Feijoa is kiwi for awesome fruit

It has been quite the stretch of time since you've heard from me.  I would like to say that means I have a lot to tell you, a lot to catch everyone up on but, alas, life as been pretty simple, even if it has been awesome.  To start off, let's throw out some differences in pronunciations that make my kiwi friends and I laugh: 

Adidas

the kiwi way: AH - dee - dahs

Aluminum

the kiwi way (spelled Aluminium): al - you - MIN - ium 

Oregano

the kiwi way: or - reh - GAHN - oh

I have made contact with other life forms in my hostel (finally... took me long enough) and am happy to say I have a solid group of friends over here that I hang out with pretty much every day.  Let's see... there's Heather, Markus, John, Louise, Anna, Tessa, Eve, Dave, and a few others who come around sporadically.  Those names mean nothing to you the reader, I realize, but we can pretend they are everyone's friends.  Louise had never had a pb&j before (which probably stands for peanut butter and jam over here.  they aren't nearly as popular) so that made for quite the ceremony Saturday night.

That project that I posted about last time, with all the records and presentations and iPods and music and what not, actually turned out very well for me.  The grade was a solid one, and I was pleased.  My current projects are pretty cool.  One is a documentary about the effects of divorce on the kids, depending on the age of the child with the divorce happened (depressing, right?  let's hope it turns out to be more informative and interesting than sad).  For the class I made the gramophone for I'm now in the pre-production stages on a stop animation music video, with lots of After Effects work overlaid.  If that doesn't make any sense to you, don't worry - it doesn't really make sense to me either.  I have vision in my head - a dream, if you will - and I hope to be able to pull it out of my mind and onto the screen.  I'll keep you posted on how successful that commute goes.  I anticipate lots of traffic.

My third class isn't nearly as interesting, I reckon.  Just making presentations on art cinema and writing papers on famous films.  And my teacher seems bent on stifling every creative impulse I have.  I'm forced to play by his rigid rules or face the consequences when marks come out.  

I don't really have time to continue that wacky as story I started previously, since I ought to be preparing for my group meeting in an hour and a half.  But no one really reads this blog for those stories anyway, so that's alright.  On a similar note (the similarity I refer to is writing original pieces of fiction) Alex, Ryan, Aaron and I have entered the earlier phases of developing a new movie from Pursuit of Friday.  Very exciting times.  We have three or four concepts we're tossing around, trying to figure out which one will be appropriate to pull off in a month's time (July).  Keep your eyes peeled for a new film due to release late this summer, the longest production since Diem.  And way better, that I can promise.

I'll try to not wait two weeks in between posts again.  Cheers!

Mum is the word. Actually bird is the word, but bird says mum, so we're gonna so with that

Hello my faithful followers.  Chill is the word around town as I turned in my last project today of the Great Project Rush.  I get about two weeks to casually work on new projects before anything else is due.  Tonight is supposed to be my night to sit in front of the TV and do nothing for hours, but something seems to be wrong with the cable.  Instead I've been writing a screenplay, so not a bad exchange I'd say.  It's currently titled The Brothers Coral and is being co-written with my brother, the Baron of Pumpky.  We started last summer but put it on hold for a long time.  I decided it was time to pull it out, dust it off, and finally finish the thing.

I really have nothing else interesting to sell.  Tomorrow is my birthday, which is pretty cool.  My creative juices are flowing though, so maybe I'll make up a quick short story on this cold and rainy sixth of May.

* * *

"What's the date?"

"Huh?" The old man was working on his daily crossword puzzle and anything anybody had to say to him clearly took back seat to this love affair.  What's with this guy?  the young man thought to himself, he works on these things like it's a kind of religion.  "The date.  What's the date today?"

Finally the old man lifted his head, scanning the room to find the source of the question.  Of course there was only one place the question could have possibly come from.  Every morning Henry James Fonda came into the Cafe Guillermo and every morning he was alone with the old man.  By now he had at least learned his name was Bob.  Simply Bob.  No surname had ever been given, and none required, since this Bob could certainly never be confused with any other Bobs Henry may have known.

After staring at the young man for a moment, Bob responded.  "Sixth of May" he said with perfect confidence.  The young man's eyes lit up for a brief second, then reverted back to their normal latent blue, as if trying to hide his surprise.  Henry gulped down the rest of his coffee and fished into his pocket for some change.  Whatever importance the date held to him, the old man apparently would not be finding out.  His curiosity spent, Bob went back to his puzzle.

Apart from a dazzlingly unfortunate name, Henry James Fonda was actually a relatively fortunate guy.  He had wealthy parents and a comfortable family life.  He was a successful tennis athlete in high school and got a full-ride scholarship to Penn State.  He was president of the Student Government and captain of the tennis team.  After receiving a degree in Biomedical Engineering with a grade point average of 3.54, he was accepted to do research with the Internal Association of Medical and Biological Foreign Studies.  No matter what you said about him, you had to admit that Henry Fonda was a fortunate guy.  That is, up until now.

After paying for his mediocre coffee, Henry bolted out the door and walked to the bus stop faster than he would have enjoyed.  He never liked to seem in a hurry, even if he was.  One time he was forty-five minutes late leaving for an Organic Chemistry final exam and casually walked the entire 2.2 miles to the lecture hall.  He even stopped to chat with an old professor on the way, causing him to have to finish the exam in only sixty minutes.  But this was no chemistry final, and Henry didn't have the time to walk. 

If it was really May sixth than that meant it worked.  And if it worked than the boy was right and Henry would have exactly forty-three minutes to get to his lab.  Suddenly, just before climbing onto the bus, Henry pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and scribbled a note onto it.  The driver, thinking he was digging for change, waited impatiently.  When he finished, Henry dropped the note on the ground then jumped on the bus, paying the dollar forty for the ride.

