A Good Time

So I suppose that I have a hefty chuck to fill you all in on so I apologize, but this will probably be a rather longer one.

I believe I left you last on Wed. afternoon right before I left for drinks as I usually do on Wed. nights. Wed. evening was fun, and really good news.... All the hot german nanny's are back in town now which is pretty sweet as (as they say here). Apparently shortly before I arrived here a large group of german au pair's returned home, but now it would appear that Auckland has stocked up again on a fresh batch of nannys. There were about 4 or 5 of them on Wed. night, which was pretty cool. So that was my wed. evening.

Then on Thursday my schedule was slightly different. Because I had watched Yannik on Wed. afternoon, I only had to watch him on Thursday in the afternoon rather than all night. This was good for me as the American friend of mine which I mentioned earlier was in town and we were able to meet up. It was a lovely evening Melissa (my friend) and her husband were here in Auckland for a week while the moved from Sydney back to the US. They were staying at friends of theirs, who were nice enough to have me over for dinner. They were also kind enough to make me meatloaf which was awesome. Melissa and her husband are vegans, but she reads my blog and knows my love of meat and my current vegetarian situation, so they made meatloaf for me which was really nice of them. At any rate, they lived in Parnell which I had never been too. It is a really cool part of town with a great nightlife, and just restaurant after bar after restaurant. After dinner we ended up going out to a chocolate shop which was AWESOME! I got an Italian Denso, which apparently turned out to be literally a large cup of thick liquid chocolate. As stated above: AWESOME! Needless to say it was a great night. We spent the rest of it talking and watching the Ian McKellan video from Extras on youtube. I would recommend it to those who haven't seen it yet.

I came home later that night, and was rather tired on Friday morning. So after a nap in the morning, and some german lessons. I cleaned the house and packed for my weekend trip which was to be down the Mt. Reapehu to race in the Club Champs. Christoph came home early which was nice of him so I could make down to city central. The club was providing two vans for rides down to the mountain (which is about 5 hours away). There was about 14 of us in the two vans. 5 hours may seem like a long trip, but the good news is that in NZ there is no such thing as open container laws. (Which is really hard for me to wrap my mind around, but its true.) So we were able to have a couple brews on the way down to the mountain. It was really funny for me, at one point (as it was a friday night) we were stopped by a DUI check point. (Interesting fact: Over here it is known as drink driving rather than drunk driving) Anyways, I was in the front seat and had a beer in hand while the driver was given a breathalyzer. It was a pretty bizarre feeling, the police didn't even look twice at me. So we made it down to the mountain that night in good time, and in good spirits.

The next morning unfortunately I woke up to rain on the window. So I decided not to go boarding that day. It just wasn't worth the money, and there was plenty to do back at the lodge (aka some serious ping pong tournaments (of which might I say I won with a 3 to 2 game win in the finale)) So it was a great day even though we stayed indoors. I would say that there was a good 25 or so people at the lodge.

