Hey!
Well, I made it ... just took 14 hours on a plane, simple enough. I arrived just passed 6:00 AM local time on Thursday, 24th of June. I missed out on my Wednesday completely by crossing the International Date Line, it's a good deal though because they give it back to me when I head home.
After exiting the plane, I headed towards customs, they split up the masses according to the titles overhead "NZ passport-holders" "non-NZ passport-holders" and the "U20 National Rugby Team" where about 25 huge dudes were passing through with trophy in hand from beating the runner-up Aussies in Buenos Aires, Argentina to win the Junior World Championship. Jokes about maybe playing some rugby while I'm down here aren't funny with the possibilility of a 225-pound samoan all tatted-up, lining up across from me ... think I'll just catch an All Blacks (NZ's natioanl team) match and call it good.
It's quite cold here now, being the southern hemisphere. I'm realizing that I ran away from summer this year with it just starting to heat up back home and it being the middle of winter here. First thing I did when I arrived downtown was head to Stella's work (Stella is the old roommate of my friend Jess and she offered to put me up for the first few days). I dropped my pack off at the law firm where she works so that I could wander around the city. I met up with a couple other backpackers (a guy named Patrick from England who had been all over Africa and had just finished up traveling around South America) and Fuoede from France who spoke just a bit of English. Patrick and I grabbed breakfast at a tavern and watched highlights of the England/USA matches (round of 16!!!), I could feel some resentment from him since we topped the group. While we were there, we saw two people be carted off by police (extremely drunk or trippin' on somethin), couldn't have been later than 10:00 AM at this time.
Anyway, it was nice weather and I walked for a few hours stopping at random shops and hanging out down by the harbor. It's a beautiful city with the water and all the sail boats around. Sleep depravation from the previous day caught up with me though and I ended up passing out on the couches in Univ of Auckland's Engineering Center. It's the midde of finals week for the students as everyone was frantically pouring over their notes outside the lecture halls, I must've looked strikingly calm and confident about my grade as I napped right across from them :)
Stella is staying with her godfather, Max, while she finishes out her work in the city; she is traveling to Europe in a few short weeks. We met up in the afternoon and took the train to Max's house. It's a very nice neighborhood, small victorian-style houses line the street. Max is a fanastic guy and a perfect example of a Kiwi host (or so I hope). When I arrived he had already set up a cot for me in the living room and within a couple hours we had all sat down to a delicious meal featuring lamb, veggies and potatos and a couple glasses of red wine to which I stopped after two (since it was my first night and didn't want to appear greedy), but I'm sure he would've opened another bottle no questions asked as he was more than happy to fill up a third glass for me. We enjoyed a couple scoops of ice cream topped with fruit, a cup of coffee to go along with it and ended the night discussing politics and rugby (a *political conversation with a Kiwi is much more pleasant than any with my friends back home ha). *Note that I did not initiate the political convo.
We all went to sleep around 10:00 PM ... then all of us woke up at 1:55 AM and congregated in the living room to watch what would be the final World Cup match for the New Zealand soccer team, a 0-0 draw. Nonetheless I fell asleep for the second time that night extremely appreciative and grateful for the hospitality I had received throughout the day ... people are awesome. I'm looking forward to learning a lot from New Zealanders and my experiences here in this so far exceedingly wonderful country.
Leaving for Stella's parents' place in Pukeatua this evening, they own a cafe and guesthouse called 'Out in the Styx', supposed to be quite beautiful ... might even pick up a dishwashing shift at the restaurant on Saturday night ;)
Lookin' forward to sharing stories and experiences with you over the next couple months! Have a good one 'til next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment