Until further notice

Will not be blogging for a while now. Think it will be a week or two before i write a proper post as

a) Ran out of money a week ago so cant afford internet cafe's
b) am now working 6 days a week, 10 hours a day so dont really have time
c) the free internet in the hostel is dial-up and has a 30min limit and since the page takes 5mins to load this page just cant do it.

will talk to all ye crazy cats later

Mad old Kiwi's 4 d Win!!

Just arrived in Napier on the east coast. Staying in a pretty sweet backpackers, my bunk is about 10ft above the ground though, should be fun if i get drunk. SO spent the weekend in Palmerstown North, not really sure why as there is not really much there, just a regulr big town with a huge university. Hitched my way up here this morning, its around 200km i think. Was a bit worried at first because they were slow ot pick up but then i got a ride to the nearest town and then was only waiting before a car pulled over. I was a bit surprised to see that the driver was an old fella but it turned out he was going the whole way to Napier so it was all good. Was a bit worried that he was going ot be like the old fella in Family Guy but turned out he was just a crazy old 84 yr old. Was a third generation scot but still counld speak a bit of scots gaelic and gave me a tour around the cuntry. Was one of those experiences tha you would never get in the tour buss or anything. Took tonnes of detours around to see bits and pieces, saw his old farm, the slaughterhouse where he worked, where an articulated lorry went off the road and ploughed through 3 houses. Did not hurt that this part of the country is really sunny and stuff

Eventually got to Napier but we had to spy on some of his tenants in a house first as it turns out they were sub-letting and i had to take pictures of the cars and stuff that were parked around, then i got a tour of the entire city and the surrounds, a mad laugh. Here in Napier for a while now, will have a look into getting a fruit-picking job for a few weeks i think and laze around the beach for a bit. Should be a good laugh.

Have put up pictures on Bebo

www.kernunos.bebo.com for ye cretins without a page

Wellington, Sweet Wellington

So i finally arrived here in Wellington. The ferry over leaves from Picton, a small enough town around 100km from Nelson. I was going to hitch but then i realised that while talking to the boss of the scaffolding firm i was going some work for, he mentioned that they sometimes do jobs down this direction. I rang him up and asked if there was any Chance of getting a lift in the van and he said sure,and if i wanted there would be a days work as well, paid under the table. I also got a pleasant surprise in this weeks pay packet when i out that i had been over paid by 70 dollars. The agency got onto me pretty quick and asked that i give it back.uhhh, morale dilemma. I think i will give it back though, they gave their bank details and stuff. I will deduct the amount of tax i paid on that 70 dollars though (around 20 dollars), as otherwise i will be worse off than if they had paid me the proper amount, and then if i am lucky i can claim back that tax anyway! huzzah for creative accounting, reminds me of that time i embezzled money from the Dept of Foreign Affairs, but we wont talk about that.

So i went camping last week in Abel Tasman national park, 53km in 3 days so it was not bad. Walked around 5 hours a day, thought that would be no problem as some of the day treks i have done have involved 7-8 hours a day, did not factor in the 13kg backpack though so that made 5 hours just enough for one day. The walk was not that challenging though, a lot of the hardcore hikers skip it. i say its where a lot of the tourist shots were made for promotional stuff though. You are walking through the rain forest when suddenly you will come upon this abandoned pristine golden beach with cliffs and little islands and blue blue waters. I cant put up photos on this prehistoric computer but check it out on google, well class. Apart of course for the sandflies, horrible, horrible creatures. They bite like mosquitoes but are completely silent and much smaller so you don't realise til its too late. I really do have my mothers blood, got over 30 bites on my arms and legs over the 3 days. I was using insect repellent but they just found any spot that i may have missed. Have been covered in blotches of calomile and doped up on anti-histamines since i arrived back. Thankfully there are not that many here in the North Island.

PS: Who is actually reading this thing these days. leave an 'i do' comment' just so i know i am not talking to thin air

Alright so i am not as tired today, well i should not be, just got out of bed. Now i can regale you with tales of my fun weeks work. When i arrived down to the wharf to start the unloading job i did not know who i was supposed to talk to but eventually i found these two British guys who looked as lost as i was and we went looking around until we found a woman who knew what was going on. She brought us up to the office to get kitted out in overalls and gumboots and stuff. When all that was finished she brought us down to the boat and was talking about how the first while is bad on the boat but then you get used to it once you are out at sea. I was a bit confused so i asked her when would we be getting back to port, she turns around and says "Umm, December 15th a think". Turns out i was with the wrong group all together and was 30 mins from heading out to sea for 8 weeks, i quickly ran away from that one.

The scaffolding firm i was working with was run by this religious group called the Brethren. Well its not run by them as such, just all the management belong to them and all their members work there. They are an odd Christian group, always wear long sleeves and pants, no smoking and no swearing on site. That was one of the hardest things, i mean have you ever gone an entire day without cursing? And i dont just mean the usual 4 letter words but 'Jeasus' or 'Damn' also included, was well hard. They also eat all their food separately so us non-religious zealots had our own area to have lunch. Was talking to one guy at lunch, an English guy, and he was saying how he was working with the company for months ands they still had not gotten rid of him even though he kept trying to convert them to Atheism, was leaving copies of The God Delusion around the office, kind of like reverse-evangelicalism i suppose.

I finished up up work for the last time here in Nelson. Off to Abel Tasman National Park for thew weekend for a three day hike. along the coastal track. Should be a laugh, going with one of the girls from the hostel and neither of us have ever done a multi-day trip before so it should be eventful. Luckily the weather is pretty hot at the minute and sunny so all will be good, just as long as the sand-flies keep away.

So work was retty eventful this week. Spent the first two days unloading boxes from a boat. Was told i was going to be unloading fish and i nearly refused to do it but the n it turns out that the fish have all been processed and are frozen and packed in boxes so that was alright. Was pretty hard work, throwing around 20kg boxes for hours at a time in -20 degrees. You would work for one hour then have a half hour break. It was good except for the fact that i was going from -20 to +20 degrees and so caught a mother of a cold for the next day. I was working putting up scaffolding for the rest of the week which was outside in the sun and was grand work. Good thing i was not that scared of heights cuz i was putting up stuff 4 and five stories up. I had no problem walking around as soon as the guard rails were up but the guys who were doing it full time were walking around 40ft above the ground with nothing between them and the ground. Lunatics.

Had other more interesting things to say but am just too tired to be honest. Leaving Nelson next week, looking forward to that.

Woah, Life , The universe and shit

So, i was in a big of a transcendental mood last night. Dont know exactly how to describe it but its the feeling you get when you start thinking about life and big issues and shit and realise that what you think is important really does not amount to much. Watched a film based in WWII London and finished my book on the 20th century history of the Middle East. The movie was a comedy of sorts but it was one of those that just follows the life of a theatre over a few years as characters come and go and die and get old and stuff. Those ones always get me, a League f Their own is one of the most depressing movies i have ever seen. It made me wonder what we are going to be doing in five or ten years time? Who is goingt o be married, parents, dead? Since i moved away from home, six months this weekend, I kind of just see the broad brush-strokes of what is going on back home; who is seeing/not seeing who, who is getting/leaving a job, moving, studying, self-destructing. If these things can happen in just 6 months that what will a decade bring? It does not really depress me per se, but it does make me think

If there is one that college, the year after, and this trip away has taught me is that friendships are made, fade and sometimes, if you are lucky, grow back. I have met and befriended so many people on this trip that i have taken to writing down their names in a wee book just so i can remember them all. Its odd who makes it and who does not. The Irish guy spent two months with in Dunedin does not as we have not stayed in touch at all. The two Scottish girls that i met and spent an entire night just talking to in the sitting room have made it. I have not seen them in three months, only knew them for two days and one of them is back in Scotland and the other is in Oz but we still text or bebo a few times a week. I was just saying to Amanda the other day, through the wonders of bebo, that i think we have done a good job of staying in touch even though we only knew each other for 4 months and have only met once in the 3 years since then. Through this old blog thing and texts i have been talking to Danielle and Pa more than i have since i left college and that is pretty sweet. When i left college i was worried that i would lose touch with a lot of people but i think that when you get older you just get more used to people drifting away but then once you meet them again everything just goes back to normal, meeting Anna in Queenstown was a case in point, it had been over a year since we had seen each other but nothing was really different, bar her being a Muslim.

What exactly is 'Selling Out'?

So today was a good day. Had a nice lie-in til half eight then read my Wheel of Time book. Yes i am startign from the very beginning again, its been a few years since i last read them. Went down to the saturday market, went online and then to the library. On the way home i caled intot he local bakery to get the loaf of triple grain wholemeal bread that i get every day when, shock horror, they had all been sold. Lukily i call in there so often they know to expect me and had put one away from me, which was pretty nice. So then back to the hostel to go for a swim in the pool and sun-bath/read for the afternoon. All in all, pretty nice.

Have been on to Liam a bit and he has decided to sell out and become a corporate suit, and one that specialises in luring in other inocent victims to the corporate web. I was wondering how long i would hold out for when i got home. Thinking i would rather not work behind a desk, in a suit, day in and day out. Perhaps i will just keep travelling around, i thought. But then i realised that i did not really want to keep travelling around. I am enjoying my trip and everything but i hae no way been bitten by the globe-trotting bug and want to keep wondering arond the world, i will be perfectly happy when i get home. So then i was thinking that all this travelling is a form of materialism in itself, but instead of collecting money and material things you compete as to who can see the most, who can have the most unique experience. I have noticed there is a lot of snobbery involved in travelling. the people with a car look down on those who take bus tours, those who hitch claim to have a better holiday than those in a camper van etc. It is naff to visit certain places as they are too 'touristy' and people are always trying to show they have had the most puritan experience.

