I feel the earth move under my feet

I was planning on writing about the Wanaka portion of Katie and Melissa's visit tonight, but that's going to have to wait.

About three hours ago, I was over at Shannon's house with Shannon, Mark, Michelle, and Paul watching a DVD of season one of Flight of the Conchords when, all of a sudden, I felt kind of weird. Sort of dizzy. Just the slightest bit queasy. Almost drunk even. I wasn't the only one feeling that way apparently. All five of us, all at once, just looked at each other for a few seconds, bewildering, confused looks plastered on each of our faces, trying to comprehend this strange sensation. What's going on? Why does it feel almost like we're on a boat? Why are the clothes hanging from the drying rack all swaying back and forth like that? Is this? Can it be? Yep, it sure is. This is an earthquake!

That's right. I just experienced my first earthquake. It was really trippy. There wasn't anything falling from the shelves or anything like that, and we didn't go running in terror to huddle under the nearest door frames. We all just rode out the three- to four-minute rumble smiling and laughing, not quite believing what we were experiencing.

I'm finding it exceptionally hard to describe. The best I think I can do is to say that it felt like we were on a boat in particularly rough waters. But still, that doesn't really nail it. Because there's just something so completely indescribably strange about the ground, you, two seconds ago, took for granite as being immovably rock solid, moving right under your feet.

We learned from the news shortly thereafter that it was a 7.8 magnitude quake, with the epicenter being some 250 kms southwest of us and 5 km deep in the ground. It's amazing that even that far away we could feel it as strongly as we did. What's more, there were reports of tremors being felt as far away as Wellington, which is on the North Island!

I tell you, I'm glad I had four other people around when it happened. Had I been by myself somewhere when it happened I most likely would've been scared out of my mind, but for some reason, because I was amongst friends, and it was a shared experience, it turned out to be the highlight of the evening. It was certainly more memorable than your average Wednesday night, that's for sure.

Granite, get it? Granite? Rock solid? Huh? Huh? Anyone? Is this thing on? Oh sod off, I thought it was funny.

C___E
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_________R___!