He took a seat towards the back of the bus, away from most of the other passengers.  As he waited for his stop to come (thirty-nine minutes now) Henry found himself not thinking about what had happened or what was about to happen, but of Cheerios and grow capsules, the sponge-in-a-pill toy that grew into shapes once they were added into water.  The particular ones he was thinking about were monster shapes.  Monster shapes and Cheerios.

As his considered the fate of these everyday items and what place they would have in a world thirty-seven minutes from now, he found himself wishing he had a bowl of Cheerios right then and there, on the bus.  And a glass of water to throw some monster shapes into.  I'm going insane he thought to himself as he pushed these irrelevant ideas out of his head.  Cookoo for CoCo Puffs.  Right out the window and down to the old Looney House.  

A loud buzz interrupted his daydreaming.  He looked up and saw an old woman making her way to the front of the stopped bus.  She had just needed to get off.  He watched her climb all the way down the steps and up to the door of a townhouse.  He watched her as she rung the bell and waited for someone to come.  He watched her--then the bus moved on and he was again just stuck with watching the blurred shapes of random people and buildings go by.  He checked his watch. 

Thirty minutes.  Thirty minutes and it would all be over and done with, one way or the other.  

* * *

This story doesn't really make any sense on its own, so I guess I'll keep it going when I feel the urge.  I'm open to suggestions for a title.  Hope that kept you entertained during my lack of interesting non fiction.  

Cahiers du cinema

All is well in the land of the long white cloud.  I turned in my project to good reviews, which was nice.  I celebrated that evening by couch potato-ing it up in front of the telly- Futurama, Two and a Half Men, Scrubs, Lost, and Chuck.  Is was quite an excellent way to decompress after all that work.

telly

I hope there's something wicked on the telly! It better not be a bunch of adverts!!!1

Unfortunately, I'm back at it tomorrow.  After a relaxing weekend of showing my friend Barbara around the Wellington area (and touring the NZ  Parliament- awesome), I hit the computers tomorrow for some solid hours of editing time.  No worries, though.  This is what I do.  Wait to the last possible moment, then use that built up pressure to pump out an awesome product.

Ok, so maybe not the best approach.  It'd probably be better to have finished two weeks ago, email to friends and peers, get reviews, revise, resend, wash, rinse, repeat.  But I needed some downtime after that last project.  Plus, I already have all the filming done.  Tomorrow I'll do the editing into the final 3-5 minute video.  After that I just have a few small concepts and storyboards to write up for Wednesday, then I am free from due dates for two weeks!  A chance to chill, catch up on some of my own creative work, and even get ahead on some future school projects.  Not to mention my birthday on Thursday.  It should be a truly fabulous week.  

And now, I leave you with some movie reviews.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

So it's no Dark Knight or Iron Man, but it's a fun and explosive ride.  I enjoyed it because it didn't try to be more than it was.  It knew it was a snap crackle and pop blockbuster and hyped it up the whole time.  (I just said 'it' six times in two sentences)  However, some things did disappoint.  Poor animation, bad acting, and unconvincing sets left me outside the X-Men universe more than once.  But the second half of the film seemed to improve upon the mistakes of the first.  This won't be a DVD buy, nor am I entirely sure it was worth the 13.50 I paid for it, but if you're into an action bomb with no thought provoking strings attached (and quite a few familiar faces), this will give you what you want.  If nothing else, Hugh Jackman is a case study in the structure of the male body.  ;)

OFFICIAL TOPH RATING**:  Rent (for the X-Men marathon)

The Boat That Rocked

I think I need to start by saying that I was extremely excited about this when I first saw its trailer.  Then, as I sometimes do, I let the reviews get me down.  It apparently was  only occasionally funny and entirely too self-absorbed.  But I went with some friends anyways and, let me tell you Ladies and Gents, I was not disappointed.  I laughed for most of the movie.  It didn't have anything great to say or some long-lasting message to imprint.  Unless, of course, solid fun is a great message.  Or Damn The Man (but who really wants to hear that anymore).  I just got the feeling that I was hanging around with some of my best friends that I've known forever, having a good time.  Good for great laughs and packed to the brim with the who's who of today's pop movie scene, The Boat that Rocked is a welcome break amidst the annual HiFi BigMama-Gonna-Blow-Yo-Brains-Out blockbuster season.  Just don't expect to see Oscar winking at this one.

OFFICIAL TOPH RATING: Bargain Bin

**Here's how the OFFICIAL TOPH RATING system works.  I like to base what I thought about a movie on whether or not I think I'll buy it on DVD when it hits shelves.  It has become a good way for me to manifest my ideas on a film for others to understand.  For example, 

"What'd you think of The Departed?" 

"Shoot cuz, I'm buying that movie right when it comes out."  

While this system is far from flawless (I actually didn't know what I thought about the Departed the first time I saw it--now it's one of my all time favorites) it gets the point across fairly well.  Here's the scale:

Cry- Cry because the movie is so bad.

Nah- Not for me.  Won't be seeing this again unless someone really wants me to.

Rent- I'd rent it again.

Bargain bin- Might have to wait it out, but just don't need it at full price.

Preorder- Knocked me out cold.  I need this film.

My other internal rating system (which has nothing to do with the aforementioned OFFICIAL TOPH RATING) is lasting impression.  Maybe I enjoyed a film initially, but after a few weeks nothing's left of it inside.  If it doesn't make an impression then it couldn't have been that good.  I want my liking for a movie to grow with time, not the opposite.  That's how I know I really liked something I saw.  That's what happened with The Departed.  At first it freaked me out and I walked out of the theatre thinking I didn't really like it.  But after only a week or two I needed to see it again.  Now, even after nine viewings, it still gets better every time.

Can I get an Amen?

Reality sets back in

Ha so before I write what I originally intended, short story time.  I wrote that title then thought to myself, "Self.  Where do you know that quote from?  It fits your situation perfectly, but you don't remember what it is, do you?  You can hear the tune and the tone... but you just don't have the context."  