'I went to South east Asia for four weeks'
"SE Asia?, in 4 weeks? I spent 5 months there, got off the tourist trail"
"everywhere is a tourist trail in Asia, i worked with orphans in India"
"India, pah. i lived with beggers in South America?"
"well i contracted AIDS in Africa"

I am guilty of it as well to some degree. Think some people dont see have the country and are just here to get drunk and party. But then who am i to tell them what to do, some would see me as having a very superficial holiday as i am mostly in town and am actually, shock-horror, working. After debating all this in my mind for a while, i came to the conclusion that i do not have a clue what i want to do when i get home

Nelson is odd

Nelson is a very odd town in some respects. Not really sure if its because of religion or what but every shop seems to close at 5:15 on a weekday, they are only open from 10-2 on a saturday and a lot dont open on Sunday at all. Quite irritating, its everything, bakery's, pharmacies, web cafe's, book shops, all my favorite places really. Except the library, that open from 1-4 for some reason, i have decided i am going to splash out and spend $15 on a months membership. I think i will be here in Nelson for a while yet so i think i will make use of it. Although now that Liam is probably not coming i may move on, that just occurred to me right now, I may head Wellington and see if i can get a job there, just so i will not be stuck in the same place for too long.

Here is an interesting thing i found on the BBc page, makes a good point

"Obesity, the authors concluded, was an inevitable consequence of a society in which energy-dense and cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife.

Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council said that in this environment, it was surprising that anyone was able to remain thin, and so the notion of obesity simply being a product of personal over-indulgence had to be abandoned for good"

They do have a point, as loath as i am to admit it. In this day and age being slim does not come naturally, you actually have to work at it, which was not the case even thirty years ago.

Here's a link to the full article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7047244.stm

Bleeding Hearts 4 d Win?

Have you ever noticed that the day goes by so much faster when you are actually enjoying yourself? The last three days i have been working in the NZ equivalent of Atlantic Home care moving around rows and stock and stuff, pretty mindless work, frustrating at times but nothing too strenuous, except for the fucker i was working with. He was this local kiwi fello in his forties i think and had to be the most disagreeable shite i have ever worked with. Within 2 hours of meeting him he was giving out and swearing under his breath whenever i might put something in the wrong place, or a few times, when he was in the wrong but blamed me instead. I mean, i had barely even met he guy. Anyhow, the first two days when pretty slowly and tempers got frayed a few times, thankfully yesterday he came down with AIDs or something and had to go early. He did not come in at all today and instead this other kiwi fella was working, he was pure sound, lived in Ireland for a year and was well easy going, the day went so much faster when you can actually have a bit of a laugh.

With all my time to be thinking stuff during the day i often come up with things that i say "Oh, i'll put that in my blog" but then i often forget. One thing that i did remember was something i thought of after i heard that Liam's car had been wrecked again by knackers, by 14 year olds this time. I was just wondering what can you possibly do to stop this kind of shit. One side says pump them in prison or even just shoot them. Would this have any long term benefit though, if put in prison they will just come out an even more hardened criminal, probably a drug addict as well, and shooting them will probably not have that much of an effect, just look at the States and the Death penalty. The other side says that you should try and rehabilitate them, to look for the deeper causes and address them. I kind-of fall into this camp, you dont get the instant satisfaction of retribution or revenge but thinking in the long term it might turn out better. The problem with that one is that so many people would just take advantage of it and its next to impossible to see the results. It is also hard to turn around and try to actually help the little shite that ruined your motor and cost you so much.

Woah, looks like i had some angry Kiwi upset about my post on the All Blacks, hope it was not Amanda, very uncouth of her otherwise. Apparently the All Blacks just play because they love the game and and not to just win, unlike the Irish team. Funny that there were reports on the front pages of the papers calling for 'heads to roll' and investigations and committees being set up to investigate the World Cup Performance, apparently the team were not seen to be loving the game enough, not because they did not win or anything.

Do you ever feel like their is just not enough time in the world

So was reading the paper over here today, no offense Amanda but the papers over here are shite, they make the Irish Independent look like a first-class publication. Anyhow there were some good articles in it that they had lifted from other papers around the world about the U.S. and Terrorism, global warming and some Kiwi stuff. Afterwards though i just started thinking that there is so much stuff that i want to know about but learning about it will just take too long. I would love to be able to fully understand the theories for and against global warming and also those about Intelligent Design and Evolution cuz i think that most of the time people are just bullshitting when they try to argue them.

History is another big thing i want ot know about, how are you supposed to argue something when you do not know the full back-story, the Arab-Israeli thing is a case in point. I also have to admit that my grasp of Irish History is pretty woeful, i have no idea of the Chronology of the Civil War/Fight for Independence and the antics in the North are a complete mystery to me. Its a bit embarrassing when you are asked about things like that ove here or meet a foreigner who knows more about it than you.

On a completely different topic, expect to see less spelling mistakes, turns out this thing has a very easy to use spell-checker.

Also, congratulations to conal on finishing his exams.

What if...

So New Zealand are out of the World Cup ehh, humble pie all round i think.

What do you call 14 guys sitting around watching a rugby game? The All Blacks

A man was found dead in Auckland Harbour wearing nothing but high heels, and All Black jersey and fishnet stocking. Police removed the All Blacks jersey to prevent embarrassment to the family.

I started work in a new job today, on another construction site, removing a scaffolding, hopefully it will last another day or two. It does give a lot of time to think thogh, like the last job. What i was pondering today was; what if tomorrow, you woke up at home in your 16 year old body with all the memories of what happened between now and then. What would you do? WOulod you do the same subjects at school, hang around with the same people, do the same course in college? Then theres the big stuff, do you remember enough stuff over the last 8 years to be able to bet on it to make money, would you try and warn people about atuff, i mean how would you anonymously let the US Government know that Sept 11th was going to happen. Stuff like that. kept me occupied for at least 2 hours.

Two News Stories that i thought were pretty cool

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/15-10/st_scream

and then this one from the BreakingNews.ie site

Gardaí in Dublin are seeking the public's assistance in establishing the identity of a woman who presented herself at Store Street Station last Sunday morning.

The woman, who is apparently suffering a loss of memory, was not carrying any documentation.

Gardaí say she speaks with an American or Canadian accent and is fluent in French.

She was also carrying a chihuahua dog (what the hell????) and has three tattoos, two of an Arabic-style writing on her left upper arm and the back or her neck and a Celtic-type design on the back of one of her legs.

The woman is in her mid-30s, five foot, nine inches tall, of slim build, with brown, collar-length hair and hazel eyes.

Paul: Arms of Steel, Heart of Gold

So i arrived in Nelson a few days ago. Its a big enough city, little smaller than Limerick, but all nice and sunny and on the beach so that is good. Will stick around here for a few weeks, not more than 4 i hope.....take note Liam, and then head up to the North island and work my way around up there

So just back form a few hours work wheeling barrows of cement and moving blocks. It was just a one-day job for a guy who was doing some DIY in his back garden. After i finished dumping around 30 loads of cement down the back of his house he asked me to level and smooth off one end while he worked from the other. Now brute labour i can do but jobs that require refinement and skill i am not the best at. I think i did well enough, he did offer to 'finish up' for me while i went and lifted some blocks but i think hollows and ridges just add character to footpath.

Now i got the job through a job agency and was pretty lucky to get one so soon. Walked in the day after i arrived and they had a job for me today. The job today was also cash in hand so that was all nice. Got on well with yerman who i was working for and he took my number and said he has more work to do, including some down on their beach-house in Marlborough Sounds and that next time he would pay me direct cuz this time he had to pay through the agency and they took a slice. I was talking away to his wife and while i was having lunch i was playing away with his little 3 year old kid. The child pheromones were working again and we got on like a house on fire. The mother was actually saying that i should try and join up with some of the after-school camp things they have in some places. Its just time to do homework and activities with the kids for 2 or 3 hours everyday after school , money is supposed to be pretty good and she said that often they are glad to get male applicants. Something to think about.

You know what really grinds my gears?

Inheritance tax. Perhaps it makes sense with just money but if you inherit property, you should not have to sell it in order to pay the tax. Defeats the purpose of it really.

In which Paul talks politics

For the last few months i have been slowly chomping my way through Robert Fisk's book, 'The Conquest of the Middle East'. i was slow going at first, the book is around 1400 pages long but once i got to the bit about the Israeli/Palistine bit i started getting interesting and i have read around 300 pages in the last week alone. I think i would like to do a Masters on Middle Eastern studies or politics when i get home, just a thought.

The book itself is pretty good, i did not like Fisk whenever i heard him on the radio or read his articles, thought he was too shrill but some of the stories in his book are class, real foreign correspondance journalist adventures. I disagree with him a lot in the book but it does get me thinking, sometimes i have to stop and spend around 15 minutes thinking why exactly i think he is wrong or misguided and work out the argument in my head, something that not many books do.

