french, bench races & the goat track

this past week i picked up a ukulele! stoked! i bought it from the sweetest man at his books and musical instruments shop. i originally bought the cheapest one, $35 cause i just wanted something to jam on. but it ended up going out of tune super quick so i phoned him up and asked if i could come back and put the $35 towards a better one. he was so accommodating and he just really wants people to want to play music. so he let me choose one and gave me a sweet as deal! i chose one that originally sells for $95 and he sold it to me for only $55 total! i didn't ask for the price to be lowered or anything. he just did it, what a legend.

what a beaut!

i also made some tomato sauce from scratch because of all the lovely fresh free produce we're getting from campbell from when we do the fruit and veg boxes. first time making it from scratch, yum!

FRIDAY night i went to city youth for French Cuisine night. we all had to get dressed in our frenchie best and had a dinner of baguettes, french fries and creme brulee for dessert. there was a game with questions pertaining to frenchness and you had to answer them as a table and i knew a few just from taking french in school. it was hilarious hearing them trying to say things in french, they just cannot do the accent haha. 

baguettes

one guy made over 80 creme brulee, and they were so tasty!

our table of mademoiselles 

a bunch of us went to a flat where about 5 girls from church live to hang out after. we ended up watching Shooter, but it was lame because people kept talking and commentating through it, it was freezing and a light kept shining in my face everytime the door opened..which was a lot. haha which in hindsight all made for a funny night.  

SATURDAY i worked at gelato and when i went to leave i just happened to look at my tire, and it was flat to the ground. SUPER. i just kindof laughed to myself and called home to see what i should do, but as i was on the phone an elderly couple were walking by and had stopped in front of my car. he offered to help me out, and i said i had AA (which is just like CAA) but he insisted, he was there, so he wanted to help. they were so sweet. they weren't even from Tauranga they were just there enjoying the day off together. I discovered their names were Bev and Neil. She was a nurse and he a police officer. what a better couple then them to be walking by right when i need it. God cares about the littlest things! he put the spare on and made sure everything checked out and they sent me on my way. chivalry isn't dead! 

in the evening BBC had a youth event called bench races that i went and helped out with. it was so fun/intense! for those of you who are unaware of what a bench race is as i was when i first heard of it, i shall explain. we're all separated into teams and each team has one chair per two people. which you have to carry around with you while you are running everywhere. there are people going around in cars with flashlights and if they shine one on you and you are not standing on your chairs, you loose a life. each team gets a list of tasks that they need to do, for example: go into the grocery store, find something that begins with the letter E, costs as close to $3 as possible and buy it as close to 8:28pm. 

a photo in a bus shelter

planking photo

it was right after the planking photo when some cops showed up and asked to talk with us. i was semi-terrified..but they just gave us the "we're looking out for your safety" talk and told us to be careful. we found out later that they did it to every group and that it was planned, they were some friends of one of the youth leaders and they told them if they had nothing to do to come around and scare us a bit! it worked! and probably kept us safer too haaha. 

SUNDAY went to church in the morning at BBC and David Pierce was speaking, a guy who has seen some crazy stuff in his time and had incredible favour on his life. lives life to the extreme. reaching people through his crazy rock/death metal band. 

after church i met up with jono to go eat some "greasy duck" or more commonly known as KFC haha, and then us and two of his mates, michael and luke, climbed the mount. so beautiful up there. and then we climbed down using the "goat track". basically a path that goes straight down the mountain instead of around. since it hasn't rained for ages it was so dusty and slippery, especially since none of us had any grip on our shoes haha, but it was much more exciting going down then using the conventional way. my legs were so sore from it tho. watched some rugby after then headed to city church went back to michael because his mom cooked us a mean feed and then we headed to the girls flat again and watched hilarious youtube video's ie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itAXpbwHlvQ&list=PL4041CF224FF2490D&safety_mode=true&safe=active&persist_safety_mode=1 (family, pay special attention to the cat dance) 

we then played this game where a select few of us ended up cheating, some MUCH more than others..which turned a potentially boring game into a competitive cheating match, which was of course, quite entertaining. :)

paragliders on top of the mount