On Sunday I (amazingly) woke up at about 7:15 to a beautiful clear day. The mountain looked picturesque so I ate and got ready and was out by 8:05. I was able to lay a couple runs down on fresh corduroy which was sweet. Then I met up with a bunch of the club and we rode together on the far west territory (like anybody but me knows what that means but oh well). Around mid day they set up a race course for us and we competed. It was pretty cool to say I have now raced in NZ. It was also pretty amusing to see how they do things. It was a really informal race. They used a stopwatch, and instead of numbers they just had a walkie talkie, and would say Wes is in the gate now, UUUUuuuuuuuP! and when your foot crossed the plane of the starting gate is when they would say the P in "up" and the dude at the bottom would start a stopwatch and stop it when it looked like you crossed the finish line. Also there was no order it was just like everyone went wherever in line they happened to be standing. But it was pretty sweet none the less. I messed up my first run and ended up taking the last three gates switch, but I still managed to come in 2nd so I was happy. After the race I took off and hiked a massive bowl I had been staring at all day. It was a sweet run and maybe a half hour hike. After this I headed out West again and met up with some other people who were thinking about hiking the crater. "Hiking the crater" as its called means a hike to the very top of the Volcano where there is a large crater lake. The hike ranges from anywhere between 45min to 1hour and a half depending on how energetic and fit the people doing it are. Its a pretty nasty hike, and all of it is atleast a little uphill, and most is alot uphill. So I tagged along with them which my legs instantly screamed at me for after their previous hike. However we made it to the top in about 50 minutes, up a beautiful hike if you could catch your breath long enough to appreciate it. Once we reached the top we were all extremely glad we had done the hike. It was pretty amazing. (I keep using the words like spectacular and breathtaking or amazing perhaps, but really its like you need a different set of quantative words to describe things here they are so far above and beyond many of the sites I've ever seen.) Regardless it was a breathtaking/spectacular/(take your pick of words) view, and the crater lake was awesome to see. Although it smelled somethin' fierce. There are stories of people that used to hike up in the early like 30's and 40's and they would go swimming in the lake, and by the time they made it back down the mountain their bathing suits had practically disintegrated because they were pretty much swimming is sulfuric acid. Well after spending some time at the highest point on the northern island, I was able to snowboard the entire length of the volcano which was pretty sweet. Not to mention we had started hiking at around 3:30 so when I came down it was roughly 5 and so everything was shut down and no one was on the slopes. At one point I came over a ridge and quickly stopped as I realized I was about 3 feet from a 40 foot cliff, I slowly backed up and unstrapped and then walked around. The top part of the ride was pretty icy to be honest but then it was sweet bowl after sweet bowl so I can't complain. We left that evening at around 6:40 and I got home to Onehunga at about 1:30.

So on Monday I was pretty tired (not to mention my legs were screaming at me with every move I made) so Monday was a pretty lazy day. Christoph had made pizza on Sunday night and there was leftover dough and cheese so I invented my own cheese rolls (with onions and garlic of course). They were tasty, but I will perfect the recipe soon. That evening I had improv class which is nice cause we are starting to do some real scene work finally which is good. After that it was one the hot german au pair's birthday's so I met up with Chris and Mark(a native Kiwi that I know from Wed. nights) and two of the au pairs. We had a drink or two and then I headed home. Late last night I was able to catch part of the Emmy's and a bit of ABC World News Tonight (which plays at about 11:35 at night here). It was my first real taste of home since I've been here. I had a little pang of home. I couldn't really help it though since the first piece on the news was on Obama's overexposure, and so of course who do they interview: Larry Sabato (professor of politics at the University of Virgina). So I really had a reminder of home.

Well now its Tuesday, and I must go do laundry. Hope you guys are doing well back home. Till next time.

MOTHER!!!!!!!

I forgot to mention in my last post, that over the weekend, I also tasted the sweet nectar of the Mother of all Energy Drinks. It is appropiately named "MOTHER". I drank two back to back bearblasting the whole way through. I thought my fellow energy drink connoisseur's would enjoy that. MOTHER's slogan is MOTHER of all taurine drinks which cracked me up. I shold fill you in that my plans last night fell through, and instead I am meeting up with my American friend on Thursday. So instead last night Leigh and I sat around an played some cards which was fun until her favorite show (which makes me laugh), Big Love, came on. (Big Love is a show (not a documentary) but a drama about a polygamist household. Its amusing). Have a good day.

