Hi folks! So I'm really sorry once again that I've dropped off the radar for awhile, but these last couple of weeks have been really eventful for me, to put it mildly. The biggest, and saddest news is that Jay and I have officially broken up, even though neither one of us really wanted to and we both love each other a lot. Without going into too much detail, there was just too much aruguing and general unhappiness and we basically need to do a lot more growing as individuals I think before we can really be happy together. But all that said, leaving him was the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time, and I've been trying very hard to keep it together and not let a broken heart take over my life.
Luckily I have made some amazing friends in Sydney who totally hung out with me and supported me while I figured out what I was going to do, and I am really grateful for all the love the Sydney folks have shown to both myself and Jay throughout all of this. I decided that the easiest thing to do was to hit the road, which I was vaguely planning to do anyway, but this kind of really kickstarted the whole thing. So I managed to get in touch with a friend of a friend who just so happened to be driving up past Brisbane with her two year old son, Jack, and we have been on the road ever since! The destination was Shoalwater Bay, where there was a big peace rally this weekend and protests against the US Military's use of the fragile ecosystem there as bomb practice, which has been going on for many years.
It was kind of outrageously hippie-fied, but there were a couple of cool actions, and the cause has some pretty good support behind it so I'm really glad I went in the end. Yesterday we headed up north in a caravan w/ some other punks and another baby, and are going to head for Cairns and then maybe even the desert, since Monica (my car's driver) plans to move to Alice Springs for a while to do some cool stuff there.
Everything has gone pretty well so far, except I guess for the weather, which has been raining nearly non-stop. There was one day this week that the sun came out, and that was the day of the peace march, so I totally had to jump in the ocean, even though I only lasted a few minutes in the cold. Still, it was so beautiful I couildn't resist. There is a massive hole in the roof of the van where the sunroof used to be, so that too has posed a minor problem w/ the rain, but we've been doing our best to keep it patched and re-taped so I guess it just adds to the adventure!
So that's kind of my last few weeks in a very quick, not very detailed nutshell! I'm not eating as well as I would like (lots of fried potatoes) but I'm doing all right; suffice to say that Australia totally doesn't get veganism. Even the eco-punks are eating crappy meat from the pub.
Anyway, thanks for reading and I swear I will try to get to a better internet connection soon! Big hugs to you all! xoxo, Pike.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Now for the news of where I've been...
Yikes, I've been sort of dreading having to write this one just because it's like, where do I begin?
As most of ya'll know, I went back to the U.S. for a brief visit to watch my brother's wedding, which was moved forward because he has been recalled to Iraq. I was feeling pretty emotional before I left, but actually, getting to see my friends and family again in such a concentrated way was really, really great. Obviously, it would've been great if it hadn't been under such crappy circumstances, but in this world this is the kind of thing that millions of families have had to deal with, so I'm not exactly alone.
Anyway, though I am really not one for "marriage" and "weddings," I will say that my brother's wedding to his really, really awesome girlfriend was well worth the trip out. I am just so amazed at how happy and grown-up he seemed at that moment; it's hard to believe I've known him his entire life and now he's not just this bratty, messed up kid, but a real life adult who has actually turned into a really sweet guy. I worry a lot for him being in war, cause I know that he will never fully recover from the first time he went over there. But he's resigned himself to the fact that he is, quite literally, government property, and feels like fighting it would only make it worse. The one good thing is that he is committed to getting help when he gets back, and I feel like he's gained a pretty good understanding of trauma and how to handle it since being in therapy. He's been stationed to a helicopter unit, so we're hoping that means he'll be guarding equipment and not doing ground troop stuff, which makes his safety a lot more likely. Anyway, that's been on my mind a lot.
