christmas

It turns out I will be having a Kiwi Christmas after all. Ed's girlfriend, Kirstee, invited me to her parents house for a christmas bbq. I am excited to enjoy a christmas outside in shorts. It should be interesting. It works out well since me, Ed, and Kirstee are all driving to Napier together the next day.

That's right...I am leaving Wellington. It has been fun while I was here and I enjoyed being settled for a bit but now it's time to move on. So right after Christmas I am heading back up north to the east coast of NZ to a town called Napier. There I will camp, yes tent and sleeping bag camp, for 3 weeks. I am really excited about it. I am looking foward to having nothing to do, not even anything touristy. And the camp site I am going to isn't geared towards backpackers, it's more for the locals so I will be meeting more Kiwis which is always a plus. The cool thing is that there is a hostel attached so I still have access to toilets and a kitchen. So its roughing it but not really roughing it. The best part is that I will be out of the hostels for a bit. No window wars for me for awhile.

Speaking of the window wars. ..the other night I was sleeping and John, my window war enemy, came in and walked to the window to close it. I popped out of bed and asked if he wouldn't mind keeping the window open since it gets really hot in the room overnight with eight people sleeping in it with no window open. He said he guesses so but that he likes it shut since it's so loud outside. He had a valid point. The backpackers is right in downtown Wellington where all the bars are so you can hear the music all the time. It doesn't matter if he had a point though. I said back to him that there were at least two people in the room who snored (him included) so the chances of it ever being quiet in the room were impossible so we might as well have some fresh air. Obviously he couldn't argue with my flawless logic and since then he has left the window open. The kicker to the story is the very next night a new person stayed in the room and as he went to bed he closed the window. Same war just a different enemy.

The King Kong premiere was good. There wasn't that many people but it was still nice to see everything done up. They had the red carpet and they did up the embassy theater to look like a 1930s theater. Besides having the stars walk down the red carpet they also had extras dressed in 30s garb walking down to go to the movie it was nice. Here is the only pic I got though.




Ok so before I leave Wellington there some more

pics to show. This one is NZs parliament building known as the Beehive. I didn't go inside...it felt a little too educational.

Below is a pic of one of the trees that I wrote about before. This is the NZ Christmas tree in full bloom.

So that's it from me for awhile. The plan while in Napier is to try and stay as far away from computers as possible. I think I am a little too connected and although I love sharing my experiences with everyone I think it'll be better if the blogs are longer instead of me blogging so much.

I hope everyone has a good holiday season and enjoys the cold weather for me. Happy New Year!

Peace out.

Eat Christmas Outing

A couple of weeks ago my boss, Nic, handed me an invitation to the eat Xmas outing. She did't tell me or Ed what we were going to do. It was a surprise. The plan was that we were going to meet at the shop at 12:30 and do the outing and then open the shop at 5:30. So yesterday I didn't work for accomodation (which was fine with me since they keep on putting me on bathrooms) and instead I went to the outing. It turns out the outing was going sailing and it was awesome. We get on the boat and the pass out some beers and we just relax and sail on the Tasman Sea. We sailed out to the middle of harbor and out to an island. Apparently this is the island where all animals entering NZ used to be quarantined for 3 months.
We sailed around the island and then attached the boat to a buoy so we could enjoy lunch. The lunch consisted of more beer and cheese and crackers and strawberries and chocolate. Yummmy. We hung out on the boat for about an hour and a half just talking. It was really the first time that we were all just hanging out outside of work and it was fun. There's a part of Wellington called the Hutt and we were comparing it to NJ. The Hutt takes a lot of flak from Wellington kind of like how NJ takes a lot of flak from the rest of the states. It was pretty funny to talk about. Unfortunately my sunglasses were a casuality of the outing since they fell off of my head and into the water. We started sailing back around the island and heading toward the harbor again when I turned to Ed and said how I really didn't want to go to work after this. Not even ten minutes later Nic told us that we were going to keep the shop closed and go out for more drinks and dinner instead. Woo hoo!!