But Google had the context.  It's from Wicked.  Song name?  "I'm not that girl."  Nice.

* * *

I'm sitting here at my desk in my flat.  It's 9:44 on Tuesday evening.  Pouring rain outside.  In fact, it's been raining for like four days straight, and it's growing quite uncomfortable.  I don't really have proper rain attire.  Maybe Chac Mool is trying to reach me somehow...

But I digress.

It's 9:46 and I'm not on a road trip anymore.  I have two things due tomorrow.  One is a paper, which I've finished and am pleased with.  I know papers.  I can do papers.  And it's about film-- I can do film.  While it took me some time, I put out a good product with relative ease and with some proofreads from a couple friends I think it will be a success.

What I don't know is the other thing, the not paper.  For lack of a better term, it's a Melted Record Gramophone.  

I have to present it tomorrow and I can't figure out a decent way to mount the phone to the box... I make stories and characters and pictures, not gramophones out of melted parts.  This is a whole new world to me.  An unfortunate world worth 40% of my grade.  I'm actually not really worried about the grade even--it's an elective class and I'm sure we'll all get decent grades for putting out a project.  

So what am I worried about then?  Not entirely sure.  Probably just that fact that I'm completely out of my element.  I've never done anything like this before, and tomorrow I have to present it to people who have been doing these projects for three years, people who are making rolling speaker balls, talking puzzle boxes, and a moving George Forman that yells and glows at you.  It's a bit intimidating.

But, on a larger scale, it's just one project in one class of one small semester of my entire college career.  And that's just college.  So after I walk out of the design building tomorrow at 5:30, not matter what happens inside, it will all be behind me and I can come home to Scrubs and Lost and Chuck and only having to worry about normal things like making a unicycling video.  The way life should be.

But it's good to be shaken up every now and again.  If nothing else it at least makes you appreciate the things you do enjoy and are good at.  I decided to post not because I had any good story to tell or exciting event to cover, but really just so I could let it all out of my system.  So it's possible this is my most uninteresting post yet.  

Having persuaded myself that my project is still good and I don't really have to worry, I'm going to go to bed.  Get a good night's sleep, wake up early, have a cup of Earl Grey, and then take care of business before class at 1 40 (for those doing the math: yes, it is a 4 hour class...).  

Maybe in my next post I'll have a redeeming story about how on the way to class I almost got hit by a car and the guy in it was a famous producer and he apologizes by taking me to lunch and we get to talking and talking and he likes what I do and buys a couple screenplays off me then wants me to direct one but just then I get kidnapped and held hostage in France but I'm rescued by a crazy man on a zebra who takes me to his hut lair in Swaziland where we drink Earl Grey and I think hey I just had this for breakfast but don't say it out loud cuz this dude's crazy who knows what he'll do and then I escape but leave forty bucks for his trouble but still escape without regret and make it back to New Zealand after hitching a ride from a caravan of gypsies who passed by a cheap airport.  And then I'll have exciting post.  But for now you'll have to deal with Reality Toph TV.

Toodles.

Dreams

The boy awoke.  He sat up and glanced around.  He would have sworn he’d been sleeping for hours, but the fire was still crackling, casting a wavering orange glow over the forest clearing.  His father stared at him from across the pit, frozen mid stroke on his wooden carving.  I had a dream the boy said.  Good or bad?  The boy thought about this for a second.  Dreams are dreams he responded casually.  He didn’t feel casual though.  His father could see something had struck the boy about this one in particular.  Why don’t you tell me about it the father said to the boy.  The boy stared intently into the fire for a moment, his mind far away.  His father thought that maybe the boy hadn’t heard him, or had decided to ignore him.  But then the boy spoke.  Ok he said to his father.  It was about a girl.  A girl? the father asked, the shadow of a smirk on his face.  The boy replied without noticing.  Yes, a girl.  The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen

* * *

The boy stood outside the massive warehouse.  He didn’t know exactly where he was, just that he was supposed to be waiting for the others to let him in.  And then they could steal The Item.  A girl in a white sweater hunched close behind, trying not to show how nervous she was.  Suddenly a door swung open from the inside and a man let the boy and the girl in the white sweater inside.

However big the structure had looked from the outside, it never could have truly shown just how enormous it was on the inside.  Each room they passed through was cubic, roughly twenty meters on each side.  Most of the rooms only had catwalks at about the middle height of the room hanging down from the ceiling.  And the lights.  Purple, red, orange, green.  Each room had its own color light.  Strange lights that emanated from nowhere and seemed to only light up the space you were looking at, leaving shadowy darkness eternally hanging just at the edges of your peripheral.  The girl in the white sweater was very anxious now and hung close to the back of the boy, holding his hands behind his back like she was going to Take Him Down to the Station.  The boy would possibly have been annoyed at this was he not busy marveling at his surroundings.

After passing through several colored rooms of catwalks and stairways and platforms the man the boy and the girl arrived at an even larger room.  This room had one single catwalk that ran into an enormous door halfway across the space.  There was no way to crawl around over or under it.  The boy knew this.  He didn’t know why, but he knew this as sure as he knew the girl in the white sweater was behind him.

And there were the rest of them.  All of the others were crowded around the door, waiting for The Man in the Middle to open it.  After the door came open everybody passed through and seemed to know exactly what they were supposed to do.  The Man in the Middle disappeared down a corridor almost immediately and a few others took off down a staircase.  The boy and the girl in the white sweater followed two others up a separate staircase.

After passing through more colored rooms the four came to a split: corridor or staircase.  A man took the staircase, leaving the three left to go into the corridor.  The boy knew that he was supposed to go into the corridor.  It was his part.  Just as it was the girl in the white sweater’s part to follow him.  The third person was already halfway down the corridor, walking slowly but with a purpose.  Almost like the walk of someone resigned to do something rather dull but quite necessary.  It was now that the boy took notice of this third person.  