One thing about the book though, is that it makes me incredibly angry at shit, but you know there is nothing you can do about it. I always though that Fisk was very anti-American, i did not like him cuz i thought he went too far in that direction and was too biased. From reading the book though he really seems to be able to back up a lot of his arguments with facts and actual proper sources and stories. Its not just america though, he is only bitching about them the whole time because they are the ones involved in major stuff these days. He really riled against the turks and kurds during the armenian holocaust, the french during the Algerian uprising, as well as the isaraelis and the arabs. In fact it seems that he is not just anti-american, but just anti-establishment. Reading about the real-politik deals that are made between countries that ends up with massacres and genocides and how these are just ignored or covered up really makes you lose faith in big countries. In the end you realise that every country is just trying to look out for its own interest, and not even the interest of the people, but those in charge.

One question that got me thinking though, was If you were in power and elections were forth-coming, but your opposition looked like they would win, would you cancel elections if you were certain that your opponents would get rid of democracy in the country. This happened in Algeria in the 90's when it looked like the Islamic opposition looked like they were going to win and had stated that they would establish Islamic law if they won. The same kind of this happened in Palestine when the Islamic Hamas party won the elections. What Fisk did, and which annoyed me, was to moan about the existing government 'destroying democracy in order to save it" and how it was just a corrupt way to retain power. He admitted though that the opposition getting into power would be a bad thing though, but did not give any solution to the problem, just wailing and moaning about it.

The problem with rainforests..........

..........is that it rains a lot, and throw in the fact that the West Coast of NZ is known to be incredibly rainy anyway and you have a receipy for a very wet day. Myself and Prisca, the swiss girl i have been travelling around with for the last few days, arrived today in Karamea, the complete arse-hole of nowhere, but which still seems pretty nice. Its way way up the West Coast, at the end of a 100km cul de sac and i think we will be staying here for around 2 nights. Its a complete hippy place we are staying at the minute, called Rongos and really laid back, the internet, laundry, tea, eggs, coffee are all on donation basis, the water is mostly recycled rainwater and the heating is solar powered. Instead of a comment book you just write on the walls in the hall, pretty class. Also out back there is the local radio station in the shed and i have spent most of the night out there drinking amd randomly picking songs. There is not much to do around here at night so a lot of the locals and most of the hostel just head out there and drink, which is fun. Unfortunately i did not know this and have no drink but they all seem sound enough. Also i did not realise that there is no bank machine way out here so i now have 2 dollars to my name til we get back to some resemblance of civilization, good times.

EDIT: soon after i wrote that post we decided to take an impromtu visit down to the beach. 6 of us in the back of a pick-up, one on the bonnet and a crazy drunken local driving us over sand-dunes and through in a 4-wheel drive. very good times

You really got to love the kiwis. Went out for a drink night with the girl i got a lift with today and since everything was closed and the town was even more like a ghost-town than usual we ended up in a locals bar. Twas quite the unnerving experience. Was like a mix between an under-age disco and a 60th birthday party. There really is not a lot for people around here to do so they seem to make up for it with alcohol. Stayed around for a while as there was a live band playing. In the end though we got bought drink not once but twice by random locals who came over talking to us, i guess we just did not look that much like the locals, lack of gills probably. Hurrah anyway.

The H.P. Lovecraft Diaries

So i just arrived in a charming little town called Greymouth. And when i say charming i am actually being sarcastic. Its a little fishing town that seen better days and is as dreary as its name. I keep expecting fishy looking people to crawl out of the sea, something which very well may happen tonight as there is a storm expected, 130km winds and shit. Was a nice enough drive up here, going through rainforest and then by the coast.

"It was a town of wide extent and dense construction, yet one with a portentous dearth of visible life. From the tangle of chimney-pots scarcely a wisp of smoke came, and the three tall steeples loomed stark and unpainted against the seaward horizon. One of them was crumbling down at the top, and in that and another there were only black gaping holes where clock-dials should have been. The vast huddle of sagging gambrel roofs and peaked gables conveyed with offensive clearness the idea of wormy decay, and as we approached along the now descending road I could see that many roofs had wholly caved in. There were some large square Georgian houses, too, with hipped roofs, cupolas, and railed "widow's walks". These were mostly well back from the water, and one or two seemed to be in moderately sound condition....

The decay was worst close to the waterfront, though in its very midst I could spy the white belfry of a fairly well-preserved brick structure which looked like a small factory. The harbour, long clogged with sand, was enclosed by an ancient stone breakwater....

Here and there the ruins of wharves jutted out from the shore to end in indeterminate rottenness, those farthest south seeming the most decayed. And far out to sea, despite a high tide, I glimpsed a long, black line scarcely rising above the water yet carrying a suggestion of odd latent malignancy. This, I knew, must be Devil's Reef. "

Paul: The Glacier Climber

Alright so i decided to spice things up and see if i could put a few photos up here. Just back form a glacier walk. Took eight hours in total but i am actually pretty happy with how little it tired me out, all my tramping around must be paying off. So the glacier was pretty sweet, it was pretty slow going as our guide was cutting and cleaning a lot of the steps as we went. The glacier itself is one of the fastest around, moving at a blinding 35 cm a day, in some places it moved nearly a metre a day, amazing stuff. Got talking to our guide and it seems like such a sweet job, Pa you should do it. Get up and spend your entire day outside trekking up and down a glacier either leading a group or exploring yourself trying to find new ravines or caves. Once i finish here i am heading straight backt o the hostel for a whiel to chillax in the hot-tub with a beer, mmmmmm.

Tomorrow i think i will perhaps be just going a few miles up the coast to a lagoon where there is lots of kayaking to be done, hope the mosquitos are asleep. The next day i have already organised a lift with one of the girls from the hostel so that is all good. Will spend another week or so travelling up the coast and when i reach the top of the island around Nelson or Blenheim i will try and get me a job fruit-picking or pruning or something. Correct me if i am wrong Amanda but i think Nelson is one of the sunniest places in NZ, over 300 days of sun a year, huzzah.

I will put up more on Bebo some time in the future, its still slow putting them up from this computer.

I am like Dr Jack i am.

So i finally arrived here in Franz Joseph after a 4 hour road trip. When i got off the internet last night and went backt o the hostel i overheard this couple talking about this place so i casually entered the conversation and voila, i got me a lift the whole way up here.

So this place is really 'Lost' territory. Really high steep mountains covered in trees and bits of cloud and mist foating through the valleys. There is a big glacier up the valley a bit so i will go and do a hike on that tomorrow or the next day. After that i dont know what to do, i am completely at a loss with regards to plans and to be honest i am loving it. If i could get a job cleaning i might stay here for maybe a week, otherwise i will just move on. Louise was on to me there and she should be in Australia now actually, she will be calling over for a short visit some time in the next three months, god only knows where i will be, prelemenary plan in Wellington in 5/6 weeks-ish, maybe. It all depends on money to be honest, i will keep moving while i have the funds to do so but will have ot stop here and there to make enough to survive on.

One bad thing about living in the middle of a rain-forest at the minute is the emergence of little biting insects. Some of ye might remember my posts from Maine http://hallofthegreenman.blogspot.com/2005/07/mustkeepcontrol.html when i was plagued by mosquitos. It turns out that hre West Coast is also well known for its horrible biting little shits. I have 4 bites at the minutes, all from different insects; one big swollen one with a blood dot in the middle, one little red one, one that looks like a spot but is itchy like crazy and another one like a big bump. I think my blood must just taste too good. Going down to the pharmacy now to try and buy some drugs, blessed blessed drugs.

Hitch-Hikers Guide

SO i did not quite make it the whole way to my destination today. Started hitching around 11 in the morning after i finished all my little jobs in Queenstown and said goodbye to everybody. Was not waiting that long for most places but at one stage i was dropped off on this small little road and ended up walking around 4km with my huge backpack. Eventually this little old woman stops and gives me a life, which i found surprising cuz women travelling on their own rarely stop, especially elderly ones. So all in all i managed 120km today, walked around 10km of it, but come 3 o clock i still had around 200 left. Was standing at one place getting bitten by insects for an hour and a half until 5 o clock and i decided to call it a day. Got a lift 20km back the way i came and am now staying in a town called Wanaka. Will get out of here early in the morning and try to get the morning rush. My poor shoulders are killing me.

I am all packed up and ready to go. Will be a bit of a relief to get out of Queenstown, getting a bit of cabin fever here. The scottish girls did not have room in their car for all our gear so i will head off tomorrow and start hitching. Lets hope it does not rain.

Packing is getting easier and easier, its not even that i am losing my stuff as much as i used to, i am instead just realising that i dont need half the cloths i brought with me. My motto at the minute, dont get attached to anything. Had to get rid of all the music on my Mp3 player as well there over the weekend, wanted to add some new stuff onto it but had to format it first, since i was adding 5000 new ones i thought it would not be much of a sacrifice to get rid of the 2000 already on it. So between all the music i have been listening to since i arrived, my jade pendant and all the cloths i have lost i think i am ready to give up on all the material possessions. Dont really have anything with me anymore that is of sentimental or monetary value, well bar camera and Mp3 player of course, but they can be replaced easy.

my poor tummy hurts and my neck is uncharacteristicly lighter

So had my last Saturday in Queenstown yesterday and a fun day was had by all. Around 20 of us went bowling during the afternoon and i owned everyone. My bowling skills flucuate madly but i was kicking bum, got 3 strikes and 2 spares. After we finished that a few of us went back to the hostel and got in the hot-tub for a few hours. Had a floating table in the middle of it and were just drinking from 6 til 9. After that we all went and played drinking games for more several hours before heading into town. There was some match on but just kind of ignored it. So the night was going really really well til, while playing the fun 'put an ice cube down the top" game ,some wench managed to tear off the leather strap that my jade neck thing was attached to. Queue lots of looking around but to no avail, will have to go down to the bar again today and see if it was found during clean-up. Well that put a dampener on the night and i only stayed out a wee while longer but all in all, bar that horrid incidence, a very good way to spend my last Saturday in Q-town.

