Oh my God, I'm fine.

So yeah, there was an earthquake last night in New Zealand. It happened late last night, about 6 hours north of where I am, in a town called Gisborne. The actual epicentre was about 50 km offshore, and I guess it lasted quite awhile and they are still feeling aftershocks. From what I hear on the news lots of buildings were damaged, but nobody was seriously injured, the hospital is intact, lots of power is out, but everyone is really fine. I guess there are some old buildings that have collapsed, that sucks especially at Christmas time but the important thing is, everyone is okay!

I actually (is this sick?) want to feel an earthquake. I went into this funny little house in the Te Papa museum a few weeks ago that was an earthquake simulator, it was scary but kind of lame all at the same time, because the house basically just shakes back and forth. I'm not saying I want to experience anything crazy, just enough so that I know what the general gist of the feeling is. I didn't realize when I came here that New Zealand essentially sits on a fault-line. Wellington's railway and main highway are actually RIGHT on the faultline, so, "whoosh" into the ocean if anything big ever did happen, whee!

"New Zealand scientists record around 14,000 earthquakes a year, of which around 20 are greater than 5.0 on the Richter scale." So I guess maybe I'll feel one soon enough... it's only a matter of time. Anyway, thanks for the concerned e-mails that I've received, but I didn't feel a thing! :)