She was a short girl.  Her body was thin but shapely.  She was wearing a simple black dress that ended at her knees and left her shoulders exposed.  Her feet were bare.  Her brunette hair was pulled up into a bun at the back of her head with a few stray hairs floating down the back of her neck.  And she was gorgeous.

The boy knew this.  He knew this as sure as he knew the girl in the white sweater was behind him.  This was the most beautiful girl the boy has ever seen.

The girl in the white sweater, now jealous of the boy’s obvious infatuation, unbuttoned her sweater and slid off the left strap of her tank top.  See my shoulders are just as beautiful she said.  See?  They're just as beautiful.  The boy was annoyed by this distraction and led the girl in the white sweater to a room along the corridor.  The room where he was supposed to go.  To do his part so they could steal The Item.

But he did not go in.  He locked the girl in the white sweater in.  The boy then went down the corridor to the next room where the girl in the black dress had entered.  When the boy came in he found her sitting cross legged in the center of the room.  His face was still away from him and before he had a chance to walk around to look at her properly, the girl in the white sweater started to force her way in.  The boy looked around and saw that a door connected this room with the next one and ran to keep the girl in the white sweater out.

Suddenly two men ran into the room from the corridor, looking frantic.  The boy thought they didn’t look like Brad Pitt and George Clooney, but that they were trying to look like Brad Pitt and George Clooney.  (Brad Pitt) knelt beside the girl in the black dress and (George Clooney) stood above him.  What happened! (George Clooney) asked.  What happened! (Brad Pitt) asked.

What happened! The Man in the Middle asked from the radio.  The girl in the black dress spoke.  I cut off my mouth and eyes she said.  And tied back my ears she said.

Suddenly (Brad Pitt) and (George Clooney) began speaking and blinking in perfect unison.  Yep, cut them off, cut them right off they said.  Cut them right off!  The whole time the stared at the boy, speaking and blinking in perfect unison.  The boy stood dead still in the back of the room, staring at the girl in the black dress sitting in the middle of the room, her shoulders exposed and hair floating down the back of her neck.

* * *

The boy looked into the fire after he finished his story, his thoughts wandering.  His father allowed the boy to have his moment of reflection and continued whittling his wooden statue.  After a few moments the boy laid back down on the ground, looking at his father across the flames.  You better get some rest his father said.  We’ll have to move on early in the morning.  The boy continued to stare for a moment longer.  Yea, I guess I better.  

and then 

I never saw her face.  

His father thought about this for a moment.  Dreams are dreams his father said.  Yea, I guess you’re right the boy replied.  Goodnight pa.  Goodnight son.  The boy turned over and closed his eyes.  His father whittled a few more strokes then stopped to examine his work.  His smiled to himself.  The figure in his hand was perfectly done except for the face.  He always left the face for last.  The space where the face should be was merely a smooth oval of nothingness.  In spite of himself a deep chill ran down his spine.  His smiled faltered as he looked up from the figure.  Deciding he'd had enough whittling for one night, he set the figure aside and laid down in the grass.  Dreams are dreams he said to himself.  Then he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.  

Both the boy and his father slept without dreams the rest of the night.

It's IN the computer...!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NENE!  This blog post is dedicated to my sis, because today is her birthday.  The title is simply because we like to watch Zoolander together on occasion and has nothing to do with New Zealand.  Have an awesome B-day!  Miss you!

* * *

So it has come to an end.  I'm back in Wellington, sitting in my flat as I write this post.  It's nice to be settled into one place again (and have unlimited internet time again).  After moving around so much you really learn to appreciate having somewhere to go back to, even if it does mean facing the bitter reality of projects and papers due in upcoming days.  But before I lock the trip into the Vault of Good Memories forever, let's lay it all out on the table.  Examine its final days, its twists, turns, and passages.  So come on!  Let's go relive it all together, and maybe learn something about ourselves along the way!!!1

Part I

Remembering

Forgive me while I go back and recollect where I left off...

Part II

Receiving

Sometimes people are mean.  They curse you as they pull out in front of you, ignore you when you try to talk, or steal something that rightfully belonged to you.  This can be true, and yes, these things do indeed happen.  But I say "sometimes" because I really mean it.  Most of the time, at least in my experience, people aren't mean.  In our minds we occasionally allow the mean ones to stand out, ruining humanity's reputation for everyone.  I don't want to get into the whole "do you think people are naturally good or naturally bad" argument.  I just think people are people.  I think people are sometimes mean and most of the time nice.  And then some of the time ridiculously over generous and ecstatically hospitable.

After leaving Greymouth we drove the four or so hours to Nelson on the North Coast.  We met up with Gray's family friends who had offered to put us up for the night and give us some dinner.  I really wish I knew how to spell their name, but I believe it's Mark and Elane Murra, and I'll use that for the rest of the post (I'll come back and change it if Gray tells me it's wrong).

the Pancake Rocks on the road to Nelson

The Murras went well beyond the call of duty for rooming six backpackers (if there even is such a call).  After sleeping in hostels night after night and eating McDonald's and pasta, we didn't even know what to do with the amazing amounts of food and drink that were being offered us.  Filet mignon, sweet beans, baked potato, slaw salad, mushrooms, tomatoes, corn on the cob and red wine.  Even as we walked in the door they were offering us champagne with raspberries dropped in accompanied by brie and crackers.  

the Murra's house

their view

We all ate heartily and swapped good stories and just generally had a great time.  It was quite the experience after being on the road for two weeks and I hope that some day I'll be in a position to offer some weary travelers the same hospitality.

Part III

Retracing

After sleeping off the massive amounts of food that was consumed we awoke to eat another generously prepared meal of oatmeal, banana bread, muffins, and hard boiled eggs.  They really spoiled us and I'm glad our visit to them was at the end of the trip and not the beginning, or every other meal may have dulled in comparison.  

