Game On

Well, Obviously I’ve been insanely lazy about updating my site, but to be honest the past few weeks haven’t offered any news too blog worthy. Or maybe that’s just an excuse for my lack of motivation.

Well as far as news goes I am currently unemployed. On Friday May 16th my boring temp. job finally realized they were paying me to sit on my ass and told me they didn’t need my help any more (hmm…I don’t think you needed it to begin with guys, but it’s your money and it was coming my way, so I can’t complain) I found it rude that they didn’t give me any notice and just said, “you can go home now,” but it was really a blessing. I needed to get the hell out of there.

I left the job around 1pm to meet Nikki at my place for lunch. I was a little worried about cash but decided to block that thought from my mind since I was about to embark on a nerd-tastic roadtrip around New Zealands south island with some rockin’ babes (and Mikey). Nicole drove Mikey and I to the airport like the good kid she is, always doing everyone favors. We flew Jetstar and round trip the tickets were only $400 each Sydney to Christchurch, pretty good deal. We arrived around 1030pm NZ time after an effortless 3 hour flight. Katie and Kelly were meant to pick us up at baggage claim, but when we didn’t see them anywhere in the tiny airport we figured they were either too drunk or too jetlagged. We rang Kate from a pay phone (our phones didn’t work) and it turns out they were both hungover and jetlagged and had been in bed since about 7pm. Fair enough. She told us they were at the Jailhouse Hostel which seemed appropriate since it reminded me of “Jailbreak” and Thin Lizzy always reminds me of Newtown. We asked the info desk how to get there and the guy at the desk told us how to catch the shuttle bus into the city. We were the only ones on the bus and the driver took us to the main square in Christchurch where the Cathedral is the main landmark. From there he told us to catch bus #7 which came about 5 minutes later and dropped us at the Jailhouse front door. All the NZ locals had been so hospitable, we were in a bit of shock since we’re so used to traveling to non-english speaking countries where the general population of locals is rude to us since we can’t understand a word they say to us and vice versa. It was a nice welcoming and NZ already had a comforting feeling about it.

The best part of the welcoming was seeing Kate waiting up for us at reception! She had gotten out of bed when we called to let us in since the front desk had closed up for the night. She showed us to the room she’d booked Mikey and I. We unloaded and then sat in the common room and caught up for a while about news back home and what we were up to in Sydney. after a while Kate needed to catch up on sleep and joined kelly in their room next to ours.

In the Morning the girls woke us up about 10am (they always got up first, the whole trip). Mikey and I paid the cheerful receptionist for our room, we all took dorky “jail” photos and set out for some breakfast.

We walked into the town center (about 20 min walk) and found a cute cafe called The Daily Grind with all day breakfast on weekends. The cafe was okay, but I don’t recommend it for vegans. My sandwich consisted of 2 plain pieced of multi grain bread (dry) with dry, pretty much raw veggies inside. It was so dumb. They did have a veggie burger but the chicks behind the counter didnt know what it was made of and i didnt feel like taking the vegan challenge.

After lounging in the cafe a while, we walked one of the few craft markets behind the Dux de Lux pub. We wanted to buy some presents for friends and fam but everything was pretty expensive (I was thinking on a unemployed pocket). So instead we decided to spend our cash on booze at the pub. We were the only ones in the pub (i guess we start early) but it was a lot of fun anyways. We played some pool and danced like nerds to the bowie and lou reed tunes on the jukebox. I had a samosa to make up for my shitty breakfast, we took pictures with a statue that reminded us of Legends of the Hidden Temple, laughed more often than we spoke (usually at something kate did or said) and then walked back towards the 1st cafe in search of somewhere else to annoy people. We tried to talk to a little-ish boy playing Star Wars on his trumpet, but he hated us or was too awkward and mid teen to hang.

We ended up walking back to the hostel the long way – it took about an hour and mikey was so pissed about it. After a few homemade drinks, we went out in search of “The Mexican Cafe”. The service was pretty rubbish, it took ages to get our food and the staff all seemed like they were straight out of “The Fast and the Furious” – too much hair gel and overly flutatious with eachother. The food was good once it came, but it is pretty hard to mess up a burrito. We ate til we were so full we could spew.

Next we decided to look for “The Media Club” which was having an Ian Curtis tribute show ( we read it in the free to do zine we’d found at the pub). Unfortunately, it was just a hall, like a VFW or something with a slide show of about 10 Joy Division photos on repeat, The Joy Division album on repeat, and a creepy goth/techno lights/fog machine joy division dance party in the next room. There were so many cape wearing, eyeliner vampires drinking beer and playing pool, I was nervous I’d catch the goth if I stood too close (been there, done that….I thought that was what highschool was for, no?) At least the night was only a gold coin donation entry and all the profits went towards suicide prevention, although that seemed ironic considering the “I hate life” crowd turn out…but who am I to judge. Maybe they were happy Marilyn Manson look alikes. We caught a cab home without even finishing our drinks and crashed out so we’d be ready for our next day’s adventure to Queenstown.