Joe Jumpin off the Ol Bridge Mate!

The Separation

Today, Joe and I separate.  I arrive at the University of Auckland for my UC EAP orientation, get directions to my room from a very attractive American girl, and get settled on top of the world.

Joe, on the other hand, is busy planning the rest of his life. He’s spent the past few days on websites looking for potential hostels he can work at for the next month, hoping to find free housing.  He’s got no leads as of yet, and will stick around in Auckland for a while until he decides what to do.

My room is a nice single here, with concrete walls (good for nighttime sound insulation) and a nice view. It’s a bit small, like the prison cell Joe will end up in if he doesn’t get his life together and is forced into the drug cartel. He wanted to stay for a few nights in the room next door, which is under construction. I was opposed to the idea.

Alas, while I explored my new home for the next few days, Joe set to giving me all of the things he won’t be needing any more, as he will need a lighter load while traveling alone without a rental car.

Between comments like...

“Do I really need three pairs of underwear? Nah two’s fine”

and

“Is it cool if I just crash whenever you guys have free food at orientation?”

...Joe packed away his life, off on a journey that will lead him on an almost certain tomultous journey. Alas, if Fate, in all of her mystery, acts kindly upon Joe, he will emerge from this wrecked nation a new and better man. However, if she looketh unkindly upon his wretched soul... we can only pray that he survive to tell the tales of his travels to Hades and back...

Hamilton 2 Auckland

Waking up early and well rested from some nice kava, we hit the road. En route I pick up another meat pie and something called a sausage roll (greasy sausage baked in philo dough), have a massive heart attack, and then get back on the road.

With time to kill we decide to stop in Hamilton to check out the famous gardens. They have a good bunch of different exhibits there, the best of which was the American modernist garden (obviously). We would have stayed longer but most shops were closed as today is a holiday. Apparently the Auckland anniversary is celebrated today, but really only the North island seems to care.

I’ve started to realize nobody really likes Auckland here. It’s just too big and crowded to stand out as a nice place in such an amazing country. Although I now wish I was attending school south in Queenstown or Wellington, I think I’ll probably learn to like it here.

To stay out of the busyness for two nights we settle in a suburb of Auckland called Parnell. It is pleasant but looks expensive so we’ll be cooking in for the night. I suspect I’ll have to cook for myself more often while I’m here because eating out is so expensive here and apparently nobody eats out quite as often as Americans.

Here in Parnell we are staying at a pleasant little backpacker place, which is a nice change from the busy city life we’ve been experiencing... and hopefully some calm before the storm of living in the middle of Auckland. Joe and I are in a little three bed room and our roommate is a shy German girl who seems scared of us. She probably should be.

KAVA

So, on our way back up to Auckland from Wellington, Joe and I are sitting on the side of the road, finishing up our PB & J’s from the evening (beans were a bit of a luxury), and, as the sun goes down inspiration strikes. Neither of us is very tired, and we’re bored, so we decide to drink the kava I bought in Fiji. It was a genius plan.

Kava is the national drink of Fiji, and from what I’ve been told Mormons are big on it as well (they cannot consume mind altering substances, but body altering is okay I guess). So kava is a basically a root that you mix in water (like tea) and it relaxes your muscles. It’s legal in the US, but I guess just nobody does it.

We thought we were going to need to steep the kava in water using pantyhose, and neither Joe nor I want to buy pantyhose, so we are thrilled to find the packet came with it’s own strainer.

I kept a log of the events in my journal:

(I know that is difficult to read, so I will translate):

8:30 OPEN KAVA

8:35 PREPARE KAVA

8:40 DRINK KAVA

8:45 JO BRINGS OUT HEADPHONES. WE LISTEN TO PIXIES

8:50 FINISH FIRST ROUND OF KAVA. I CANNOT FEEL TONGUE

8:51 SPILL KAVA ON D***. CANNOT FEEL D***.

9:00 STILL W/ BASIC MOTOR SKILLS WE MAKE ANOTHER BATCH

9:05 MOTOR SKILLS BEGIN TO FADE

9:20 VERY NUMB

9:30 (Juvenile drawing of a kiwi bird)

I then pass out in the car. When I wake up I have scars on my face. Joe is sleeping in the middle of a riverbed.

In short, kava is a great way to relax my muscles from all the hiking and walking we’ve been doing. I sleep like a baby that evening, wake up around 7, and hit the road for Auckland.

