Naseby

IFSA Butler may or may not be the greatest study abroad company to ever exist. On top of making getting here easy, putting on an amazing orientation and getting us some sweet diggs they have provided yet again. IFSA Butler is one of the few companies that provides some really choice (notice the use of New Zealand slang) outings during the semester.
And our first just occurred, which was AMAZING!

Gerald, my boy aka our wicked cool bus driver, and Guy (our kiwi student services coordinator) met us bright and early for an entire day of fun filled adventure. After a drive (which I mostly slept through) we came to one of the largest working gold mines in New Zealand. Which would have been really cool if it wasn't 830 in the morning and I had just been awoken from my nap. But regardless, it was still really cool to watch some people move dirt around. Yeah.

THEN we went to an abandoned mine, which was way cooler. It was from the old mining days (back when the rush first began in the 19th century) and Gerald, who knows everything about everything, explained how miners used to drag huge rocks up this hill using only horses then break them up and then wait for the rain to come so they could pan it. Talk about dedication. We also got to walk into an abandoned mine which definitely just reiterated the fact that I will never ever work as a minor. WAY too claustrophobic.

Then we drove up the coast heading to Naseby, stopping to get some bomb pumpkin soup for lunch. THEN WE WENT TO NASEBY!

Why so excited you ask? Well let me tell you, because we went curling and ice luging. Now some may not appreciate the greatness of curling as a sport but it is probably the most underrated sport I have ever encountered. I was weirdly obsessed with it during the last Olympics and this was a small dream come true. I did not dominate, but I did learn that it is a game of intense strategy, concentration and trash talking.

Then we went Ice Luging, that's right the sport that killed someone in the last Olympics I participated in. Sort of. I mean Olympic luggers (sp?) reach fast speeds that can whip you out of the little car thing. I went down the track steering myself into walls every five seconds and wearing a helmet that had apparently belonged to a small child named Jake. But it was still a ton of fun being yelled at by an eastern European man, it's part of the real experience and all.

Then after a drive through some beautiful scenery that has never made me realize more that I am actually in Middle Earth we returned to Dunedin and some awesome pizza. Sweet as.