Another good thing about getting to see my family was having the chance to hang out w/ my parents, with whom I get along remarkably well these days. They are both on the lookout for new jobs, since my dad's company just laid off their entire sales force and my mom just got fired from a brand new job that she hated anyway. So while that was a big stress factor for both of them, it also meant that they had a little more time than usual to spend with us, and my dad and I in particular go to see some beautiful mountain scenery and hang out a lot. My parents only live a few hours away from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, so when Chris and Madzia (my brother and new sister-in-law) got back from their honeymoon we drove up there with my Dad for a day and had an amazing time ogling the sights. The Grand Canyon is a cliche for a reason, and that is because it is totally, totally mindboggling. It is bigger than our eyes can take in, and in a world of tiny things created for us to control, something that vast and wild is completely foreign. It's a bit like the ocean, I guess, but more predictable. On the road there we had noticed a massive swathe of forest that had been damaged to varying degrees in a fire the year before. Some of the areas had simply been singed, and most of the old trees were still standing tall and proud, with lots of little green shoots coming up all around. But other parts of the forest had been burned beyond repair, and if there were any trees left standing, it was only as a few charred & leaning silhouettes. It looked tragic in the daylight, just miles and miles of death against the dry red mountains far off in the distance. But as we drove home and the sun was setting, those same trees looked so gorgeous in front of the orange and pink sky we had to stop and take some pictures.
I stayed in the U.S. for a total of 10 days, and came back to Sydney on May 26th. Because Jay and I had planned to go to New Zealand from the 18th to the 27th, we had had to rearrange our trip dates, which I will say the airline totally gouged us for. So basically what ended up happening is that we left on the 27th, the day after I got back from the U.S., and found ourselves in Christchurch, New Zealand that afternoon. I didn't realize prior to this trip how far New Zealand actually is from Australia, I guess because relative to everywhere else on earth the two are pretty close. But it's a 3 hour plane ride and 2 time zones away, so even though we left Sydney at 8am we didn't get into Christchurch until after 1pm.
When we arrived in "town," the first thing we noticed was how completely silent it seemed. Christchurch is a very tiny town on the south island of New Zealand (or Aortorea, as the native Maori call it). There is nothing at all happening there, yet, like every other tiny, seemingly dull town in NZ, it had about 20 different backpackers' hostels and a very well-equipped tourist bureau. I should mention now that we were barely "travelling" in New Zealand, we were straight-up "touristing", if that is even a verb. But we only had one week there and 2 islands to see, so we kind of had to stick to the tourist route as much as possible just to get to the highlights.
We made the mistake of buying too many hours on our bus passes, because we were basing it on the old schedule that we had picked up from the office there. I was not pleased to learn that the bus passes no longer counted toward the first place we wanted to go, which was a geothermal hot springs about an hour and a half away from Christchurch. So we eventually made the decision to skip it, and after killing Monday morning browsing around downtown Christchurch, caught an afternoon bus up to the town of Kaikoura, which apparently is known for it whale watching and crayfish catching. We got there about 4:30 in the afternoon, booked ourselves into the nearest hostel, and promptly discovered that there were no more whale watches or dolphin swims that day, and that basically there was nothing else to do, either. Hmph. So we went to the grocery store, made some sandwiches, and then took a nice walk down the one paved road for about a mile. At the end there was a pub where we stopped and had a drink while we watched the sun go down. The news was on and the only other customers were a couple of drunken, middle-aged guys in the corner who seemed to be pretty friendly with the waitress. The hot topics on the news in New Zealand were pretty interesting: one was the public outrage that the local state-funded coal company had paid spies to infiltrate an anti-coal protest group (it was shocking to me that this was actually news; in the U.S. the government itself is the ones paying the spies!); the prime minister was all in a huff and the coal company was being investigated for its lack of ethics! New Zealand: 1, U.S.: 0. The other big item of news was the public outrage against that a local woman who relied on oxygen for life support was killled when the power company came and cut her electricity because the family was behind on their bill. Again, the prime minister expressed outrage and condolences and the ceo's of all the local power companies actually paid for and attended the woman's funeral, I guess to show that they really were sorry-? It was very surreal to see the picture in the paper of all these corporate dudes with traditional maori sarongs around their suits, trying to make a good show of it at this poor woman's funeral.
Anyway, my general impression is that New Zealand as a whole sees things a little more wholistically, and, I think, reasonably; there is still some sense, somewhere, that people and the earth and ethics should maybe come before money and corporate profits... definitely not something I get to see on the news very often.
