arrivals

dubious greetings from the land of thai.
it's sweltering hot here and hard to notice much else. i have spent the whole day traveling, from wellington to auckland at 7 am and then hours spent wandering the airport and making goodbye phone calls before boarding my thai airlines flight to bangkok. the interior of the plane was lavender with beautiful alternating gold, amethyst and magenta seats. the hostesses changed outfits three times, always in semi-alarmingly bright combinations like turquoise and hot pink, but beautiful thick brocade gowns. i scored an emergency row seat, it was super spacious and i was comfortably sprawled all flight, and they presented all of our drinks delicatly perched on small silver trays. it was beautifully gracious service. i watched five movies in swift succession in an attempt to distract myself to no avail.
upon arriving i was greated by a thick wave of damp heat. and a barage of bantering taxi drivers all offering various prices. and offers of service. it seems almost like any other city, particularly in the dark. could be la except all the signage is in thai and my taxi was passed by a new ford truck with about ten small children perched in the bed. already i crave gold leaf and jewel toned textiles. and now, i will attempt to decrease my sweat output, and sleep off my jetlag. oh time change. how i have not missed you.

when in nz

so, looking at the end of my time in new zealand, land of the great white cloud (and there are lots of awesome clouds here) and at what i've done etc. i've read 28 books and written 48 postcards (gives me a handcramp just thinking about it) and learned all sorts of things. for instance, in nz toilets say vacant/engaged and men wear very short shorts and everyone seems to have taken to walking about barefoot, in the city, in some sort of protest. burgers are served with beetroot a fried egg and chile sauce and this is deemed normal, it's impossible to find mexican food that won't make you ill, any place spelled with a 'wh' at the beginning is inexplicably pronounced 'f' (and i am massivly impressed by the weather ladys ability to say all the names at breakneck speed without mistakes), and "sweet as" is said by everyone, all the time. and the facts are incorrect, and dairy production has gone up as the demand for lamb has subsided so there is now only 10 sheep per person. also:
bathing suits=togs
trash cans=rubbish/litter bins
laundry=washing
flipflops=jandals
thanks=ta
jock=buffhead
nicelooking=flash
dinner=tea
hood=bonnet
trunk=boot
rainboots=gumboots
car body shop=panelbeaters
sweaters=jumpers
pants=trousers (and pants are something entirely different)
and fries/chips/wedges are all used to describe potatos treated with hot oil, but each means a different variety. however, the lines of differentiation are rather vague at times.
as i am making lists now i can also say that i have been to a lot of places, and here they(mostly) are in order (i think):
auckland/wellsford/auckland/wellington/picton/renwick/blehnim/linkwater/havelock/nelson/rai valley/french pass/nelson/greymouth/christchurch/dunedin/queenstown/christchurch/picton/wellington/upper hutt/wellington/taupo/whitianga/auckland/whangarai/paihai/auckland/wellington
while here in new zealand i have done rather i lot of things. again i will grace you with further listing:
cyclone escaping, bird breakfast sharing, cow chasing, garlic harvesting, beekeeping, long bus riding, ferry crossing, blueberry picking, blueberry baking, early morning inaguration-ing, bicycle powered wine tasting, lemon rescuing, jungle walking, ugly dog sitting, shady tree reading, post van riding, room cleaning, bed making, dolphin swimming, rain dancing, film watching, cocoa drinking, flower smelling, duck feeding, spicy curry eating, freezing, bus talking, sweater buying, bus sleeping, cloud watching, jump missing, popcorn making, more bus riding, music listening, sick boating, ice cream slurrping, laughing, sauce making, pie baking, sign painting, fair attending, pancake making, swimming, postcard creating,joke telling, left hand eating, cider drinking, friend goodbying, chocolate eating, art seeing, nerd touring, rugby screaming, ink getting, car driving, skydiving, picture taking, sun rising, parallel parking, haircutting, truth realizing, more bus riding, tree hugging, water wading, sand boarding, writing, package sending, more bus riding, freind visiting, place/people returning to, goodbye saying. to name a few things.
i will miss this place and the people here and i have a feeling that i am not seeing the last of it!
and now off to the next adventure..............

