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

well proud but sore i am

Okay so, i suppose this post would be better off with pictures but i dont have them ready just yet. I do be just back from my first Queenstown adventure. Went for a humoungus hike today, or as the New Zealanders call it, a tramp, or tramping or something. GOt up at 7 and got picked up and brought around 50 miles to a place called the Routhbourn Trail. ALong the way we passed over a small bridge and saw this .

Well not actually this, take away the big spire thing and the burning trees, yes thats right chalk off the first Lord of the Rings location sighting. A river actually runs through this.

Anyway i was taking a guided tour through this trail that appearnatly was first used by the Maoiri's to get to their jade and then by the Europeans to get to gold. I know this cuz we had a native guide showing us the way. His name was Tupa-tupa or something, he said it was Carl but they always change their name so to be more accepted by us Europeans so i just guessed Tupa-Tupa. UNfortunately he was not wearing his traditional dress of leaves and tattoos but was impressive none the less, appearantly you are not supposed to feed them as he got quite irate when i tried to give him a banana.

Anyhow the trek was long and arduos ( i dont care about spelling), took several hours and involved going up the side of the valley, then through the middle for a bit before heading back up the other side. Perhaps i am not explaining this very well cuz it was quite impressive. The sides were covered in temperate rain-forest and the peaks were around 2500 metres tall and some even had glaciers. Like i said i took lots of photos and will put them up tomorrow or the next day.

I was actually quite proud of myself for finishing it without any real trouble, it was 10km to the first huts and then the same back and i never really felt that i had to collapse, 14 miles up and down tough terrain is not to be sneezed at. My legs do feel a bit like jelly at the moment though. For the last hour none of us really spoke cuz we were just exhausted, well not our guide as those people live for this sort of thing but myself and the other person taking the tour, Ashka i think her name was, she was Japanese.

I wanted to get a steak dinner to celebrate when i got back but the fates conspired against me and none are readily available, its probably cuz i am just too lazy to look for them. I bought a wholemeal ciabatta loaf instead and it is quite delicious. Anyhow i will put up the pictures later and apologies to Amanda for insulting her boyfriends heritage, the 'Polish'.

The Lord spake to me through Dreams

Wow, so like three posts in one week, easy to tell that Paul is not at home. I have moved from The Hippo, my first hostel cuz while it was clean it was not very cozy or anything, I am now in The Black Sheep, thanks to Robs reccomendation. It much better than the other place, cheaper, bigger but with a huge rec area with loads of couches and a firething in the middle. Much more people there but i have found the receptionists to be a bit cold, a smile when you come to reserve a room would be nice.
Had a bit of a bad day yesterday, got a bit overwhelmed with what i am actually doing here, have to start doing something, whether it be working, travelling or doing all the crazy things available in Queenstown. Just walking around the town on my own all day was getting me down, plus the fact that i lost my phone was really pissing me off. I do be putting in the effort to get to know people in the hostel and stuff but it does not come natural to me, there was a few Irish around but i said that i will not rely on people from home, the same reason i am not going to apply for jobs in the two Irish bars in town. To be honest i am not sure i want a job in a bar, unsocial hours and stress being the main reasons. Of course i would prefere just to not work at all but that seemingly is not an option.
So i was pure tired last night and ended up going to bed at 7 o clock, bad idea cuz i woke up then at 4 wide awake. Odd to think that i could not sleep before 4 for the last few months back home. ANyhow i got up and went to the rec room and watched The Matrix Revolutions and The Mummy 2, both classic films. Went back to bed at 8 and conked out for two hours. Had the strangest dream though, while most of it was about a mermaid and irish mythological creatures and pubs and fanores, the main jist of it was that she had been moping around for years and eventually changed her life by getting off her ass or something like that. I woke up pretty soon after and to be honest i dont think my subconscious could be giving me bigger hints. Went back downstairs, found my phone under a chair and started talking to grumpy receptionist who turnes out is not as bad as i thought. Am in ye old internet cafe typing this at the mo and then finishing off my CV. ALso going to put up some pictures on my bebo.

Will keep ye posted on whether this mood lasts