Anyway, so yeah, not much else to say about Kaikoura, except that it was quiet and cold, but beautiful. The next morning we got out bright and early and took a bus north to Bleinheim, where we rented bicycles and went on a self-guided wine tour of New Zealand's most important wine growing region. It was pretty fun, actually, and the weather was very pleasantly warm and sunny, not at all what we had expected. We got to see about 4 different wineries and talk to the owners of a few. The scenery was really gorgeous and we tried not to get too tipsy to safely maneuver ourselves back to base. After that, we went for some Indian food (the second time since arriving in New Zealand, and both times really delicious) and waited for our 9pm bus to come and take us away.
About an hour later we had arrived in Picton, which is the northernmost town on the south island, and the main departure point for the ferry to wellington. We managed to score a hostel with a hot tub, so we relaxed in the water and called in a night. The next morning we had planned to ride around the region on bikes and see the famous Marlborough Sounds, but we got severely sidetracked by the very distressing disappearance of my wallet. I really don't know how it could've gone missing, but it did, somewhere between getting on the van to the hostel and leaving our room there the next morning. So that was obviously a major drama, as I had several bank cards, a good bit of cash, various ID's, and my usb jumpdrive in there. The jumpdrive has actually been the worst thing to lose, because it had all my recipes, all my invoices, several letters and zines I had written, my lists of where everything is back home, and lots more that I'm sure I haven't thought of yet. Very frustrating!!! But eventually I stopped freaking out and we tried to enjoy as much of the day as we could by taking a long ride along the coastline and taking lots of video and pictures. I can't even express how pretty it all is there; it's just so lush and green and there are massive hills overlooking really beautiful seaside cliffs overlooking picturesque marinas etc etc. It's no wonder it is such a tourist destination- if anything, I would think people go there just to relax. On our way back to the hostel, we came upon a really cool old junk shop where I couldn't resist the irrational urge to buy really cute vintage plaid dish set, which was seriously a bargain at only $12. Jay made sure to make fun of me for it on every further leg of our journey, but I still say it was a good idea- good junk is hard to find! And besides, it says Made in New Zealand on the bottom so it's really like my little (bulky and fragile) souvenir.
We caught the ferry (which was massive, and fancy) at 6pm, and for the next 3 hours enjoyed an eclectic mix of music videos from the 70's, 80's, and 90's, the highlight of which (for me) was the ever-classic Silent Lucidity by Queensryche. It was so effing awesome- epic, even. You can imagine my shock when I learned that Jay had somehow never even HEARD of this masterpiece, despite claims of having been into both fantasy and metal at the time of its release. Anyway, it was a long three hours but we made it through with the help of Wham, Duran Duran, Wilson-Phillips (really), and of course, Rod Stewart.
When we got in a cab and headed towards our hostel after arriving in Wellington, the first thing I thought of was, "wow, this place really feels like San Francisco!" Maybe it was the fog, maybe it was the hills; but whatever it was, I was instantly endeared to this small, beautiful harborside town. We spent our first night in a massive, busy and run-down backpackers, and decided the next day to find a nicer place to stay and see the sights of downtown Wellington. It soon became apparent that we had already located and slept in the cheapest place in town, but eventually we settled on the generic but clean and centrally-located Wellington YHA, which later we discovered was teeming with young children who were apparently on a school trip. But it was fine, we weren't there to hang in the hostel, so we got out and saw the really great Te Papa museum, which had lots of exhibits including Maori traditional art, early days of both Maori and European settlement, contemporary NZ art, and more. Jay doesn't even like museums and he liked it, so I give it two thumbs up. Plus it's free so you can't beat that.