I was supposed to do the Canyon Swing and bungee jumps this weekend but i am really just not in the mood, they cost a lot of money and interfere with my timetable. There are three scottish girls driving up the coast tomorrow and i asked them for a lift i dont know if its definite yet. Was going to hitch but its like hitching from Cork to Belfast, will have to make it a few days.

Queenstown Queenstown, goodbye

The problem with writing these posts is that i forget what i have and have not said before, even as i write that sentence i am wondering if i have said all this before.

Anyhow i have made a decision and i am going to leave Queenstown. I have been here pretty much since the end of June and i think its time for a change. I am giving up on the snowboarding and if i wanted to disappoint myself i could look back on it and say it was a waste. It did have its plus points however, had a good laugh when Anna and Robbie called over to visit; went snowboarding with some cool people a few times; my last month in Bungi Backpackers have been a lot of fun and of course there was the sky-diving and the soon to be done bungi-jumping. Also if i did not come here for an entire season then i would not have gottent he chance to go to Dunedin as much and have a good a time as i did there.

So i have packed up my expensive winter gear to send home and donated all my cheap shit to the Salvation Army. My board is in being repaired but i think i will just leave that with them, dont want to pay for it and then dump it. My boots i will try and sell for some bit of money, not a profit by any means but hopefully enough. If all goes to plan i should be out of here by Monday or Tuesday so heres loking forward to that.

Poo

ARGHHHHHHH!!!!

Just found out the Robert Jordan died yesterday. He was the author of a series of books that i have been following for years, The Wheel of Time ones. The 12th and last one was due out 2009, lets hope his wife finished it.

http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/

apathy

Was going to write a longer post but could not be bothered today. Back in QUeenstown, not much snow so will have to reevaluate what i'm doing here

1 Day in Christchurch

Have to admit that i was a little underwhelmed by Snow Patrol's concert last night. Arrived halfway through the secong support band The Op SHop which were alright. The venue itself was pretty shit, a big kind of convention centre with a stupidly high roof and no atjmosphere, the bands looked dwarfed up at the top of it. THey played all their hits but hjalfway through i realised why i like Snow Patrol but cant listen to them for very long, all their songs sound similiar. There were a few times throughout the night whwn i was sure that they had played a song for the second time but it turned out that it was just another clone, there was one about 'Shut your Eyes' and then another one later about "Open your Eyes", i mean they were good enough to sing along to but at the end i was not clapping very much for an encore, which i am almost sure was just one of their songs repeated. Parhaps i did not enjoy it as much as i was very very tired. Had a good last nihgt in Dunedin but did not get a lot of sleep before we had to drive up to Christchurch, a drive that took 5 hours. There was just myself and one girl who were driving up so i had to stayt awake to keep her awake. Today was nice though, there was actually a good bit of heat in the sun so a group of us spent the day in the botanical gardens, leaving only to get some lunch and the Sunday newspapers. Three of us ewven had a nap for an hour or two down by the river, sleepy days.

Click on the Picture for it to enlarge

So everytime i actually talk to any of ye, no-one seems to know where i am talking about and i have to re-tell so hopefully with the aid of this equisitly crafted map ye will have a better idea of which i speak. I spell good and stuff.

So got talking to this random Irish guy from Westmeath this morning. He is around my age and turns out that he spent most of his childood summers down in Fanore, just down from our caravan. Small world ehh.

You know, i try and not make my blog just about 'What i Did Today" but to be perfectly honest, most of the time that is all i do with this. Any of ye that have blogs know how tough it is to actually try and think of something to say once you sit in front of the screen and the effort involved in thinking of pertinant current affairs opinion things to write about is just too much. I do think however that maybe i will start trying to write smaller more regular posts, in the style of Sarah in her hey-day. When i read back through my blog, something that is fun but someimes cringing, i think my best posts were in Maine, when i would actually go to the bother of putting in pictures and stuff. Appearantly you can embed videos into the blogs now so how cool would it be if i started a video blog? You could see me hum and haw for an hour while i try and think of something to say. fun times

In Which Paul Rants about Nicholas Cage

Good god i wish i could go back in time and get that 90 minutes of life back. Went to go to the movies there, was originally going to see The Tattooist but a fe of the people i was with had heard bad things about it so we decided that a Nick Cage action movie might be alright. How wrong we were. The pile of shit is about NC or TW for TwatHead as a stage magician who can actually see 2 minutes into the future. All in all its a crock of shite. God i spent the entire time thinking how much i hate Nicholas Ever-Retreating-Hairline-And-Really-Unrealistic-Brown-Hair Cage. He gets with Jessica Biel in the film, i mean i was actually squirming watching it as he is obviously old enough to be her father, and definately looks it. It says a lot about a movie when Jessica Biel is the best actor in it. what a pile of shit. I hate TW and his mumbling sothern shitty drawl. I wont even tell you what it was called, just dont ever go see a TW movie again

So my plan for the next month has been thrown a little askew. I am not working this week. The job i was on finished and yourman was being very unefficient at getting us a new one, like he would ring early on morning we were supposed to e working to say the job is not on, or else on days off we would get a call at 6:45 saying that there is work for us that day. So i have worked 17 days and made a bit of money for the next while so hopefully that will be good. I had also planned to go to Dunedin this Friday but am onw thinking of just going tomorrow.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, now sure yet, there was a huge snow dump last night and one if the guys i have been hanging aorund with, Emmerson, asked if want to stay for the weekend and go snowboarding. Dont think i will though, will trust that there will still be snow when i come back from Christchurch on the 16th.

Speaking of leaving and coming back, said goodbye to several people that were leaving the hostel today. Have been hanging around with them for the last month and they were the ones i went on my weekend trips and hikes with. I have written about this before during my stay in Dunedin but to be honest i think it will be a constant theme in my stay here. I was talking to Sarah about this on MSN just this morning and what she said is true, you have to get to know people very quickly over here and then just as quickly they are gone forever. ITs very emotionally draining but i think unavoidable, the only alternative is to become a recluse which is not fun either.

I am not too bad, Emmerson is still around for 2 months, as is Makoto the Japanese lad. I am looking forward to leaving Queenstown though, just have t do my bungee jumps and that is everything i want to do here done.

ON a completely different note, i am thinking of getting my hair cut. Have put up a poll on my bebo site to see which one people think looks better. DO IT!





So am talking at this very minute to Joan and Sarah on MSN.

grrrr

So appearantly my blogs dont really give the reader "anything to sink their teeth into". Well screw you Honan, how about this, at this moment i am just after finishing toiling for eleven hours, my lower back is killing me, i have blisters on my palms and my fingers are so sore and stiff i can barely type, i smell and starving and have 3 hours to do everything before i go to sleep in order to get ready for tomorrow, how goes sitting around reading your law books?

that little rant aside......well i dont have much else to say really. I am sticking with the job until next friday, at that stage i will have done nearly 4 weeks. I am then going to go to Dunedin for a week to chillax and do sweet fuck all bar drink and play computer games, then off up to Christchursh for a weekend to see Snow Patrol, then back to Queenstown for 2 weeks to enjoy the last of the season..andf then god only know what.

Some questions i was thinking about recently,

1) does the actions of early european colonists in the America's constitute ethnic clensing?

2) if you had really draconian penalties for people caught using coke or weed, as in obligatory jail time/community service/criminal record, would a lot of middle class users stop and therefore profits plummit for dealers

3)would we have an evolutionary advantage over alien races as we have ten fingers and our mathamatical system is based on 10, is this even a coincidence?

Toiling away gives me lots of time to think of shit like that, lots of other stuff too but its usually computer/nerdy based, wont bore ye with that.

food calls

a working man i am.

Does anyone else think it is strange that i am not really that bothered/tired after working an 11 hour day? After a week i am slowly getting used to it i think, getting up at 6 is never fun but at least i am no longer having to physically drag my body from the bed. The day goes pretty fast as well, think it is because i am actaully enjoying the work. The one thing about it is that i do not have a lot of time to do stuff, an example being the post ing of pictures on the internet. I finished work at six, came straight to the internet cafe to check out my stuff, have to go back to the hostel now and get my gum gear, go down there for an hour or two before it closes at nine, cook my dinner and then try and be in bed by 10:30, busy busy busy.

My weekends are pretty busy as well, like i said i went up that mountain on Saturday and after some more research i found it was actually 1200 metres tall which i suppose makes it a Munro, now i just have to do 8 more before i beat the record Niall set when he was nine. The walk, while tiring, was pretty enjoyable, understand a bit better what Pa sees in the Outdoor Pursuits.

