Nov 25 - Luge and Movie

Began the day with a sleep-in session and wasn't even woken by everyone in the room packing up and checking out, so the day was looking up from the start. Then came breakfast of champions, AKA 6 hard boiled eggs, some dry wheat toast and orange juice (with extra pulp...bleh, didn't read the label closely enough when I bought it) while Brennan went the fried egg route. The eggs were good, but they did remind me exactly of the smell of Rotorua, so I gagged at first, but then got over the smell and enjoyed breakfast. We ran into Sarah, who was up earlier than us sorting out her money issues still and chatted awhile until Brennan and I ventured out to hit up the luge. Walked over to a travel shop and got our tickets then continued to the gondola at the base of one of the mountains next to town. We got a very slow gondola ride up to a restaurant area then walked over to the starting area for luge. Here we were provided with skateboard helmets and then took a chairlift up to a higher point on the mountain. As we hopped on the chairlift, we left the bar up, like we would on any ski hill, but before we got 10 feet, literally every staff member and other customer were pointing and screaming at us "YOU'RE BAR IS UP STILL!!!!! PUT YOUR BAR DOWN!!!!" Holy, chill people...we put the bar down so no one would have a heart attack. If we are capable of going up to the top of Lake Louise over a hundred feet in the air with our safety bar up, I'm sure this little section of hill ten feet off the ground shouldn't be an issue. Alas, we made it safely up, no thanks to the safety bar and walked over to the starting area. The staff member gave us a lecture on how to run the luge (which was basically a go-cart without a motor) and that was "pull the handlebar back a bit to go or all the way back to brake." Our first run was the scenic track, meant to be easier to let you get the hang of how to control the luge and the activity turned out to be quite fun! We took the chairlift back up 5 more times (we got 6 runs with our pass) and did the advanced course those times, which had tighter corners (that they recommend going slow on but they're more fun if you go full speed) and little hill drops to make you gain more speed. It was raining during the luge runs, so the track was a little slick and it helped for skidding around corners. After the 6 runs, we took the gondola back down to the city and headed straight to Subway, for a post-luge victory lunch. Delicious.

Back to the hostel to chit chat for awhile and chill, until boredom set in and Sarah, Brennan, Enrico and myself headed out for coffee. We settled on a little cafe that was on the second floor of a building and looked out onto the surrounding hills/mountains. Coffee is always difficult in Australia and New Zealand, because you can't just get a regular coffee. Everything is like an espresso and/or has lots of foam and is really strong flavored and doesn't have cream/sugar mixed in. Anyways, I settled on a Mochaccino with caramel flavoring, that was actually quite tasty (although more of a Starbucks coffee than the large double double I know and love). We sat for over an hour chatting and sipping our coffees like really trendy individuals in New York or something. Then Enrico and Sarah went back to the hostel while me and Brennan opted to go see Due Date, as tonight was opening night for the movie in New Zealand (despite being released back home on Nov. 4). It was a pretty funny movie (had its moments anyways) and then we wandered back to the hostel. Tomorrow we leave Queenstown and head to Dunedin. Among the highlights of Dunedin are the steepest street in the world, a beer factory and a chocolate factory (both factories complete with tours!) so we'll have a busy day, as we are only there for one night.