The Month gone Missing

Happy Holiday's everyone!!! My Christmas present to you all is a large blog update. As I start all of these posts, I again apologize for not updating often enough. This is a new record I will say of about 4 weeks though. I will do a quick overview of everything so I don't bore you all with the boring old details.

In general about the past four weeks I should say that it has been lovely weather. It is about 75 degrees every day, bright, beautiful, sunny, and perfect weather. I have been filling my time with hikes, trips to the beach, and just laying lazily in the sun. Let me tell you guys. My life here is really difficult. Haha.

Well, to go back to 4 weeks ago. The weekend after I left you I took my friday night nice and easy staying in that night. However I did get a text from the Chris that I had met a couple weeks back on Queens st. Well he told me that on Saturday was a the concert called Farmaggedon that he and I had talked about last we were together. He told me that he had an extra ticket if I cared for it.I told him I would love to go and would meet him at his house around noon. Well I should probably through a disclaimer out right now and say that I knew Chris was well how should I put it, a little sketchy in his own way. So I thought if anything tomorrow will certainly be an experience. Now I should also give you guys a bit of background on NZ lingo. Here in NZ there is a term "bogan" which is used to describe a certain type of person. A bogan is what you might call like a mix of a metalhead mixed with a redneck I suppose. Commonly known for their long hair, Metallica T-shirts, and large quantities of tattoo's covering them. Well now that you understand the term bogan, back to my story. On Saturday, I arrived at Chris's place around noon, taking the place in at a glance. I knew for sure after that that the next 24 hours would be both exciting, sketchy, and to say the least interesting all rolled up into one. The door to the house was partially blocked by the overflowing recycling bin that was piled to about 2/3 my height with beer and wine bottles. Walking through the yard to the house I found my foot squishing on something. I looked down to find I had stepped on a several day old decaying body of a rat. Well, I thought, Onwards and Upwards. With that I entered the house and found it much to what I would expect. A extremely messy house full of young guys all in varying levels of snobbishness on a variety of couches all watching discovery channel on a large screen plasma tv with all the gaming consoles you could imagine beneath it. It was somewhat obvious where most all the money is this house went, (alcohol and video games). Well I found Chris's room, and found him busy packing for the night. I should add that Farmaggedon is a concert in the middle of a farm north of Auckland. One can only get tickets to it if they have friends of friends essentially. It runs from 2pm till sunrise the next day. So everyone had to pack booze, food, and a tent or sleeping bag or such, (not that anyone thought they would get any sleep that night). Well I waited around at Chris's and slowly people started heading out for the concert. Chris and I had to wait till "the girls" (as they were called, I knew little beyond that) arrived. In the meantime Chris was more than happy to show me the fire staff, and the fire poi poi's that he had for the occasion. Finally, "the girls" showed up, and we made our way north to Matakana (after of course some debate about who should ride with who soe we had the fewest number of restricted licenses as possible driving) Well after an hour and a half we arrived at our location. Matakana and more specifically a man named Brody's farm. Brody (who organizes this thing and gives tickets only to friends and thus one must have friends of friends to get tickets) has a farm that overlooks the ocean and (as I say about every place around here) is spectacular. There was a large bandstand set up at one end of the field, and when we arrived (fair early like 3:30) only about 150 people where there. However I could immediately tell one thing. I seemed to have found myself in what I imagine Bogan heaven would be like. I felt somewhat out of place their not having a tattoo of my own to show off. However I put on my best Bogan face, and played the part as best I could. Experiencing the night in all its bogan glory. It was true that the concert was set after set. Honestly going from 2 till sunrise the next morning without stop. By the end I'd say about 600-700 people were there. The music varied, but overall, was surprisingly really good. The cool thing was it was all NZ bands and that was neat. When night fell, Chris and I broke out the flame staff and fire poi poi's. Now in case anyone is curious what that may be, the staff is essentially a long metal rod with sponges at each end. We dip these sponges into a bucket of kerosene, and then light them on fire. Thus you have a flaming staff. The fire poi poi's are similar, only they are essentially two straps with finger holds at one end, and a sponge at the end. Again this sponge is dipped in kerosene and lit of fire. THus you have two chains (one in each hand) with a ball of fire at the end. You can then spin these in fun and beautiful patterns. This was both fun to do and fun to watch. Chris's girlfriend was exceptionally good with the poi poi's; she could make them spin like just a blur of yellow and in dazzling ways. Anyways, it was quite the experience. Finally around 4 in the morning I was pretty much spent, so I went back to the field where all the cars were parked. Grabbed my sleeping bag, and rolled it out on a hill overlooking the ocean. About an hour later I woke to the sun rising over the hills around me and the golden orb rising about the ocean in front of me. It was pretty breathtaking. The next morning a bunch of us headed to Talafuney, which is another exceptional beach. We stayed there till about noon at which point we headed home. All in all, it was exactly as I had expected: exciting, sketchy, and definitely interesting. I had a blast being a Bogan for an evening. Needless to say all of Sunday, was then spent recovering.