The plan had been to visit Abel Tasman National Park that day, a large area of land to the north of Nelson, and Mr. Murra told us of a really nice walk on the northern, less visited area of the park.  So, after going out and getting the Murras a thank you present (it wasn't much and may have looked a bit silly coming from a caravan of backpackers, but we gifted them with a bottle of their favorite wine), we set off north for Takaka.  Little did we know...

The drive ended up being far longer and farther windier (again, like the snake, not the beach) than anticipated, the latter complimenting the former nicely.  By the time we finally made it to the camping area that was tucked away on the other side of a high and narrow dirt road, car #2 was pooped and not wanting to hike, so Carolyn, Allison, and Kate headed back to Takaka to chill out and window shop.

Our car, however, decided it was way too long of a haul through the mountains to not see any of the park, so we put on our shoes and sand fly lotion and set out.  It it was well worth it.  We found some beautiful coves and beaches and trekked through some crazy rain forest areas.  This also proved to be the best unicycling tracks I've come across yet, so I spent a fair amount of time aboard Tahi (named for the one-legged kiwi bird at the Wellington Zoo... have I already written that?) cruising through the trees.  I even managed to take some video whilst riding along.

i thought this sort of looked like a man's profile

We had stopped for pictures and rock climbing and beach walking along the way, so after about an hour and a half of walking we were nowhere near our goal of making it to Separation Point and back before the sun went down, so we turned around and tramped on back to the car.  It was a great walk though, and some excellent closure to our South Island trip.

Since we were now further away from our ending point of Picton (and the ferry) than when we started off that day, we then drove the two hours back to Nelson and made the decision to go the other two hours on to Picton.  So we ended up driving about four and a half hours for a two and half hour hike, then another two hours to Picton.  But hey, not everything about a road trip is practical.  And we had a great time out there exploring the wilderness of the path.

Part IV

Returning

So, not much else to this story.  Slept in Picton, got up and ate some breakfast at Seabreeze, and then caught the 1 10 ferry back across to Wellington and the North Island, the island of our home that we now know so much less about than the one we left behind to the south.  But that will all be taken care of in due time.  June will come eventually.  Until then, I need to plow through school and finish strong here at Vic.  And all of you will just have to make do with posts about the real life of Wellington, New Zealand.

But, like I said before, it really is nice to be back in one place.  To have more than one pair of jeans and four shirts.  To have my own bed to sleep in and no one complaining about my snoring.  To have internet.  Maybe I'm just too dependent on modern life commodities.  I always saw myself as the kind of guy who could do just fine living off of rice and beans and water in a hut on a river in the middle of nowhere, traveling from village to village.  And that hasn't really changed.  Now I just know that I would prefer to live in a city, have a home base at all times in the middle of things.  I'll get my traveling fix every now and again, but it's good to have that anchor.

Anyway, that was a bit of a ramble.  I hope you have enjoyed reading about my travels as much as I have enjoyed writing about them.  Like I said, I'll keep at it, but don't expect glacier climbing and jungle raiding too much in the near future.  It'll be the glacier of projects and the jungle of Wellington City for awhile.  But I look forward to it.  In a way I think I'm just trying to get myself ready for stationary school activity for the next six weeks by rationalizing it to you.  Maybe by convincing you to keep reading my blog I'll convince myself that my normal life is still exciting enough to write about.  Who knows.

Epilogue

Another really long post.  Now that I have internet consistently that shouldn't happen (as much) anymore.  The pictures make it longer, but I think they're a nice break from all the reading so I add them just the same.  Actually it's not letting me upload them at all right now, hopefully later.  If anyone has any particular interest in something let me  know and I'll try to tell you about it in a post, assuming it has something to do with life here in Wellington or New Zealand.  I need to go flip my laundry over and take a shower.  Goodnight everyone!

! Cattle stop ahead

6 Quick and Easy Steps to turn a 4 ½ Hour Drive into a 6 Hour Drive

1. Take a scenic route on the highest road in New Zealand

2. Stop to take in the scenery

3. Eat PB & J’s by the side of Lake Wanaka

4. Stop to take in scenery

5. Watch the sun set over the West Coast

6. Stop to take in scenery

* * *

Yesterday we drove from Queenstown to Franz Josef, a small township near the Franz Josef Glacier where we’ll be staying for two nights.  We finally met up with the rest of our party in the morning, so now the total comes to six people in two cars.  Sarah, Gray, and myself in Master Thor and Kate, Carolyn, and Allison in the other car.  The plan was to sort of caravan up there, but the we ended up stopping in different places a couple times and after lunch we were separated until Franz Josef.

Our map estimated roughly a 4 and half hour drive, but, this being by far the best scenery we’ve driven through so far, we had to stop multiple times to take it all in and capture so pictures. 

Instead of taking Highway 6 around the mountains to Wanaka, we took a high scenic road through the mountains straight there.  This was also, as Gray informed me, the highest road in NZ.  And probably the windiest (like a snake, not a day) and Sarah almost got a little carsick… but she pulled through, like a real champ.

The longest rest was on the shore of Lake Wanaka where we rode some unicycle, threw around the rugby ball, and ate sandwiches and saltines.  It was also another day of fantastic weather, so we hung around longer than we realized.

After lunch the two cars got separated for the third time (the girls had a habit of suddenly disappearing from the rear view mirror) and we just did our own thing until we met back up with them at the hostel in Franz Josef.  On the road we saw a massive waterfall of bluest blue and later rounded a corner to find the sun just setting on the horizon, so we stopped for a spell to take pictures and video.  It ranked up there on Top Road Trip Drives of All Time.

* * *

If you’ve never seen a glacier up close and personal before then the first thing you’ll most likely notice is that it looks like Bruce Wayne’s mountainous climb in Batman Begins.  Then you’ll realize that the mountainous climb was actually next to a glacier, and that’s why they look so similar.