So on Sunday we rented a car and went off on another trip. This time i saw:

The Ford of Bruinin (this was where Arwen called the flood to wash away the Black Riders
The River Anduin and where the Argonoth were (the river they went down with the huge statues on it)
Also saw some mountain range that was used as a backdrop once or twice when Gandalf was heading to Minis Tirith

I actually think that i have exhausted all the LOTR sites within a 3 hour drive from Q-town so might actually start going places for other reasons now. ON sunday we were in a town called Wanaka which is around an hours drive away. It was all sunny and nice and we just sat around the lake before goig to the local cinema which was called Cinema Paridiso. It was pretty class, small eough but all the seats are either old armchairs, sofas or Laz-E-Boys. They have an intermission at half time and you can buy freashly cooked muffins and cookies or preordered pizzas and stuff. Went to see History Boys cuz it was the only thing on, a bit boring but alright.

oops, my hour is nearly up, must be off. ONe good thing about work is that i have a lot of time to think about stuff and actaully composed this in my head during the day. Hurrah for the win

On physical excercise and Fish

oh lordy i am tired. So did a full week of work this week and i have to say that it was not actually that bad. Getting up at 6:15 is never fun but am getting used to it a wee bit. Start work at seven and then finish at six. I have been lucky this week as i have been working outside but the weaher has been fine all week. From wednesday on it was even geting hot enough during the afternoon that you could go aorund in t-shirts. It feels so good to be out in the sun again though, it makes me happy, i have always been white but my skin is so pasty after 12 months of darkness that its good to get a bit of the old UV rays.

So working hard all week thought we would take it easy during the weekend. No such chance. Went to my capoeira class last nihgt, noone else turned up so i just had a private class, which was 'class' har har har. The trainer's name is Omar and he works ont he site as well so i get on pretty well with him. Today i had a glorious lie-in till 10 and then myself and Emmerson, a South African guy who is also long-term in the hostel went on a humoungous hike up a local mountain called ben Lomand, if anyone has Google Earth ye should check it out. Its a 2600 ft peak just over queenstown and we made it a 5-6 hour trek up and down. I was so pooped going up, emmerson is some kind of mountain goat who is crazy into his hiking, biking and other active shit back home so i was struggling to keep up. Around 2000 feet up i was just shuffling along with my poor legs burning but i had my chocolate bar just before we hit the snow and managed to make it up to the top. The snow bit was fun, we were not really in the proper gear and at some stages it was more like rock climbing but we eventually shuffled our way up and made it up there, took a piss of the top and everything, it symbolised me pissing on Queenstown.

Just back now and i am completely wrecked, will head backt o the hostel and spend an hour or so in the hot-tub before we are heading to a sushi-party tonight. One of the guys who used the stay in the hostel, a japanese fellow called Makoto left around 2 weeks ago to an apartment and is having a kind of house-warming thing tonight and said he would cook us some sushi. Now i dont eat sushi but it should still be a good night. Dont really feel like drinking though, want a proper nights sleep and was on the wine last night. Early morning again tomorrow as we are renting a car and heading up north to Arrowtown and Wanaka. Hopefully i will get a few more LOTR shots, i know that the Fords of Bruinen are up that direction, thats the river where Arwen called the flood to wash away the Black Riders.

i have a lot of time during work to think about stuff but seeming a lot of it i have forgotten. Another post may be made tomorrow if i remember any of it. Plus it good to see you reading Pa, none of those pictures are up on Bebo yet so dont sully yourself by checking just yet, congrats on teh Harry Potter books, another gold star for Shona/Shauna,

LOTR GLAVIN!!

Today i saw

Amon Hen (the forest and the actual peak)
Isengard
Ithilien (where the oliphants were)
the Misty Mountains
Caradhras

running around giggling like a school-girl was th order of the day

Of Jobs and the Lord of the Rings

So i have not really been doing that much blogging lately, thats partly because of lazyness and my unwillingness to spend money but this week it's because i got myself a job. Yes that job in the construction site i took and started on Wednesday, after a bit of humming and hawing on behalf of the manager, whoever said pester-power does not work is deluded.

Ya so that work is pretty tough, 11 hours a day and it is in demolitions so i am just tearing up carpets, knocking through walls and smashing town plaster ceiling all day, as well as lugging stuff to the skip, not very complicated but pretty damn tiring. Getting up at half 6 is a bit of a culture shock but i am getting used to it, work for nearly an hour before the sun rises. I am working with three guys from the hostel and the other guys on the site are pretty cool as well. One week down another 3 to go. I am earning 15 dollars an hour which works out at a little under 7 euros an hour but is actaully quite good by NZ standards, its nice to actually have a bit of an income at last. The really fun bit is that the building i am demoloshing is that shit-hole hostel that i was staying in for a while and that was charging throught he nose and making me sick. I think its poetic justice that i am now destroying it.

The house i decided not to take in the end. I went up and looked at it and met the housemates and while it is really nice and they are sound it is just too far from Queenstown for me to get in on time for the job. I have to be on the site for 7 and the buses dont actaully start till then so i had to forget about that. Felt kind of bad cuz my friend who was living there is pretty sick and had to move home to Dunedin and its an extra bother for him to sort it out but i say it will be snapped up pretty quick. I am staying instead in Bungi Backbackers which urns out to be one of the cheapest i have stayed in, 18 dollars a night. I have made a good few friends here and the management have a far morte relaxed view towards long-termers, technically there is a one week maximum stay policy but if they have space they do not mind you staying longer so thats all good.

Since i am working nearly 60 hour weeks now we have decided to make the most of our weekends and so i have managed to convince a few of the guys and gals that we should rent a car for the weekend and go for some hikes around the place. However my nefarious plot is to suggest and organise all the places that are reqally nice but coincidently are also Lord of the Rings locations, which it is hard not to around here. Today we went up to Deer Park Heights and there are tons of animals wondering around that you can feed, deers, llamas, alpaca, different kind of goats and sheep and stuff. That kept the girls happy but the real reason i wanted to go there was beacuse the peak of the hill was a big scene in the Two Towers. It was when the Rohirrim are moving their women and children from Edoras to Helms Deep and are attacked by wargs, that entire scene was shot up here. I was like a big kid, took tonnes of pictures that i will put up later, probably on bebo. Tomorrow we are heading up Glenorchy way, which is where all the Isengard scenes were shot, thats very exciting.

Edit: In other news, do everything ye can do to sort out this Shannon-Heathrow malarky, i dont want to have to fly into Cork or Dublin next May, that would not be mighty irksome. There was a march tonight i hear and some sort of petition is going around, that would please me

i said it would all work out all right in the end

woah, so Paul has not been updating much recently eh. Well i am pretty strapped for cash at the minute and trying to cut down all my spending, and a large part of that is the internet so i have nae had the time to write anything here.

All that is going to change soon however as things are finally coming together for Paul. Yes i have managed to find both a house and a job. Both are not ideal but i think i will take them. The job is on a construction site. I have decided that i am needing the money so i am going to work full time for a month and then leave and spend the last month snow-boarding before i leave Queenstown. The construction job will be tough enough i say, its from 7 in the morning til 6 in the evening 5 days a week. on the other hand it pays a few dollars over minumum wage so i should make a bit out of it. From what yerman told me it seems that i will be involved in Demolitions so that sounds like fun.

The house thing is kind of lucky for me but at the expense of other. A friend of mine came up from Dunedin to work here in Queenstown for the season and was put up in a house because he works for the Ski companies, however he has fallen il and has to go home for an operation and so said i can have his room. Hurrah for sick people. Its a house and costs around 80 dollars a week, which is dirt cheap. Unfortunately however it is a bit outside town, around 20 minutes cycle. I would like to take it but i will check out bus timetables and stuff first.

thats it really, things are slightly looking up, huzzay

Of Belt-Tightening and French Maids

Back in Queenstown i do be. Met up with yet another bum from Ireland when i did. A fello called Rob that i used work with in ISI is over for a week so we are just having a few drinky-poos and what not, none of the expensive stuff. I think he might have gotten the wrong impression of the place though cuz the first pub we went into was strangely enough filled with attractive women dressed in French Maid outfits, believe it or not this is not the usual scenario in Queenstown bars. So we hung around there for a while as the girls were now on the tables and bar dancing around, which was nice, the bar staff were all taking pictures fro0m behind and below. Anyhow after a while the DJ cam on the speakers and announced how "hot it was getting, maybe we need some......firemen!!!" At which stage a ton of guys in firemen outfits ran in, at which stage we left.

So bar the occasional drinking not much going on, i am back in the Black Shep in a proper warm, clean room without condensation on the windows and dripping from the roof. Will be here for 2 weeks then have to move again. goingtop be pro-active this time and book a proper hostel a few weeks in advance. See i have also looked at my bank account and it is not doing that well. Anna's visit really took a lot out of it, typical women. So i have decided to tighten up the bootstraps and give myself a budget and try and stick to it. Cutting down on all my stupid expences, which unfortunately involve all my internet time. I am a member of the gym and library and have a ski pass so hopefully if i justy stick to those things i will not be tempted to spend that much else. I am not in dire straits by any means but just cant continue like i have been spending.

I joined a job agency in town and will wait for a call from them but i think that i will also start randomly sending my CV to a few of the hotels around the place and see tdo they have any wokr. I do not want a full time job though, cuz that would just make all the money i spent no snow boarding stuff a waste of money, 15-30 hours a week is what i am looking for.