But before we could go out we had to get back. The ride back was interesting. It started to rain a little and the wind really picked up. It turns out that to catch the wind one side of the boat needs to be in the air. For the whole way back we were all riding on a tilt. So essentially one side of the













boat was always leaning into the water. If you tilt your head a little and look at the picture you'll see what I mean. For the pic on the right, the woman on my left is Nic my boss and Ed is the guy. The shirt I am wearing is free because it was left in a room and was brand new. It had a tag attached that explained that it wouldn't fit into their bag so they hoped that someone would take it. I always have followed directions well. No comments about the picture, I know it's a bad one of me.














The guy with the pink crown on is Norm. He is my other boss and Nic's partner. In NZ they have these things called Christmas crackers. Two people hold an end of this long tube and pull. Once they pull a the tube cracks and out comes presents. Everyone got a different colored crown and then some plastic toy. I got a thimble. Norm got crabs. The woman in the grey sunglasses is JoJo. She is from the Hutt and Norm kept on making comments about the amount of peroxide in her hair. His jokes definetly reminded me of the Jersey girl stereotypes back at home. The guy in the yellow crown who is steering is Barty. He helps out at the store when it's busy. Basically what he does is try to have all the customers buy mushroom burgers since they are the most expensive. Normally we sell five mushroom burgers in a day. When Barty worked once they sold 30. The other guy in the picture is Mark. Despite the fact that Norm was calling himself El Capitain, Mark was the only one who actually knew what to do with boat.

Once we safely docked we all met up at the pool hall and drank some more and played some pool. It was fun except for the fact that I am terrible at non-American pool. The balls are smaller and the table is bigger. It's wicked hard. After some pool we went out to eat at this place that would be considered a pizza and pasta back home. Norm and I started talking about pizza and the differences. Here they only have gourmet pizza. It is impossible to just buy a slice and it's unheard to just get a plain pizza (you will also get weird looks if you call it a pie but that happens in some parts of the US too). Norm was explaining to everyone how he was in the US once and got a slice of pizza. He said how he was amazed at how big it was and he had no idea how to eat it. I explained that what he should have done was use the paper plate,fold the pizza in half and eat it. They were all flabbergasted by this idea. Eating gourmet pizza involves knifes and forks since there are lots of toppings and since there basically is no crust. Well halfway through dinner I showed them how I would normally eat the pizza. The were amazed as to how I folded the pizza. Norm equated it to watching Asians using chop sticks, "It's an art form."

It was a pretty funny night. I got made fun of a lot for my accent but it was all in good fun. The best part of the night was the fact that Nic and Norm footed the bill. It was a totally relaxing day and it was good to just hang out with some more Kiwis.

Wednesday is the King Kong premiere. The red carpet is going right down the main street where I work and the movie is premiering across the street from my hostel. I have to work the whole day which I was kind of bummed about until I heard that Jack Black won't be at the premiere since he is doing SNL. Since he won't be here it means that he won't come into eat and fall madly in love with me at first sight and wisk me away to the premiere and after party and a quicky marriage at the library (where the justice of the peace is always in). I'll take a break from work and take some pictures of all of the other people that are going to walk the red carpet though.

I am not a morning person

The only person who might actually think I am a morning person is my mom and she thinks that because she has found the key to making me talk in the morning...coffee. When I wake up and come downstairs there is always a coffee there waiting for me. As long as I have coffee I can hold a conversation with ease. Anyone who has had to deal with me in a work capacity knows that I do not function very well without at least one cup of coffee. So I guess I should say I am not a pre cup of coffee morning person.

Anyway there is no way for me to get a cup of coffee before starting work at the hostel so I am always a little grumpy. What adds to the challenge is that I am sleeping in the same room as the other workers. One of them, Gareth, is an extremely nice Welshman. Unfortunately Gareth hasn't figured out that I am unable to form sentences let alone smile within the first few hours of getting up. Every morning when I wake up Gareth rolls over and starts talking to me. Inevitably he tells me I am not my cheery self this morning and I try with all of my will not to tell him to just shut up and leave me alone until I wake up a little more. Usually I just grunt. Poor Gareth then usually runs into me after my cup of coffee and then I am all smiles and I am able to hold a conversation with him. It must be really confusing for him. Maybe I should put a disclaimer on my bed. "Warning: Dangerous to talk to before 1pm."