the farthest north

quite hot up there, though farthest north makes me think of the north pole and lots of snow and white bears. yesterday i journied up to the very tippy top of the north island. walked out to the lighthouse at the cape, saw where the tasman met the pacific. and it was beautiful and much less windy than it usually is (according to ted the bus driver). we also drove to the giant sand dunes where the driver produced boogie boards and we hiked up the most giant hill of sand ever just to slide back down again. my pockets were full of sand and lunch tasted distinctly gritty as well. and the we drove along the entire 90 mile beach (actually closer to 70 miles but still the name sticks i guess) in the giant bus or coach as they are called here, stopped to admire the wildness of the clouds and the perfect beach, some of the travelers even picked small shellfish out of the sand and ate them. right there. raw. i did not partake in this gruesome activity but took pictures for my friends of their stunned faces. and then dinner at a really authentic 'chippery' though i was told by an english guy that it would have been better if they had used newsprint to wrap everything instead of blank butcher paper. yum!

back to the bus

well, goodbye car, hello bus! i have not missed you but still, good way to get around.
i dropped off the car in auckland yesterday morning, early, and only 20 km over the alloted amount (and the guy winked and said i was under!). woke up early in the cormandal, early enough to catch the sunrise. it's the eastern most point of new zealand, and of the world, so i was seeing the wednesday sun first, out of anyone in the world-well along with everyone else on the beach looking at it, but who cares, it was magnificent. and then the drive to auckland, which was fine, until the city drew near and then it was harrowing in the extreem, and i pulled over cause the gas light went on and it turned out i was right where i wanted to be and i got there early and it was great. it was difficult to say bye to patty, she treated me so well and it was awesome to drive a car that felt so spacious, and cushy. i'm used to being more squished! i would just like to say thank you so much to my 'secret santa' out there, for allowing me four days of glorious freedom. i think i pulled over several times an hour, just to walk around the pullouts and exclaim at the view. i reveled in my temporary mobility. it was such a gift. thank you.
after dropping off the car i spent an afternoon in auckland, got a haircut (i was getting pretty snarley) and wandered around. discovered 'margaret' street (awesome!). and this morning at the crack of dawn the stray bus picked me up. a nice small bus full of really lovely people. not as young and crazy as the kiwiexperience kids. and we stopped at goat island and saw beautiful fish, and hugged the huge ka'uri tree which is apparently an old custom. hug the tree and pray to it. lovely tree. but not what i would call huge. and now i am in paihai and it's beautiful beach, and i'm going on a day trip tomorrow to the '90 mile beach' which should be awesome!

more exciting stuff

wow, two things to write about in one day. an embarrasment of riches! though to be fair my entry this morning was concerning the events of the day before but still....
today was a big day. i have been wanting to jump out of a plane for, well, forever really. and i was going to in queenstown but the weather sort of foiled my plans. and thank god, because taupo skydiving is aparently the best in new zealand. i went with 'skydive taupo'. they picked me up in a limo (with five other kids for israel and belgium already hyped up or freaking out respectivly) and took up to the hanger at the airport, where we were show a video which convinced me to buy the full set-splurge and get the dvd of the fall and all the extras. i just didn't want to forget a second. we were able to pick the songs that played during the different parts. i chose for mine to start with 'eye of the tiger'! and then we were suited up and introduced to our instructors. mine was named steve and he was tiny. short. and very blonde. from chicago. the instructor /tandem partner wears the camera on their arm so it's all very personal throughout the freefall and into the parachute part as well. the video we saw looked awesome. i was in a daze the whole way through the prep but tried to keep my head and remember my instructions which revolved around holding myself in the shape of a banana. not too difficult.
we squeezed for pairs into the bright pink and alarmingly small plane and took off. there were two girls who were doing the 12,000 ft jump and they were to go first. i vastly enjoyed the flight, the country looked amazing from that height. the clouds so soft and far away. the weather couldn't be more perfect. but when it came time for her to go the first girl refused and looked very upset. they wenta rround again and her friend went and then again she refused so they took us higher so that myself and the other guy going from 15,000ft could jump. it was so hard to go last i was chomping the bit like crazy. and finally it was by time to go and i opened my eyes wide, put my legs under the bottem of the plane as instructed, and out we went, (aparently over the plane rather than under, due to weather issues) and i was euphoric. it was unbelievable. so hard to comprehend. so against nature and yet amazing. we were falling so fast my face flapped and i had to try hard to keep my arms from flying up over my head. and the spinning and tumbling. madness. utter awesome madness. and in what seemed like a moment it was over ( the best 60 seconds ever!) and the paracute was deployed and we were floating. and even that was wonderful. and even that went quickly and we were landing, perfectly i may hasten to add. none of this landing by sitting, i just stood up. a perfect landing!
they say the human brain can't comprehend heights over 5,000 ft and maybe that's why we are able to jump out of planes. it just doesn't occur to us that its not a good idea. but it is such a good idea. the best. i want to go again.....