On another random note however, i was walking down to the gym last night when i saw this guy practising Capoeira over by the lake front. I went over and asked him if he knew of any classes that go on around town and while he mentioned one or two he invited me to go training with him a few times a week. I told him i had only been doing it a year or two cuz he was pretty class and it turned out he had been doing it 20 years, but he said that that was no problem as it is just easier to train with somebody else and that he would be able to teach me some stuff as well. So hopefully i will start getting my 1 on 1 free capoeira lessons next week. Then after talking to him and walking 50 yards down the road i met another South American guy i know (they are common as dirt over here) and his friends, also from South America. I got talking to them and it turnes out they are looking for a house, gave them my number and we may go looking this weekend. Then while in the gym got talking to a guy about his tattoo and it turned out he was from Ennis, its a small world.

Thats one thing that weird over here. When you are travelling on your own you have to learn to be self-sufficient, or insular as one girl i was talking to about it said. If you are not with a group then you have to get used to spending a lot of time just on your own and learning to be happy with that. But you also have to learn to be more out-going and willing to talk to complete random strangers, to initiate conversation with people anywhere cuz otherwise you will never make any headway. Have to admit that was not very easy for me at the beginning but you get used to it.

I will be well insular this weekend though. Have pre-ordered the new Harry Potter book and will be picking it up on Saturday morning. Its being released at 11 o clock in the morning over here so i though, "super, i will get to read it before all ye bums back home" then i realised that with the time difference it would be just about midnihgt in Ireland ant thats when the big releases are at back home, grrr. Will probably spend the weekend reading that, its nearly 800 pages long so i should finish it in a day or so, a day if i dont sleep til late. Sounds like a plan.

Where Paul talks about the Harry Potter Film

Will try not and give away spoilers but tough if i do. Plus i presume this will be of no interest whatsoever to Steve and Pa, philistines that they are. So just back from ye olde Harry Potter film. Went with three fellow hostel people in this pretty sweet cinema. It was real old and had been a theatre for decades so there was big sweeping stairs, fancy foyer, vaulted roofs and class balconies and stuff in the cinema room, cant really call itjust the 'screen' cuz it was prett big. Anyway the cinema was nice.

First impressions coming out of the movie was "Is that it?". Found it very underwhelming to be honest. Perhaps it is the book that it is based on. Order of the Phoenix is actually one of the best books in my opinion, mostly because the story actually starts going somewhere, its pretty big, and not as childish as the first few. I think that might have been the problem though, turning that type of book into a film was always going to be a tall order.

First of all they of course had to cut out large amounts of the story in order to make it a watchable length. It was a little over 2 hours long i think. So for fans of the book like myself it was a bt frustrating that they left out bits that i would have thought were important or just interesting. But then for people who did not read the book it seems a bit disjointed at times as they seem to take for granted that people will know what is happening behind the scenes. I seem to remember thinking the same after the last movie, but not to the same degree. It parts this one definately seemed rushed and too much was happening in too little time, the obligitary montages were trying to pack to much in and were leaving too much out.

The fact that this book was more of a placeholder in the series and was a bit more about character and plot development rather than action always meant that it was going to be an odd one. Even though it was relatively long it was all just buildig up to the climax at the end and so i felt not much was going on in between. Lots of Harry Potter being angry and angsty and the others trying to be understanding. Although saying that yerman Danieal Radcliff was far better in this than he was in others, perhaps cuz he did not have to do much except mope. He is not really looking much like a 14 yearold though. Guess its easier to make a 20-year old look 17 ala Dawsons Creek thatn to make a 17 ear old look 14. Yerone who played Hermione got a bit annoying after a while, just seemed to be outraged about stuff the whole time with her eyebrows going crazy and runing around in her peadophiles dream-jumper.

The ending was pretty class all the same but not sure if it was worth waiting for. I am definately glad i went to see it though, kind of had to be done. Roll on the 26th, have the book ordered.

Back to Dunedin....for a few days

So i have arrived back in Dunedin for a few days R&R to recover from the stress of hosting Dolans. Was a bit of a nightmare getting here but it all turned out in the end. Went to book a bus ticket this morning (how farsighted of me) except it turned out the bus was booked out. So pretty much i was stuck in Queenstown for another night without accomodation. Mightly irked i was talking to yerone from the bus company on the phone and she said that if i could get to a town called Cromwell, around an hour away then the bus might have emptied by then. So buses to Cromwell, dont be so silly. I had to swallow my pride and actually hitchhike. Was out i the freezing cold for nearly twenty minutes before i got a lift from a nice fello called Julien from Switzerland. Offered to pay him for some petrol but he refused. Very nice of him.

Of course that was not the end of my troubles. Managed to book the ticket for the bus but was three hours early, gave myself a little too much time to catch a lift. So luckily i found a library, with a graphic novel stand. So next time i look at my watch its five minutes past the bus departure. Picking up my ridiculously heavy rucksack i ran up and thankfully got the bus. Even though i broke two eggs that were in my bag, who would have thought they were so fragile. Now since i started staying in the hellhostel in Queenstown, Downtown Backpackers tell your friends to avoid it, i have started developing pneumonia. Well a sore throat and cough anyway. So i stopped int o a pharmacy before i left and bought some cough syrup. Unfortunately i did not have a spoon to measure it so i just took a few chugs from the bottle on the bus and hopped for the best. THink i might have ODed on it though, felt pretty sick the whole way down and pretty drowsy. The cough went away though. In one of my lucid moment on the bus did see something i thought was odd though. THis old woman got on a little after the first stop and the only place for her to sit was beside this teenage fello. The odd thing was they started talking and were at it for the entire 4 hour trip. Did not catch what they were talking about but it seemed quite animated, i think he gave her his number at the end.

So i am back in Central Backpackers until Monday when i head back to Queenstown to stay in the Black Sheep for another 2 weeks, which will be pretty nice. Its weird how homely this place feels, i would not mind hanging around here indefnately to be honest. The danger of a place being too comfortable. I even got a pure cheap rate in the hostel, works out at 15 dollars a night. The perks of being friends with the boss. Just going to get some beer and DVDs now and will just bum around for a few days. I told Richard, the owner, to get tickets to Harry Potter so 4 of us are heading to that on Sunday, should be a lorra fun.

So i am

The Aftermath

So Anna and Rob have headed off to whatever godforsaken country they come from and things are getting back to normal here in Queeenstown. Twas a good two weeks while they were here, lived up the Queenstown lifestyle, drinking, parachuting, racing through canyons at high speed in jet boats. I am trying to put up pictures on bebo but am being stymied by damn computers at every turn.

So i have decided that i am going to head back to Dunedin for a few days just to chill out before i come back here next week and start looking for a job. A big reason i am leaving is that i am staying in the hostel of death here at the minute. Its around 30 years old and i dont think has ever been re-decorated. The walls are all covered in carpet and condensation drips from the roof, mildew is everywhere and the service is shit. I got no sheets or duvet for my bed and had to hunt them down myself as management vanishes and reception closes at 7 in the evening. God it is so dingy, perhaps i will put up some pictures of that just to show you what i have to put up with. Whats worse is that it is being demolished in two weeks so they just do not give a shit anymore, it is no shit that its not part of any of the hostelling groups so no discounts and so it is also one of the most expensive hostels that i have stayed in. Ridiculous.

Ya so i am heading down to Dunedin and am tres excited about that one, going to be a nerdy one. Going to see Transformers again as last time i had a fidgety Anna and Rob tossing and turning and bitching at me, philistines, and i also have tickets booked to see the new Harry Potter movie on Saturday, that should be a lorra fun.

I will not fear, fear is the mind-killer that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.

So things have been much better here over the last week or two. I should really blog more so i dont have lots of stuff to say when i do. Went snowboarding for the first time yesterday. That was a whole lot of fun, did not fall over that much and am not that sore, the gym must have paid off. The actual sloped themselves were not that good, much smaller than the ones we went to in Italy and much more crowded. Still the season is only starting and more runs will open as it snows more. It has actually rained over the last 4 days and that actaully closed one of the snow resorts cuz all the snow melted. It gets pretty miserable as a lot of other stuff cleses as well.

Anna, her friend kate, and her brother Rob arrived last Tuesday and we have been out and about a bit since they arrived. the girls took snowboarding classes while i went up the slopes. We will be going back again tomorrow for a while, might try and jump on a few of the rails around.

So i have moved to another hostel for a week as i has stayed the maximum two weeks in the other one. The one i amin right now is the absolute pits. I mean it is dank, constantly smells damp and has carpets on the walls. Still its cheap and i dont spend much time in it, plus its only 19 dolars a night. Anyhow so this morning as around 12 i get a call from Anna who is at the other hostel, god bless the Black Sheep, saying she was booking a skydive and did i want to go. Said i might as well but then found out that we were going to be doing it at 3:00! It was good in a way as i did not have much time to worry about it and it did not really sink in til i was 12,000 feet up with the doors of the plane open and me sitting on the ledge. It was a tandem dive and i was doing with this guy who had like 10,500 jumps under his belt so i was not really worried about that. I was not really worried about anything going wrong to be honest, i mean even if everything went right it would still be terrifying. The scariest bit was the first few seconds after leaving the plan, just dropping and dropping and dropping til you reached terminal velocity. I will admit i roared like a baby. after that it was all good, dont really remember much of it to be honest. I paid an extortionist amount to get a DVD and photos so i will put them up after i get them tomorrow.

