Taking it to Taupo

Before you ask "What's 'it'?", I dunno. I just needed a title. 'It' could be lots of things. 'It' could be myself. 'It' could be my cameras. 'It' could be my backpack. 'It' could be both my sense of adventure and my laziness as I plan to have a very relaxing weekend. 'It' could be just about anything (including the book Sarah let me borrow for the long bus rude. Shout out & thanks to Sarah!).
So yeah, I'm in Taupo. And I still have to write my blogs about Waiheke, Hobbiton, and Waitomo, but I'm currently sitting on this little patio thing at the hotel (the pool and hot tub were both freezing), looking at the most gorgeous view (and no, it's not a mirror), so those other posts can wait. And yes, it might only be 2 in the afternoon, but I'm not doing anything else today except maybe go to the lake and drink more tea, so really my day is done enough to write my post.
This morning I got up (several times before I had to then eventually) at 6:30 to catch my bus to Taupo. I was on the bus from 7:15 (a bit earlier actually, 7:10ish) to 12:30. Thankfully, the bus had wifi and my iPod was working. I took up the entire back row the whole time so I could lay down. (Hey if they wanted they back row they should've gotten there earlier.) This one family tried to sit there but then I tweeted a not very nice tweet and they must've read my mind because then they moved. Yeah, nobody said I was a nice person (except maybe Ted but that's because he's super nice). So anyways, I spent the first couple hours reading the book Sarah lent me

(Reese Witherspoon recommended the author to the whole internet, so that was really all the confirmation I needed. Also idk if that word should be affirmation because idk what affirmation means. But you get my point. What Reese says goes). It's not a sad book (tbh I'm not really sure what the plot is yet because apparently I'm a much slower reader than I used to be), yet I found myself holding back tears like four times. The first time, she was describing the steam releases in the roads in New York. I miss America so much that that description almost had me ballin'. Only in New Zealand could a book about Australia have me missing America. The other times she was talking about Janie, a daughter that died, and yeah, Pal, that doesn't really need explaining. It's a sad life nowadays. A year and a half ago (when he was totally healthy) everything was fine. Crazy how fast life can change.
Aw man. I finished my tea. Might have to go in soon to get more. Plus it's getting cold.
So anyways, after I heard enough about the mom grieving the dead girl, I switched over to my iPod. I started with Madonna, a solid choice. So like Vogue comes on and I'm like "I've heard this before" and I mean, obviously I've heard Vogue before, but I mean in a different song. Then it hits me - "Gaga". So I switch over to Lady GaGa and then turn on Born This Way to see if I'm right and I'm totally right. Born This Way is a faster (I'd guess 3-5x) Vogue melody. Obviously the words are different but the beat is definitely the same. At first I think that I was more upset that it's taken me 5 years to notice than I was about the actual music, but now I've realized I didn't notice because, although definitely different from her other songs at the time, Gaga has a certain style (like where she talks in parts in all her songs) that just made it seem Gaga-y (although when Born This Way came out I remember thinking it didn't seem too Gaga-y...oh well) so I just went with it. But yeah.
So then we took a half hour stop in Tokoroa but we couldn't bring hot food or drink back on the bus. So I found all the fried chicken in New Zealand; it's in Tokoroa! I was sad I couldn't get some because I wouldn't finish it in time and I had no way of sneaking it back on the bus.
Tokoroa isn't that far from Taupo, so I just listened to some Green Day (love them) and enjoyed the scenery (fun fact: I'm currently listening to Green Day as I'm typing out this post that I've already wrote [and yeah it should be written but wrote and post kinda rhyme in my mind]) until we were in Taupo. In Auckland, leaves fall but they never change color until they hit the ground. It's the strangest thing. The tree will be super green with dead leaves around it. But from Tokoroa to Taupo, the leaves were orange, yellow, green, red. A lot of them were still green but the colored ones were beautiful and reminded me why autumn (fall in America because leaf fall down) is a top contender for my favorite
season. I thought it was strange that the leaves are colorful now when at home it's almost summer, meaning here it should be almost winter, but then I remembered most of the North Island doesn't have winter, so it would make sense that their fall would be a bit later.
Okay I have to go in now; I'm too cold.
Okay I'm back inside now but I'll definitely have to go out again later to take pictures because it's seriously so beautiful. But I'll get there. (Future foreshadow: It rained every morning so I couldn't get a decent picture.)
Okay, wait, before I get back to the sequence of events, I just got more tea. The water is literally boiling, yet when I got outside it cooled so fast it was like legit cold. So that's how cold it is out. Okay back to the story.

Once I got to Taupo, I grabbed a map from iSite and started just wandering. I needed to grab food. I wanted fried chicken (shocker). I feel like I was actually wandering for quite a while. This one place said 'Fried Chicken' and I was like YES! But they only had breasts and I like legs and thighs. So I kept walking. Eventually I found this place called Prime Roast. Like that literally screams Tasha. So I go in and it looks amazing. And they have friend chicken thighs! But the food looked so good I got a pork platter instead.
When I was so full that I couldn't eat anymore, I walked more. I stumbled upon a taxi company so I took a taxi to my hotel but it was actually pretty close. I could've walked. Oh well.
So this room is super cool because it makes me feel like I'm in a log cabin which is cool because I've always wanted to stay at one of those resorts.
So then I took a look at the map and reconfigured my plan. I was going to go to the honey hive today but it's close to where I was going tomorrow, so I'm just gonna go first thing tomorrow. It's a bit far from here.
Then I attempted to face time my mother but it didn't work. I tried the pool and it was freezing. The hot tub wasn't much warmer. So I made some tea and went to the deck thing that overlooks the lack (and the mountains and the houses). It's so lovely it makes me wonder how I could miss the States.
I wrote out some postcards and started on this blog then I got cold and came in where I'm still writing and jamming to my Avril Lavigne pandora (love her). So yeah. That's where I'm at. I'll probably go to the hotel's restaurant for dinner, perhaps catch up on another blog post, perhaps not, shower, and bed. I'm exhausted.

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha