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Sam and Stu's Kiwi Travels
We had all sorts of bits and pieces planned for today so we decided to hire a car to get them all done. We picked the hire car up at 8, loaded all our ski gear and headed up to Coronet Peak for my FIRST EVER SKI LESSON!!!! I was really quite excited (and a bit nervous!) about my lesson - although i've done a bit of skiing before i've never really been taught to parallel turn properly and I really wanted someone to tell me what I should be doing, so hopefully I would be a bit more confident going down the steeper slopes.
I met Jim, my American instructor, at 9:15 for a 3 hour private lesson. He was very friendly and chatty and put me instantly at ease. He told me he teaches at Aspen for half a year and then spends the other half teaching in Queenstown so he seemed to know what he was talking about!! We spent the first hour going down one of the easier slopes just trying to get the technique right (I was balancing more on one foot than the other, skiis were a bit too close together, etc, etc). Then we moved onto the shorter blue runs for the second hour, putting the techniques into practise on a steeper slope. We spent the last hour on the big chair lift, doing the longer, more challenging blue runs, and getting my confidence up a bit more. I really enjoyed my lesson and felt that I had learnt a lot by the end of the three hours.
I met Stu back at the meeting point at 12:30 and we headed up the big chair lift so I could showcase my new and improved skills!!! Okay, they're still not perfect but I'm definately getting better!!
We headed back down to Queenstown around 2 as we had a couple of erands to run. An old friend of mine, Harry, had been in Queenstown earlier this year and had left a pair of skis at her old house. She had given me the address and said we could use them for the season if we could find them. So we headed off along Frankton Road to see what we could find! We found Harry's old house pretty easily and headed up the stairs. When we knocked on the door an old lady answered, we asked if we could speak to Harry's old housemate (and found out that they actually lived in the house behind hers!) but she told us he didn't live there anymore. We asked if she knew if there were a pair of old skiis hanging around and she offered to take us up to the basement behind her house to have a look. We couldn't find a light-switch in the basement and it looked pretty dark and uninviting so i sent Stu in to explore!! Right at the very back of the basement against the back wall Stu found Harry's old skis - yey!! So we've borrowed them for the season!! I really am collecting skis now and have a record three pairs!! Although I am trying to sell my old 180's!!!
We thanked the old lady for her help and headed back to the car feeling very happy with ourselves (Thanks Harry - you're a star!!). Next stop was a house in Frankton where we were hoping to collect a second hand TV. We'd seen an advert in one of the internet cafes for a nearly new 29" tv and had made an appointment to see it today. Again, the house was pretty easy to find and was only about 5 minutes from Harry's old house. The tv was just what we were looking for (ok, maybe 29" was a bit extravagant but we got it for a really good price!!) so that was that. Only problem was the lady we were buying the tv off had a ten year old son who was watching King Kong on the tv and they didn't have a spare! She said they were moving house next week and that the new house came with a tv so they didn't need this one anymore. We asked if it would be better if we came back to pick up the tv later on, but she said she would prefer to get it out the way now and that one of her friends was bringing round another tv later on for them to borrow until the move. So, she sent her son out to get some groceries, turned the tv off, and started unplugging everything. We stood there a bit dumbstruck, not really knowing what to do! She held the door as we carried the tv out and we felt just aweful, we had robbed a little boy of his tv while he went shopping for his mum!!! :0( I really hope she wasn't fibbing and they really did have another tv coming later that night!!
We decided that while we had the car we might as well pop along to the Remarkables Shopping Centre to have a quick look. We had wandered around the shops (picking up a bargain or two!!) and did a food shop before heading back to our little flat. We set up our new tv and plugged it into the aerial, which unfortunately was a bit old and didn't work too well, so Stu headed out to rent a Friends Box Set while I cooked some dinner.
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