Snow day

Last week it was freezing in Queenstown!

The snow was creeping further down the mountains

I woke up in the morning to get ready for work and took a peek outside my window to check out my car and try to estimate how long it was going to take me to defrost my window.
And saw this-

My car, blending in to nature with its snow camo

Now I don't have snow chains, or 4WD and I KNEW better...I KNEW I shouldnt, nay, couldnt drive my car in these conditions. But I really didn't want to call in sick to work and I thought if I could just make it to a plowed road I'd be okay....
After slipping and sliding for a few minutes I pulled/slid to the side of the road and was ready to throw in the towel.
I looked into my rear view and watched as a minivan pirouetted into the back of my car, ass first.
Boom.
My car just has all the bad luck.
No one was hurt. But our cars were wedged together at the top of a hill so law enforcement had to be called.
The cop brought chains and got us untangled and everything was all good. Especially since the backpackers that hit me have great insurance and my car is going to be fixed without me having to pay a dime.
Coulda been way worse.
While we were going through the car drama we all took turns falling on our butts walking on the icy ground and watched cars try to come up the hill then slide back down.
I swear it was like living in a highlight reel of bloopers and pratfalls.
And the local news came, you know, to document our shame in print.

I'm on the left, we watched that green taxi do one of the best controlled slides backwards down the hill

One walking passerby even made sure to let us know what jackasses we were (so helpful).
My flatmate, Fiona sent her friend to come rescue me (to be truly helpful and offset the ridiculously cranky pedestrian who was reveling in his presumably scarce circumstance of superiority.)
Hooray for a SNOW DAY!!!!!
No work and all day to play in the snow!
I couldn't have been happier!

The lakeside statue of Rees, founder of Queenstown

I walked into town, being careful not to fall down. Grabbed a nice hot cocoa, bought Fiona some fudge from the candy shop for all her help....
I also decided, it was a great day warm up with some whiskey..
I refuse to believe I was the only one buying booze at 10am that day....

Downtown

Then onto Bumbles, to wake my unemployed friends, Dom and Eric, and make them play with me.
This took quite a bit of effort.
1. The Canadian was completely unimpressed by snow.
    Me: blasphemy! Get up and make snowmen with me!
2. We were all lacking in cold weather gear and they had a heater going full blast in their room with a beautiful view of the lake...
  Me: hmmmm. Got me there. Lets just day drink inside for a bit till we figure this out...

So we sat inside for awhile. Got toasty warm and a bit of a buzz. Finally, I dragged them out to day drink with dignity at a proper pub.

Fiona and Eric

We met up with some other people and made a day of it.
Just walking through snowy downtown and bar hopping. Dodging snowballs.

So frosty!

At our last stop we had become a good sized group and chilled out in front of a giant indoor fire and played tons of pool while we thawed out.

Outside of 1876. I'm doing my best Gene Simmons inpersonation

I love the snow. I am smitten with it. By the end of the day the snow was already thawing so I was stoked I got to enjoy a day of it.

Respectable (non day drinking) worker in downtown