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