Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

Wow, tomorrow I leave for my second spring break in 5 months! I can’t believe I’ve been in this country for TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!! I have three left before I get home! Where has all the time gone?

I have started to notice an unnerving trend… I feel depressed for about an hour a day, usually when going to bed or waking up. I’m not sure what causes it exactly, but for the one hour a day I feel pretty miserable. Luckily that hour gets counterbalanced by the other 23 which tend to be filled with unknown happiness, relaxation, or adventure.

I feel to some extent that I have recently fallen into a “comfort zone,” and have stopped meeting new people. So I’ve decided that I will meet new people in Fiji, and when classes start again, I will walk up to the randomest of students in my class and invite them to have coffee. I will say something like this:

“Hi, my name is Andrea. I’m not trying to come onto you; I’m just knew here and trying to meet people. Would you like to get coffee?”

I think New Zealand has changed me. I can be my own sarcastic self here, and I like it that way.

Men here don’t harrass me on the street the way they do in New York City. I can go down the street here and they usually don’t give me any grief at all. Last night was a funny one though.

Lex, another American from NY, and I were going to buy donuts after the rugby test. It was pretty late by then. A man came up to me, “Hi, you don’t know me but, it’s my bachelor party and we’re playing a game, I have to do these things. Can I kiss you?” His friend shows me the paper of all the things he has to do, and “Kiss 50 girls” happens to be one of the items. “Just on the cheek! Where are you from? Oh yeah, I’ve never been to New York. I’ve been to Los Angeles, and Portland. Do you have a boyfriend? (probably wanting to make sure he wouldn’t get beaten up) I won’t stick my tongue in your mouth or anything! Wait, you’re pretty, can I kiss you, please, I still have to kiss 16 more!” And while he was asking me, he was also asking other girls around, “Can I kiss you?” It was quite comical!

As I was sitting here at this computer, my phone started beeping telling me I had a text. Before I was able to read it, it beeped three more times, for three more texts. And as I read, the phone kept beeping, so I turned it to silent. The text was from an unknown number, and all it said was, “fuk u.” The poor bastard can’t spell, and he has the wrong person. I let him finish texting me, which he did about 20 times, the same mispelled greeting over and over again. By the number, we know he is in New Zealand. By the sheer number of texts, we know that he either is on a vodafone plan (since texting is free on weekends), or he has enough hatred for whoever he thinks I am to spend $10 telling them to get F’ed.

I texted him back, “Um, who is this?”

“Mat”

“And do I know you? Is there a reason you sent me so many not so nice texts?”

I recieve a blank text in response. Followed by, “Its me dnt u rem mat pary”

I think to myself, nope, doesn’t ring a bell. “And what is my name?”

Mat Pary hasn’t texted me back with the answer to that question. Maybe he ran out of money on his mobile account, so now he can’t afford to tell me who I am. So if anybody wants to have a chat with Mat Pary, if that really is his name, his number is +64210562702

I have a confession to make. I find Kiwi uptalking highly unpleasent. The accent itself is fine, and occasionally endearing even with its crazy inverted vowel sounds and funny names for things, but some of the inflections of the younger generation (mine) are just plain annoying. To compare to an equally obnoxious American mannerism… imagine if I like wrote like this like every other word, it would like get like really annoying!

Yesterday was incredible! I had spent the night at Jency’s because I felt lonely when I got home to such a quiet, empty apartment (as my roommates were out of town) after an exciting night of dancing to 80’s music with the girls. I went home and showered, and headed up the hill to spend time with the other (or German) Andrea since I hadn’t really seen her since she fell in love a few weeks ago. We sat at the top of the hill at the Carter Observatory in the Botanic Gardens for a while, taking in the view of the city and the beautiful sunshine and 14 degree weather (celcius that is). Then we decided we were going to swing on the swingset at the playground, so we did, until spiderman came and asked if he could use the swing. He was very happy to show us his spider garb. And spiderman’s brother also wanted to use the swing, so both of us got off since we figured we better let the other kids on the playground have their turn at being kids, it was only fair. So we went off to climb trees.

That evening, Jency, Tess, Caroline, Lindsey and I all went to Camilla’s and had a great girls night of pizza, poker, beer and wonderful conversation. I have never had such a wonderful conversation with anyone before. I have to say I had no idea I would ever be able to have a conversation like that with anyone. In a month and a half, I’ve become even more amazing friends with these people than I have ever been able to before. Maybe I’ve always been too closed, or I don’t really know what, but this is incredible! It’s going to be VERY hard to leave!

I have a midterm tomorrow and another one on Thursday, wish me luck! Spring break is four days away! Fiji is 10! I can’t believe this trip is halfway through already!

And some pictures I took after mum left, also the last ones I was able to get onto my disabled jumpdrive… I suppose sometime soon I should actually describe Wellington Read the rest of this entry »

So finally some pictures of the city I call home! These were all taken while mum was still here… Read the rest of this entry »

I promise that next time I post pics, they will be of Wellington, the city I’m spending most of my time in, and maybe I’ll even include some description of it. And soon I’ll be able to post pics of some of the friends I’ve made here, and maybe of our roadtrip to Taranaki though I forgot to bring my camera on that one.
Read the rest of this entry »

Now this is the New Zealand I was expecting to see… Read the rest of this entry »

Tongariro National Park with Mt. Ruapehu Read the rest of this entry »