Hello everyone, and greetings from New Zealand, The Canada
of the Southern Hemisphere!
I'd like to start by clearing up two things I know you're
all probably wondering. First of all, no
I do not actually have this many friends.
Roughly 2/3 of the names on the list (Most of the women) are actually
randomly generated and could belong to someone in Laos for all I know. And secondly, toilets here do in fact flush
counter-clockwise. So with that out of
the way let's get to the story-telling and making jokes about foreigners.
A little background, just so we all start on the same page
here. I graduated in December. I accepted a job with Halliburton that begins
at the end of January. After backpacking
Western Australia last summer, I had become hopelessly addicted to travelling
and learning how to swear and fight in other languages. After a few days of deliberation I decided
New Zealand would be the coolest possible place this time of year, as well as
the furthest away from my life in Dallas.
Dallas is wonderful, but those who live there (or any other oppressive
urban jungle) know that you need to get outta there from time to time. So I took my graduation money, Christmas
money, oil rig money, and dumped it all into a month-long journey to this most
bizarre place. My liver and credit score
may suffer, but so far it's been incredible in every other respect.
Storytime. Much like
my Aussie emails started, I'll begin by trying to make you people feel sorry
for me. I won't succeed, so consider
this just a guide to travelling to this place should you ever decide to.
Go back to what you were doing the morning of
Tuesday the 4th of December. Try to
really remember all the details - the burnt pop-tarts, empty beer cans,
soul-crushing sadness at the notion of driving to work. Feeling it yet? I woke up at 430 that morning to travel to
DFW, then San Jose, then LAX, then Auckland - 34.5 hours in total. Most of this at the hands of American
Airlines, the official Airline of Screwtape, Wormwood, Beelezebub and Co. I'm sure you've had your own awful experience
with these fresh graduates from Clown College, so I won't elaborate
further. Just take your favorite AA
story and pretend it happened to me - there, you're in the right frame of mind.
At LAX I treated myself to a 12-hour layover and managed to
eat two meals at the same Chili's in the same day. For those who don't know my unreasonable
affinity for Chili's, I hope you understand that this marks a milestone in my
life. I can now die a little closer to
happy. Being in an airport for 12 hours, even one as spacious and lovely as
LAX, you start seeing the same people often enough, so I decided to be
friendly. I met Tim the Alcohlic Farmer
from Minnesota who would be on my flight, en route to working on his friend's
sheep station for 3 months. Party. I then became the Snow White of Asian People,
after commenting that the little 7 year old Vietnamese kid next to me was
playing Pokemon (the OG red version, shockingly). He started talking to me in that
initially-charming-but-eventually-annoying way that only small children can
truly master, and his brothers and sisters joined in. To a stranger it would've looked like I was
handing out batteries or whatever those Asian kids eat. Awesome.
So then 21.5 hours after beginng my journey, my flight left LAX. I watched Megamind, had two free mini-wine
bottles, and slept like the Cowboys were on TV.
13 hours later I landed in lovely Auckland and my journey, and the point
of this email, actually began.
Once out of the airport, I went into survival mode and tried
to find either someone helpful to pal around with or someone more confused and
screwed than I, so I could at least feel better about my own state. I was lucky to sit next to a girl from
Manhattan on the bus . Category B,
accomplished (Memo to NYC peeps, look up Aimee Baxter. She plays flag football against you, for the
Shockers). We arrived at Nomads
Auckland, which we quickly decided was actually the worst hostel in New
Zealand, if not the entire world. My
dorm was slightly larger than my college dorm and slept 12. 7 of these were indignant, smelly UK people
with no education but numerous tattoos and a truly impressive array of
profanity at their disposal. 4 were
Germans, 2 guys 2 girls, who were clearly in L-O-V-E and made the previous
group smell like fresh apple pie by comparison.
Then there was I. It quickly
became clear that I'd need to get out of there, so I decided it'd be prudent to
jump off a building.
The Sky Tower in Auckland is the largest building in the
southern hemisphere. Erected for no
actual purpose, it offers a lovely restaurant, observation deck, and a fancy
bungee-type thing by which people can jump off and arrive at the bottom, 12
seconds later, miraculously un-splattered.
After 34 hours of travelling I didn't care if the cord snapped and
didn't want to wait for the elevator, so I ponied up and jumped. Awesome experience. One bar crawl and a few more friends later, I
made plans to hike the next day. Hiking,
for the uninitiated, is not actually the best thing to do with a hangover. Shocking, no?
Aimee and I arrived at Rangitoro island at 1030am the next
day. We'd decided to be travel buddies,
and she quickly became the big sister (28 years old) I never had. Rangitoro is a geologically "new"
island that formed by violent volcanic activity which ceased only 600 years
ago. It is unpopulated and, to be blunt,
AWESOME. We met special-ed teachers from
Melbourne (actually Canadians) and spent 6 hours hiking, swimming, taking
pictures, complaining about John Matthews VI, and fantasizing about beer and
pizza. These are the only pictures in my album you MUST look at. I've never seen stuff this cool.
The following day was a walk in the park. I'm opposed to bus tours, and decided to just
get lost. New Zealand's Auckland
University is like SMU with hills and only one fraternity: Fiji. Sleeves are strictly prohibited, as is the
use of proper grammar. The local Kiwis
were enthusiastic about "howdy" as a concept because it was a
reduction of a phrase which concludes in an "-y" sound which they
hadn't already thought of. They were
impressed. And I was impressed with the
park! Kiwis are just really good at
parks, and at making grass greener and trees grow at funny angles. They're just way better at chilling than we
are. That night I accidentally walked
into the wrong room (fitting after a day of being lost in the city) and was
welcomed quite aggressively by a group of 5 Swedish people. One of them was a Korean girl who'd been
adopted by a Swedish family when she was 3 months old. This completely blew my then-inebriated
mind. I just couldn't believe people
existed in that flavor. It is my sincere
belief that through the bonding session that followed I improved US-Swedish
relations by letting each of them try on my boots and walk around in them. Obama, take notes - this is how you do it.
So today was just a standard Sunday - waking up on four
hours of sleep (thanks, roomies!), walking to the pier, jumping off the Auckland bridge and getting soaked (known as a wet jump in the bungee world),
then hustling to the airport to fly to Christchurch for the next leg of my
journey. I don't know why New Zealanders
have such a love of jumping off of structures.
I just don't get it. Tomorrow I'm
going on a harbor cruise and hope to spear-fish a dolphin or two. It's good to have goals, kids. Tuesday my Contiki Tour will begin, and my
life will never be the same afterward.
Please keep me posted on what's going on back home. For instance if my condo burns down, I'd like
to know within the week that it happened.
Jack, quit wearing my clothes.
Don't ask how, I just know.
Anyhow, I have 100-somthing pictures to upload, so this
novel ends here. I love a few of you,
miss some of you, and hope you all get a chance to travel abroad soon. It really is the best thing I've ever done
with my life.
Cheers,
Rusty
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