the bog

unfortunatly it's raining here agian, which totally stomps all over my plans to go to rangitoto island (across the bay from auckland) a barely 600 year old volcano with lava flows you can walk through (bring a torch) and a great veiw of the city. but it's far to wet to go trekking (or tramping! as they call it here. a very suspicious word...)
i am very happy to be back in auckand, it feels as though i have never left. last night i went out to the local irish pub "the bog" on parnell with a small group, all of whom speak other languages and are trying to learn english, or improve what they already know, so i was english teacher/coach the whole time. we got into a hilarious discussion about words that sound similar when spoken with a french accent (they all speak french, and sometimes would break into long strings of it, and i was left to wonder 'what are the saying') like "beach" and "bitch", "sea" and "see", "teeth" and "tits", "mouth" and "mouse" and "moose", "sheet" and "shit" and so on. and how, in english, the grammar they used in school is far mor 'correct' and formal than the way we would talk in america, so why don't they just teach speaking english as it woul be so much more useful?
there was local music at the pub, so loud we couldn't speak inside and be heard so we had to move out to the picnic tables outside. they musician, throughout the evening, preformed songs by the police, ben taylor, bob marley (no woman no cry, no less!), matchbox 20, the killers, the strokes, green day, the fugees, kt tunstell, jet, the white stripes, and otis redding! among other hilarious selections, and managed to make this eclectic mix of covers sound exactly the same!
i was also proposed to by two irish guys (marrige, if i want an irish passport-aparently it's very useful to have?) and asked on three seperate occations by non-native english speakers to explain the significance and meaning of the word "wingman"!