Queenstown, not exactly a bed of roses

So end of the first full day in Queenstown and all is not really well. The first time i was here i thought i was not too fond of the place cuz i had just arrived and was not really used to the place. Now, after nearly 2 months in the country i still get the same feeling. I liked Dunedin, it was a city and really just got on with it, there was expensive places, cheap places and lots of different places to go and things to do. Queenstown is different, i do not get the whole friendly vibe here half as much. There is no such thing as cheap here, everything is based on extracting as much money out of tourists as possible and if there is one thing i hate its the feeling that someone is goughing me straight to my face. There is not as much kiwi hospitatility because everybody is like me, foreign and just here for a short time. Dunedin was a student town but this place is just full of gangs of young sports bums hanging around. I know it is a bit of a black pot/kettle situation but i dont consider myself like them. I came here for the snow and stuff, not the constant drinking and crazy nite-life. I think i am just kind of missing the set-up i had in Dunedin, in the hostel at the minute they have their own drink so you cant bring cheap stuff from supermarkets, you have to buy it from them.

As for the whole job and accomodation thing i am not sure how that will work out either. I am in the hostel for two weeks but at the ewnd of that time a friend is coming over ot visit me for two weeks so i cannot really get a job if it means that i will be working the entire time she is here. Accomodation is something else that i dont know about. The average price at the minute for a cheap old apartment is between 140-200 dollars a week. At that price it would be cheaper to stay in the hostel. Not that i have seen any apartments to rent however, every notice board around is covered by notices from people asking for rooms rather than people offering them, they are golddust at the minute. That and lots of them are unfurnished or looking for 6 month minimum contracts.

Mah, i think i might just be making mountains out of mole-hills but i am just not i the best of moods at the minute. Back to not really knowing anybody again and having nothing to do with my days, god bless the regular get-up, dress beds, go on internet, go to gym, have lunch, hang around in cafe, have dinner, hang around in cafe, drink beers and watch DVDs time in Dunedin. Just cant get my priorities right at the moment and not sure what i should be doing. Hopefully things will be better on the morrow.

Its a town fit for a Queen!!!

So i have arrived back in Queenstown. After hours of trying to get it to work the music programme needed to transfer songs onto my MP3 player randomly decided to start working and so i got around 400 new songs for my trip. There is something that i wont be able to do down here, it is going to be hard to get used to paying for the internet again, kindof sucky as well.

So leaving Dunedin was a bit depressing. I had settled in nicely there and made a few friends in the hostel and the internet cafe. thats something i will have to get used to i suppose if i am going to be moving around a lot. Of course i was half-way to Queenstown when i realised that i lelt my phone charger, a pair of shoes, a hat and all my rings, chains and stuff back there so i am getting the jewellery's and charger sent back to me. The rest can just be donated or dumped. Richard, the owner of the internet cafe and hostel said if ever i need a reference for a job in an cafe/hostel here then i can give his name which is pretty sweet. I will try and get back there for a weekend or two before i head away.

So Queenstwn is just as i remember it, except colder. Last night appearantly it was -10 degrees, boo. The slopes are opening this qweekend but i may give them a miss as i am sure that they will be completely mobbed and i want to get stuff organised here. Finding a place and a job is important but also finding a place with someone who drives and is here for the season is going to be a must. There is a shuttle bus the 8k out to the snow fields several times a day. Except this being Queenstown it is $25 dollars a day or $700 for the season, i mean fuck sake.

Back in the same hostel again for a while. Its a bit weird, going from the person who showed around the new guests and so knowing most people ion the hostel to just another back-packer. I am better prepared this time though, just on my way to the supermarket to stock up on all the necessaries and then will make myself a proper diner. i am also a bit better with the whole hostel eqituitte, in that i find it easier to start conversations with complete strangers and stuff, which is always a help.

Anyhow, expect my internet presence to be greatly reduced for the near future, going to have to stay in uber-cheapo mode for a while i say.

PS: Hello Patrick, i missed your musk

REAL NZ EXCITMENT!!

Well not much going on, bar my near death experience today. One of the guys got a car so we decided to go on a wee trip today cuz it has been shitty weather all week. It is still bitterly cold, snow fell on the hills and everything, but it stopped raining at least.

So we went up the coast to see some famous rocks. Appearantly they are unique cuz they are big and very round. Went to see them but was not very impressed, mosty because we were freezing our asses off. So on te way home we were coming down the side of a small hill and didn't the driver lose control of the car. The road was icy and had loose chipping on it and we were also coming around a corner. The corner was not too bad but with everything suddenly the car started drifting, we verved left and right a bi then went around 40 yards sideways, i was expecting us to flp over at any stage. Eventually we ended up on the opposite side of the road facing the back up the hill we just came down. We were lucky that there were no cars coming cuz otherwise both us and them would have been fucked. It al turned out alright in the end though, i might even put up some photos of the beach.

So my last few posts have not reeally been very action filled, and to be honest this one is not going to be either. I have been in DUnedin now for around 3 weeks i think, maybe four, and will be here for another one or two i say. I have done most of the tourist stuff around here, say the Steepest Hill, went to the Catlins and saw the Peninsula wildlife sanctury. I have become pretty settled here and i am not really that bothered by it. As i said to Liam the other day, not everyday can be filled with mountain hikes and bungee jumps. I have actually started paid work here in the internet cafe (the hostel reception is in the internet cafe and the hostel is upstairs) as well as dressing beds and doing laundry in the hostel, meaning i get free accomodation several days a week and make a few bob during the week as well. That has been my plan while waiting for Queenstown, not heamorrhage money cuz i am sure there will be plenty of that in Queenstown, or Expensive-Ville as i like to call it.

The hostel has gotten pretty quiet with it turning to Winter and all and there has not been a good a group as the one we went on the roadtrip but it has ticked along, lots of rented DVDs, occasional drinks and incresing time spent playing computers in the cafe. "You could have done all this at home!" i hear you say, true i suppose but i am not at home and i am doing what i like down here with different people and in a different culture than home, which makes it a different experience and a very enjoyable one at that.

New Zealand Living, hobbits and cheap cars

So what have i noticed today? Well one thing is that New Zealand is a bit of a nanny state (sorry amanda). They are all about giving money to poor people and spending money on services and welfare and stuff. One thing this has resulted in (in DUnedin and Queenstown anyway, God only knows what Wellington is like, a welly i suppose) is that the streets are very clean. I was out taking a call from home one evening when some bins were kicked over, within 15 minutes a garbage truck turned up and cleaned it all up, this was at 8 o clock at night now. Beats the three days it would take the council at home to turn up.

One strange thing that i have never seen before is people walking around the streets in their bare feet, in the library and and supermarket and everything, seems to be the done thing over here, just another thing linking them with hobbits.

Was talking to one of the guys who works in the internet cafe next door as well and he was complaining about the cost of his car insurance. He is 19 and has already written off one car so his premium went up. It now costs him $400 a year to insure his car, thats right, no missing 0's or anything. I was telling him about Niall and his equivelent of $3400 for one years insurance and that was on a shitty starlett with no claims or anything. Some people have it too good.

Random Saturday update

So i said i must update ye with all the new happenings going down here in D-Town (thats Dunedin by the way). Not much to be honest. The gym is going well, dont know how long that will last, i have stopped taking books out of the library as i never d anything otherwise. I have started working in the hostel part-time and will do so on the days i am not working. Since such a thing is random i think i will just ask the boss to book me in until the middle of June and then when i am leaving i will pay him for the days i did not work.

So the big news is that i am now the proud owne of a second-hand, black, Solomon snowboard! I got the board and the straps for 200 dollars off this guy who was getting maaried and moving up to the North Island. It was originaly 230 but i managed to argue him down cuz i am class. All i have left to get now is the boots and then i am flying it, huzzah.

I do be tired at the minute, had te worst night sleep last night. Missed a call from the Recruitment Office on Friday with work and she said there might be some this week so i kept dreaming that the phone was ringing and when i woke up it was only 2 o clock, this happened around every hour for the whole night. I was actually having lucid dreams inbetween where i dramt i woke up and then realised that that was a dream and then woke up from that one etc, etc, all in all a very bad night sleep. I should really go to bed but instead i think i will go to the late showing of the Pirates of the Carribean, find out how that stupid thing actually ends.

i am like a vacuos, ephemeral chimera, you dont know me

So i am reading two books at the minute. One i had to buy and the other was in the hostel. The first one is called Quentins by Maeve Binchy. Its a total load of crap but similiar to crack it is hard to put down. When i read it i get filled with a warm fuzzy feeling that is as addictive as the high quality white stuff. I have only read one of her other books before, Scarlett Feather and it was the same. I love the way you get to empathise with the characters, all two dimensions of them and the same characters are used in each book so you get a secret thrill froom knowing their backstory form another of her wonderful novels. I feel so dirty.

The other novel i am reading is the Alphabet of Manlyness by I. M. Maddox. It is slightly different from Maeve Binchy in some ways. Tis well calss though. Just like his web-page The Best Page in the Universe. It can get a bit much sometimes though. ANyone who has ever seen his sight will know how OTT and haveing a book filled 120 pages of the same stuff is pretty over-whelming. I shall keep ye updated when i finish it

the only reason i put titles is to differenciate between posts, they usually dont mean anything

So whats happening in the crazy topsy-turvy life of Paul i hear you ask. Well nothing major to be honest. Things are kind of becoming routine at the minute, this is of course a good and bad thing. I have finally gotten off my ass and organised my IRD number and also gone and set up a bank account, its empty but at least it is there. I also went and got a hair cut today, which i have been building myself up to for forages. It looks alright, will take a bit of getting used to. She took off around 3 inches and somehow made it curly, perhaps i will put up photos, i will wait and see if i approve of it first. On a sad note i can no longer tie it up in a ponytail, on a plus point it is no longer in my eyes.