Then we made our way to the "tattoo museum", which, when we showed up appeared to be closed but in actuality has mostly just relocated to a location that was not open. Inside we found a very mediocre selection of assorted "fantasy" figurines (ie, scantily clad women with daggers and such) with tattoos drawn onto them, some not-apparently tattoo-related pieces of body armor and medieval weaponry, and several badly done collage pieces from various, widely available tattoo magazines, each in a black-rimmed plastic frame with a theme such as "ladies" or "guns" or "religious symbols". We were getting ready to leave when the proprietor stopped us and encouraged us to "check out his portfolio", which was nearly as impressive as the works of art surrounding us. Then he asked us whether we had tattoos and asked if he could photograph them, which we let him do despite our slight suspicions/ concerns that he might somehow try to slip the photos into his own portfolio. Either way, it was an entertaining way to kill an afternoon.
The next day we ran into time/ bus conflict #2, when we discovered that the bus we wanted to take up to Rotorua (site of thermal pools and some apparently really awesome caves, plus a Maori meeting house we wanted to visit) was completely booked and that the only way to get to Auckland on time to catch our flight out of there on Sunday (this was Friday I think) was to take the bus all day Saturday for 10 hours and skip everything in between. Obviously, we were not happy, but what could we do? We made the best of it and splurged on a Lord Of The Rings dork tour and totally enjoyed nerding out in the real-life locations where much of the movies were filmed. Our tour guide was seriously unbelievable in terms of the breadth and depth of knowledge he seemed to possess about all things LOTR-related, and it really did make for a fascinating time. Which it should be cause it isn't cheap. But whatever. Other than that, we went out and found a couple of pretty cool underground bars/ clubs in Wellington, and managed to only eat out once in 2 1/2 days, the rest just grocery store stuff. So that was good. Saturday we just tried to sleep as much as possible to make the bus ride go faster, which was good cause there were no toilets or anything on there and it was pretty boring. There were lots of sheep on the roadsides, though, so that was cute.
Auckland was kind of a big, generic city that we had trouble enjoying much, but on a whim, just as we had given up on the idea, we decided to go ahead and do a bungy jump from the Auckland bridge, which was another splurge but also well worth it! Jay was absolutely terrified and I had a few doubts myself, but when we finally went (I cannot say "jumped", since really we kind of dragged each other off the platform) it was the single most scary and fun thing I've ever done. The thing is, once you're over the edge it's not really scary, just fun. We bounced a couple of times and looked over to see the most beautiful rainbow on the other side of the bridge, which I felt was a good sign. It was how we celebrated our 3-year anniversary of having met, so I felt like "terrifying but worth it" was a pretty good metaphor.
After that we had to get on a plane back to Christchurch, where we huddled pathetically in the airport and tried to catch some sleep before our 6am flight out back to Sydney. Jay was suffering flashbacks of the jump and I was totally freezing, so we were both looking pretty out of it in our sweatpants and combat boots! A fashion faux-pas I have vowed never to repeat voluntarily, btw. Anyway, we arrived safe and sound back in Sydney on June 4th, and that was our New Zealand adventure!
I'm going to finally put an end to this interminable posting now, but tune in soon to hear all about my exciting adventures in fabulous Melbourne, Australia!
Ciao for now and thanks for reading! Love, pike.
As most of ya'll know, I went back to the U.S. for a brief visit to watch my brother's wedding, which was moved forward because he has been recalled to Iraq. I was feeling pretty emotional before I left, but actually, getting to see my friends and family again in such a concentrated way was really, really great. Obviously, it would've been great if it hadn't been under such crappy circumstances, but in this world this is the kind of thing that millions of families have had to deal with, so I'm not exactly alone.
Anyway, though I am really not one for "marriage" and "weddings," I will say that my brother's wedding to his really, really awesome girlfriend was well worth the trip out. I am just so amazed at how happy and grown-up he seemed at that moment; it's hard to believe I've known him his entire life and now he's not just this bratty, messed up kid, but a real life adult who has actually turned into a really sweet guy. I worry a lot for him being in war, cause I know that he will never fully recover from the first time he went over there. But he's resigned himself to the fact that he is, quite literally, government property, and feels like fighting it would only make it worse. The one good thing is that he is committed to getting help when he gets back, and I feel like he's gained a pretty good understanding of trauma and how to handle it since being in therapy. He's been stationed to a helicopter unit, so we're hoping that means he'll be guarding equipment and not doing ground troop stuff, which makes his safety a lot more likely. Anyway, that's been on my mind a lot.
