White Water Rafting!

Hey guys!
It was my friend's 21st birthday this week, and her boyfriend came over for a week! For her birthday, we went out to dinner and then to this ice bar. Its called the Minus 5 bar. It was -5 degrees celcius in the whole bar, and everything was made of ice- from the chairs to the walls to the bar to the cups that out drinks were in! They gave us boots, gloves, and a giant coat to wear while we were inside, and we were only allowed in for a hlaf hour. It was so cold though, so we probably only ended up in there for about 20 mins. it was a really cool idea though.

Yesterday, it was her boyfriends last day in NZ, so she wanted to do something fun with him, so we all went white water rafting. We went in Rotorua, which is about 3 hours from Auckland.. rented a car and left here around 8am. I was excited to go bc even though I had done it before, we go over a HUGE waterfall here! I think it was something like 4 of 5 meters high.. its the biggest waterfall in the world that you are allowed to raft over! So, it was me, my 4 other friends, and Kyle, my friend's boyfriend, and then 2 guides, one in the front and one in the back. They instructed us on how to 'get in' everytime a waterfall was coming up(there was another one besides the big one) and we had to get inbetween the seats where your feet normally are and hold on to the ropes on the sides and on the floor of the boat. They told us if the boat did flip over to hold on to the rope as tight as you could, and to try to get under the boat, inbetween the seats- where we had been sitting- because that wouuldnt fill with water and we could hold on to the ropes and breathe until they flipped the boat back over and could get us back inside. There were 2 other boats besides ours going at the same time, one of them being 5 othergirls from Loyola. The other 2 boats went down the waterfall first, and then they wait at the bottom to see the other rafts go down. Our guide picked a silver fern off one of the bushes and made Kyle throw it into the water.. it i landed right side up(green) that meant our boat was going to do the same. If the silver side was up, that meant that we were going to flip over going down the waterfall. It landed right side up so we were all excited to go down.

We start paddling and the guide said get down so we all sat down in between the seats and held on.. the boat was supossed to go completely underwater for about 2 meters, and then pop right back up. I didnt even know we were going over before all i could see was white! Our boat flipped over! It was so scary! All I remember doing was holding on to the ropes as hard as i could and hoping that I could find the air pockets in between the seats. Luckily, I did, but i was the only one in the area that i was in, so I got scared that noone else was around. I heard the guy say to let go because he was flipping the boat over, and as soon as he did I saw everyone else, and everyone was okay. He picked me up and helped me get in the boat first, and then one by one got everyone else in! It sure was nothing like any other white water rafting experinece I had! After that nothing major happened, it was pretty short of a ride actually. But, definately worth the money. They had someone taking pictures, and we bought the CD of pictures to share. I will put them up here once I get it, because the pictures are SO funny!

After that, we did this thing called the 'swoop' it is the same thing i did in 6 flags with my friends, but it was a lot of fun.. like a giant swing but youre laying down and you end up free falling for a few seconds first. That was cool too because my one friend emily was so scared she was screaming the whole time!

Not too much else is going on, only a little over a month until I'm home! Ill write again soon. love you