redemption

alright people - i gotta redeem myself. These posts of mine have been lazy and horrible. I admitted it and that's the first step to fixing the problem, right? Ever since Byron I haven't taken the time to write a proper blog because I'm a cheap-skate... but no more! This will be a solid blog (in terms of length and information). It may not make you laugh, it may not make you cry, but by golly it will make you think "wow, this is much longer than any other blogs of Jesse's I've read recently" and hopefully that is a thought you are excited and prepared to have. Because I'm about to bring it on you.

Alright this is going to be a quite dis-jointed entry and I'm going to just bring things up as they come to my brain... so be prepared for anything and anything.

First off - Erin and I are homeless people. Now before anyone (I'm looking at you --> Mom and Dad) gets too worried about us, it is by choice. It's not homeless in the true sense of the world, ok, maybe technically it is, well just read on. We rented a station wagon from this awesome dude, Phil. He's a mechanic and buys these old cars and fixes them up and then rents them out to people at dirt cheap prices. Works well for him and just as well for us. So right now we are paying about $20 a day (NZ) for our means of transportation and a place to sleep at night. The back seats fold down and he threw in a nice mattress for free for us. It's actually decently big in the back and we sleep quite comfortably (after we figured out the best configuration). We're saving a fortune on hostels, which run about $22-25 a night depending on how nice the place is. The downside to living in a car is that we have no place to shower, etc. No problem for me... I hate showering anyway. I hopped in the lake the other day just to freshen up (it was a balmy 50 degrees or so). Erin payed $5 to shower and we washed her hair in the sink another time (you trained me well, mom) so she's not too miserable. It's been a fun experience and I'll be sad to see the station wagon go when taylor arrives... but then we'll have a big campervan for the three of us so that'll be something new and hopefully just as fun.

Queenstown is awesome. We have done some sweet one day hikes (just 2-4 hours return trip). The one we did yesterday was instead of paying $$ to go up a gondola. At the top is one of the sites of bungee jumping so we watched a couple people do that. It wasn't that impressive and it made us realize we were going to do the big one (134 meters) or none of them. Also up there was a sweet 3-wheeled plastic cart luge track. Maybe it sounds cool or sounds boring and it looked pretty corny but also very sweet. We'd heard good things about it so we decided to try it out. It was a-w-e-s-o-m-e. So much fun. You got going so fast and since you're on this tiny little cart it feels like you are going so much faster than you are. Plus you get to ride up this little chairlift and wear sweet helmets and stuff. Loads of fun. Also you get to crash into people and watch people smashing themselves on the way down (mostly younger dudes that thought they were cool and tried to race at full speed and rolled the carts). Also beautiful pictures and great exercise. Every hike around here is an arduous task because everything is so uphill. There are mountains everywhere and every hike is more or less making your way to the summit. My calves are dominated right now.

... Mostly because we did another uphill battle of a hike today. This one was more out in the open (as opposed to through woods) so it was quite nice. It got darker and cold by the time we got to the top and although it looked like it was setting up for a ridiculously nice sunset, we had to head back down. We were cold! Come on guys, give us a break. We're doing it all for you. Don't worry, we're going to wear more clothes (i.e. not just shorts and a t-shirt) and go with taylor tomorrow night. Then we'll get unreal pics of sunsets and mountains and lakes and everything else gorgeous.

I don't even know how to describe this place. Just watch lord of the rings and watch the background and that's where we are all the time. I can't wait to show you guys pictures, it is absolutely insane here. I wish Timmy (one of our newest dedicated blog followers) was here to take pics because he is a mean machine with a camera.

We saw sheep today. Lots of fun. Sheepies are everywhere. Everywhere in this country. They outnumber people something like 250 to 1. Not really, but I think it is 4 to 1. Somebody look that up and get back to me. Or just make it up, I'll probably believe you. One of the most popular souvenirs you see here is a little sign thing that says "men at work" and its a roadsign image (you know... the yellow background with the black stick-figurey people on it) with a man... ummm... sodomizing a sheep. It that too inappropriate for this blog? If any babies are reading this pretend you didn't read that last part. Anyway, you see these signs everywhere and people love them. I often see groups of people ogling them and cracking up. It makes me laugh and I will try to take a picture of it if I can.

Everyone in NZ thinks australia is so lame and visa-versa. It's so funny. Loads of t-shirts here talk to bad about aus and people on the radio are always badmouthing australia. And in australia all the people I knew said how lame all the people are in NZ. It's kind of like the US and Canada in a way, maybe. Or maybe I'm the only one that thinks canadian people are lame (Garrett, back me up on that one).

Wanaka (pronounced Wah-nuh-ka... accent on the Wah) is a sweet place Erin and I went to spend a couple days before taylor gets here. It, also, is by a lake. A beautiful lake with mountains running into it. You all think I'm making this up but just wait until you see the pictures. We did a sweet hike there, too! I know, all we do is hike. So what? We're trying to save money. Give me a break. Once taylor gets here we'll have much more exciting stories about bungee jumping and going to bars and whatnot. Hold your horses.

Puzzling World! Puzzling world was awesome. It is in Wanaka and it would probably be as close to heaven as Earth could get if I was about 8 years old again. It just had loads of illusion rooms, brain teasers, holograms, a LIFESIZE MAZE you walked through (kind of like a corn maze but made all out of wood and two stories), puzzles, everything I lived for when I was a kid. Mom, you woulda loved it! We would have probably gotten a lifetime membership and gone every other day until they banned us from coming. There was this one room that everything was at a 15 degree angle and it was the coolest room I've ever been in. They had balls that rolled uphill, water that flowed uphill, awesome stuff.

What else? What else? We went to salvation army and bought gloves and hats because it is cold here. And books. I read so much now! It's a joke. I read a full-length novel in two days. Who reads that much besides parents? I guess that's what you have to do when you don't want to spend money.

My mom is on Facebook now... so everyone out there on cyberspace beware. She most likely isn't aware of what she's doing and that's what makes her so dangerous I think. I'm just kidding mom. By the way you should friend Preston's mom on facebook, mom, because she is on there too. Then you guys can post on each other's wall and all that jazz.

Dad - I'm trying to live up to your trip in '77 where you guys payed for nothing and had a fantastic time. We're mostly accomplishing both of them for the time being.

Lindberg is on a boat... probably. I could say that at any time within the next 3 months and I'll have about an 80% chance of being correct, so that's pretty neato. I can't wait to get up there and give him a little visit and have him show us around his pad.

If you haven't seen the video Erin and I made... here is the link.

We ran into this huge van with shrubbery sticking out of it. A shrubbery? A Shrubbery! And we said "what's this shrubbery doing here?". Some lady got all psyched up and told us we were gunna be famous. When she calmed down a bit we realized it was more a grass roots ad campaign done by NZ to try to get people to visit. They record you saying whatever you want about NZ and then you send it to whoever you want after they do it up nice for you. Sweet gig - and you guys got to see us all in one piece. Do I look too skinny? I feel like I may be losing some weight with all this hiking and I gotta get home to get some good old fashioned home cooked meals. Few months. Anyway I hope you all enjoyed it.

And I hope you all enjoyed this much longer installment of Jesse's Brain.

That's it and that's all from Queenstown, New Zealand - the adrenaline capital of the world.

- Jesse "feels better about life now that a semi-legit blog is out and about" Meredith

keep is real on the homefront everyone!