Batman Begins

Franz Josef Glacier

Ok.  So that might just be me, but I was really excited about the similarities.  I felt like I was going to visit Raz al Guhl myself, just with ten other people and a paid guide.  But the glacier hike was probably one of the coolest things I’ve done so far (pun definitely intended). 

We were hiking over the frozen terrain for close to seven hours, climbing through ice tunnels, scaling blue cliffs, and shimming through tiny crevices.  Gray and I were in the first group so many times we had to stop to make a path for ourselves and for the others to follow.

For example, once of the paths in one of the giant cracks had fallen out, so our guide had to climb on top and break of huge masses of ice into the wedge for us then to walk on.  It was crazy cool. 

Because Gray and I did the all day hike we ended later than the girls, who were already almost to our next stop in Greymouth, so we got in our already packed up Master Thor and headed after them.  It was a surprisingly short drive to the Global Village near the city centre, which is probably one of my fave hostels so far.  Today we're leaving Greymouth for Nelson where some of Gray's extended family is cooking us a steak dinner.  So excited for that.  Catch up with you later!  The trip's almost over... but it's been great and we still have a few full days left.  Cheers!

One ring to rule them all...

Today is the day we continue on our way up the west coast.  We've been in Queenstown now for three nights and it's finally time to move on.  I love it here and would love to come back and spend some time here, but I probably won't.  Plus it's kinda expensive around here, so it would probably bankrupt me pretty quickly anyhow.

It'll be good to be on the road again, though.  Master Thor has been anxious to get rollin again.  But, before I move on, let me fill you in on what we've been up to in the Q-town (nobody calls it that).

* * *

Last time on "...and the world keeps turning":

Our heroic duo, tired from the long previous day of hiking and driving the next, rolled up to the Resort Lodge in Queenstown, New Zealand.  They ate an exciting scrumptious burger meal at Fergburger and spent the rest of the afternoon napping and writing.  Not knowing what the future held for them in the ever-moving adventure culture of Queenstown, the pair arose to explore the local nightlife...

So we went out with a few friends that also happened to be in Queenstown at the time.  Not much exceptional to say of the nightlife here, except that one place did have a Queenstown Pirate Rock band playing, the Scurvy Dogs, complete with pirate accent.  So that was interesting.

The next day we met up with my friend Gray from Tech who is also studying in Wellington with me.  Actually we didn't know each other before, so that was kinda funny.  We packed a picnic and Sarah, Gray, and our friend Andy and I all went to the park to eat and play with Andy's roommate's dog Dozer.  It was such a nice day, like from a movie where people are just walking, chilling, playing frisbee in the grass, taking their daughter's out for a casual canoe ride.  

After all that relaxing we decided to take the gondola up to the top of Bob's Peak for some excellent views of the surrounding mountains and lake.  From the top we did some luging down part of the hill, which was way cooler than I thought it would be.  Basically you sit in these very simple go-cart type deals with no motors or anything, just brakes, and you cruise on down the hill.  Fast.

That night was a chill night.  We cooked some pasta and the four of us sat around on the deck of the hostel and chatted.  After that we watched Batman Begins to top it all off.

Day three in Queenstown was quite different.  I really wanted to see some Lord of the Rings filming locations, because there are a ton around Queenstown, and Sarah wanted to go to Wanaka, a nearby lake town with a quaint little dinner cinema place.  We were supposed to drive to Milford Sound that day but opted against it because of driving time and financial practicalities, so Gray was happy when he had someone to hang out with.

So yea we did all of those things:  visited a park where a bunch of the Rohan scenes were filmed in the movie, saw the River Anduin and Pillars of the Kings on the river from the first movie, and drove to Wanaka to for Puzzling World and Cinema Paradiso.  Puzzling World was way cooler than it sounds, with a HUGE maze that took us an hour to do (30 minutes short of the average) and an exhibit of illusions with crazy stuff.  

At the cinema I has Hawaiian pizza and a homemade cookie during the intermission of Welcome to the Sticks, an absolutely hilarious new French movie that none of us had ever heard of before.  And on top of all of this it was a gorgeous day next to the beautiful Lake Wanaka.  To finish it all off we stopped on the side of the highway back to Queenstown to see more stars than I've ever thought of before.  It was insane.  The Milky Way was just BAM right there.

Well my hour of internet is almost up here at the Global Gossip, so I'll leave it there.  And I'm finally up to date!  In real time!  Woo!  So now we're leaving for the glaciers about four hours north of here, so next time I post hopefully I'll have hiked and climbed and slid all over them.  Keep checking back and having fun and doing all those things you guys always do best!

A true stew of art

Hello from Queenstown!  Today is Friday, April 17 and Sarah and I are chillin out at our current hostel of residence, the Resort Lodge.  Because we never know exactly when we’ll have internet, I have started writing my blog entries in Word as events happen and then post them when I get the chance.  As such, the post below this one was put up only a few hours before I’m writing now, which is a couple days after I wrote it.  And this post will probably be put up on Saturday.  Which is tomorrow.  Which is today, in respects to when it’s online and being read.  Which is actually yesterday, considering that most people reading this are in the States and many hours behind me.  Confusing, I know.

But why should you care about all this nonsense?  Well, you shouldn’t really.  All I really want you to know is that, at the time of the actual posting to the World Wide Web, the information may be a couple days old and I could be halfway across the country by then.

* * * 

Like I said, we’re in Queenstown.  We got in around noon today and we’ll be staying here for two nights.  It’ll be nice to be in one place for a bit before taking off on the road again for the second week.  Not much has happened here yet (except we ate incredibly succulent burgers at Fergburger…mmm…), so let’s take a step back and talk about what has transpired since I left you aching for more in Invercargill.

