Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Finally in the South Island!!

I took the ferry over to the south island last thursday. The boat looked like a cruise ship and it would have been nice to walk around and see all of it but the body of water that we were crossing, the Cook Strait, was a little rough that day so to keep my motion sickness in check I had to find a nice comfy chair and sleep the three hour voyage away.

When I got to Blenheim I found out that all the vineyard work was taken. So instead of grape picking I went on a wine tour. It was a really good deal. It was a really good deal. A van picked me up from my hostel and then me and two other people visited four wineries. I didn't get to see how the wine was made but I did get to taste lots of wine. I know you are supposed to taste the wine and then spit it out, but come on, I had a driver and everything was already paid for. We spent a half hour at each winery and tasted at least 4 wines from each one. The two other people on the tour were from Turkey and England. They used to work on a boat and shared some crazy stories and we all started getting tipsy on the wine.

At one winery we finished the tasting a little early. Right next to the winery was a local distillery so we went over there and they gave us free shots. It was great. I just walked around and pointed to a bottle and then they gave me a shot glass filled with it. I trield their zambuca and had made a comment that it tasted more like Jagermeister than other zambucas. The driver, George, looked at me and laughed. He said that all of a sudden I had an opinion. I laughed too because he was right. At each wine tasting someone would ask me what I thought and I always didn't really have an opinion. I know nothing about wines and this was the first time that I was tasting most varieties. But shots and hard alcohol I know plenty about so I def had opinions then.

The tour last 3 hours and I was dropped off at my hostel at 5. I just chilled out enjoying my typsy ness when Jacky, a girl I share a room with, invited me to come along with her while she got her haircut. So went to another room where Camillo cut Jacky's hair. Camillo shared the room with Oscar. While Camillo was cutting Jacky's hair Oscar and I realized that we had both went to Big Day Out and we started to share our stories and talk about the bands we say. After the haircut we all went out for drinks. Camillo understands English but he doesn't talk it so Oscar was the translator for the night. So I spent the night drinking and hanging out with some very interesting people.

Besides this one fun filled day I haven't done much of anything in Blenheim. I leave tomorrow to go to Nelson. One of the truck drivers that I got a ride with has family in Nelson so hopefully I will meet up with them tomorrow and they will show me around town. I think my plans to travel with my friend Victoria have fallen through so most likely within a week I will be back on the Kiwi bus and onto more adventures.

Random questions: Who was in the super bowl and who won? Who won Survivor Guatamala? I know I can use the internet to answer these questions but i don't want to waste the time.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Big Day Out among other things

Big Day Out was amazing!! I took a bus from the house I was staying at and got to the concert about 11 am. I didn't leave until 11pm. There were soo many bands. The way it was set up is a lot like ozzfest or warped tour. There were five stages plus a tent set up that had djs spinning club music. There was also this thing called a silent disco. It was a dance floor set up with headphones and you could just dance around to the music in your headphones. I didn't try it but it looked really weird to see all of these people bopping around with no music around. The Living End came on at 1pm so I went and hung out on the floor until they came on. They were great and I def want to see them again. The crowd was really good too. I was on the floor for the bands that I saw and it got pretty crowded but nobody was being stupid. If someone fell someone else helped them up. It was really good.

Some of the weird things to me about the big day out was that the water was free. It was great that it was free because it was really hot especially since I was jumping up and down on the floor for most bands. Hahha i hope no one was worried that because I was going to this concert without knowing anyone I wouldn't participate. I def did. Another cool thing about the concert was that they had free carnival rides and a free water slide. I was just amazed at how once you got inside the festival things weren't overpriced and there were free things to do. I did buy a Big Day Out t-shirt and a compilation cd of the bands that played to remember the concert. It was well worth the money and the trip back up to Auckland.

I ran into the Scottish girls while at the Big Day Out. We hung out for a bit and I decided that I wouldn't head down to Wellington with them. They were going to take their time going down and I just didn't feel like hopping in a car the next day. I had already checked with the girl, Ana, whose house I was crashing at and she said it was no problem if I hung around for a couple more days. I told Ana how much I appreciated her letting me stay at her house for free without even knowing me and she said not to worry, that it was the Kiwi way. The hospitality and niceness of strangers that I have seen in the past couple of weeks has amazed me and I really hope I take some of their ideals back home with me. I called the truck driver who gave me a ride up to Auckland and he hooked me up with a ride to Wellington. So on Monday I hopped back on the trucks and caught a free ride back down to Wellington.

Now I am in Wellington and am crashing at Ed's apt. I got to Wellington yesterday and am leaving tomorrow for the south island. In Wellington I have just been catching up with the people I met here, I went to Eat and hung out there for a bit and then me and Ed and his friend Vivan went to the bar and Vivan attempted to explain cricket to me. I understand most of it but the games are so long, some last days, that I don't think I could ever get into it. I have gotten into rugby though and I going to try and go see a game while I am in the south island. I am catching the ferry across to the south island in the morning. The ferry looks like a cruise ship and even has a movie theater on board. It should be a fun ride if the weather is good. Once I get to the south island I am heading straight to a town called Blenheim to try and get some work in a vineyard for a week just to get some more cash.

I had a bit of a scare this morning. I broke out my lonely planet book and called the hostels in Blenheim to book a weeks accomodation. They were all booked up. I panicked for about five minutes about what I was going to do since I had already bought the bus ticket to Blenheim and I didn't want to lose that money. So I went to the info office in Wellington and they helped me by calling around to some other hostels that aren't in the lonely planet and within ten minutes I had a bed booked. As they say here, it was sweet as.

