Passing the time!

So.... after I last wrote, I spent a long sleepless night listening to an old american man snoring so loud that I thought he would bring the walls down.. his friend - also an old american man - slept through it with frequent accompanying farts of the revoltingly pungent variety.


The rest of my room-mates evacuated to the lounge of the hostel and hogged the sofas leaving me no choice but to attempt to sleep through it.. I couldn't. Even the loudest setting on my MP3 player and covering my face with a scarf drowning in body-spray didn't help. I hauled myself out of bed the following morning (yesterday) not a happy bunny and attempted to cheer myself up with a cup of tea in the biggest mug I could find and an extra dollop of porridge! I spent the rest of the morning reading my book and then walked to the bus stop around lunchtime for my bus to Taupo. The hostel in Taupo was a bit of a nightmare to find and it was chucking it down with rain so after about half an hour, I arrived at Berkenhoff Lodge looking like a drowned rat with a sopping wet backpack to match. I got into my dormitory, flopped on my bed and woke up 2 hours later! Whoops. Spent the rest of the day just wandering around the town trying to find a raincoat (I left mine in oz by accident) and had my first experience of Pak N Save.. woohoo! Bargains galore, I even treated myself to a chicken breast.... i haven't had chicken since November 2009! haha! I was sharing the dorm room with another english girl called Ellen and we got on really well and spent the evening chatting and trading maltesers for wine - perfect. Today I have just been wandering around again - there are a few things I want to do but the weather is so awful I am holding out and waiting to see if the weather is better tommorow and I can do it then. So today I walked down to the boat jetty and walked along the lakefront (not that you can really see much because it is raining so much, it is just mist!)I stopped and had a carrot soup at a cafe on the lakefront which was luurverly. I am rather partial to a nice hot mug of soup on a cold day! ;) I have just been to the Great Lakes Centre and saw a poster which caught my attention for a motivational speaker called William Pike - a NZ mountaineer who lost one of his legs at age 22 in an accident after a volcanic explosion on local Mt Ruapehu in 2007. He now has an artificial leg and last August he climbed Mount Tongariro and Mount Ruapehu.
(www.williampike.co.nz) Makes me feel pathetic for ever mentioning pain in my ankle! He is speaking at the centre tommorow night and so I bought a ticket! Now I am wandering what to do with the rest of my day... why is it that when i am not sure what to do, stuffing my face full of food always seems like an excellent option?! must resist. must resist!