Well, another 2 more weeks have come and gone since my last contact with you. My days have been kept extremely busy to tell the truth. We last talked on Wed. I do believe. That thursday I did... something with a friend (goodness now I can't seem to remember).
During the weekend I spent all my time over at Christoph's place (the other male nanny). His family was away for the weekend so I could crash there. On friday night I went over to his place, along with Thomas and Mona (she was Thomas's couchsurfer). At about 10 we decided that we were all really lame and tired. However Christoph and I felt obligated to make a night of it. So Thomas and Mona drove home, dropping Christoph and I off in town. We listened to a song or two at the fiddler, and then moved our way down to the Viaduct to meet up with Kevin. We went into the bar Kevin had stated he was in. However Christoph had forgot his ID so we had to have a staring contest with the bouncer, and then play 20 questions with him, then was warned that if we got drunk he'd come in and "kick our asses out". But he let us by. So we made our way in and went around back looking for Kevin. Only to find, once we were on the back patio, that Kevin was looking at us from the bar across the street. Annoyingly we left the bar we had just worked so hard to enter. We crossed the street to "Cowboys" (a bar with a somewhat questionable name). There we succeeded in nicking two Cowboy hats so that we blended in with the rest of the crowd (except Christoph's who's hat was bright pink. He actually stood out a little more than blended in.) After a good time at Cowboys we headed to the Imperial, hat in hand where we met up with a friend of ours who was bartending. There we all decided that we should try an accent for the rest of the evening, and so I decide that from then on I had grown up in Ireland. This led to quite a few hilarious introductions as I tried to justify why my Irish accent was so tweaked. I had to explain that though i grew up in Dublin, I had spent many years in the States as well. That was why my accent was a little off. I also checked #462 off a life list of goals which would be a flaming shot. Apparently there is a very famous french drink that is swirled around in the mouth for some time, and then the head is tipped back and you put a lighter to the mouth. Since I was with two french friends, I at one point looked over and found one with his mouth open and flames shooting out of it. I thought, "I have to try this." However its a lot harder to remember the proper order of things while you are mid action. So once my mouth was on fire I kind of stupid there sheepishly for several moments before everyone yelled at me to close my mouth and swallow. Anyways, I've now done flaming hackey sack and a flaming shot. I seem to have a lot of life goals involving fire. At any rate, the night progressed, and we Christoph and I decided to head for a bus. However since it was 3:15 it was difficult to find a bus still running (we also weren't aided by the fact that I was still asking all the questions in an Irish accent and then explaining were in Dublin I was from) So after about a half hour we thought, "no big deal, We'll walk home." .... ..... 1 hour .... .... 2 hours .... 2 and a half hours later at roughly 6 in the morning, we arrive home.
Needless to say we woke up late in the day. We had a pretty lazy day, and watched movies in the hot tub, and with some popcorn. The night we headed off to Thiago and Samantha's farewell party at the big house. (they were two Brazilian friends, Tu du bein?). It was a lovely night, and great to see them one last time. Christoph and I ended up sleeping at the big house that night. I slept outside in the hammock again (which again was awesome).
The following day we sat around and watched movies and ate KK (DELICIOUS!! Malaysian food). Pretty much all weekend Christoph and I were giants wastes of space really. But its good to have weekends like that every once in a while.
Monday found me at my 2nd to last week of improv. It was a lot of fun, and we are really coming together as a group which is really great.
Sorry its around here that my days start to get fuzzy. I can't really remember if I did anything the next Tuesday. But I'm sure if I did then it was incredible. The same somewhat goes for Wed. and Thursday. Oh ya, on Wed I went out to Mission Bay with Julia (a French girl who was Marine's sister. (I know these names mean nothing to you guys, but bear with me)) That night I went to CS drinks. On Friday, Thomas and I planned a trip to go up north, but plans changed and we never went up there. That night Thomas Christoph and I went out. We took it rather easy though and I went home early.