A Busy Week

So again, I find that I have lacked writing to you guys since a week ago. I apologize for this. I will try to start doing it more. At any rate, last week I left you on Wed. afternoon. That evening I did indeed go out for drinks and had a good time. Nothing to exceptional happened that evening, but it was still a good time had by all. On Thurs and Friday I took things pretty easy. As Chris and I had made plans for early on Saturday. So after not much happening on Thursday and Friday, I woke up early on Saturday and went to Chris's house. Upon arriving I realized I had left the back door unlocked however, and had to travel all the way back to the house, close and lock the door and drive back. Oh the dreary things in life. Well Chris and I left shortly after I arrived. We had decided to make a day of it. We planned to go to Piha which is a beach on the west coast where all the surfers hang out. Its black sand and supposedly beautiful. The wheather had been incredible all week long with temps in the high 60s I'd say. But wouldn't you know it on Saturday it was overcast and rainy. Oh well. We planned accordingly and brought a change of clothes. On the way to the beach we stopped and picked up a case of brews and some chips. We figured if we were going to be the only people around for miles on a beautiful black sand beach in the rain, we may as well have a brew and some chips. So we stopped and picked those off at literally "the last stop before Piha" as the sign warned us. And we drove. We kept driving along until we came to the turn off to Karekare (another gorgeous blacksand beach I had been to before). We decided to take a detour to Karekare for a bit. We arrived, and went for a walk along the beach. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, and decided we should lose our sandals rather than carry them with us along the beach. Howeve after walking a ways we found a really cool rock outcropping which we wanted to walk out on. We got about a third of the way out and then realized what a horrific idea it was to try and do without shoes. However being boys as we are we decided to continue anyways, and made to the end after much pain and shouts of agony. What we found was worth the pain though (sort of). On the other side of the outcropping was the roughest water I had seen churning everywhere full of waves and undertoes. I felt just looking at it that I would be in danger if I tried to swim anywhere near there. It was really cool to watch though. And we got a good view of some surfers catching waves. (I should say that the West coast where Karekare and Piha are is famous for its undertoes and its roughness. They used to have a commercial for them saying no one had ever died between the lines (which are markers they put out) but the commercial had to be removed because it was a blatant lie and lots of people have drowned even when swimming between the markers). So after Karekare we decided to hit up Piha, which was actually very different then I imagined. There were actually buildings and stuff around Piha (which there are none at Karekare)While we were at Piha the rain picked up and after playing around close to the surf we were pretty soaked and cold. So we decided to get back in the car and get more gas. On the way back from Piha we noticed a pull over on the side of the road that had a set of table and chairs at it. It was to comical not to pass up. So we pulled over and had a beer at a pair of plastic table and chairs in the middle of no where on the side of the road in the rain. We were rather amused by it. We returned back and got more gas, but then we had enjoyed our day so much we went right back out to Karekare. It was a fun filled day to say the least. All we did was mess around on a rainy day at the beach, but it was a blast.

Well when I returned home, there was a message for me from Leigh's brother-in-law, asking me if I wanted to go to a sporting clays coarse with him. I of course responded and said I did. The next morning he (aka Andrew) picked me up at quarter till 8 and we set off for a tiny Pennisula north of Auckland on the East coast. The land is military land, but they put up a rather nice sporting clays course on it that is run by volunteers. The course runs down a mountain ridge which leads to the ocean and a gorgeous bay. So needless to say it was spectacular. I was beating myself up all day for not bringing a camera but I never would have thought it would have been so beautiful. There was a gorgeous little Island in the bay and a sailboat would actually pass by in the ocean beneath us. All the while the bangs of 12-20 gauge shotguns were going off all around you. It was a special place. haha. Andrew is a very nice man and was really cool to me. He let my use his 16 gauge, and didn't embaress me to badly by outshooting me. After shooting he dropped me off and I had a lazy Sunday with Leigh and Christoph.

On Monday, I found myself exceptionally tired for some reason, and took a nap. After that I studied German, exercized, and read as I usually do. That evening I had my 3rd improv class. They are going well and I am enjoying them.

And now it is tuesday and Yannik is currently in his room watching Fireman Steve. At 5 tonight I'll take him swimming, and then later tonight hopefully an American that I know who lives in Sydney will be in Auckland for an week, and we will meet up. It should be a busy week. I'll tell you all about it as soon as it happens. Enjoy.