Another good thing about getting to see my family was having the chance to hang out w/ my parents, with whom I get along remarkably well these days. They are both on the lookout for new jobs, since my dad's company just laid off their entire sales force and my mom just got fired from a brand new job that she hated anyway. So while that was a big stress factor for both of them, it also meant that they had a little more time than usual to spend with us, and my dad and I in particular go to see some beautiful mountain scenery and hang out a lot. My parents only live a few hours away from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, so when Chris and Madzia (my brother and new sister-in-law) got back from their honeymoon we drove up there with my Dad for a day and had an amazing time ogling the sights. The Grand Canyon is a cliche for a reason, and that is because it is totally, totally mindboggling. It is bigger than our eyes can take in, and in a world of tiny things created for us to control, something that vast and wild is completely foreign. It's a bit like the ocean, I guess, but more predictable. On the road there we had noticed a massive swathe of forest that had been damaged to varying degrees in a fire the year before. Some of the areas had simply been singed, and most of the old trees were still standing tall and proud, with lots of little green shoots coming up all around. But other parts of the forest had been burned beyond repair, and if there were any trees left standing, it was only as a few charred & leaning silhouettes. It looked tragic in the daylight, just miles and miles of death against the dry red mountains far off in the distance. But as we drove home and the sun was setting, those same trees looked so gorgeous in front of the orange and pink sky we had to stop and take some pictures.
I stayed in the U.S. for a total of 10 days, and came back to Sydney on May 26th. Because Jay and I had planned to go to New Zealand from the 18th to the 27th, we had had to rearrange our trip dates, which I will say the airline totally gouged us for. So basically what ended up happening is that we left on the 27th, the day after I got back from the U.S., and found ourselves in Christchurch, New Zealand that afternoon. I didn't realize prior to this trip how far New Zealand actually is from Australia, I guess because relative to everywhere else on earth the two are pretty close. But it's a 3 hour plane ride and 2 time zones away, so even though we left Sydney at 8am we didn't get into Christchurch until after 1pm.
When we arrived in "town," the first thing we noticed was how completely silent it seemed. Christchurch is a very tiny town on the south island of New Zealand (or Aortorea, as the native Maori call it). There is nothing at all happening there, yet, like every other tiny, seemingly dull town in NZ, it had about 20 different backpackers' hostels and a very well-equipped tourist bureau. I should mention now that we were barely "travelling" in New Zealand, we were straight-up "touristing", if that is even a verb. But we only had one week there and 2 islands to see, so we kind of had to stick to the tourist route as much as possible just to get to the highlights.
We made the mistake of buying too many hours on our bus passes, because we were basing it on the old schedule that we had picked up from the office there. I was not pleased to learn that the bus passes no longer counted toward the first place we wanted to go, which was a geothermal hot springs about an hour and a half away from Christchurch. So we eventually made the decision to skip it, and after killing Monday morning browsing around downtown Christchurch, caught an afternoon bus up to the town of Kaikoura, which apparently is known for it whale watching and crayfish catching. We got there about 4:30 in the afternoon, booked ourselves into the nearest hostel, and promptly discovered that there were no more whale watches or dolphin swims that day, and that basically there was nothing else to do, either. Hmph. So we went to the grocery store, made some sandwiches, and then took a nice walk down the one paved road for about a mile. At the end there was a pub where we stopped and had a drink while we watched the sun go down. The news was on and the only other customers were a couple of drunken, middle-aged guys in the corner who seemed to be pretty friendly with the waitress. The hot topics on the news in New Zealand were pretty interesting: one was the public outrage that the local state-funded coal company had paid spies to infiltrate an anti-coal protest group (it was shocking to me that this was actually news; in the U.S. the government itself is the ones paying the spies!); the prime minister was all in a huff and the coal company was being investigated for its lack of ethics! New Zealand: 1, U.S.: 0. The other big item of news was the public outrage against that a local woman who relied on oxygen for life support was killled when the power company came and cut her electricity because the family was behind on their bill. Again, the prime minister expressed outrage and condolences and the ceo's of all the local power companies actually paid for and attended the woman's funeral, I guess to show that they really were sorry-? It was very surreal to see the picture in the paper of all these corporate dudes with traditional maori sarongs around their suits, trying to make a good show of it at this poor woman's funeral.