On Wed. that week I ended up going hiking in the Waitekere ranges. They are mountains just West of Auckland. It is absolutely incredible that a place can be so close to a major city, and at the same time, so absolutely secluded and separated from civilization. It was a fantastic hike to do by myself. I parked the car and hiked through the mountains eventually arriving at a large lagoon tucked in just behind the beach. There was a gangplank that you could walk along which went over the lagoon. I took a couple pictures, and at one point decided I needed on that looked like I was truly in the lagoon. So I put the timer on the camera and ran off down the gangplank. I found a spot and then thought "Oh this bush next to me seems pretty sold I’ll just put a foot on it so that I can get a little more into the bush. No sooner was my foot off the gangplank then it instantly sank up to my knee into nasty lagoon muck. I quickly learned my mistake. Well I found a nice little sand dune, and at my lunch at the top of it. I was surprised to find that plain penne pasta sandwiched between two bbq chips, is actually a pretty tasty meal. After lunch I continued on. After turning a corner around the path I saw the trail end at the foot of a stream about 20 feet wide. Well I thought, "so much for keeping my other foot dry". I didn't even bother to take my shoes off. Not after my other one was already drenched. The water was cool and came up to my thighs. I crossed though and continued on till I got to the campsite. Now at this point I knew I was supposed to pick up another trail to head back to the car, but I'll be damned if I could find this other trail. Nothing was labeled, and it was getting late. Also as neat as the Waitekere ranges are, they are not exactly the place you want to spend the night alone and without help in. So I decided there was nothing for it but to turn back and go back the way I had come. When I got back to the stream I decided that since I hadn't seen anyone all day on the trail the chance of someone coming then was slim. So I decided I"d have a little dip to myself in the stream. It was probably one of the greatest feelings ever. To go skinny dipping in a stream in the middle of the bush in cool water after hiking all day in the sun. It was kind of what I imagine a man's first cold shower feels like after crossing a desert. Anyways, the hike back was all uphill, but it was finally done and when I got back to the car a wild chicken was outside the door waiting to greet me.

That weekend I ended up goin shooting with Andrew again. He picked me up early in the morning, (like 7:30) and we went up to Shakespear regional park (named after a family name, not the man. (and yes, no "e" at the end) It was the Christmas shoot, so it was pretty big. We did 100 targets which ended up doing a course of 50 twice. It was a beautiful day, and Shakespear Regional Park is a magnificent location. It is high up on cliffs that overlook the ocean. The ocean there is speckled with islands, and if you look way off in the distance you can make out the outline of the Coromandel.

I think I should also state about this sunday that I had decided the day before that I was going to fast for the whole day. I had never fasted before, and I wanted to try it. Let me just tell you now that... IT SUCKS! All day long you think of food, and everything you do is just passing time till you can eat again. It didn't help that I chose a bad day because after the Christmas shoot they grilled up delicious looking sausages and had beer out and everything. I had just shot all day, and having a beer and sausages afterwards seemed like the perfect complement to my days activities, but I had decided I wasn't doing anything but water. So soda or beer were also out of the question. As I was saying, IT SUCKED. haha. not only did I do it all Sunday, but then Christoph convinced me to hold off atleast till Monday rather than eating at like midnight that night. So I lasted till about 9 or 10 on Monday and then I just ate and ate. It was wundabar.

