Done travelling.... For a Little While

(I found a video I missed from Rotorua, so check back at the post "Last day at the Beach House"
We had to leave the bach at Taupo early because we had a long drive ahead of us. We drove until lunch time, where we stopped at a restaurant that was across the street from New Zealand's World War II museum. Unfortunately, the museum cost way to much, so we didn't get to see that, but we still had lunch at the restaurant. I was hungry, and a burger sounded really nice, so that's what I ordered. I didn't find out until my "burger" arrived that it was Thai restaurant. That may be the strangest thing I've ever tasted. The buns were cheese bagels, the sauce was a sweet'n'sour sauce, instead of tomato or onions there were carrots, and the patty was pork meat. The menu showed a picture of a nice, normal burger. It wasn't entirely bad, just.... strange. We continued driving until late afternoon, but before we arrived in Upper Hutt, we stopped at the coolest park ever. You see, the parks in New Zealand have much more fun equipment than in the States because they don't care if anybody gets hurt, they don't have to worry about getting sued. But the piece of equipment that really took the cake was the hamster wheel. Instead of explaining, I'll show you a video. I know we all look like idiots, but its still funny.

It was at this park that I busted my knee. We were jumping these fences at the park, and one time my foot that was planted for the jump slipped out from underneath me and kaBlam'd into the fence, with the full force of my run onto my knee. It hurt really bad, and it looked really gross. I couldn't walk one bit. In the rest of the car ride to my Nana's house, I felt every single bump in the road. I know its not just a bruise, because two weeks later it is still very painful and I can just walk. I was relieved to know that we wouldn't have to move for 2 weeks once we got to my Nana's house in Upper Hutt.

I've noticed that there is alot more entertaining advertising in New Zealand. We went to a shop and a guitar was hanging on the wall. There was no information about the guitar's specs - The tag read "This is an awesome guitar". A cereal box had, in the logo, "pick me - I'm better than (so and so brand)". "Faith Church - A Place for Christians". When we were driving through a place that was particularly middle-of-nowhere, we came across an enormous sign that said "Pony Poo! 50 cents a bag". A discussion somehow began in the car about that, when Keiren finally requested Haylie to roll up the window. Haylie laughed, and, thinking that Keiren had been mistaken the whole time, told her "Keiren, its not actually, poo, its chocolate candy". The signs were advertising for manure. We joked that Haylie would buy a box of "chocolate candies" for here friends and have them sent over to America. :)
We didn't do much in Upper Hutt. This was our time to try and catch up in schoolwork and look after my Nana. We did get to go to a park that had a flying fox (zipline), and that was pretty fun.

I finally finished the third binding of the blade book, those are verygood books. I need book four! Several days after my knee getting busted, I was hobbling across the living room, and suddenly my knee made a loud POP and a tingle shot through my leg. But then my knee felt alot better, I could extend it to almost 160 degrees. Unfortunately my asthma has been going byzerk here at my Nana's house, I almost had to go to hospital (they don't use articles sometimes here). One day we went to the water place - a public pool with a wavepool, lazy river and kiddy slides. We went to my dad's old church on Sunday. There was a huge upheaval there recently, resulting in no leadership, so the "meeting" was pretty haphazard. The musicians were very good though - I think its safe to say that the bassist was better, maybe much better, than Sean Curran at our church back home, and it was cool to listen to. Another day, my Nana was cleaning out the garage a little bit. I was doing school when a point was pressed in my back and a gruff voice told me to put my hands up. I turned and found my Nana pointing a toy gun at my back. It was kinda cool looking, so I showed my dad. I didn't know that it wasn't a toy gun, and neither did my Nana. Apparently it was my grandpa's gun he used to shoot the rats with. My own grandma had pointed a real gun that was loaded at my back. My dad took me out and we did some target practice, which was kinda cool.
We're now packing to leave to the South Island. This marks the halfway point of our trip! Just three more weeks left...