Anyway, my general impression is that New Zealand as a whole sees things a little more wholistically, and, I think, reasonably; there is still some sense, somewhere, that people and the earth and ethics should maybe come before money and corporate profits... definitely not something I get to see on the news very often.
Anyway, so yeah, not much else to say about Kaikoura, except that it was quiet and cold, but beautiful. The next morning we got out bright and early and took a bus north to Bleinheim, where we rented bicycles and went on a self-guided wine tour of New Zealand's most important wine growing region. It was pretty fun, actually, and the weather was very pleasantly warm and sunny, not at all what we had expected. We got to see about 4 different wineries and talk to the owners of a few. The scenery was really gorgeous and we tried not to get too tipsy to safely maneuver ourselves back to base. After that, we went for some Indian food (the second time since arriving in New Zealand, and both times really delicious) and waited for our 9pm bus to come and take us away.
About an hour later we had arrived in Picton, which is the northernmost town on the south island, and the main departure point for the ferry to wellington. We managed to score a hostel with a hot tub, so we relaxed in the water and called in a night. The next morning we had planned to ride around the region on bikes and see the famous Marlborough Sounds, but we got severely sidetracked by the very distressing disappearance of my wallet. I really don't know how it could've gone missing, but it did, somewhere between getting on the van to the hostel and leaving our room there the next morning. So that was obviously a major drama, as I had several bank cards, a good bit of cash, various ID's, and my usb jumpdrive in there. The jumpdrive has actually been the worst thing to lose, because it had all my recipes, all my invoices, several letters and zines I had written, my lists of where everything is back home, and lots more that I'm sure I haven't thought of yet. Very frustrating!!! But eventually I stopped freaking out and we tried to enjoy as much of the day as we could by taking a long ride along the coastline and taking lots of video and pictures. I can't even express how pretty it all is there; it's just so lush and green and there are massive hills overlooking really beautiful seaside cliffs overlooking picturesque marinas etc etc. It's no wonder it is such a tourist destination- if anything, I would think people go there just to relax. On our way back to the hostel, we came upon a really cool old junk shop where I couldn't resist the irrational urge to buy really cute vintage plaid dish set, which was seriously a bargain at only $12. Jay made sure to make fun of me for it on every further leg of our journey, but I still say it was a good idea- good junk is hard to find! And besides, it says Made in New Zealand on the bottom so it's really like my little (bulky and fragile) souvenir.
We caught the ferry (which was massive, and fancy) at 6pm, and for the next 3 hours enjoyed an eclectic mix of music videos from the 70's, 80's, and 90's, the highlight of which (for me) was the ever-classic Silent Lucidity by Queensryche. It was so effing awesome- epic, even. You can imagine my shock when I learned that Jay had somehow never even HEARD of this masterpiece, despite claims of having been into both fantasy and metal at the time of its release. Anyway, it was a long three hours but we made it through with the help of Wham, Duran Duran, Wilson-Phillips (really), and of course, Rod Stewart.
When we got in a cab and headed towards our hostel after arriving in Wellington, the first thing I thought of was, "wow, this place really feels like San Francisco!" Maybe it was the fog, maybe it was the hills; but whatever it was, I was instantly endeared to this small, beautiful harborside town. We spent our first night in a massive, busy and run-down backpackers, and decided the next day to find a nicer place to stay and see the sights of downtown Wellington. It soon became apparent that we had already located and slept in the cheapest place in town, but eventually we settled on the generic but clean and centrally-located Wellington YHA, which later we discovered was teeming with young children who were apparently on a school trip. But it was fine, we weren't there to hang in the hostel, so we got out and saw the really great Te Papa museum, which had lots of exhibits including Maori traditional art, early days of both Maori and European settlement, contemporary NZ art, and more. Jay doesn't even like museums and he liked it, so I give it two thumbs up. Plus it's free so you can't beat that.