We woke up at the Kackling Kea at 7:15 and made the half hour drive to Bluff where, as I mentioned before, the ferry departs from.  It was an hour crossing the Fovouex Straight to Stewart Island and the tiny town of Oban (colloquially known as Halfmoon Bay [half the places in NZ sound like they’re from Zelda or Lord of the Rings]).  We checked into a very nice backpackers hostel called Stewart Island Backpackers and then went to the general store (yep) to get some lunch.

Being the smallest and most southern of the three main islands, there really is not much on Stewart Island; a handful of people, a few intersecting streets, and more kilometers of tramping tracks than you can comfortably cover in a month.  All three of those things may be slight exaggerations but, considering the only restaurant open at 8:30 that night was the one attached to the only motel, it isn’t far from the truth.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  We came to Stewart Island, as everyone does, for the nature walks and crazy scenery, so we struck off a little after midday for Fern Gully and Ryan’s Track.

Yes, there is a real place called Fern Gully and, yes, it is as gorgeous as it is in the movie.  And much less cartoon inspired.  It was awesome.  It had just rained a bit so everything was green and damp and beautified.  Also, this was my first try of unicycling in New Zealand, but it proved to be a bit too muddy most of the time, plus I just kind of wanted to look at the scenery.  I did get some great stretches of riding in though and managed to make myself and my unicycle (Christened “Tahi” after the one-legged kiwi bird I visited at the zoo) wonderfully muddy.  Like they always say, “a dirty unicycle is a happy unicycle.”  And Tahi was ecstatic.

But the mud was mainly from the second walk, Ryan’s Track, which clocked in at around three hours, a good three times as long a the Fern Gully tramp.  It ran along the cliffs hugging the coastline and kept me off of my unicycle most of the time with its massive mud traps and slippery wooden steps winding up and down the hills.

Favorite moment of the afternoon goes to Sarah Warner and The Slip-n’-Slide Mountain Mud Splash.  We had come across our gamillionth mud pit and I went left around into some bushes while Sarah went right, on top of some logs.  I was inching along, trying to avoid taking a spill, when Sarah decided she had just had enough of standing up.  She attempted to step onto the next log, ran out of braches to hold on to, stumbled, slipped, and fell amongst a pile of felled trees and mud.  After assessing that she wasn’t hurt (and was in fact laughing hysterically) I did what any good documenter of travels would do and whipped out my camera.  I’ll post the video some time.

But I did of course help her up and the rest of the trek was rather uneventful, except for a few spectacular views of Golden Bay and the outer islands.  We got back to the hostel around 5, showered and took care of laundry.  For dinner, as I jumped to before, we went to the Sea Side Motel.  I ordered rice and blackened salmon but received couscous and _____ salmon, a difference I actually didn’t fully realize until I had almost eaten everything on my plate.  It was still good and ended up being cheaper anyway, so not a bad mistake, as far as mistakes go.

We were pooped that night so we watched two episodes of Seinfeld on my laptop (I feel it is my duty to spread the Gospel of Seinfeld wherever the four winds take me) and went to sleep.

The next morning was another early riser with a 7 am wake up call and an 8 am ferry ride back to the South Island and our car.

Hold up everyone- I just realized that I never mentioned our noble steed’s glorious name.  He is…eh hrmm… the one, the only…

Master Thor!

Inspired my our friend the black belt in Taekwondo and Master Thor’s rugged, experienced personality (read: dents, scrapes, and plaster).  Ok.  I can proceed now.

We got back into Master Thor and drove the three-ish hours to Queenstown, where we now lay typing and napping.  I’ll let you decide who is doing what.  I’ll try to be better about posting with relevance and also putting up more pictures to compliment the stories.  Until then, just keep doing what you’ve always done- reading and reading and rereading the blog posts I already have up.  Thought you guys might like to know I just looked up five seconds ago and noticed a skydiver gliding past my window a couple of hundred meters away.  You don’t see that everyday.  They don’t call Queenstown the adventure capital of the world for nothing, I guess.

This was another extremely long post, and my apologies for that.  I’ll try to keep up thus keeping them shorter.  Almost dinner time now, on this inspiring (?) Friday night.  Good evening to you all, and Godspeed.

The ancient old man on the wall

Cheers everyone.  I forgot to mention in my previous post… well, many things actually.  I was very rushed because of the confines of the internet café.  Some things of interest that I shain’t elaborate on:

- learning to read road maps

- almost running out of gas coming in to Dunedin

- the difference between actually almost running out of gas and just thinking you’re almost running out of gas

- Tuesday night Dunedin nightlife (or lack thereof) OR weird bartenders

- A very excellent hostel entitled The Manor House

So, getting back to my original point, I forgot to mention that we have a new member of the road trip: Flat Stanley!  Stanley must have stowed away in my road atlas back in Wellington, being that he’s so thin and flat.  We didn’t discover him until pulling out the atlas to begin the road trip in Christchurch, so now he’s a regular part of are adventures.  If yo

u read Sarah’s blog, you already know these things.  If not, you should:

http://sarahabroad09.blogspot.com/

After the internet café we had the BEST PANCAKES EVER.  I mean, they were really quite good.  Blueberry pancake topped with yogurt and fruit topped with another blueberry pancake with the center cut out allowing easy access to the fruitgurt.  Delicious.

Then we got horribly lost.

People with confidence make everything sound so easy, and the lady who gave us directions to the Tunnel Beach Walk was Confidence Man #1, if you know what I mean.  So we cheerily and naively skipped back to the car only to find ourselves amongst roads that change name and directions every 20 meters and aren’t labeled on any maps we had.  Frustrating, to say the least.  Also: hilarious. 

Eventually we pulled through and it was entirely worth it because the Tunnel Beach Walk turned out to be the Tunnel Beach Gorgeousness and Elegant Ferocity of Nature Walk.  It was striking.  A lonely little beach with HUGE cliff walls on all sides and raging waves coming in.  We even found a penguin nursing its young in a little cave.  A choice out of the way cove.  Oh and then, after getting back on top of the cliffs (you had to descend through a tunnel to get to the beach) we went out a this peninsula type deal that was actually the top of a arc of rock jutting over the water.  It was all very exciting.

