The other day I almost melted when our annoying bus driver who calls himself "Popstar", aka Ricky Martin said, "Guys, as we're leaving the town of Makarora I've got to play a specific song I do everytime I leave here..." It was "What a Wonderful World" by Mr. Louis Armstrong. If you know me well enough, you'd know that I love that song and sing it quite often to remind myself that yes indeed, life is good! Ahhhhh....
The Maori People
For Jenny's birthday which past on the 26th of September, we went to this cultural village of Tamaki. We learned about the culture of the native people of N.Z., the Maori. They are of Hawai'in descent, huge big boned people that make scary looking faces while they stick their tongues out, and, they're the nicest people ever. I'm not too sure how many Maori people there are here, but I'd say its a good percentage of the population and unlike in some countries where the natives aren't treated as 100% equals, here they are embraced by the Kiwis everywhere.
For the culutural night we had some traditional dancing, including the famous 'haka', then we ate a meal that's cooked underground for 4-6 hours. It was a feast! They sang Happy Birthday to Jenny and got a honeymoon couple to dance for us. On the bus ride home, the driver who memorized every single one of our names, made a person from each country sing a native song. I got stuck singing "O'Canada", I didn't have much choice, he suggested the hockey song. Don't that have lyrics? I could've sung a good ol' Celine Dion tune, that'd have em singing along!
To the Extreme!
Well, I haven't gone bungy jumping nor sky diving here but I can honestly say that I'm not gonna regret not doing it. I'm a shitless bastard when it comes to heights.
However, I've done some cool things like luging, kayaking, glacier tramping, walked/boated through a glow worm cave, saw some volcanic/thermal geysers and boiling mud, and today, snowboarding.
Here in Queenstown its quite chilly and there's lots of snow in the mountains. Its a weird feeling to be around the snow and mountains, makes me feel like home I guess. I can't beleive that today was the first time I've ever tried snowboarding, a bit ironic that I've come all the way to N.Z. to do it when I'm a couple hours away from the Rocky Mountains in Canada. Oh well, got start somewhere. You wouldn't believe how soar my ass is right now from falling down like a milion times today!
The Glacier Tramping was pretty cool, I've never been in a glacier before! What happens is you're guided through the Franz Josef Glacier with hiking boots that have metals spikes attached to them for grip. I was able to see a little avalanche streaming down the side of the mountain like a big brown milkshake or slurpy. There's also these crevaces that go down up to 70 metres. As well, there's lots of little streams winding through the whole glacier and they all drain into natural holes made by the melted water, again they drop down quite far. The whole time I was on the ice, I couldn't stop thinking of that Sylevester Stallone movie, 'Cliffhanger'. I know, silly of me.
The Gorgeous Cassanova
So on this bus tour thing, you're stuck with a lot of the same travellers for quite a while until someone decides to stay shorter or longer in specific towns or cities. We've been with this English guy now for a quite a while now on our trip and we're finally getting rid of him tomorrow. Why am I so cruel? Because, about week or so ago, Jeremy and I were staying in an all male 4 bed dorm room with him and Sebastian this German guy we hung out with for a while. Anyway, generally the rule is to try and be as quiet as possible especially when everyone is sleeping. Well, Mr. English, who's a little overweight, really hairy and about 30+ yrs (no offence anyone), worked very hard that day at trying to seduce a young Irish girl who's about 20 years old and he thought that it was about to pay off at 4:30am that morning. In they come, a little drunk I'm assuming, they start whispering to themselves, don't know how long they were whispering for before all of us woke up. You know when you whisper but you're really loud when doing it, there's not even any point in whispering! I could tell that everyone was awake because you couldn't hear any deep breathing or snoring going on, we were all hoping in our heads that the couple would shut up and soon. I kept telling myself that I don't want to be awake if they actually do start to do the vertical dance. They kept talking about it, but no action was really happening except for some loud sloppy kissing. The conversation was quite odd, first she started telling him "I just want you know to know dat you're gorgeous, all me friends tink dat of ya." (that's my irish accent) A few moments later, "uhhh... no... you're gorgeous". Wow, you're swift Mr. English! Then the converstation starting going towards orgasms and vibrators and crap like that. I finally got sick of it, not to mention I had to really pee. I tried coughing a few times so they'd get the hint that I was awake, didn't work. I counted to 3 and got the guts to get out of bed and stormed out of the room to use the toilet. When I got up, they hid under the blankets and pretended that nothing was going on. How clever of them! When I returned I turned this knob for the timed heater to kick in, fortuanatley it makes a louding ticking noise and it soothed me back to bed and everyone else. Jeremy and Sebastian I guess also got up and used the toilet, I was asleep by then. I think the funniest thing about it was that after the girl got him all riled up she said "I just want to let you know, that nothings going to happen between us tonight." Then she kept talking about something else and Mr. English interupted and said, "what did you just say?" Hahahaha, all that work for NOTHING!
For those of you who've seen the movie Empire Records, he now reminds me of that English Rock Star that slept with Rene Zellwegger in the film. Every time I see him I shudder.
Eh?
I've been saying 'eh' quite a bit in the last few weeks, even before I left Australia. The thing is they say it quite a bit in Aus and tonnes more here in N.Z. However, as opposed to Canadians they put more of an emphasis on it when they say it at the end of sentances. Its weird how you pick up the local language, I'm sure that once I get back into Asia I'll forget the words I'm saying now and start saying other phrases and whatnot.
Here's some Aussie talk that I've gotten quite used to hearing and doesn't really phase me anymore. Some of them you'll have to figure out for yourself. Lots of it comes from the British.
- you's or ya's
- feeling crook
- flogging
- nah, I'm 'right
- you 'right mate
- how ya going?
- nah
- yeah (this has a real twang to it)
- reckon
- mate and matey
- the lot
- won't be a moment
- in a tick
- ta
- righteo
- cheers! (or course)
- no worries
- crikey
- buggar
See ya, CHEERS!
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