So I ended up staying in Queenstown for a little bit over a week before heading up to Wanaka. I've been here since Monday. This area of New Zealand reminds me a lot of Juneau, actually--it's all on the water (lakes though), and surrounded by mountains (but sorta small ones). This is Wanaka:

It's actually probably one of the most beautiful areas of New Zealand, I think. But sadly I've barely been able to enjoy any of it because I've been sick for the last 10 days. I came down with a cough and a cold while I was in Queenstown, and I figured it was because I was just out partying too much. So I took it easy for a few days and still didn't feel any better. I had one late night and then headed to Wanaka and I've hardly done anything since I've been here, and I still feel like rubbish. It's not that bad, just a bit of a cough, my throat is sore and a little swollen, and I'm really tired and lethargic. But it's bad enough to make me not want to go snowboarding or hiking or anything like that, which is pretty much the entire point of this area of New Zealand. The people I'm staying with are all into backcountry snowboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing, running, etc, and I feel super lame because I'm not doing anything but sitting around at home reading and sleeping. I was supposed to go up snowboarding today and ended up not going because I couldn't sleep hardly the night before because I'd been coughing.

So I finally went to the doctor today because it's been almost 2 weeks and I'm usually never sick for this long. It took about 10 minutes and $85 for him to tell me that I'm pretty much fine, it's just an upper respiratory virus and to just drink lots of water and rest. Ughh. I wanted him to give me something that would make me feel better! I guess I'm basically just going to have to suck it up and do all the shit I want to do even if I feel kind of bad, because there's no way I'm going to let something like this ruin my time here in NZ. I only have a month left! So I'm going snowboarding tomorrow come hell or high water, and on Sunday I'm going to Te Anau and I'm going to hike as much as I can of the Kepler Track before it gets too snowy and crappy.

In other news, in the past 2 weeks I have met a ton of people from the States, which is weird. I think I can count on one hand all the people I met from the US the first 4 months I was here, but since I've been in the South Island I've met at least 5, maybe more. And even WEIRDER, is that 3 of those people know people I went to high school with. Seriously, how fucking weird is that. When I was at the Franz Josef Glacier, I met a really awesome couple in the hot tub from Oregon who knew 2 people who were a few years older than me (Callahan Dillon and Eric Tollefson, who I know by name but couldn't pick them out of a line up). Then just last night I met someone from SEATTLE (!!!) who went to Whitman and was in the same fraternity as Stefan Ashe, who I've known since I was like 5, and James Voelckers, who I went to high school with. Pretty crazy, eh??