2 More Weeks

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