Wes

The Lodge

Well, last I left you I was on my way to go up to Mt. Reupahu to race for the weekend. Well, on Friday, I packed, and beyond that to be honest I can't really remember what happened during the day. However I know that I intended to leave at (or be picked up rather) at 5:00. Yet I seemed to have forgotten that NZ is typically always late in everything it does. So it wasn't till about 6:15 that I actually got picked up. I suppose I shouldn't complain though, atleast I got a ride down there. I rode down with two women named Allison and Hannah, both of which were several years out of Uni at the least. We arrived that night without incident around 11:00. As soon as I walked in the door I was immediately greeted by none other than a fellow Couchsurfer that I knew from my Wed. night drinks. It was pretty cool to drive 5 hours to a place and run into someone you know after only being in a country for only a month. At any rate, the lodge was pretty much exactly what I expected. Its awesome that the ski club has its own lodge, and even more awesome that it only costs 28 dollars a night including food. However, to a certain extent you get what you pay for. Its a pretty massive lodge with 2 dormitories holding about 15 bunks a piece. The dining room and kitchen where huge with the table doubleing as a massive ping pong table for those important beer pong tournaments. Over the weekend there were about 30 people staying at the lodge both nights. Most of these were Uni students but you also had an interesting collection of late thirty year olds that were enjoying the cheap accommodations and reliving their old Uni days. As I made my way around the lodge introducing myself to people and the such I realized that somewhere a clerical error or an large assumption had taken place. I had described to the captain and president of the club that I had raced before and would like to do it again for them. However they seemed to have thought that I was a skier. I found this out by saying "hi I'm Wes" and being answered with "oh shit, ya your the really good skier". After about 4 of these conversations I realized something wasn't right. When the captain arrived at the lodge that night I was disappointed to discover that apparently Snowboarders weren't allowed to compete in the race the following day. Snowboarder racism I say, but that seemed to be the way it was. If I was a native NZer, I might say "typical New Zealand" (miscommunications and stupid mistakes seem to be quite a common occurrence in this country, or atleast often enough that after a month I have heard "typical New Zealand for ya" fairly often). But regardless of that fact. Its hard to complain when I got two days of decent boarding in, and got to meet some really cool people. I was able to see how NZ college kids party, and now I am back to being flat broke again.

(I quickly will write a disclaimer and say I apologize to those reading this who have high maturity levels then me (which is probably many of you) for my rude and crude bathroom story that here follows. However I have decided to keep it in since I am not only writing this for you, but also for me in the future, and I found this moment uproariously funny all day, and wish to remember it. Thanks for putting up with it.)

I will say I was amused one night by waking up at roughly 6 in the morning. It was Sunday morning, and everybody had been up late on Saturday partying, especially the ski captain. I woke up at 6 to find the person in the bunk across from me standing up and pulling his mattress off his bed. The man I was looking at was the ski captain and after some close study I realized why he was moving his mattress. In the center of it was a large wet puddle. Apparently I had woken up to this man exchanging his mattress for the one above it because he had had some urinary problems in the night. I closed my eyes again suppressing a chuckle and decided to pretend I was still sleeping for the sake of his dignity. However after he had exchanged the mattress, and gone to the bathroom to change his boxers, he returned. I had rolled over in bed as to hide the tiny smile on my face when I heard him lay down again. At which point his body decided to again betray him and he expelled a roughly 10 second long fart. At which point I could no longer hold in my amusement and had to laugh. It was just to much for me to take.
The next day neither of us said a word about the moment we had shared earlier that morning.


So in the end I am exremely glad I went, and had a good time. Hopefully I should be returning there in 2 weeks for a GS race, and a King of the Mountain race. It should be a good time.

