Hi everybody!
I just wanna say I got all of your birthday wishes and I'm very grateful. I also wanna say that I've noticed that a lot of you have noticed that over in this part of the world, I can now legally drink. I'm glad to know that I can count on you to not let me forget the important stuff ;)
Anyhoo, seeing as I'm lazy, instead of writing a blog update from scratch, I'm gonna give you an excert from another one of my emails. This one's to Melanie, and for those of you that don't know her, she's been one of my best buds since I was born, and I'm not exaggerating, because she was born less than 24 hours before moiself. So here it is; enjoy (or else)
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Melaniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
Happy Birthday!!!!! Well, belated birthday. But still!
How does it feel to finally be legally an adult? Personally, I feel overcome with a sense of OVERWHELMING POWER and MATURITY. . . and I giggle just a bit when I can just leave the "parent or legal guardian" part of documents blank. . . OK, maybe "giggle"s not a good word. "Cackle" is more appropriate. . .
What did you do on your b-day? Me 'n' Stump (didja hear, the person you used to know as "Sydney" is now called "Stump". This is because for the longest time I wanted to name a pet "Stump" but I never got my own pets, and Stump kept on saying "You can name my next pet Stump". But each time she just found an annoyingly cuter and much more appropriate name for the unfortunate animal, and eventually I lost patience with her and said "Fine! If you won't let me call one of your pets Stump, I'll call you Stump!" And so she is Stump.). . . where was I? Oh yes! Me 'n' Stump didn't do much on my actual b-day (she was sick and everything) but the next day we went scuba diving!!!!! It was the coolest thing ever and we saw:
-cuttle fish (they look like swooshy squid and they changed colours and I got so mesmerized by them that I almost sank onto some sea urchins that have neon coloures anuses)
-baracudas. A whole school of them. They actually kinda only floated there and stared at us menacingly. They were kinda boring.
-a sea slug with its head buried in the sand and its fanciful and colourful butt hanging out and looking exceptionally like a bit of coral until the instructor dropped some sand on it and FWOOP! it disappeared into the sand and gave me such a shock that I accidentally breathed in some water
-a sea turtle in the distance (I saw three while I was there; two while I had been snorkelling before)
-around 20 sharks. They were about a meter long and they reminded me of cats.
a moray eel hanging out in this terribly dark and eerily cave-like bit of coral and looking all evil and creepy
-Nemos!!!!! They were hanging out in the coral and everything (right next to the baracuda! I was all "Don't worry! I'll protect you!" and they were like "Dad, the creepy girl with the mask is back. . ."). One bit me! XD
Oh, and Stump says that she wants you to know that she says HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!! Caps and all. She couldn't come down to say it herself because Dad just bought her a Nintendo DS and she's currently addicted to Pokemon Pearl. It's actually kind of annoying because she's all the way on the other side of the world and all she wants to do is play video games. . . of course, all I want to do is read. . . but that's different!
OK, so I'm sure that with my happy birthday email describing my shenanigan antics overseas (aka - painfully horrible predicaments that I get myself into that could so easily be avoided if I only hired somebody to think for me. . . kinda like a mom, you know?) you're thinking that your day has already gotten considerably better (if not, please don't tell me so, because me ego is more fragile than peace in the Middle East) but it's gonna get BETTER!
Because guess what?
On Saturday (this Saturday) I'M GOING TO NEW ZEALAND!!!!!
Don't ask me how I decided to do this. You know that I'm a terribly capricious person and I change my mind about 60 times a minute. Let's just say my dad was saying that Australia would be too hot for bicycle touring; since you guys talked about New Zealand so much when we were younger I've always really wanted to go; the idea of bicycle touring across an entire country instead of just a portion of it in Australia seems romantic to moi; and New Zealand's obviously so much cooler than Australia and I'd have to be mad to go to that region of the world and not visit.
So yeah, I changed my mind approximately two days ago and I got the tickets approximately yesterday. I'm flying in to Christchurch this Saturday and I'm going to get my bike all put together (you have to take it apart to take it on the airplane), gonna buy a helmet and some biking shorts, and then I'm going to catch a bus to the southest (it's a word) point of New Zealand that's pratical, then I'm gonna bike to the Northernest point practical. Then I'm going to take painting classes and run a half-marathon.
I'm gonna be there for a total of 3 months (April, May, and June). I'm guesstimating that it'll take me between a month and a month and a half for me to cycle New Zealand, and then after that I was thinking I'll stay at somebody's house (in exchange for odd jobs around the house, like tutouring their kids if they have any (I'm thinking that I'm particularly good at Math, French, and Piano), doing the shopping, mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, shearing their sheep (wouldn't that be SO COOL?!?!?!?), etc.) for the remaining 1 1/2 to 2 months.
You can see where I'm headed with this, right? I'm not saying that I want to stay at your family's place (No pressure or anything. Where do they live by the way? On the North or South island? On a farm or in the suburbs?) but it would be nice if you could ask them if they could see if anyone they know would be interested. You know, try and sell it as a "cultural exchange". You wouldn't believe what people will do in the name of a "cultural exchange". Like once, there was this Korean who I managed to convince that in Canada other people's boogers are considered a delicacy and. . . . yeah, and tell them that I'm a very mature girl who's very lovely and charming.
Anyhoo, hope to hear from ya soon,
Happy B-day, m' girl,
Namaste,
Bisous,
Lentil,
The Lovely and Charming Girl Who Was Just Kidding About the Korean, By the Way.
