Dear Interweb,

I am currently in the lovely Kiwi town of Queenstown. I am on my first “solo-mission”. I rented my own vehicle (my mantra has been “stay left, stay left!”) and didn’t arrange accommodation with teammates or friends. Through some awesome people in Canada (thanks Gabe!) I got hooked up with a place to stay at the RedBull house. My house-mates are some great snowboarders from the Czech Republic (Martin, Jan and Sarka), Slovenia (Silka) and Quebec (Sebtoots) as well as Zeb and Justin who work for RedBull.

View from the RedBull House! (Check out my sweet hoodie!)

I’ve been riding at the Remarkables, which is close to Queenstown, with some Czech riders. It has been a new experience being the only skier in a crew of coolboarders. I’ve really enjoyed watching their riding and listening to their opinions and amusing banter.

From the Remarkables parking lot: I really like the clouds in this photo. The cloud cover was really low so Queenstown was overcast but the mountain was sunny. Awesome for shredding!

The view from the road down from the Remarkables (Martin, Matie, Myself and Justin)

It was originally my plan to ride Cardrona, which is a mountain between Queenstown and Wanaka, but the Burton New Zealand Open for snowboarding was this week so the park has been closed. Congrats to my new friend Sebtoots for winning the slopestyle event today!

So stoked to be skiing again!!

Sincerely,

RozG

Post-Script: When I first arrived at the house, two girls who work for the promotional sector of RedBull (they drive around in a decaled Mini Cooper and give out RedBull) taught me how to make a classic Kiwi breakfast called Weet-Bix, which are these logs of oatmeal-like whole wheat that you microwave with brown sugar and milk (or in my case, soy milk). I am totally addicted and think I’ll bring back a box to eat while studying on rainy Squamish days.

Post-post-Script: Even though I’ve really enjoyed the Czech snowboarders, I was really happy that my favourite Aussie, Anna Segal, had a sleep over. Check out her blog: http://www.annasegal.blogspot.com/