Another guy in the room, John from Macedonia didn't heed this warning and we got into a fight this morning. I woke up and went to the tv room to watch the news and eat my cereal. The headline was about that person being killed at the Miami International Airport. The only info I knew at this point was that a person was killed and that he had a bag that was suspected of having a bomb in it. There was a guy on tv saying how the us marshals are instructed to shoot to kill in situations like this. Well John comes in and turns to me and asks me how it is possible that us marshals that are so expertly trained would have to kill someone. He wanted to know why they didn't just shoot him in the leg so he couldn't run away. Keep in mind this is only about fifteen minutes after I have woken up so the normally level headed me that loves having debates is not in existence yet. I turn to him and with a lot of attitude in my voice explain that the guy was suspected of having a bomb. The marshals don't care if he can't run away they care if he can't set the bomb off. John didn't like this answer and said that it doesn't make sense why such trained gunners would miss and kill someone. That's when I exploded and said that they did exactly what they needed to do, that they were instructed to shoot to kill. He said oh and that he still didn't think it was right. I felt like saying maybe you should see if you thought it would be right if that person were in Macedonia and was shouting that they had a bomb. But I didn't. Instead I just turned around and ignored him. He's allowed to have his opinions and I think I should be allowed to not have to talk about political things before my first cup of coffee.

We had a full room last night. That means that eight people were sleeping in this room. One of these people started snoring in the middle of the night. I don't mean lightly snoring either. It sounded like Gollum for Lord of the Rings was trying to escape from this guy's body with every breath. I had to actually leave the room and walk around for five minutes because if I didn't I was going to hurt the snorer. I guess you can say my patience is wearing a little thin with this whole hostel thing. It's just people seem to oblivious to the fact that seven other people are sleeping in the same room, less than five feet from each other. I know snoring is something that can't be helped but then this snorer woke up at 7am and started packing to leave. He had lots of plastic bags. So not only did he keep me awake through snoring, he then kept me awake with excessive plastic bag packing.

There's a window war going on in my room as well. With eight people in one room the room is going to smell if you don't let some air in. There is one window in the whole room. Everytime I walk into the room I open it. It's summer here but it still gets kind of cold at night. Each bed at the hostel comes with a top sheet and a comforter so it's not like with the window open you will be freezing. Well John from Macedonia apparently gets cold in the middle of the night. He closes the window every night. And every night I wake up in the middle of the night in stifling heat. So now the window wars have started. Instead of being adult-like and talking to him about it I will instead just wake up in the middle of the night and reopen the window. Gareth agrees with me. We even went so far as to try and barricade the window after we opened it with Gareth's bike. It didn't work last night, John still managed to close it. But tonight, oh oh tonight I will be ready to spring out of my bed and re open it. Ha!

I know all of this is a little childish but whatever. If I wanted to be a responsible adult I would have stayed in the US and got a job.

I definetly think that my next trip in NZ will be up North. I am going to buy a tent and a sleeping bag and go work on a farm for a bit. It will be hard work but it will be worth the experience and I will have an entire tent to myself so I won't be bothered with window wars or snorers. Since I have now had two mocachinos it is time for me to go be my post coffee social butterfly self and find people to talk to who will be utterly confused tomorrow morning when I yet again can't form sentences.