Then we made our way to the "tattoo museum", which, when we showed up appeared to be closed but in actuality has mostly just relocated to a location that was not open. Inside we found a very mediocre selection of assorted "fantasy" figurines (ie, scantily clad women with daggers and such) with tattoos drawn onto them, some not-apparently tattoo-related pieces of body armor and medieval weaponry, and several badly done collage pieces from various, widely available tattoo magazines, each in a black-rimmed plastic frame with a theme such as "ladies" or "guns" or "religious symbols". We were getting ready to leave when the proprietor stopped us and encouraged us to "check out his portfolio", which was nearly as impressive as the works of art surrounding us. Then he asked us whether we had tattoos and asked if he could photograph them, which we let him do despite our slight suspicions/ concerns that he might somehow try to slip the photos into his own portfolio. Either way, it was an entertaining way to kill an afternoon.
The next day we ran into time/ bus conflict #2, when we discovered that the bus we wanted to take up to Rotorua (site of thermal pools and some apparently really awesome caves, plus a Maori meeting house we wanted to visit) was completely booked and that the only way to get to Auckland on time to catch our flight out of there on Sunday (this was Friday I think) was to take the bus all day Saturday for 10 hours and skip everything in between. Obviously, we were not happy, but what could we do? We made the best of it and splurged on a Lord Of The Rings dork tour and totally enjoyed nerding out in the real-life locations where much of the movies were filmed. Our tour guide was seriously unbelievable in terms of the breadth and depth of knowledge he seemed to possess about all things LOTR-related, and it really did make for a fascinating time. Which it should be cause it isn't cheap. But whatever. Other than that, we went out and found a couple of pretty cool underground bars/ clubs in Wellington, and managed to only eat out once in 2 1/2 days, the rest just grocery store stuff. So that was good. Saturday we just tried to sleep as much as possible to make the bus ride go faster, which was good cause there were no toilets or anything on there and it was pretty boring. There were lots of sheep on the roadsides, though, so that was cute.
Auckland was kind of a big, generic city that we had trouble enjoying much, but on a whim, just as we had given up on the idea, we decided to go ahead and do a bungy jump from the Auckland bridge, which was another splurge but also well worth it! Jay was absolutely terrified and I had a few doubts myself, but when we finally went (I cannot say "jumped", since really we kind of dragged each other off the platform) it was the single most scary and fun thing I've ever done. The thing is, once you're over the edge it's not really scary, just fun. We bounced a couple of times and looked over to see the most beautiful rainbow on the other side of the bridge, which I felt was a good sign. It was how we celebrated our 3-year anniversary of having met, so I felt like "terrifying but worth it" was a pretty good metaphor.
After that we had to get on a plane back to Christchurch, where we huddled pathetically in the airport and tried to catch some sleep before our 6am flight out back to Sydney. Jay was suffering flashbacks of the jump and I was totally freezing, so we were both looking pretty out of it in our sweatpants and combat boots! A fashion faux-pas I have vowed never to repeat voluntarily, btw. Anyway, we arrived safe and sound back in Sydney on June 4th, and that was our New Zealand adventure!
I'm going to finally put an end to this interminable posting now, but tune in soon to hear all about my exciting adventures in fabulous Melbourne, Australia!
Ciao for now and thanks for reading! Love, pike.
I can't believe I have a blog.
Oi!!! I feel really weird being like, OMG, you should totally check out my blog!!! But actually that is what I'm gonna start doing. Not like I'm actually even all that good at writing regular updates anyways, but at least w/ a blog I can easily put photos and stuff nearby somewhere (I think) and you wonderful people can decide whether you want to read this thing or not, rather than have my rants appearing sporadically in your inboxes. I hope I don't hate this. Okay! Welcome to my blog. I guess the next one will actually contain something of substance, like where on earth I've been for the past 3 weeks. Yep...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
