Sunday, October 31, 2010

Taupo take 1 & Halloween in the halls!

Sunday morning, October 31st, we got up bright and early to grab a 5-minute breakfast before hitting the road at 8:15 a.m. for Taupo, a lakeside town, 2.5 hours south. Since Sam still had studying to do, Gabe, Erika and I were joined by our friend Izzy (a German girl who lives in the neighbouring residence hall) on our mission - skydive over New Zealand's largest lake!! I must say, not a bad way to spend Halloween (since it is hardly celebrated here, definitely not by U.S.-holiday standards).

Sadly, when we arrived in Taupo, it was too windy to skydive! The company was not taking people up, so while we waited to see whether or not the weather conditions would change, we found a fabulous park with lots of fun obstacle-course-type equipment to entertain us.

Go Gabe go!Next, we decided to hike the walkway to the Huka Falls, a little under an hour each way. The forest walk was beautiful, despite the rain that picked up on our way back.

Although we hung around all day, the relentless wind didn't lessen. We got lunch around 2, waited until the final 2:30 call to Taupo Tandem Skydive was a "no-go," and went to an AMAZING gelato shop to drown our sorrows in chocolate, dairy and waffle cones before heading back north to good ol' Hamilton.

Back by 4 p.m., we hurriedly got ready for our Bryant Hall Halloween-themed dinner - aka the usual Sunday night chicken, plus some fun decorations, lollies, orange and red jello with gummy snakes and other festive-coloured deserts. As holiday-crazy Americans, Erika and I felt the need to rep. our favourite spooky day by rocking fabulous wigs from the $2 shop in town, which we had purchased earlier in the week during a fun, yet mildly stressful afternoon, during which I left my camera on the shop shelf in the midst of the wig-trying-on craziness, and had to later collect it from the police station, upon its return by a good Samaritan.

Purple spider-web woman, a ferocious Gabe-tiger and Rainbow rock-star chick - Take 1:
Take 2:
Sam as Mustached jester-man:
Notice how no one else in the dining hall is dressed up:All except our friend Tyson aka THE HULK!

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