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!!