Get Down, Get Out

Hi everybody.
Ger, girlfriend of my dreams, illustrious partner in crime, irrepressible traveling companion left me. Well for a week and a half. She went to Melbourne and Adelaide with her friend Yvonne. Thankfully she returned. I smothered her with kisses and piles of my laundry. It was so hard without her. Living on pizza and action movies may be the single man’s dream but it has its disadvantages. Scurvy being one. Children ran with terror when they saw my swollen gums and bloodshot eyes. Conditions got steadily worse at home. I was forced to eat over the sink. The dishes ran out very quickly. One day, too weak to reach the shops or the yellow pages, I managed to get a tin of corn open but had to eat it cold. I began re-wearing the same dirty clothes. My boss sent me home from work because of all the food stains on my shirts. I tried to explain to him that I had no bibs left. He said I’d need to get a mistress to look after me for the time being. As if I was in any condition for that. No one thinks of poor me in any of this. I hate my life and I want to go home. If I had any teeth left I’d be on the phone to Qantas and have myself booked on the next flight.
In reality, though I had a great time in Wellington. Don’t get me wrong, I missed Ger but I survived. It’s a much smaller city than Auckland, but no less vibrant and a little more manageable on foot. It has a young character with lots of cheap flats and second hand clothing and book shops. I’m on a budget so it got my thumbs up. There’s the National Museum, Te Papa (Our Place- Maori), which is free to enter. It’s full of art, Maori cultural exhibits, historical stuff about the first Pakeha (Europeans) settlers and bits that I didn’t bother checking out about wildlife. I’ve been to a lot of museums this past year and Te Papa ranks pretty highly. I’d advise shelling out the $5 for an audio guide. No celebrity voices, but worth it. Wellington, so everyone says, has more restaurants per capita than New York City. This can’t be hard. After all, New York’s population is 2 or 3 times that of New Zealand. Wouldn’t this dilute the ratio a little? New places to eat open all the time. I was constantly reminded of this plethora of eateries by proud Wellingtonians and by the little Malaysian man who tried to set up a café in my wardrobe.
The recent test of the city’s limits was The Lions Rugby Tour. Soccer fans seem content with their weekly fix of league matches. The world cup comes along every four years and there’s the Copa America, African Nations Cup and European Cup etc to fill in the gaps. Rugby fills in it’s gaps with strange quasi-national combinations like the British and Irish Lions Tour. That’s when a team of guys from Ireland and Britain combine and travel from town to town in New Zealand playing as many matches as possible. As soon as a few of the small local teams wear the Lions down a bit, the All-Blacks move in and bulldoze their way to an easy victory, declaring themselves the greatest team of any kind in the universe. The 3 Test Matches (testing for what?) played to sell-out crowds in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland respectively. Bad news for the Lions who took 3 straight pummelings from the team that has come to personify international rugby and hardness. Good news for Wellington when the circus came to town a few weeks ago. 80,000 people may not sound like a lot when you’re from a city of a million or several million. 80,000 is over half the resident population here. But Wellington coped. For any of you who watched news footage of the Lord of the Rings premiere, I worked on the street that all the fans crowded onto. There’s a panoramic photo in work of them lining Courtenay Place holding up plastic weapons, dressed as magicians with babies dressed as Gollum. The Lions weekend was similar. A few of the main streets were closed and huge screens erected for watching the match. The only difference in the crowd was that the costume had changed to either red or black jerseys and the weapons were now full of beer. The pubs were allowed to open up all-night bullpens for the extra people. Punters were still queuing up at 3am and paying $20 to get in. Nice if you own one of the places.
The bar I worked at was quite cool. It’s called Hummingbird. Great cocktails. Some of the longer serving staff will tell you about LOTR notables they’ve served. Wellington was pretty much the cradle of the production. Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop is nearby and many of the cast had apartments around town. The papers refer to Peter Jackson as the most powerful man in Hollywood. I always thought it was Arnie (at least in a physical sense) but times have changed.
Working at Hummingbird meant late hours but there was always a bar open later. I did a couple of all-nighters with the work mates. To say they’re a lively bunch is an understatement. It’s a weird and slightly exhilarating feeling drinking beer at 5am and not being drunk yet. A pathetic sort of feeling replaces this as you stumble home with equal portions of tiredness and inebriation at 8am past people with real jobs (or at least jobs with real hours). I remind you all that the opinions and self-loathing expressed here are entirely those of the author and are not intended to reflect the feelings of other people in the hospitality industry. It’s not all bad. I get free food and the odd free drink (well, they tend to come in odd numbers). The boss is a bit of a party animal but he wears it well. He’s the self appointed lord and master of the CD player too – with mixed results. (Geddit? DJ… mixing…all of you who just sighed at that attempt at a joke have no comprehension of the pressure I am under). David Bowie, Rolling Stones and Louie Prima get plenty of air-time. Unfortunately so does a lot of loud loud children’s music with cockney singers and some ferociously happy monstrosity about the sinking of the Bismarck. Imagine Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren doing Oh Goodness Gracious Me and then exchange the subject matter for a naval battle with hundreds of men drowning and being burned alive. Odd, no? The Stones balance it out though, thank God. So to sum up, I liked the Hummingbird. I’ve had a lot of different bosses over the years and for sheer unpredictability this guy is near the top of the list. It’s time for me to leave town unfortunately. One thing that makes leaving easy is the realization that I’m not going to have a boss of any kind for ages.
Hurray.
Fred.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 21st, 2005 at 10:39 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.