Alrighty, back to my keyboard. This time I have no pressing movie to see, an
ample supply of Smarties, and the pictures are uploading. Get excited.
I feel like explaining Queenstown is simply not
possible. It's the birthplace of the
Mountain Dew/Spring Break/MTV mindset, but somehow not obnoxious at all about
it. To be bored in Queenstown is truly
impossible, but being broke is totally reasonable. You just need to go there.
So now a brief departure from talking about the places I've
been, to make a personal commentary. As
many of you are aware, I've been on a bit of a religious/spiritual/overall
decency binge the last several months brought on by a confluence of things and
people (re)entering my life. I was the
only religious person in my group, which would have been a big joke to predict
a year ago. I found myself settling into
the nice guy role quickly, and while being the dedicated partier that I am I
was still able to look myself squarely in the mirror at all times and even
share my faith with others at multiple times.
I was, and this is new for me, looked up to. This may sound like I'm just high-fiving
myself over and over, which isn't my point.
My point is that I made a conscious decision awhile ago to change the
way I was walking and with yall as witnesses I wanted to check in and say it's
been wildly successful and life's more fun when you're the same person Sunday
morning that you were Saturday night.
But to move right
along.....
After Queenstown the
gang returned to Christchurch for a night.
Having seen the entire city before I had a beer and a 5-hour nap before
we all headed to Karaoke. This karaoke
session was in a bar the size of a dry-cleaners owned by a Korean family who
opened up just for us, since we managed to get the whole 40-person crew to come
out. Fast-forward 3 hours and, having
rocked my socks off and drank entirely too much, my little gang (my "bears")
hung out on the Christchurch Cathedral lawn and were egged by locals. "Let's go drive around at 1am on a Monday
and throw eggs at tourists" actually came out of someone's mouth that
night and, while my boots suffered, I feel bad more for the perpetrators than
the victims.
Wellington
Wellington was where,
to use the immortal words of my favorite younger brother, shit got weird. The group finally began clicking and, after
an afternoon of bungee jumping and museum perusing, we decided to have some
fun. After being kicked out of my room
at 8pm for pregaming too loud (Ring of Fire/King's Cup has apparently never
graced this island before. I felt like
the guy who introduced basketball to Africa), we were off to a nice dinner at a
decent restaurant. At the behest of our
tour manager Alana, aka Hoover (so-named for downing a pint in under 4 seconds,
and a liter in under 10), we then began dancing on top of the table we had just
eaten on and openly mocking those in our group who were too cool for school. How we were not kicked out of said restaurant
remains a mystery to me, but not one I'm eager to solve. The night went on, as it must, and the
following day was even better. We caught
the Birds of Tokyo concert after shopping around all day for the upcoming theme
party booze cruise (the theme was the letter "C" and I went as a
Cliche. It was awesome). In the process of saying goodbye to one of my
main bears who was leaving the following day, we ended up at an Irish pub where
an unfortunate musician was playing to a crowd of 3. We immediately decided to rock it and the 10
of us made his day by getting rowdy and singing along, dancing on tables,
berating less enthusiastic customers and essentially acting like a bunch of
drunk tourists. This behaviour was standard
practice throughout the trip. Every time
we saw a musician playing to an unenthusiastic crowd we, at my urging, got
down. After watching my older brother's
friend's band suffer through tepid audiences I made a decision to lend
enthusiasm whenever possible, as it seems to be one thing I have in
spades.
Rotorua
Rotorua is a little
nothing town. It was home to two
higlights of the trip, however: a Maori
cultural performance and Zorbing.
Zorbing involves getting into a giant plastic ball with water and being
pushed down a hill, zigzag pattern optional.
I, being eternally in need of a more ridiculous thrill, zorbed down the
hill with two other people inside my giant sphere. Several bumps and bruises later, I was in
severe pain but glad I did it. Before
suiting up I'd thrown my necklace to a girl for safekeeping who proceeded to
drop it between the floorboards. This
naturally resulted in my army-crawling underneath the moist, dirty,
insect-infested deck about 15 meters each way to get it back. Sometimes you just get the hankerin for a
good ab workout. What can I say.
The Maori cultural performance was amazing. As I've said previously, the Kiwis have a
unique relationship with the indigenous people.
They are in awe of their culture and have tremendous respect for them
and their way of life. This is, in my
opinion, for two main reasons. 1) The Maori women are, frankly, babes. They just look good. and 2) Maori men can kick industrial
quantities of ass. Part of the cultural
show was the Haka
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAIJNKRajTc&feature=related and then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU4B-NBuCgo&feature=related),
which I participated in and seriously pray no one puts on facebook or youtube,
and another was a weapons demonstration.
I nearly shat myself on 3 separate occasions. I would rank the Maori very, very high on the
"People not to F*ck with" list.
Slightly below Angry Muslims but certainly above Drunk West Virginians.
The first round of photos is now up - they only span up to
Lake Tekapo and Milford. I'm heading to
Melbourne tonight, as I've mentioned, and maybe while I'm there I'll have the
opportunity to upload more. I have at
least 300 more on my camera, so no wokkas (No Wockin Furries. If you need a clearer explanation ask
me).
So once again, I'm
sorry to send only a partial update of my life and status. These damn computers are so slow and my time
so limited I cannot give more information.
I hope you've all been having a wonderful new year and haven't yet
renegged on your resolutions (Mine's still going strong). I'm now off to the Auckland airport. Please respond and let me know what's new
with your lives if you have the time.
Goodbye and God Bless
R-Stevie
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