Saturday morning I got up early and packed, and then went out and picked up Marine and her sister. We went and spent the day at Bethells Beach. It was a great time with perfect weather. We made a mean sand castle and then went above and beyond, and built a whole village surrounding it (complete with a witch's hut by the stream in the woods behind the Castle. We also made our way to the caves at the far end of the beach after exploring those we did a little photo shoot outside the entrance. Little did we notice how quickly the tide was coming in. I became suddenly aware of it when my entire back side became completely drenched in water. It was a long cold walk back to the car after that. That night, I offered to babysit for Andrew and Kirstin (Leigh's sister and brother in law). Sometime I am glad I am with a severely autistic child, because after a night with a 10 and 8 year old having to entertain them all night, I was EXHAUSTED!
Anyways, this past week has been rather busy. All my attention at night has been focused on improv. During the afternoon, I tried to keep busy with doing yard work for the family. Monday was our last official improv class. On Tuesday we had a workshop with the other members of the Covert Theatre who we would be performing with. Then... Da da da, Wed. was our first night of performance. I should fill you in I suppose and say that right now in Auckland is the International Comedy Festival. Acts from all over the world come for 3 weeks of comedy shows. We were performing as part of this festival. The show was set up in the form of a Comedy Sports style (really the format was called the Jester (with an individual performer each night being declared "The Jester")) Anyways, every night we had a different number of performers. On Wed. I think we were all nervous not knowing how good it would be. For a lot of people it was their first time performing ever. However our MC did a great job of keeping the audience engaged and explaining a lot of people were new to performance. We pulled in about 80-90 people a night on average I would say. I was fortunate enough to be declared Jester 3 of the 4 nights which was a good feeling. The shows all went far better than expected. We had a fantastic time, and really came together as a group I thought. On Wed. after the show I went to CS. I should say that on the CS webpage I had advertised our show. So while at CS a person came up and was like, "your Wes from the Improv Comedy thing right?" She was studying journalism and had to write a report on something. So I was interviewed and then had a report written about me apparently. It was a nice feeling. On Thursday a bunch of us stayed after to watch Greg Ward's Show "A Brief History of Music". A great mix of one man show and improvised music. Friday night, Jason and I went out and then I met up with Kevin at the Fiddler. It ended up being another late night and we awoke at about 12 the next morning at Kevin's apartment.
Now Saturday I should take a moment to describe. Saturday in NZ was declared J Day. Now I know what V Day is, but I had never heard of J Day before. Apparently J Day, is a day of protest, where they protest for the legalization of Marijuana. Each of the major cities in NZ had a specific location where the protest was to take place. I thought, how interesting, a bunch of pot heads got organized enough for a protest. I wonder if their are signs and a picket line or what. So Kevin and I made our way to Albert Park were the protest was being held. Well let me just say I have never experienced anything quite like what I found there. I think just passing by Albert Park would get people high simply from second hand smoke. When I arrived I noticed the large funnelling of specific looking people entering Albert Park. Long dredlocks and red, yellow, green bandana's were pretty common. Once I entered I was even more amazed. As I looked around me and realized that of the 1000 people there in the park, 950 of them were smoking. Not like hiding it and puffing on something. I mean everyone was openly passing weed back and forth. Rolling joints, hitting bongs, anything and everything. Apparently it was the one day of the year were it was like Marijuana was legal in NZ. The cops did nothing, there was just to many of them to do anything. Supposedly it happened every year, and the government just accepted it as a form of protest. I have never quite seen anything like it. They had DJ's playing Bob Marley and such all day long. With food vendors there to assist those with a bad case of the munchies.
At any rate, we had our last show of the evening that night. Afterwards, a bunch of us went out for food and drinks. It was a really great weekend, and a great way to wrap up my improv here in NZ. I'm really glad I've done it while I've been here. These shows and the friends I've made have definitely made it worth it.
Sunday I took it easy, and now its Monday morning! Whew. Well I think you guys are now officially caught up. Things get even more hectic for me now then previous. I only have about 4 more weeks of work. This friday I leave for the south Island for a week, so if you don't hear from me thats probably why. Love you all. It won't be long till I'm back home now guys. (Sorry to burst your bubbles). (Well actually it will still be a couple months but you know. Like a drop of water in the bucket. Haha.)
