the time 11pm came around it it was time to go to bed for the night I was completely wiped out. I'm still exhausted but we have to leave in an hour for some hot springs so I figured I'd get up a little earlier and write this out.

So as I mentioned we woke up at 5am yesterday and had to pack up all of our things...Mind you, it took me 2 weeks to pack my bags perfectly, so doing it in 45 minutes was...interesting. But I managed and then met everyone downstairs for our departure at 6am. Alex (group leader) had forgot to mention a group game we were playing the night prior so when we all got down there he explained we would be playing a group game that was kind of like a real life version of clue I guess. So we all picked a name out of a cup and then an item out of a cup and we are meant to hand this item to our person to "kill them". We'll get into this later though.

Once we were all downstairs we loaded into the van and said goodbye to Auckland. We were all pretty tired so it was mostly a quiet drive to breakfast, which was about an hour drive. The drive was stunning the entire way of course. We stopped for a quick breakfast where I got an almond croissant and a mango smoothie and then got back on the road. This time everyone was a bit more awake and we did a version of carpool karaoke, but in this version no one in the back could hear the words to the music so they were singing like an echo. It was a good time.

It took us another hour to get from breakfast to the Waitomo glow worm caves. We couldn't take any pictures in the caves but they stood us in front of this green screen before we went in and added the background of what the caves looked like. It was a great experience. We first walked down into these large caverns where we were told the history of the caves and if I could remember I'd tell you but I don't so...then we walked into this large part they called the cathedral because there's no echo and the acoustics are really great and Lewis sang a song and our tour guide did as well. Then we headed down to the boat and saw all the glow worms, we had to stay complexity quite for the full experience but it was very very cool. Glow worms are basically just maggots for anyone wondering, but that doesn't sound quite as appealing as "glow worms" so thats how they market it. But it's like looking up at the stars, except you're in a cave miles below the surface. It was definitely a cool experience and I'd love to go back and do the zip lining through the caves experience.

We loaded back into the bus and headed for Hobbiton, which was about an hour and half away. Now, I tried to watch the movies, but I have yet to get into them. I've only seen the first hour maybe of the first one, so I wasn't sure how much I'd like Hobbiton. If I hadn't gone on a tour I probably wouldn't have come. I'm glad I'm on a tour... We got there and had about 2 hours before our time to enter, so we went through the gift shops and got some lunch. I tried a butter chicken pie and it wasn't bad, Faith had me try her lamb pie and I actually liked it better. We also had some fruit and some sweets but I couldn't finish it (as I'm sure some of you are SOOOOO surprised by). Then we walked around for a bit before getting a group picture. Since the tour started its kind of been a joke that we always put Alex (group leader) right in the front laying down, so you'll notice that quite a bit.

Hobbiton was actually really really cool. I loved the movie aspect of everything and loved the fact that they spent 2 years building this entire little village (twice I might add) for only 15 minutes of actual screen time. Lewis is a HUGE fan so he was all about it and really brought the energy of the group up. He also forced me to take pictures, so you can thank him for that, because I would not have asked anyone to take my picture otherwise. It really was such a cool little place though, an absolutely beautiful as well (just like the rest of New Zealand). They really did find the perfect location for the movies, rolling green hills, bordering a forest, with cool trees and a big lagoon right in the middle. Apparently after getting the go ahead from Hollywood, the director got a helicopter and flew it all around the island until he found this farm, and the rest was history. We got a free drink at the local hobbit pub called the Green Dragon, mine was non alcoholic of course, and we spent the rest of our time there hanging out and messing around. Of also, we got to go in to a hobbit house which is a new part of the tour they only opened in December, so thats pretty cool. I've included pictures of others from my group just because you can't get the whole experience without them as well.

It was time to say goodbye to Hobbiton and get back on the bus for our 2 hour drive to Rotorua. More karaoke, and many strange conversations later, and we're now here. In my opinion this hostel is better than the last, although the beds aren't better. This hostel is attached to a rock climbing gym and a cinema, which is really cool. When we checked in we got new rooming assignments, so I'm still with Faith, but now we've got Moniek and Kate as well, which has been really fun. We were having a family dinner tonight and since I can't cook I offered to help with shopping. So about 10 of us headed to go shop for the 19 of us which was very chaotic as you can imagine, but we got it done. Then some others made dinner and we had some really great burgers.

Now lets get back to the whole killing people thing... I wasn't interested in this game, it was fun, but I didn't want to not not trust anybody. So multiple times throughout the day I held my hands out and announced to those around me that they were welcome to place any items in my hand and kill me..,no one did unfortuantly, but they all found it quite funny. I was planning on just waiting until it happened but then when I got roomed with my victim, it was just to perfect not to. Since I'm on the top bunk I asked Moniek to put my deodorant (which was my item) on the shelf below...and she did...so I killed her. She was shocked and it was hilarious, then we both laughed about it for a while. How the game works is once you kill someone they have to give you their item and person and you have to kill them as well. I've never really talked to the person she had so this will be fun. I don't know if I'll continue playing or not, we'll see.

Now I've got to go get ready because we leave in about 30 minutes and I'm still not dressed. We're doing a lot of hot springs, and mud baths, and stuff like that today, so it will be very interesting. I'll update everyone at the latest tomorrow but hopefully tonight. Much Love!