On Monday, my morning started with Yannik being overmedicated in the morning because he has a new massive cold sore coming on. This resulted in him vomiting out the window before school (which is actually pretty good of him because supposedly he does not know not to vomit all over the floor so the fact that he did it out the window is great). So Leigh took the day off, and Yannik Leigh and I all just hung out. I had gain a cold over the weekend and was feeling a little under myself. So we ended up going to a beach on the North shore. I forgot my camera, which was silly of me, but believe me when I say it was splendid out. That evening I had my second improv lesson. It to went well, and was better than the first in my opinion. Probably because we actually started to do some stuff. Its kind of neat to do the workshops and view it as a study of how to teach new people how to do improv. After the class, Chris and I met up, and went out for a beer. We went to "The Cock & Bull" a great old English Pub that brews their own beer. We chatted for a bit, and then after a delicious wheat beer we went back to Mt. Eden (where he lives) and went to the top of the actual "Mt. Eden" mountain (or volcanic cone really) and watched the night lights of the city for a bit.

On Tuesday, I woke up to fog all around the house. So after getting Yannik ready for school, at Leigh's recommendation, I went for a drive up to the top of 1 tree hill. From there you could see the city beneath you covered in 360 degrees of fog, with volcanic cones sticking out of of it every once in a while. It was spectacular. That I actually do have pictures of and as soon as I load them on my comp I will post them for you. After that I spent the day cleaning the house in a massive way. I wanted to do something nice for Leigh and Christoph as a surprise, so I washed the windows and cleaned the fridge and both fireplaces. That pretty much took me all day. In the evening I cooked my first tofu dish ever. A fact I don't like saying, and a dish I didn't like eating even more. It was a bit disgusting in my opinion but Leigh and Christoph politely ate it and said it was tasty. Maybe their tofu tastebuds actually enjoyed it.

And now it is a beautiful Wed. as I write this. I am going to go out for drinks to night as usual, but before that maybe I'll go to the beach or something. Ahhhhhhh the joy of living surrounded by water, you're never far from the beach.

Have a great day.

Wes

Two Days Later

Well hello everyone. So it has been two days since my last post. I don't have all that much to report. My Wed. night was a lot of fun. I was successful at catching my bus this week, which is good considering I will be completely broke after this weekend. Today, I stook a nap till noon which was lovely and then in the afternoon I took Yannik to get a haircut. I thought a haircut was going to be a lot more difficult then it was, but the barber knew Yannik and he sat pretty still up till a point. The only big knews is that I am for sure going up to the mountain for sure this weekend to race. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. Have a good weekend.

A Week of Wes

Hey guys. I apologize it has been a whole week since my last post. Let me fill you in on what has happened since then.

On Wed of last week I had a pretty easy going day (if I remember correctly). That evening I went out to Couchsurfers where I had a really good time. Its nice to know I'm finally getting a group of people that I can say I'm friends with. We didn't have our usual bartender again, which really sucked because it meant she didn't randomly make G&T's and then forget them accidentally on the counter for me. (Needless to say it was a much more expensive night then normal) The nice thing about being with an organization that is founded around letting people sleep on your couch is that if you were to say happen to miss the last bus home, then there is always a large number of people will to let you crash on there couch. Last wed. just so happened to be one such occasion. And needless to say I was dissappointed in the morning when I learned that the earliest buses that return to Onehunga started at 7:10. So I had to pay 30 dollars to take a taxi at 6:00 in the morning. (As I said an expensive evening, but live and learn).