taming the beast

i decided to face my fears and do some wrong-side-of-the-road driving. so i arranged to relocate a car from wellington to auckland, for budget rentals. the arrangement was this: three nights, for days, 900 kilometers and after that they charge 30 cents per km, all i have to pay for is gas. oh excuse me - petrol! so i was to have my car from sunday to wednesday, and i planned to drive to taupo, then the cormandal peninsula, then over to auckland. figured it would all be well marked and i could figure it out. went to pick up my car yesterday morning and after the preliminary paperwork/identification/credit card etc the man at the desk explained to me apoligetically that since i was relocating a car i had no choice to the type of car and then he went to fetch it and pull it around to the front.
and it was a minivan.
a powder blue minivan. the most un -mini vehicle i had every witnessed in my life. i look small in this car. but what choice did i have? i had booked accomadations along the way, had a bus to catch thrusday morning in auckland, i needed to drive and this was the car i was delt. so with much trepidation, i eased the behemouth beast out onto the road, busy with sunday market and italian festival traffic, and made my tentative way towards the highway-excuse me i meant moterway! it 's fairly easy to find everything, signage is quite sufficient, and i was headed to the blueberry farm in upper hutt first, to say bye to mary and bettianne (and hopefully score some berries) and i found my way without much of a hastle, having done the drive as a passenger several times i was fairly certain of the direction and terraine. mary named to car patty and we had a lovely good laugh about the absurdity of her scale. and the idea of me negociating this monster around-on the wrong side too!
but after staying too long on the farm (hard to say goodbye) and looking up directions, i realized it was a five hour drive to taupo and i would be arriving well after dark and with no small amount of terror i took off again. the route i was given by google maps led me down akwatera road, a tiny one lane through the most jungly terrain, on mountains, with amazing veiws. if only i had the time to look at the scenery instead of wincing everytime another car sped past a breakneck speed, disregarding entirely that my car was far too wide to be allowed and really was unpassable but maybe not.
it was wonderful to have my own mobility though, and after an hour of winding and worry, i emerged onto sh1 and sped into two hours of the most amazing clouds and sunset ever. i couldn't help pulling over and thank god, the view was breathtaking:
and as the sun went down and i began to worry of ever reaching taupo, i switched on my lights and trusted in the straightness of the road and the superior quality of new zealand signage and made my way accompanied by the most random selection of radio ever. first backstreet boys, then 'maggie may' the some motown. a gloriously odd selection. and i made it safe and sound, after a bit of searching, to the hidden hostel. and parked my wide load (a 23 point turn!) and as i let myself into my room i realized that i hadn't worried for hours, almost at all really, about being on the wrong side of the road, just about getting lost. and that in the dark, and unfarmiliar country, i had made it from point a to point b. i can check that off my list now and look forward to three more days of comfortable comraderie with patty, otherwise know as the beast.

intense geekisms and the rugby

so yesterday i broke down and decided that when i new zealand one must go on a lord of the rings sort of activity, and so i signed up for a tour and yesterday was the day. it was a full day of driving around with two dutch guys would were nearly un-underdstandable, and a extreemly peppy woman and her husband, who it turns out know people in mendocino, what a coincidence. halfway through the day we were joined by peter, who you can see pictured with me here, acting like a hobbit. throughout the day, at various locations our guide, ted, would stop, ask us if we recognized a certain spot, and pull out some very accurate props, including a broken carrot at one point. and we would pose and he would take a photo to look exactly like the film still. it was super nerdy but kind of fun. at one point he had ears and a blonde wig even. the locations were beautiful landscapes, and alot of them were for small scenes that lasted less than a minute, fractions of a second even, but still cool to see. no one else could recognize the locations but me though so i did feel a bit like a super nerd, and none of the places we went were restricted so we could have concievable gone on our own, if one had just know wherer to look. still it was a fun day.
and after we got back into the city i ran straight to my favorite chocolate place (best hot chocolate in new zealand) where i met up with my friend jimmi and we made our way over with the crowd to the stadium to watch the rugby. hurricanes (wellignton) vs bulls (south africa). last home game for over a month but deciptivly crowded at the ticket lines for how sparsly spread the people were inside. and not the most exciting game. we were about three rows back so the action was right up close but the bulls are fifth in the league (i think) and totally slaughtered the hurricanes, who managed to scrape up a little dignity from where they had deposited it in the feild by scoring a try in the last ten seconds (bringing the score to 14/19 which was less embarrasing) and the spectators shuffled out like a morose herd, little kids running around with big foam hands and crazy hats, not caring about the game, just likeing the excitement. but i couldn't have just watched rugby on tv in a pub all the time. it wouldn't have been anywhere as authentic.