That monday I ended up going to Bethels Beach with Brook. It was my first time at Bethels, which is another of the West coast beaches. And as a West coast beach it was true to itself. It was completely empty, and the currents were strong and the waves were massive. We went out to this Island and climbed to the top. We were amazed to find at the top a house with a bird sanctuary sign hanging from it. With a lone person inside. I think he was as surprised to see us as we were to see him (Especially considering the stairs to get there started about 8 feet up the rocks and we had to climb to get to them). To this day I cannot figure out how they got wood and a bed up there. If it was helicopter it must have been one incredible pilot to drop it in such a precise location. Anyways, after the island we decided to check out a cave Brook knew of. So we made off down the beach. When we drew closer we heard music coming from it. When we got there we realized there was a band playing in the cave. Once they saw us the all somewhat stopped and started giving us dirty looks. We were as confused as them till a man standing in front of them looked up from what he was doing, and we realized they were shooting a music video. Sweet as. The man was nice and let us quickly let us check out this massive cave that was sitting in the cliffs overlooking the beach. We scampered in and scampered out and then felt famous considering our footprints would be in a NZ music video. All in all the day was beautiful, and we had a sweet as time.

On tuesday Aaron (from couchsurfing (who's key I broke)) met at a pool hall and shot some billiards. Its so nice to find someone who matches you well in a game of pool. Anyways, that Saturday, I headed over to Aaron's place again for a Christmas BBQ. See here instead of like having family over in front of the fire or something everyone throws BBQ's at the beach for Christmas. (A weird feeling.) The BBQ was Academics and Adventures themed and costumed, (which was a lot of fun). I ran into Amy from my improv lessons at the BBQ. Its pretty funny to be here for 5 months and have friends that have mutual acquaintances with you. Even in a city of 1.4 million. That’s kind of Auckland for you though. Well the bbq was sehr gut, and I got a delicious potato salad recipe, and gorged myself on all the meat I could get my hands on.

Monday of this last week marked the beginning of Yannik's summer holiday. That means that I have very little free time any more as Yannik is always around. On Tuesday I had him for 11 hours. Let me tell you, by the end of that its always the same feeling... i need 2 beers and a really stupid tv show to just stare dumbly at for a couple hours while i recuperate. Monday also marked the end of a series of annoying appointments I had been having to do. So that was so nice to be done with before Christmas. Wed. and Thurs. I found myself watching Yannik, and running around getting Christmas presents and such.

Thursday night (aka Christmas Eve) I ended up attending a midnight service by myself. I went to an Anglican Church (as most churches are here). Really it was more a Cathedral than a church. It was massive. So was the service. It started at 11:30 and ended at about 1:10. They had around 600 people there I would say, and they served each and every one of them communion. It took forever. Anyways, it was an neat experience, but I doubt I would go back to the same church. A little to much pomp and circumstance for me. I was however invited to a Christmas dinner if I was all alone for Christmas (the man sitting next to me realized I wasn't from NZ and invited me). It was a very kind gesture, but I refused since I was spending the day with my family. On Christmas morning I woke at 6:30 first due to Yannik, but slept in till 9 after that. When I came up stairs everything was open and done with already. I don't think Yannik was going to wait for me that morning. It was okay though I gave my presents and opened the one for me. After that we went the Maretai which is a beautiful beach in southeast Auckland. It was something else. And the water is such a nice temperature now. When we got back we started to prepare for dinner that night. I took Yannik to Oma A's and he swam for a couple hours. After which we headed home and guests were starting to arrive. We had about 18 family members over for Christmas dinner. We ate outside, and ate and ate. After dinner I served dad's nuts and Creme de Menthe cookies both of which I had brought here. They were a huge success. Overall it was a lovely Christmas. It was different and I missed home, but it I enjoyed it. In the end though I have decided I like it cold for Christmas, as cool as it was to go to the beach, I like being forced to stay inside and hang out with family. Love all you guys. And I miss you all as well. Merry Christmas.