January 9, 2006
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Today
Quite a full day today! My first time ever being on a glaysher (as we say it - here they say it glaseer), and it was a lot of fun! A rare thing, it's actually growing at a crazy-fast rate of 70 centimeters per day! We did the day trip that was probably the best deal we've had yet. Most things seem to cost about $150 - skydiving, caving, and this trip, and this time we were out for the whole day from 8a-5p for the money. Oh yeah, my budget of $40-50/day is being exceeded by a factor of three pretty much every day. We're hungry boys who drive a lot of miles!
I'm really thankful for this opportunity to be here! It's wonderful and relaxing and strenuous and educational all at the same time. It's a daily concious effort to not take the scenery for granted, and it does remind me so much of the Lord of the Rings. The popularity of American music is always amusing, and my collection of MP3s on my phone keeps amusing people, largely because while New Zealand may be 16 hours ahead of the US, it's years behind in technology, so it costs 50 cents a minute to talk on your cell phone (most people text message instead) and the dinosaur phones we have are what's mainstream here. It's kind of part of the Kiwi lifestyle to be laid back and less cutting-edge, part of the appeal of the islands as a whole.
It's a cool part of the world to be when you can be on a glacier one day and the beach the day before. Here are some pics from my camera phone, everything else will be on the DVD and on the facebook later. Um, at least a lot of them, I'm burning through about 500MB of pictures and video a day. Just coming up with witty captions for 400 pictures of a glacier will be a challenge!
Cheers!
Comments (10)
Nothing to say, really, except that I'm enjoying your updates. Bri especially liked the video of Driving on the Other Side of The Road.
Ha. Like I ever check my sitemeter.
Thank you for the LOTR reference, my mother (who has been quite interested in your NZ adventures for that very reason) was thrilled to hear it. I'm going to go find a local ranger now.
P.S. NICE pictures of the glacier! Lehnert looks a little like the Prospector in that old claymation Rudolph movie.
Hey check your phone message when ya get a chance - I left ya a little something =) ... The glacier is beautiful!
Oh - and Blink is a good book... Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point is also worth checking out.
wow-that is incredible! love the pictures.
Holy Schmoly! That glacier is AMAZING! So let me be a conservation antagonist here and say "If the glacier is growing 70cm/day, then global warming isn't really a threat!" Then come back at myself and say "Dude, he said the growing glacier thing is rare. You wanna talk global warming? Check out WI in the 30's and 40's in EARLY JANUARY!" Thanks for letting me have an out-of-the-box, pushing-the-envelope, crossing-the-line argument with myself on your blog. I find it amusing that you're all busy in New Zealand and blogging more than me, who's off of work 4 days every week with no school to worry about either....
P.S. Kristen: It's Yukon Cornelius that you're thinking of.
P.P.S. Nick: Mick is my ex-boyfriend. It says right in the blog "When he broke up with me...." I know I'm from the Wisconsin boonies, but come on. We don't date our brothers.
hey Nick I'm so jealous of you! on top of a glacier! wow that's SWEET! yeaah I love that the days are "brought to you by Crawford Tree and landscape services." are you implying this is a company paid trip? because if it is.....
Those pictures are awesome!
I hope that you can save your journal-like entries as a lasting memory of this trip. The pictures are phenomenal ! We keep looking at the globe and thinking, Nick is just above the Antartic Circle and seeing incredible views of a world that we all (even world travelers, like you) see just a smidgeon of !!
Your glacier looks cooler than the one I was on...
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