Day 3 Lyttelton Methven:

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Just some things I forgot to mention earlier. I met a woman at the CHCH airport when I arrived, she was from California. Her son lived in Royal Oak right near main street. I can now fully accept the fact that it is a small world. Also, I forgot to talk about the roads to Akaroa when I went. They were very narrow, and constantly winding. The speed limit was 62mph. The scary part was that people actually drove 62 mph while I wouldn't break 30.

I woke up this morning and headed out towards Lyttelton. I really don't know what my plan is, I am just going to drive. I want to hike a bit but it's forecasted to rain all day. I am currently stopped at a coffee shop writing this journal. I got a very nicely decorated hot chocolate. As you may notice sometimes my journal is in present tense and others in past. Hope it isn't too confusing.

Well today has been a bit of a disappointment so far. I went to Lyttelton and it did not seem to have much to offer. It was an industrial harbor town with a bit of scenery. They seemed to be exporting a lot of lumber, the air smelled like saw dust and gasoline. I arrived in Methven, a somewhat deserted ski town. Season doesn't start until June. The hostel I arrived at, Big Tree Lodge, only has one other tenant, whom I have not yet met. It is a really warm and cozy place. It has old wood doors and has a small cottage feel to it. The bathroom has a hot and cold water faucet. Better known as freezing and third degree burns. The people who work here, or just hang around here are really nice and laid back. It's pretty funny, currently we are watching a snowboarding dvd. It just shows people snowboarding, with no purpose or commentary. It seems these people live to snowboard. They have spent the last three snowboarding seasons in Colorado. It is really weird to see the differences in lifestyle here, well at least among the hostel goers. They don't have a care in the world. They find temporary work wherever they can, and do what they love with their time off. For some its snowboarding, others hiking or bike riding. They are definitely not on the spouse and kids track. They don't seem to have much and are perfectly content with it.

Lee, the owners son, has shown me what there is to do in the area, and it is more then I thought. There is a waterfall I am exited to see, and a couple trails that only take a couple hours to complete. He also pointed out a road that is supposed to be very scenic. I also plan jet boating while I am here. After he showed me around I took off to grab some lunch.

I went to the local bar, The Blue Pub, and grabbed a burger. It was steak burger with an egg and some sort of root plant on it, it looked somewhat like a beet. It was served with "chips" and was pretty good. The bartender said it would be pretty packed tonight and it might be good to stop in and check it out. I might do that. After my lunch I started heading towards the falls. Unfortunately the visibility today is about 50 feet, and it looks stormy. I turned around since I didn't want to get stuck outside with my camera in the rain, with short visibility. I think for the rest of the day I will just relax, and maybe go to the bar tonight. The good news is I saw the mountains coming in and they looked spectacular. Too bad the fog has taken over.

The night ended up being awesome! At first we sat around and watched music videos for a good 3 hours. Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, all the same crap in America, plus some NZ and british artists that weren't nearly as awful. I talked a while with Lee and his girlfriend learned a bit about Kiwi life. They get interest free student loans from the government, and if they don't make over 22K a year they don't pay them. I think that seems to be the route for some of the people here. Lee's girlfriend has a media arts degree but by the time she graduated she was so sick of it she never pursued anything in the field. Lee used to sell farming equipment and then cars, now I think he just helps run the parents hostel. They also had a friend in town from Ashburn. He worked at a meat processing plant and told stories of people losing fingers while cutting up lambs. He cut the tip of his thumb off and it grew back, although he could no longer feel the tip. His accent was so thick I could barely understand what he was saying. He was by far the hardest Kiwi to understand. Eventually the other tenant from the Netherlands arrived. His name is Yella, or it at least sounds like that. If I say it fast he probably can't tell I'm saying it incorrectly. He made dinner then played Dune on his computer. I used to love that game! We watched a bit of Mama Mia because there are only 5 TV channels here. I passed out on the couch and woke up shortly after. Yella wanted to go to the bar, and even though I didn't want to go, I forced myself to, and I am glad I did.

We headed out of the house and the first thing I did was look up. The sky was crystal clear. The stars were all out. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to come here. The milky way was clearly visible. What seemed like every star in the sky was visible. And they all twinkled. It was so weird to see the long arm of the milky way stretched across the night sky. I tried taking pictures but you can't see it very clearly. While walking to the bar I couldn't help but keep staring up. We got downtown and to the right was The Blue Pub, and to the left was The Brown Pub. The Blue looked dead and the Brown was rowdy. We we warned that the Brown is more of a local spot and you may feel out of place. We walked in and the bar felt like the one from the movie Out Cold, but the rated R version. All the locals were completely wasted and dancing all over the tables. Guys would punch each other in the stomach, and I saw a couple atomic wedgies. Actually they were beyond atomic wedgies, the underwear was ripped off of their bodies and they would swing them over their heads. Apparently it is perfectly acceptable here for men to take their shirts off and swing them around over their heads because 50% of the men were doing it. It was also acceptable to pull other guys pants down and expose their butts. I saw more butts then I ever have before. Towards the end of the night it wasn't just butts, the pants came down and the men were grabbing their manly parts and showing them around. The Kiwis here are a lot like the Fosters beer commercials, they are very rough. There were a few old men at the bar and their faces showed their age. Leathery pale skin, with a short stubble, and their faces had what looked like a thing layer of dirt. Yella can drink quite a few beers and he was putting them down at twice the rate I could. He was a mechanical engineer back home, and spent last year backpacking through Australia. After that he got a working holiday VISA for NZ and he is here until December. He told me he hitchhiked from Cairns to Melbourne in Australia, which is about 4,000 kilometers. I asked if it was just 1 person that drove him and he told me 52! It's perfectly acceptable and safe here and in Australia to hitchhike your way across the country, unlike the states. On the way back from a bathroom one some guy blatantly tried to trip me. I turned around and looked and he flicked me off. That must be how they welcome outsiders. Besides all of the male nudity and the guy who tried to trip me, the people were pretty nice. They just wanted to have a good time…. a really good time. I spoke with a Kiwi who was in the NZ army, didn't think they had one, and he told me he wants to go to Iraq to kill some people. I told him to come over to America, we'd be glad to ship you off. His father had recently died from agent orange exposure in vietnam, and his grand father was in world war 2 or something. He felt like he needed to see some real action to follow the family tradition. On the way out I got stuck talking to an old drunk Australian man who lived in Aspen for a while. The best thing he liked about America was the cheap cocaine. Classy. We headed home around 1:30 or 2 o'clock. When I got back I went straight for bed.

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