Day Five January 16, 2008 Wednesday

Today I had to wake up at about 6:15 to fix breakfast. It was my group’s day to cook, and it was a really long day! We spent about four straight hours in the kitchen cooking breakfast, putting together sack lunches for everyone, and marinating the chicken for tonight. Finally at around 10:30 the group split into two, one went to town and the agrodome, the other went to the beach. I chose to go to the beach, although I think I am regretting that decision now. Not only did the other group seem to do some really cool things, like zorbing, but also, despite the copious amounts of sunscreen I lathered on, I am completely fried. The beach was beautiful and the waves were huge, the biggest I have seen in my life. We buried one of the girls in sand and went boogie bording. Finally I had to come home a little early to get dinner ready. However, I got home before most everyone else, so I took a shower and washed my clothes while I was at it (yeah, I washed my clothes in the shower with one of those travel Tide packs!). After dinner we went to the Maori cultural center and watched some traditional New Zealand performances. It was really neat, we saw both poi and haka dances. When we came back we had ice cream, and I discovered that somehow I managed to cut the middle of my foot really really deep. I cleaned the cut and put a bandage on it, but it is so deep that it hurts to walk. Suffice it to say that even though it is only 10:00 and everyone is still up, with my foot and sunburn I am more than ready to go to bed. We leave Roto Rua early tomorrow morning to drive to Taupo.