Have a great day!
Wes
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
After a Hiatus
And this is how a really long blog entry begins... Haha. No I will try to make this quick. To be honest I don't really remember what I was doing three weeks ago. I believe I left you on a Wed. before going out to Couchsurfing. Well...
On Thursday I drove into town, and met up with a friend from the States. An old snowboarding buddy. She and I grabbed a bite to eat downtown and then just hung out. She had just come back from the states. (She has been living in the south island for a year, and it was the first time we were able to meet up). That was a nice meeting. After that, I headed home and watched Yannik. That night Thomas came over (after Yannik was in bed), and we chatted for a bit.
On Friday Christoph (the german Manny one) picked me up and then Fran, Christoph and I headed over to Thomas's where we met up with Aaron. We spent the day just messing around, playing music, video games, and staring out over the ocean. That evening while I cooked dinner, the 5 of us had a improvised song session which was thoroughly amusing.
The next morning I headed back over to Thomas's where we hung out until we decided to go to the Kingsland Festival. Pretty much it was just an excuse for bars to be busier earlier on a Saturday afternoon. But it was fun. There was a DJ in the streets and some street performers, and lots of people. Afterwards, Thomas and I went over to Neil's flatwarming party. At some point in the night we headed back to his place. I woke up the next morning in his spare bedroom. I walked out onto his porch and was standing overlooking the ocean with Rangitoto Volcano (an island in the middle of the harbor) directly in front of me. It was an absolutely stunning view. We hung out for a bit and then I headed home.
On Monday, Christoph's mother (Oma (really Oma means grandma in German, but its what we called her)) and his sister (Uli) arrived. From Monday on that meant it was German immersion time. This normally would be fine, and something I would have hoped for, only that they speak Schwabech (a dialect of German that is not Hoch Deutsch (High German)) which is what I've been learning. Thus everything sounded a little slurred to me.
At any rate, I don't remember a huge amount of things happening that week. On monday I had improv that went well. On tuesday... OH YA.! I TAKE IT ALL BACK! Something important did happen that week! On tuesday night I went to a drum circle. Every month on the full moon, there is a big drum circle and fire dance held in Mt. Eden Park. Now that might sound strange, but here for some reason fire dancing with either staff, poi poi, or fan is a pretty common hobby for people. You would be amazed at the amount of people that show up all with their own equipment and just go to town. So anyways, its this sweet as event, where you go, and sit under the full moon while you listen to people play the drums, while people in front of you dance in beautiful patterns of flame. Its pretty freakin sweet. And everybody shares, so if you want to try a fire fan or staff, or you want to break it down on the drums you just ask someone and they gladly share. BUT!! Thats not the Awesome part! The Awesome part, is that among all these fire toys was a fire hackey.... YA! Its what you picture. A hackey sack from that fad back in the late 90's only this time.... ITS ON FIRE! Haha. So I got to go over and kick a hackey sack around a circle with some guys only the hackey sack was a fireball. It was pretty gnarly if I do say so myself. (For those of you who don't know a hackey sack is similar to like a bean bag only round and about the size of my fist. The object is that you kick it and keep it in the air without ever touching it with your hands) So there is number 123 off my life list of goals. Kick a flaming hackey sack.
Anyways, outside of the the week progressed as normal. On Wed. I went out to CS, and on thursday night I watched Yannik. On Friday I went over to Rachel's 36th birthday party. It was a good time. I had to leave at around midnight though because we left for Coromandel the next day.
So, as I said on Sat. we packed up and headed to the Coromandel for a week with Oma and Uli, along with Christoph, Leigh and Yannik of course. It was gorgeous there as it always is. I did lots of hiking, kayaking, swimming, reading, and definite relaxing. I hiked back to the same waterfall as before, and climbed halfway up again and went for a dip. I kayaked in the estuary, walked along the beach, got a message at the Kiwi Retreat, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I als read an interesting book on gang life here in NZ. (It's a definite problem).
