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Some quicknotes before I get started: NZ pizza is really good, even Dominoes and Pizza hut. I normally hate that stuff but the sauce isn't the same at all. Since made with NZ tomatoes, its much much sweeter, similar to barbeque sauce.
- TV isn't censored and commercials are HILARIOUS...very sexual though.
- age is really hard to judge here. almost everyone is either really attractive or at least interesting enough, and all look young.
- there's a 3 to 1 girl to guy ratio. I'm in an epidemic of supermodels here. God help me...I may never come back ;-)
Blah.
Haven't done much today. Last night was the big All Blacks match, and almost everyone celebrated a bit too hard. They won of course :-) I wish I had pictures to show everyone...these people are frikkin nuts man. The streets were shut down. It was like the whole city was in festival or something.
I'm not going to add much right now because I'm being charged by the minute for the internet use in a cafe and I've wasted a lot of time already. Just suffice it to say that the beer and wine flowed through the streets all night. It was a blast. These people are so fun and friendly...and the rivalry, even though it's strong, is still in jest. We went with Kelly's roommates (she had to work most of the night) to a bar. It was hard to find one that wasn't at capacity.
I think in the entire bar there was one single Red Lions supporter. His name was Marti, he was a British guy. Really funny...he was in his 60's and reminded me a lot of my uncle Bobby. I gave him a hard time all night since the All Blacks were basically shutting out the Lions. Kelly's flatmate Hamish, along with everyone else, is a fanatic...he wouldn't even talk to Marti civilly until after the match was over. Most of it consisted of "Go home ya english tosser!!!", but again, all in fun.
Quite funny.
Pardon, but I just took a 4 hour break from writing and just now returned. I'm a bit under the influence by now, so if things are a bit skewed from here on, sorry.
During the day before the match we caught the cable car up the mountain to the botanical gardens. Amazing. Never seen plants quite like it...vibrant and really fragrant. After the cable ride up, we walked down the mountain. It seemed like we were in a rain forest. We sorta got lost on some of the forest paths, which sucked because we were trying to hurry back for a car ride Kelly's roommates, Hamish and Mave, had promised us earlier that morning.
We made it back in time and took out for Mount Victoria in Hamish's car. It's one of the highest peaks in Wellington. Me and Sara had planned on tramping (hiking) it, but believe it or not we're still frikkin jet lagged, so it would have been suicide...probably would have ended our day if we had attempted it. Anyways, we got up there and the view was amazing. The whole road up was nothing but 90 degree turns, but a good portion of the population live up there. Their car ports literally hang off the edge of nothing. The houses are just built right into the side of the mountains. Go figure, but when you get to the top there's a gigantic All Blacks dude (one of the symbols) built onto a huge antenna that overlooks the city.
After that we drove around the bay for a bit. We saw some crazy ass surfers boarding in the 30 degree water. There were actually a LOT of them. From there we drove to this old boat harbor. It had this one boat, called the Venture, that LOOKED really old, but you could tell it was sort of made to look that way. Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings director, who is also a New Zealander) built it specifically as a set for his upcoming film, King Kong. It looked frikkin amazing, or "bloody brilliant". I snapped a few photos. You talk to anyone here and Peter Jackson is considered just an absolute champion of New Zealand, especially here in Wellington where he lives. He's brought loads of work here, and always shoots as much of his movies on location as possible. He actually invested money to renovate one of the Cinemas here called the Embassy. It's where he premiered lord of the rings. It's reallllyyy nice. We went there tonight and watched War of the Worlds, which was balls...I dunno, I guess it was entertaining but it's exactly what you expect it to be. Anyways, one of the previews was for King Kong. The Venture has a pretty big role in it, so it was really really neat to see it in action since we'd just seen it in person the day before.
Going to a movie here is about the equivalent to going to a play. Seats are assigned, and there are cafes and such in the lobby. They serve beer, wine, coffee, food, etc., all that of which you can take into the theatre.
Due to the celebration last night, Kelly called into her work for what was supposed to be her last day before her 2 1/2 week break. She's now done with work at least until we leave back for the states. This afternoon we started planning out what we were going to do for the rest of the trip. So far, we're getting our rented car and heading all over the north island until the 10th. This includes cave spelunking (black-water rafting in a cave), bungee jumping, possibly sky diving, touring the wine region of Hawk's Bay, seeing the Maori (native people) traditional stuff, and all kinds of other nonsense. Loads of hiking and whatnot. After that we head to the south island. That will start on the 12th. I dunno yet what all we'll do down there. We'll head back up north to wellington on the 17th or 18th.
One of my best friends Casey has been backpacking Australia for the last few weeks and he just told me he's heading to NZ on the 15th. I'm gonna do my best to meet up with him for a few days at least.
OK, I'm exhausted and need to head to bed. I'll write in here again when I have some more interesting things to talk about. I realize this one was a bit drab.
Feel free to leave comments or send me a message!!!
Sammy Joe
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Connie O
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No Worries!
I'm amazed ay my precious son going on water rafting of caves or spelunking - I'm such a scaredy cat and he's going for it. Proud of you son - call and let me know you survived it! love you.