High School

So I know that I graduated high school awhile ago but through talking to some Kiwis I realize that high school at home and high school here are entirely different. A question that I have been asked more than once by traveller's from all over the world is if high school and college are really like the movies they see. I thought about it for awhile and I have decided that for me they were like the movies. Albeit the movies glorified and made a happy ending to all of the experiences, ie everyone realizes cliques are stupid and new found friendships and peace resound throughout the high school by the time the credits roll up, but all in all there were cliques and stupid fights and crying and dreaded gym class and that terrible teacher who told us we all had head up butt syndrome and by the time I got to college there were keg parties and frat parties and nights I would rather forget and other nights that I would love to live over and over again. There were all nighters and lots of coffee and all of us thinking we were extraordinarily deep people with these amazing ideas about changing the world. And all of these experiences can be seen in dozens of very popular movies. Just look at John Hughes and the Brat Pack and I think most of my experiences are covered.

Here high school is called college. It seems that college is about as far as most people go. A lot don't attend University, there are only a handful of them around New Zealand. Since the drinking age here is 18 they go out to bars instead of throwing house parties. Also there are no open container laws here so there is really no need for the sort of sneaking around that happens in the US. It's weird though talking to travellers from around the world and that they can relate to my past experiences because they have seen the movies. I, on the other hand, have no idea what their high school or college experience is like because movies aren't made about it. There is no media coverage about a Kiwi college. The more time I spend away from the US the more I realize how ego centric our country is. I have never really taken the time to look into other countries' cultures or media output. Other countries, however, are constantly bombarded with US culture. Hollywood is worldwide.

Ed, my co-worker, asked me a very surprising question. He said, "I'm not racist or anything but what is it like living with black people?" I then realized that since I have been in New Zealand the number of people that I have seen that don't have the same skin tone as me and that aren't Maori is close to zero. I hadn't really thought about (if this were an intellectual paper I would start talking about white privelege but luckily American Diversity class is over and done with). The problem with Ed's question is he wants to know what the entire US thinks about desegregation. I find it daunting to think that the answers I give are going to be taken as the answers that any American would give.

A little deep compared to my last blog but this is what this experience is about. Having some fun and learning some more about myself.

Just another drinking blog

Last night Ed and I had to close the shop. It was really slow and boring so Ed decided to open up a bottle of wine. He was having a house party that night so it was kind of like pre gaming. I know I know it is kind of bad ethics to drink while at work but I am on vacation in a different country and the lack of responsibility is nice. What are they gonna do, fire me? Anyway so I get back to the hostel after work and I run into a new guy that is cleaning for accomodation. I tell him about the house party and he tells me that the bar in the hostel is doing three dollar jose cuervo for the whole night. So me, Mark and his roommate go down and do some shots and then head to house party. I forgot that we could have gotten alcohol in the supermarket so we wander around Wellington for a bit finding a place buy some.

The house party was really fun. I was happy to just be hanging out with a bunch of Kiwis. Everyone was really friendly. It was nice to just be at a house instead of out at a bar. This guy Carmen was making a sangria-like drink that was incredible. As I was walking home at four am, without getting lost, I decided that I wasn't going to work for accomodation this morning. Instead I took the morning off and slept until I went to work at 1pm. I was hung over but not a bad hang over...just a headache and some of you know that that isn't bad for me.

I really do like working at Eat. It's definitely a job I never would have done at home and I like that it adds to the uniqueness of my experience. I will be glad though when the job is over. It's a little too much regularity sometimes. I am getting restless almost. I want to start travelling around again. It will happen soon enough though.

I don't really have any plans yet for Christmas. One of the guys who is working for accomodation, Mark, is planning on heading back up North to Whitianga, which was one of the first stops that I did on the Kiwi bus. He invited me along. He plans on staying there for a bit and then being in Wellington for New Year's. It's a possibility. I don't think I am going to make a decision on what I am going to do until the week before.

Speaking of planning, I have been superproductive and have already booked my accomodation for Fiji. I was able to book a private double bed room with ensuite for a week in a hostel on the beach for less than 200 US dollars. They also do free airport transportation. So that part of the trip is figured out. Whoo hoo.

Sadly I received news from Adena that my fish, Obtuse, has died. He was 11 months old and a very good beta fish. He now joins his brother, Acute, in the beta fish netherworld. Unlike Acute, Obtuse did not get stuck underneath a castle and suffocate. Apparently he died peacefully.