That's as far as my plans go for now. I might travel around with Victoria but if our plans are too different then I will just hop on the Kiwi bus and travel around that way. I'll figure that stuff out while I am in Blenheim.

My pics are taking too long to upload so they will have to wait for another time. As for my grad school apps, they are all in and I am just waiting on word if I got in or not. I don't think I will know until I get back home which is fine with me.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

3 weeks, 7 books and a box of wine later...

I am back from my self imposed blogger exile and I have much to write about. I'll start where I left off...

My Kiwi Christmas was good. I spent Christmas Eve just hanging out at the hostel and saying goodbye to the cleaning team. One of the workers, Sybil actually gave me a card and a necklace as a good bye present. It was very nice of her and completely caught me by surprise. Another thing that caught me by surprise was a package sent to me from my friends from home. It had lots of stuff in it but the most important thing it had was Mike & Ikes. They don't have them here and I was definetly craving them so I am forever grateful to Michele, Steph, Breanne, and Erin for filling the hole in my soul that can only be filled by Mike & Ikes.

Ok so Christmas day I spent at Kirstee's house. Kirstee is Ed's girlfriend and Ed and I worked together at Eat. The day was good. I ate and drank lots and then just chilled out. It definetly never really felt like Christmas. The weather was just too good and there was no 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story.

The day after Christmas Ed, Kirstee, and me drove to a camp site four hours away from Wellington. I can't remember the name of it but it was someone's farm. We could see the beach from where our tents were set up. It was awesome. I do have pics but this computer is being tempermental so I can't put them up right now. The next day Ed and Kirstee dropped me off in Napier at the Westshore holiday park. I went from rolling hills and full view of a beach to setting up my tent in front of the billboard for Westshore Holiday Park. It was an interesting transition.

Westshore did have a kitchen but it didn't have pots and pans available for use. So for my time being at Westshore I survived off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It wasn't bad though since all I did was lay on the beach and read. The thing that made Westshore great for me was the people. Some of the people live there permanently in caravans. When they saw I was on my own they made sure that I knew that they were looking out for me which made me feel very comfortable.

One of the guys, Mike, is 65 and had told me that if I needed anything in town to just let him know and he'll get it for me. This was extremely nice since town was an hours walk for me. I had heard taht we were going to be getting some wind storms and decided that I needed to better secure my tent so it didn't collapse on my. I knew I needed more tent pegs so I asked Mike if he could get them for me when he went into town. He gave me a weird look and said that I could get them across the street at the gas station. I went to the station and asked for tent pegs. They pointed me to a shelf but I couldn't find them. Finally the guy asked me again what I was looking for and I said tent pegs. He said that they didn't carry them. So being really confused I decided to just walk into town myself and get the pegs. After awhile I remembered what was on the shelf that the gas guy had pointed too...tampax tampons!! Poor Mike thought I had asked him in my American accent to by me tampons!! Neither of us mentioned the fiasco again and Mike still talked to me so he didn't take too much offense.

New Year's Eve was def one of my more memorable nights in NZ. Pete and his wife Meryl live permenantly in the holiday park. Pete invited me over for a bbq. After the pb&j sandwiches I was eating, this bbq was a feast. I had shrimp, but it was a whole shrimp eyes and all and I hat to take it apart myself. I also had steamed mussels which were really good. And then (cue heavenly music) Meryl gave me a cup of coffee. This was the first caffeinated drink I had in over a week. So I rang in the new year sitting around a table talking to Kiwis. Pete broke out some moonshine rum and I sat there and listened to some great stories. One of the men there, John, is from Wales and comes to NZ every six months. At one point him and I started talking politics and it wound up with me chanting no taxation without representation. It was pretty funny. At midnight there were fireworks and sometime after that John gave me some good advice. He said I will get the most out of this or any other experience by just sitting around a table and talking to people. It's not about the activities (although they are fun) it's about listening to other peoples stories.

Right after new years I decided that I would only camp for two weeks instead of three. The wind storms and sleeping on the ground were wearing me out. So after a few more nights of talking to John and listening to his war stories, he was in the royal marines in the 60s, Mike drove me into town. For the last week I have been hanging out in town and staying at a hostel. It's smaller than any of the others that I have been in and it's very relaxing. I was right down the street from the aquarium so every night I could hear the seals making those seal noises as I fell asleep.

Now I am in Auckland for the Big Day Out tomorrow!! I will finally see the Living End which I am psyched about. I am also psyched that I got a free ride to Auckland from Napier. I just called up a freight company and asked if they had a truck going to Auckland. They said yeah so I hopped on and rode overnight to Auckland. I haven't slept in 24 hours but it was well worth the experience. Someone in Napier heard I was going to Auckland and called up one of his friends who lives here. So as soon as I am done with this blog I am going to this girls apartment to crash for the time taht I am in Auckland. I will leave here in a couple of days and catch a ride with two Scottish girls that I met in Napier down to Wellington. After that I was going to buy a bus ticket to travel around the south island but instead I talked to this girl Victoria that I met when I first got to NZ and we are going to travel around together in her car. It will probably be more expensive but it's a new experience and my instinct tells me its the right thing to do.

When I get back to Wellly I will post the pics and update everyone on Big Day Out. Until then I expect many comments!!