Well the family left on Friday, however I stayed and had them drop me off in Coromandel township where I waited for a bit, and then hitchhiked my way to Colville. There I waited to meet up with some friends of mine and we were going to make a weekend of it at a backpackers lodge. They finally arrived, and around 18 showed up. We stayed at the White Star Lodge. Nice place with lots to do. I was able to hike to two waterfalls (in which one I went swimming in and nearly caught hypothermia (it was cold I mean)), milk a cow, ride a four wheeler, build a sandcastle, watch the sunset on a secluded beach, and hang out with some friends for a good time. We did as I said end up going to this secluded little beach where me and a friend went for a nice long swim. However when we were out a ways she suddenly got stung something. We quickly made our way in where we realized it was most likely a jelly fish judging by the mark it left on her. So then... we decided someone had to urinate on it. I was unaware of this, but apparently in its common belief in NZ (and maybe elsewhere) that urine with sterilizes the poison or reaction (or whatever you want to call it) of a jelly fish. As it turned out all the guys tanks were empty but Kevin's. So we made a wall of towels, and gave them a moment, however, It seems that Kevin could not handle the pressure and his flow was rather weak. Well, I will leave that story there, but needless to say it led to a rather amusing afternoon. The whole weekend was great. On Sunday morning a bunch of us went to the buddhist temple down the road and did an hour meditation class. It was a pretty cool experience. Expect for when the cockroach decided to crawl on me, and I wasn't supposed to harm and living creature. That was something that was a difficult challenge of will power. Sunday evening I returned home.
On Monday I went to improv. Another successful night. On tuesday, I watched Yannik all day. We went to How to Tame your Dragon. It was good, I enjoyed it, although Yannik fell asleep in the theatre towards the end. At night he had an allegic reaction and swelled up pretty bad, but I think I handled it well. And now today is today. See that wasn't so bad. Oma and Uli left today, and now things head back to normal for a bit. Till my vacation in May. YAY.
Anyways, that catches us all up. I hope you are all doing well. I love you all and miss you dearly.
Wes
On Thursday I drove into town, and met up with a friend from the States. An old snowboarding buddy. She and I grabbed a bite to eat downtown and then just hung out. She had just come back from the states. (She has been living in the south island for a year, and it was the first time we were able to meet up). That was a nice meeting. After that, I headed home and watched Yannik. That night Thomas came over (after Yannik was in bed), and we chatted for a bit.
On Friday Christoph (the german Manny one) picked me up and then Fran, Christoph and I headed over to Thomas's where we met up with Aaron. We spent the day just messing around, playing music, video games, and staring out over the ocean. That evening while I cooked dinner, the 5 of us had a improvised song session which was thoroughly amusing.
The next morning I headed back over to Thomas's where we hung out until we decided to go to the Kingsland Festival. Pretty much it was just an excuse for bars to be busier earlier on a Saturday afternoon. But it was fun. There was a DJ in the streets and some street performers, and lots of people. Afterwards, Thomas and I went over to Neil's flatwarming party. At some point in the night we headed back to his place. I woke up the next morning in his spare bedroom. I walked out onto his porch and was standing overlooking the ocean with Rangitoto Volcano (an island in the middle of the harbor) directly in front of me. It was an absolutely stunning view. We hung out for a bit and then I headed home.
On Monday, Christoph's mother (Oma (really Oma means grandma in German, but its what we called her)) and his sister (Uli) arrived. From Monday on that meant it was German immersion time. This normally would be fine, and something I would have hoped for, only that they speak Schwabech (a dialect of German that is not Hoch Deutsch (High German)) which is what I've been learning. Thus everything sounded a little slurred to me.
