In Hiding

Tuesday 23rd March 2010, 3.20pm, Starbucks - Queenstown

I'm hiding. Staying undercover, keeping a low profile, in yes, you guessed it... Starbucks. But it's safe here! There are lots of people reading and keeping themselves to themselves, no one can find me here (unless of course they've read my blog, in which case they would know precisely where to look). So what am I taking caffeine supported pains to avoid today? Let me explain.

We got to Queenstown yesterday morning and I absolutely love it here. Of all the places I've visited in New Zealand this is the one destination which I could easily see myself returning to stay for a few months. It has all the dramatic scenery of the rest of the South Island , lakes, mountains, hills, forests, vineyards; but it's also a proper town! There are high streets and shopping malls, restaurants and nightlife - it's a clean and efficient city backed closely by rural splendour - what more could you want?

The thing that Queenstown is famous for, is it's adventure sports. This is the home of the first commercial bungy jump in the world. For the right price you can throw yourself down a 135 metre canyon with only a piece of elastic between you and instant death. You can ride the world's highest swing, complete with a 60 metre freefall over the side of a mountain. You can jump out of planes, chuck yourself head first off of bridges into icy water, slide at incomprehensible speeds down tunnel luges, ride cross-country on dirt bikes, nearly drown yourself in a rubber boat along white water rapids, trek to mountain summits, ride bicycles attached to bungy ropes over the side of massive precipices. We've landed in adrenalin junkie territory, and everyone is getting involved.

Hence, my hideout. I'm not soft, but there are some things I draw the line at! You can't walk down a street here without some long-haired, large-pupilled crazy man jumping out at you from behind a billboard, waving his arms frantically around his head and yelling in your face, 'Bungy man! Bungy is fucking awesome! Wooooh yeah, you have to bungy, yeaaaaahhhh!'. I've worked with drug addicts who have similar mannerisms. That's really wonderful sweetheart, I'm very pleased that you've obviously had a lovely day throwing yourself from great heights and addling together the few brain cells you have intact, but please do not tell me what I have to do, otherwise I will go to Starbucks to hide from you and your fellow fruitloops.

Maybe I've been getting on people's nerves. Maybe my sense of humour is too dry, my eyes too often rolled, my tolerance too often tested, my comebacks too quickly cutting. Maybe this is why everyone keeps telling me I am less of a human being if I don't join the adrenalin crew, it's obvious - they want me dead. OK, I'm getting paranoid, the peer pressure has got to me. I really admire people who can do these things, it takes an enormous amount of bravery or stupidity (stop it Grace) to participate in these activities. Ella herself is doing the Canyon Swing as I write this, and I'm immensely proud of her courage and lust for life, and looking forward to helping her celebrate her achievement tonight, when, judging by all the other adrenalin junkies I have witnessed, she will be running around like a rabbit in season, screaming excitedly at everything I say and talking too fast for me to understand her - I think the freefall screws with their heart rate and their perception of normal conversation speed.

There is another reason I'm hiding, and again, it's Queenstown's fault, stupid Queenstown. The bus load of us have been hanging around together for a week now, and I've placed my initial prejudices about their diminutive ages and bourgeoise, fascist schooling aside to become quite fond of the lot of them. Queenstown is a party town, and if you catch me in the right mood, I am a very willing and able party goer, a party starter some might say - if I've been given enough tequila. Last night we all headed out to celebrate our arrival in a place with more than one pub; and then it got messy. There is a bar here, World Bar, which serves some seriously potent cocktails, by the teapot. Now it's truth time... after swigging down half a bottle of fizzy wine (that was definitely not champagne) in the room, and a couple of rum and cokes in the first bar, Party Grace then apparently thought it was a great idea to drink 3 teapots worth of alcohol.

I was already in a jubilant mood because one of my roommates owns hair straighteners. I blow dried and straightened my hair for the first time in 4 months, and to be honest, I felt like a princess. Cindy Crawford didn't have shit on me last night. My new found self confidence coupled with vodka based intoxication sent me spiralling into some kind of Viking-esque raping and pillaging scenario that meant when I wasn't taking to the stage to showcase my hip hop dance moves, I was hugging, kissing and embracing everyone I came into contact with. There are some very smiley 18 year olds wandering around my hostel today.

I do not know what time it was that I crawled drunkenly into bed, and I do not know from whence I crawled, although I suspect that I continued the party when we had all returned home by making a show of myself in other people's bedrooms. Oh dear. Perhaps I will stay here in Starbucks a while longer, perhaps this will teach me to never drink again. Perhaps it won't.