I have joined the local gym for a month so i can feel a little better about the amount i am drinking. We have ahd several good nights recently, drinking games are featuring largely; 4 kings, benga mostly, plus they have these things called pitchers in the bars which are great fun. People have been coming and going in the hostel and i am unsure off what it is going to be like next week. Reason being that there are three of us who have been here for ages and now one of them has gotten a job and the other is leaving to go touring for a few weeks. What am i going to do to fill my days. I am thinking i have two options, 1) try and work in the hostel so i get free accomodation, and spend the rest of my time hanging around and going to the gym so i will be in peak shape for the slopes, 2) try and get a real job for 4 weeks and pay for the accomodation. 1 could be alright cuz you never know what could happen next week, a class group or person could come in and lots of fun would be had, 2 would be handy because of money but then it is hard to get a job for just 3/4 weeks and then i would be paying for the hostel. Both are things to consider.

Several Days of Fun and Frolics

blearh, i am not really in the mood for writing this but i guess that since ye peons live to hear my words of wisdom i may grace ye with a few choice words. The last few days have been much fun, started off on Thursday with a small hike down the Dunedin peninsula, at least we thought is was going to be a small hike. We got the bus to the tip where there are seals and albatrosses and stuff and then intended walking back to the bus stop which was around 3 miles away, unfortunately we left it too late and then when we arrived we found out that is actually was around 8 miles back to the bus. A quick look at the albatross-free skies and then we started to walk back, we gave ourselves 2 and a half hours to walk to the bus station which would just about give us time to get the last bus back to Dunedin city around 20 miles away. Unfortunately, again, we did not pay much attention to such things as daylight when we made our plans so we were soon walking in the near dark along very windy roads over cliffs, not much fun. It had a happy ending though, a very nice Kiwi man who we asked for directions at one stage followed us down the road in his truck and offered to drive us to the bus stop. It was pretty surreal, driving along these v. scary roads in the back on a pick-up van. lots of fun though.

Forgot to mention who the 'we' was. The new hostel i am staying in has a much younger crowd than the Hogwartz one and i got talking to a german guy, an american girl, an a fella from Kilkenny. It was the four of us who went on the hike and that was fun so we decided to hire a car the next day and drive down the coast to see some of the famous beaches and stuff, the more we talked about it the more people were interested so in the end we hired a mini-van and on Thursday 9 of us headed off down country to the Catlins, 2 irish guys, 2 english girls, the german fella, a french girl, a dutch guy, and an argintinian and American girl. That was lots of fun, will put up pictures some time, probably on my bebo first though. Many adventures were had, saw sea-lions, mountains, waterfalls, and rainforests that ran straight onto a really nice beach. We nearly got screwed in the beach when Andi the german boy decided to drive the van down after us and of course it got stuck in the sand. After around half an hour of digging and stressing and trying to find wood (Surprisingly hard even though we were surrounded by forest, that forest was dense, could not get into it) and rock to put under the wheels in order to get traction. FInally managed though, could have been trouble if we did not though, around 30km from a town, getting dark and the tide coming in.

Yesterday was just a nice day in the city, a smaller group of us went for a walk across the city to see the world steepest street. It is very steep, took pictures ran up to the top, nearly died. Took in the botanical gardens on the way home and then bought food for a big dinner. Lovely steak and spuds for me with chocolate cake and ice-cream for dinner. The last thre nights have also seen us drink prostigious amount of beer. Spaights is the local stuff and you can get a case of thirty 330ml cans for 25 dollars. We have actually kept all the cans and now the bathrooms windows are al blocked up with walls of them, as are the tops of every cabinet in the kitchen. Theowner of the hostel thinks it is prtty cool as well and has let us keep them there, for how long i dont know.

While lots of fun has been had, have to face something which i guess will become a pretty common experience. Gotten on very well with all these perople but after today 6 of them wil be gone and since they are only in New Zealand for a holiday chances are i wont see them again, a bit depressing but i will just have to get over it. I see my facebook and bebo friends lists growing though. Funny thing about the group of us that went, except for the argentinian girl all of us were solo travellers. I am pretty glad that i did not come with a group cuz those always seem to just stick together and not participate much, i am sure that a lot of them have fun but they seem to miss out on some stuff. Anyhow i am very tired and just a small little hung-over, 3 nights of drinking and a late night last night watching Serenity, The Goonies, Team America and Shaun of the Dead will do that.

LEAVE ME A COMMENT, feel like i am talking to the wind here. None of ye seem to be blogging so perhaps ye can push yerselves to a comment or email telling me what is going on back home. Even you conal, use someone elses internet

hmmmm

today i joined the library, that could have been a bad idea, my productivity aint the best as it stands. One the other hand it is free internet, just not email.

Pretty much just a book review, not much happening otherwise

So i was bumming around Dunedin again today. Although perhaps it was not a complete waste of a day, i finished and printed off my CV and references and also got the name and addressed of recruitment agencies. The problem i have now is that i have to get my IRD number which is sort of like a social security number. it says i have to put down my permanent address but at the minute i dont have one so there is nowhere for them to send it, i cant use a PO box either, quite frustrating.

Anyhow when i was finished all that i sat around the frnt of the library reading my book. I have been reading an awful lot recently, started off with the book version of all 4 Alien films, and then another one called The Last Wilder which was book 2 of a series i read a year ago, the onto a more serious The God Delusion byt Richard Dawkin, its all about how god does not really exist and stuff, interesting but not anything i had not really though of before. I find it hard to agree with him on some stuff though, certain things might just be psychosomatic but walking around in a forest or down by Doonass at home feels much different that over here, and i have been through far more breathtaking terrain over here than at home. I think its just that i know a lot of the myths and legends of places at home and certain things over here just dont have that meaning. The huge old Beech trees and sequioas i see over here are just that, big trees, at home however i would be much more fanciful about The Green Man and Danu and whatnot. I think not having a religion or a belief in something more than what you can see in touch makes the world a more mundane place. God may be a delusion as yerman says but certain aspects are pretty comforting.

I have also read some pulp fiction short stories y Ron Hubbard and some psychobabble tripe called Tipping Point, which i though would have actually been quite good, sorely disappointed i was. I finished The Vampire Lesat by Ann Rice yesterday and the newest by William Gibon today, Pattern Recognition it was called. The Ann Rice one was okay, better than the last i read of hers, Taltos i think it was called. I can see how her writing has been taken by Goths actually, she is very descriptive about shit, sometimes too much so. You can see as well were lots of the Vampire the Masquarade lore comes from, The Sabbath, the Masquarade, Malkaviens, Toreador, Antideluvians, The Embrace, Gangrel, all of em are alluded to. Apologies if you dont know what i am talking about, part of my nerdy past. Stil it was only alright in the end

The William Gibson one i was pissed about at the beginning, expected it to be cyber-punk novel but uts actually set 6 months after 9/11. Was good enough actually, in that i did not put it down and finished it in a day. Strange coincidene hat, the last two books that i bought together and really did not like were William Gibson and Ann Rice books.

I was sitting in the square reading this book anyway when this woman came and sat down in the bench a little away from me. I looked up after a few minutes and saw that she was quite overweight, you know the type, where they can rest their arms on their hip fat. She was just sitting there anyway and just staring at the ground and stayed like that for at least ten minutes. She was quite young and i actually felt really sorry for her. I know that there is just as much chance of her being a bitch as there is of her being a nice person but i felt the overwhelming urge just to go over and try and make her smile. I was interrupted by someone else coming over to her, a middle aged woman she appearantly knew, and yerone just followed her, rather like a child after a teacher or a yound child afer its mother. I dont know it was about her but i was hit that she has had twenty odd years of being herself and wondered if she had enjoyed them, i felt like a bit of a voyeur actually as she did not know i was thinking about her life and personality and stuff, trying to peek into her mind if you will. She is gone anyway and i will never see her again, nor will she ever know that a complete stranger was analysing her this much, makes you wonder how many, if any other people have done the same to you.

Dunedin

So i have made the move to Dunedin. It was a 3 and a half hour journey but a collection of sci-fi short stories by Ron Hubbard got me through it. Was in a bit of a panic this morning as when i went to book a hostel i found out that there was a large rugby match on today and a lot of places werte booked out. All the internet directories came back as full and i was actually looking at hotels, which are pretty expensive. Eventually i found this place called Hogwartz (note the copyright infringing avoidant z), which you could not book online but i rang em up and they had one place left in a shared room, which was cheaper than a dormitary but still half the price of a hotel.

Dunedin itself is around the same size as Cork i think, much bigger than Queenstown, have to get used to looking both ways before crossing the road and actually pressing those predestrian buttons. I likes it though, its a university town with around 20,000 students so it has a real Boston feel to it. Plus its not up the mountains so it warmer than Queenstown. Lots of cafes and people sitting out drinking and stuff, will do some proper exploring tomorrow.

The hostel is pretty sweet as well. IT is actually this old house and i luckily got to go to a dormitary after all which worked out cheaper but it ius actually a big high-ceiling room like Drenatra with comfy beds, not a bunk to be seen. The whole house is actually olde-school and well class. Not much else, will be back tomorrow