At any rate, I don't remember a huge amount of things happening that week. On monday I had improv that went well. On tuesday... OH YA.! I TAKE IT ALL BACK! Something important did happen that week! On tuesday night I went to a drum circle. Every month on the full moon, there is a big drum circle and fire dance held in Mt. Eden Park. Now that might sound strange, but here for some reason fire dancing with either staff, poi poi, or fan is a pretty common hobby for people. You would be amazed at the amount of people that show up all with their own equipment and just go to town. So anyways, its this sweet as event, where you go, and sit under the full moon while you listen to people play the drums, while people in front of you dance in beautiful patterns of flame. Its pretty freakin sweet. And everybody shares, so if you want to try a fire fan or staff, or you want to break it down on the drums you just ask someone and they gladly share. BUT!! Thats not the Awesome part! The Awesome part, is that among all these fire toys was a fire hackey.... YA! Its what you picture. A hackey sack from that fad back in the late 90's only this time.... ITS ON FIRE! Haha. So I got to go over and kick a hackey sack around a circle with some guys only the hackey sack was a fireball. It was pretty gnarly if I do say so myself. (For those of you who don't know a hackey sack is similar to like a bean bag only round and about the size of my fist. The object is that you kick it and keep it in the air without ever touching it with your hands) So there is number 123 off my life list of goals. Kick a flaming hackey sack.
Anyways, outside of the the week progressed as normal. On Wed. I went out to CS, and on thursday night I watched Yannik. On Friday I went over to Rachel's 36th birthday party. It was a good time. I had to leave at around midnight though because we left for Coromandel the next day.
So, as I said on Sat. we packed up and headed to the Coromandel for a week with Oma and Uli, along with Christoph, Leigh and Yannik of course. It was gorgeous there as it always is. I did lots of hiking, kayaking, swimming, reading, and definite relaxing. I hiked back to the same waterfall as before, and climbed halfway up again and went for a dip. I kayaked in the estuary, walked along the beach, got a message at the Kiwi Retreat, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I als read an interesting book on gang life here in NZ. (It's a definite problem).
Well the family left on Friday, however I stayed and had them drop me off in Coromandel township where I waited for a bit, and then hitchhiked my way to Colville. There I waited to meet up with some friends of mine and we were going to make a weekend of it at a backpackers lodge. They finally arrived, and around 18 showed up. We stayed at the White Star Lodge. Nice place with lots to do. I was able to hike to two waterfalls (in which one I went swimming in and nearly caught hypothermia (it was cold I mean)), milk a cow, ride a four wheeler, build a sandcastle, watch the sunset on a secluded beach, and hang out with some friends for a good time. We did as I said end up going to this secluded little beach where me and a friend went for a nice long swim. However when we were out a ways she suddenly got stung something. We quickly made our way in where we realized it was most likely a jelly fish judging by the mark it left on her. So then... we decided someone had to urinate on it. I was unaware of this, but apparently in its common belief in NZ (and maybe elsewhere) that urine with sterilizes the poison or reaction (or whatever you want to call it) of a jelly fish. As it turned out all the guys tanks were empty but Kevin's. So we made a wall of towels, and gave them a moment, however, It seems that Kevin could not handle the pressure and his flow was rather weak. Well, I will leave that story there, but needless to say it led to a rather amusing afternoon. The whole weekend was great. On Sunday morning a bunch of us went to the buddhist temple down the road and did an hour meditation class. It was a pretty cool experience. Expect for when the cockroach decided to crawl on me, and I wasn't supposed to harm and living creature. That was something that was a difficult challenge of will power. Sunday evening I returned home.
On Monday I went to improv. Another successful night. On tuesday, I watched Yannik all day. We went to How to Tame your Dragon. It was good, I enjoyed it, although Yannik fell asleep in the theatre towards the end. At night he had an allegic reaction and swelled up pretty bad, but I think I handled it well. And now today is today. See that wasn't so bad. Oma and Uli left today, and now things head back to normal for a bit. Till my vacation in May. YAY.
Anyways, that catches us all up. I hope you are all doing well. I love you all and miss you dearly.
Wes
Saturday, April 3, 2010
AwayHey
Hey guys. I'm ff to Coromandel Today. I swear when I get back I will get my stuff together and update you all as you deserve. But for now its off to Coromandel for a week with Leigh Christoph and Yannik (along with Uli and Esbeth (Christoph's sister and mother)). Yay German Immersion.
Wes
Wes
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