(Full disclosure: Kava is not this gnarly. I completely exaggerated the results)

Joe Makes A Post!

Alas, by popular demand, our very own JOE STATOM has made a blog post concerning our evening in Wellington:

    The dutch are funny. Funnier than the Brits. And more comprehensible than the Scotts. That's one thing I've learned here in Nu Zillund. Amazingly, we are rooming again with The Flying Dutchman. (Our roommate from Raglan. Everybody has these Lonely Planet books!) So the night starts off with the Dutchman (aka Patrick) cooking us a mean pasta for four. We eat, play cards, drink, and learn some stupid Dutch tricks. Then our crew heads out for the night. (In retrospect, way too many dudes)
    We go to the same bar as last night. This time there's a boxing match on TV so it's way more crowded. We buy a couple pitchers when suddenly these two weirdos sit at the same table as us. One was strangely drunk. The other never spoke and looked straight out of the movie Deliverance. The drunk guy starts trying to talk to me and asks me where I'm from. I tell him and he says, "Yeah I know SLO. I f@cked the mayor of SLO's daughter at a Steely Dan Concert at the Mid State Fair." I thought that would be the quote of the night.
    I talk to this guy in order to try and seem nice, but his questions/answers just start becoming louder and more incomprehensible. He offers me a sip of his mixed drink. I'm scared that it's ruffied but more scared of pissing him off, so I take a tiny sip. Finally he tells me to come outside to talk. I say that we're about to leave, but he tells me again to come outside. I tell him that I'm just gonna grab another beer at the bar and then meet him there. Then we get the hell outta there. That guy was really creeping me out. I didn't want the toothless guy to make me "squeal like a pig".
    So we go to the Irish bar next door. But as soon as we get in, we see a room full of "little people" dancing to a live band playing Guns N' Roses. This isn't exactly our scene, so we start heading out the door. All of the sudden, these two girls walk in and one sticks her tongue out at Vince. We had to investigate. Vince starts talking with one and she is just amazed that he is from California. She would keep introducing him to friends saying, "This is Vince, he's from California." I've never said, "Wait. I'm from California too!" so many times in my life.
    "Oooh my Gaawd, California?? Are you from the OC? Do you know Lauren Conrad?!!!" We gotta lot of that during the night. Also, we were in High School Musical with Zach Effron. Take one word away from that sentence and it's true…. We eventually get the real quote of the night from these girls. It pertains to how our accents make them feel, but it's a little too PG-13 for this audience. Vince decides to buy them drinks after calling me a cheap bastard for not buying them. However, as I suspected, they only stay as long as their vodka and red bulls are full. So they run off after finishing their drinks. It's a good way to get free alcohol I guess. We rebound with 60 cent ice cream cones at McDonalds (the only thing cheap in NZ) and pass out.

Wellington Part II

You know how in America the girls just go CRAZY for guys with accents? Well apparently that works for Americans in downtown Wellington as well. Also, I told a lot of people that I was good friends with Zac Efron last night, and that worked pretty well too.

Wellington Night 1

So Joe and I had just arrived at the bars in downtown Wellington, and we order a pitcher. Some kiwi bloke then comes up and tells me “Ay mate ya did it all wrong!” And proceeds to tell me which beers cost the same as the one that I ordered, but that have 4.6% alcohol instead of just 4%. Friendly guy, and he liked us because we were from California. 

All of a sudden this girl comes up to us and gets ALL over Joe, flirting like hell with him, trying to kiss him, and then giving us her best California impersonation, which just consisted of her repeatedly requesting of us to “Ooo slap me bum! Slap ma’ bum!”

And basically that’s how the best picture of all time came to be. Also, the picture is even better because she was the other guy’s girlfriend.

Downtown Welly is awesome, although we were confined to a limited set of bars. Several of the big “clubby” bars wouldn’t let us in because we were wearing sandals - or “Jandals” as they call them here.

Needless to say we’ll be going out in shoes this evening, on the hunt for the finest California impersonation we can find.

One highlight of the night came from our dutch friend who came out with us (miraculously this guy, our roommate back in Raglan, was placed as our roommate in Wellington), on our walk back home when he told Joe and I, “I like you guys because you’re grandpa saved my grandpa’s life.” Felt damn proud to be an American.