Thursday, to be honest I forget what I did in the morning. Probably read, fed, exercised, and worked on german (the 4 things I try to do every day). However in the afternoon, I took Yannik to the wave pool that is down the street. I think that Yannik had a great time. He loves the water (which, in case your curious, is a common affinity for autistic kids (water that is)). (Its also why my family is building a pool in their back yard in a month) However as much fun as Yannik had, to say the least it was rather nerve racking for me. Yannik for some reason really seemed to being enjoying the kids pool (which I will say was atleast 10 degrees warmer than the wave pool, however unfortunately I assume that is because the lack of urinary control of small children). Regardless of its warmth, it meant that I was continuously getting the evil eye from parents understandably afraid that Yannik (a 15 year old) may accidentally crush there children under foot. When I did get him to the pool I had to be on constant guard from the large group of adolescent boys playing rugby in the pool. However I was able to avoid conflict the whole trip. When we left, I foolishly forgot to ask if they had handicap bathrooms. So I had to help change Yannik in front of around 20 other naked to semi-naked men. I was rather aware of how awkward I probably looked instructing a 15 year old how to change his clothes. Half way through a man interrupted me saying "Excuse me sir". I instantly thought "great someone wants to make something of this". So I turned around already prepared to defend my actions, or Yannik or whatever and rather forcefully responded with "Yes" at which point he simply pointed to the floor and stated that I had dropped a two dollar coin and then walked away. I felt a little sheepish after that. (I don't think I have ever written the word sheepish about anything, but in a country where sheep outnumber humans 10 to 1, it seems fitting) The rest of the evening ran smoothly.

Friday was such a beautiful day. It was like summer was already here. So I went down to Mission Bay shortly before I had to be home for Yannik. Mission Bay was incredible. It is a little beach front community just off from downtown. Its a beautiful location with a great shot of the Auckland skyline, and a beautiful beach with a nice store fronts and a park. I bought a cone of Hazlenut chocolate gelato and walked along the beach. I think I found out what Nirvana felt like that day. It would make you sagt wundabar (as they would say in German).

On Saturday, Chris and I met up (thats the other Manny in town). We went back out to Mission Bay (because it had been so beautiful there the day before) we went in to Belgium Beer Bar, and I was able to get my favorite kind of brew ( a Belgium Tripl) while we say on a balcony and watched the ocean. It was really nice. Then we went to Ladies Bay by Bastion Point. We walked along the rocks right by the water, and got our feet a bit. Little did we know (I later found out) where we were is known as the gay and lesbian beach, (I suspect more lesbian since it is aptly named Ladies Bay) and just a beach or too over is what is commonly the nudist beach of Auckland. We weren't fortunate enough however to see any of these things. However having never been to a nudist beach, at some point I may have to investigate. We then drove into downtown and I had my first Kiwi Kebab. (which is just a Turkish Kebab only in Auckland) I don't know if I have mentioned it or not, but there are Kebab shops everywhere here. I have no clue why but now I can say that I know they are delicious.

Sunday for me was a pretty lazy day. I didn't do all that much except to talk to people from home, and write some emails, trying to coordinate things for the race I am competing in this weekend. (See previous post for details).

Then on Monday I had a rather constructive day. I finished my book, Slaughterhouse-five. Which by the way was really good, and I would recommend it to everyone. I am now on to 1984 (because somehow I avoided reading it all through high school and college) (which I should say is not a term used here "college" that is. If you say you did something back in college people are like what you mean like high school. Everything is University here.) At any rate, I am now on to reading that. But what else did I do on Monday. I made a daily schedule for myself. Which I think will be good, because its easy to waste a day when you have a whole afternoon off. So I divided the hours of my day out which hopefully I will stick too. And then at 6:00 I went to my first ever improv class. As of Monday I have started taking the "Art of Improvisation" taught by Wade Jackson who is kinda the name in improv here in NZ, and for any Whethermen reading this, he and his partner ended up beating, low and behold, Zach Ward and his partner in 2004 Improv Championships in Chicago. It was just really funny to talk to him, and we knew some of the same people, for example Zach Ward simply because thats kind of the small community that Improv is. At any rate, the class was good. It is kind of for people that have never performed or done improv before, but I have to take it to take level two. Its kind of nice too cause its like a trip back to basics.

Anyways, so that is I think catching you up to speed. Today I explored Devonport which is on the north shore of Auckland across the harbor from downtown. It was as beautiful as Mission Bay. There are so many of these great little communities. Alright now I must run, Yannik is getting antsy.