oleg has made the brave decision of leaving me alone for an entire day, and booked himself a rock climbing trip for this day. this left me in an enviable position of being able to sleep in until after 12 (or whenever i wanted, really) for the first time on this entire “vacation”. (i’m not sure who could call such a torture as having to be moved out of any bed you’re at with all your stuff AND having eaten breakfast by 10 am a vacation, but, hey, i’m not the one defining english words here). of course this meant that the bed on which i slept was complete JUNK – sagging mattress that squeaked the entire night each time i dared to move a limb. thus meant that each time i turned i actually fully woke up, and the short bursts of sleep that i did get, were of terrible quality. (for the record i’m pretty sure that i turn about 10 times per night. just counting from amount of waking up that i have done.)
upon waking up for real at 11:15, i decided not to let the terrible bed of deterring me from the goal of sleeping in, and continued the fight for slumber on the luxury (haha, hostel and luxury rarely go together – the exception being the hostel near wellington, the 96% rated one) double spring mattress that oleg slept on. around 12:30 i decided that this counts as having slept in :) and got up for a slow breakfast of reading and cereal.
around 1:30 i decided to go and enjoy the local beach, which was all of 5 minutes walking away. beautiful! while the beach was not pearly white sand, but mere gravel, the blue skies, shining sun, mountains around the lake, and the flurry of extreme sport activity that kept happening around and on it definitely made for an enjoyable ~3-4 hours of laying down and listening to music. and doing nothing else. at all. aaaah!
the extreme sports however made for a pleasurable watching. some kids (probably 20 years old, those youngsters) were hanging out a bit beside me, and brought with them two kayaks (and an adorable beagle puppy). of course after a few beers, a girl and a guy decided to swim out into the lake on a kayak made for 1 (the girl just sat at the back), which ended with a beautiful overturn. one of their friends went to “rescue” them by taking the puppy, and swimming a bit out, and tossing the puppy overboard (it was actually more funny than cruel, although i would not have done that to my dog) – it of course swam (far better than the girl, in my opinion).
anyway, extreme sports (outside of puppy tossing). apparently about 40 meters from where i decided to lay, a paragliding launchpad was located. i’m not sure if its called paragliding, but the premise is as follows – the guide and you sit under this huge chute which is connected by a rope to a boat that speeds away quickly. at some point (which i couldn’t see due to the trees) you take off the land, and start rising into the air as the boat pulls you behind it kite-style. there’s a balance between the pulling and raising as the chute goes *really* high up, and after seperating from the boat (couldn’t see how, too high and far away) floats back to the ground regular parachute style. each time someone would launch it would be preceeded by a loud noise from the boat and a flurry of seagulls flying away from the area, and followed by everyone staring at another lucky soul.
the evening was spent examining my burnt back, legs, and tummy, and whining about a killer headache (until i took 2 advil). to top this off, i tried this terrible sauce on the chicken that i ended up not being able to eat entirely (oleg had no objections to it, and finished his plate), so i wasn’t even rewarded with a pleasant dinner.
thus a day that should have been nicer, ended up being not that awesome after all. however, it was relaxing. and hopefully after this burn goes away i’ll have some tan left over. (yeah i know it won’t happen, just let me dream :) )
ah noob, didnt do paragliding? and whats this laying around in the sun, what are you, fatty? yeah i didnt think so.
w00t! good update, even though you got burned. your headache was probably from lying in the sun not drinking enough water, and getting dehydrated :P
yes, the cause to all your problems is not enough water! if i learnt anything from kev, it’s that :P
and the puppy tossing should be made into a sport. then we will work on promoting it to olympic competition. haha