Getting out of town was amazingly easy, since we were already out of town and the walk started about 100 meters from the scenic highway, which we road for about 40 minutes until it connected with the real highway in Waihola.  We stopped at a tiny gas station for relieving and refreshing, noticed the ancient old man on the wall of the station, then got back on Highway 1 South for Invercargill. 

The road actually splits into another scenic route through the Catlins, which we didn’t have time to take… so we followed the normal highway inland to the town of Gore and the largest trout in New Zealand.  After getting Subway we drove the last 45 minutes south again to our hostel in Invercargill.  The only town more southern than this is the dilapidated tiny Bluff, old whaler’s colony and departing point for the Stewart Island Ferry, which we’ll be getting on tomorrow.

I’m writing this post in Word not knowing when I’ll actually be able to post it, so hopefully it isn’t too outdated.  But it’s bedtime here at the Kackling Kea. 

Wrong turns mean well

Things to consider while on a road trip in New Zealand:


- it's better to veer left into the grass than right into oncoming traffic
- the driver's door is on the other side
- cold food/drinks are in short supply
- $70 a day is normal... unfortunately
- $70 Kiwi is about $38 US
- when all your money is in Kiwi, the previous comment means nothing
- internet is a rare commodity
- the ratio of town driving to farm driving is about 1:1,000,000. About.
- unexpected places are fun

* * *

Sarah and I are in Dunedin now, towards the south end of the South Island. We got into Christchurch two nights ago, ate a delicious meal with Gail (Emily's host mum), stayed the night at her place, and were off again in the morning. We took a very pleasant scenic drive through the hills of the Banks Peninsula to visit Ashley in the little cove town of Akaroa. A quaint seaside community with little shops and cafes, it was a nice place to chill for lunch.





After leaving the bakery and Ashley, we then headed south towards Dunedin. We tried to stop at the Moeraki boulders, but took a wrong turn and ended up here:

All in all not a bad wrong turn. We chilled here for a sec, ate some dark chocolate covered apricot granola bars, and then continued on to the real location of the Moeraki boulders.

Well, anyway, I need to hurry along as I'm in an internet cafe right now and my hour's almost up. I wanted to do a longer post with more pictures, but this will have to do until next time. We made it to Dunedin yesterday evening and are going to explore a bit today before continuing down south the Bluff, the most southern town on the South Island. Hopefully I can post from there!

A kumara is a sweet potato

Back in those times before you or I were alive, there were people who explored.  These people didn't explore like we would explore our backyard.  No.  They were way cooler than us.  First they walked from Africa around the edge of Arabia and India and then eventually made it into the Indonesian islands via a convenient land bridge, on account of there being great amounts of would-be ocean water held up in ice.

Anyhow, when they realized there was no more land to cross, they didn't give up.  Instead, they dug canoes out of trees and began crossing the vast oceans to find more islands.  Over the years they developed a religious connection with the East and continued to island hop towards their promised land.  Well, needless to say, it was these people who discovered the vast majority, if not all, of the Pacific Islands, including New Zealand.  There is even evidence that they made it to Easter Island, and from there the South American mainland.  It was probably at this point that they realized that there were not gods and divine reclamation in the East, but only llamas and corn.

But Chris, how can you be so sure that they made it that far?  Well, I wanted kumara fries from Burger Fuel and guess what?  I could have them because those crazy ol' Polynesian pioneers of the sea brought them back from South America for me to enjoy.  Not only were these guys the smartest, most progressive, and furthest-reaching explorers in all of H.H. (Human History), but they allowed for all of us here in New Zealand to enjoy the delicacies of the sweet potato fry.  Or chip, depending on your country of origin.

chips

Do you want chips with your burger?

But fate has a sense of irony, as Morpheus once shared with the world, and it was not my destiny to eat kumara fries that day.  They were sold out.

* * *

I've settled in to Kaikoura at the Lyell Creek Lodge for the next couple days.  I'll talk about it all later after I've had a proper chance to experience the local colour (too much?).  I've started a map to log our progress.

Cheers.

Day -1 (or 52, depending)

So!  I've decided to start a blog to document my adventures over here in NZ.  Up until this point I've mainly been working on school with a few side trips here or there, so there hasn't been anything too terribly engrossing to write about.  But TOMORROW I leave for a two week road trip across the South Island, so it's a great excuse to start.  If things get dull I'll reach into the past and throw in anecdotes from the two months I've already been here.

Anyways, I'm waking up at 5 45 ish tomorrow to walk to a bus station by 7 10 to catch a 7 15 bus to get on a 8 25 ferry across to the South Island.  And the fun doesn't stop there!  After a 11 25 arrival I'll have about an hour to get on a 12 30 bus from Picton, the ferry disembarking point, to Kaikoura, the Sarah Warner point.  I'll hang out in that pleasant beach side community for a few days before Sarah and I continue along the Path of Golden Dreams (aka hop on another bus) to Christchurch, at which point we rent a car and start the REAL journey of road trip freedom!  Woo!  Just like Calvin and Hobbes would've done!

It really is going to be great and I want you guys to be a part of it. *soft cry*  So don't be afraid to become hopelessly addicted to this blog!  I don't want to give everything away too quickly, so I'll stop there for now and leave you to contemplate a few Kiwi words and phrases I've learned.  

Until next time.

keen 

Would you be keen to play frisbee tomorrow?

heaps

I've got heaps of those.

You can cut off heaps and it does nothing. ( actual sentence from the barber I went to)

lollies

Mmm these lollies are so sugary and sweet!

sweet as...!

Hipster #1: I got some new jeans today.  They're soooo skinny and awesome!

Hipster #2: Sweet as!  I should get some tomorrow!