Let It Burn

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Where to start? Well, i'm feeling much more cheerful now compared to the last time we spoke. I had a great time at Kiwi-burn and i've been traveling around the north island for the last few days with Flo and Sophia.

Kiwi-Burn

Awesome, simply. I arrived on tuesday and stayed for a week, leaving the following tuesday with a lift down to Levin with 2 of the people who had organised the festival. There were only 230 people or so there, with 40 people or so helping to set it up and clean up afterwards. It was initially intimidating as the other people who had arrived on the tuesday for set up (the festival itself lasted friday-monday) hadn't seen one another for a year or so, so there was a few hours of old friends catching up and me feeling like a out of place lemon. Once that had been and gone everything was good. There are many stories to tell and i could be here typing for hours, so once again i will try to give you a vague idea.
I took a new friend (known him for 24 hours) to hospital when he came down with appendicitis and spent friday night at Hamilton hospital after an afternoon of heavy drinking (hey, its a festival!). Ran into problems when they tried to charge me $40 for the room they'd put me to sleep in (i hadn't brought my wallet). Hitched back to the festival, telling my story to my hitches and one lady put $20 in my hand and told me to buy some food and water (i hadn't brought any) bless her. Then i returned to the festival bleary eyed (sans my friend, he stayed to be operated on and never returned) when i was bamboozled into a cross-dressing fashion show when i won 'hottest girl' award (there are photos hopefully none of you will ever see).
Made friends with an American girl called Josie who i am going to travel around the south island with until my birthday on March 2nd (when i will be in Christchurch).
And general other awesomeness, but its all a bit blurry to be honest, but that's what festivals are for i guess. From there i traveled down to Alex's house, cleaned my clothes (i will probably put all my clothes in a pile and burn the lot when i leave NZ, the vast majority are just gross) and bathed. Then i went to Wellington and spent a little time with Danielle (always nice) and met Flo and Sophia. They hired a car and we've been taking a very round about route up to Auckland (they fly from there on tuesday). We spent friday night camped at the bottom of some guys drive. Rather than being upset, as you might expect in Europe, he invited us in for coffee and a shower. Now were in Coromandel, skinny dipping in the rain and generally behaving like hippies.
After i say goodbye to them i pick up Josie and head to Golden Bay in the south island, where i will spend another week building a house, then i will tramp around the beautiful Nelson Lakes for a while.
Good times.
In a much better mood, Chris

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