Today is the last day that we will spend in Dunedin. At least, if all goes according to plan. The ash from the Chilean volcano has graced the New Zealand air space with it's presence and has caused flights to be cancelled for the past 2 weeks. Luckily for me, I'm not flying out until July 3 after a week and a bit of bumming around Queenstown and Wanaka, two of my favorite places in NZ.
For the next chapter in my adventure, I'll be bussing to Queenstown tomorrow afternoon with all my Earthly possessions and checking into a hostel. For the next few days I'll be enjoying the festivities of the Winter Festival, which in the past has brought over 60,000 people to the small ski town. There will be parties, hockey games, mountain biking on ski slopes, snowboard movie premieres, bands, and comedians. My kind of festival.
My plan all along was to snowboard, but that dream is slowly and sadly fading away. A complete lack of snow has delayed the openings of all southern ski fields, one of which was supposed to open on June 5. To say that I would be crushed if I don't get to snowboard would be a bit of an understatement. Especially since I have free lift tickets to a mountain in Wanaka.
In any case, I'm renting a campervan on June 26 that has a bed, fridge, gas stove, sink, and all sorts of goodies. At least I'll have the freedom to be wherever I want when I want. If worse comes to worse, maybe I'll just blow the cash I would have spent on snowboarding on sky diving or something.
The following chapter (barring any remaining ash clouds) will be in Australia, where I will meet my good buddy Stephen Wyka and begin our epic 1,100 mile East Coast Aussie roadtrip from Brisbane to Melbourne. Should be an amazing trip.
I'll save my wise, reflective thoughts for a later post and end this on a happy note....
For the first time in 39 years, the Stanley Cup has come back to Boston!!! It's hard to describe my feelings about this, maybe because I have so many, but here goes. Ever since I could remember, I was watching the Bruins on TV and going to games with my Dad. It didn't matter that the B's weren't that great, I loved them and loved the game of hockey. My childhood dream was to one day play for the Bruins. And now to see them lift the Cup is just a dream come true. I won't hesitate to admit that I did cry when the won. Yes, I cried at 3 pm on a Thursday afternoon in a New Zealand bar and didn't care who saw me. My only wish was that I could have watched that game with my Dad.
And I'll end this post with a picture I found of a bar tab run up by the Bruins in Foxwoods casino after the victory parade in Boston...
now THAT'S a party!
