New York City

The following things were written about New York City:

Day 1.
Landed in Newark:
Jersey - First Impressions:
Dirty snow. Overcast. Gray. Not a single tree. In fact the first one I saw may have been the Christmas tree in Rockefeller center...
From airport to New York:
- This Monkey's Gone to Heaven --> sludge. Factories. Cargo containers, pollution mixing with the clouds, creating the clouds.
Never been in Jersey before. It's got a bad rep so I see it in a negative way. Maybe it's not so bad...it is the garden state and all. From what I saw though...sucks.
New York City - first impressions:
Hi Queen Street, Auckland. (from car)
(on foot) Hi Queen Street with a million or so more people.
Short people with umbrellas suck. Hooked me and almost poked my eyes out. Terrifying stuff. The streets of NYC are a battlefield.
Lunch --> Amadeus Pizza, formerly Famous Ray's Pizza (we saw at least three Famous Original Ray's Pizzas or some variation on this name. We were told to eat at Famous Ray's. Ray gets around)
- It was...alright?
Old man in the pizza place talked to us the entire time. Would not stop. Insisted himself upon us.
"I wouldn't lie to you."
"Can't beat the price."
"Oh my God."
"Forget about it."
Each repeated over ten times. Before we sat down, he had been talking to himself. It was 3:30 pm. He said he got there at 11am. Had nothing to do but stay...
This guy made himself one of my least favorite types of people by not taking the hint that we wanted to have lunch as a family and not with him, and by asking us the price of absolutely everything. "Where you stayin? Oh yeah how much is that a night like a grand a night?" (It ain't. We're not high rollers here, people.) "Goin to the Rockettes huh? How much were your tickets? Oh I coulda got you in for free. I got connections."
He was really pissing me off, but I knew he was just lonely. New York City has got to be the loneliest place I've ever been. Imagine living here among the however many millions of people and not having anyone. Jesus Christ.

Maybe that's why everyone tries to fit in by buying the same shit and buying into the same ideas. Saks Fifth Avenue store was disgusting. Things on sale for alf-price and still cost more than my entire wardrobe (these were guy prices; I'm sure women's clothing was worse), and people gobble it up because it's a brand. Chanel, D&G, Prada. I just have trouble comprehending people who focus so much on a label when it means absolutely nothing to me.

The Rockettes. Man, talk about conforming! I keed. But they do all look exactly the same...Impressive choreography though, it is HARD to get that many people that perfectly synchronized. The woman sitting behind us definitely wanted to be a Rockette, oooor just wanted to be punched in the face for being annoying.

Outside. Asshole New York dad yelling at his kid. Your son's life is more important than the new umbrella you just put in his hand. He almost got hit by a car, you stupid fuck.

ANYWAY. Dinner. Food. The redeeming quality of the city.
China Grille. Dear Lord Delicious.
- The idea is order food and share it with all
Appetizer: Lobster Pancakes
Entrees: Duck two ways*, Szechuan Beef, Seared Tuna*
Sides: Crunchy Spinach, Duck Wild Rice
Dessert: The Great Wall (which we Mangolianed the shit out of)
All delicious. And all of it to the musical stylings of Lady Gaga, Shakira, and Keri Hilson. Odd.
Day 1 overall opinion: NYC is a lonely place with too many god damned people in it.

This is all very negative. I am heavily influenced by the fact that it was cold and rainy the entire day, perhaps. And my brother annoys me.





Daaaaaaay 2
Tour of the city.
My opinion of New Yorkers themselves has yet to improve.
Proud of their city, or just arrogant and won't let go of something lost? New York is no longer what it was. Consumers have taken over and the powerful individual is gone. I understand the importance of and appreciate history, but I don't see the importance of telling people who used to own the now Verizon Building. New York has changed and the new needs to be accepted and embraced.
Strawberry Fields --> would be beautiful during the fall.
My favorite part of today was a family on the tour with us: mom, dad, and their two daughters. The elder daughter, still no more than 10, reminded me of my friend Cassie. She and her father were very close. On the ferry back from Staten Island she and her dad sat on a bench inside, sitting and talking, each with one arm resting on the back of the bench with fingers interlocked. It's kinda hard to explain and I may just sound creepy for watching this and now writing it down, but it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
But yeah anyway tour guide was kind of a douche. Reminded me of someone I know.
Sorry New Yorkers, I'm hating on your city.
Dinner at Esca. Absolutely amazing. Had the Pesce Nera, I believe? Monkfish (Blackfish? Poor man's lobster? Some such description) with wild mushroom and leeks. Oh my. Crepella or something for dessert. Crepe with pumpkin inside with caramelized nuts and pomegranate.
Yep.

Oh and saw Avenue Q; certainly a favorite of mine. Always fucking hilarious.

This is more a comment after yesterday, but I feel that New Yorkers have to go to plays and shows and shit to feel like magic and hope still exist, because they've completely deprived themselves of it in their day to day lives.

Again, all of this negativity could certainly be inspired by the fact that I'm here with my family. I'm sure it's much more romantic if you're here with someone you love, but that applies most anywhere.
Sad to have just finished The Fountainhead and see these things so changed. Hell's Kitchen wasn't what I imagined at all. Again --> embrace the new and all.

I had trouble sleeping last night because of the constant sirens. I did have one of the best dreams I've ever had, though. One of those you wake up from and you wish it were real. What id that's what New York gives you? A dream of something better. But fuck that. I want to see that when I'm awake, too, and I'm not going to accomplish that here.





Day 3

I have been thinking too much and so I have decided to stop. I feel that this is a safety precaution, because it's a dangerous thing, thinking.

Dinner:
Balthazar
Appetizers: Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli
Chicken Livers and Duck Foie Gras
Escargot
Dinners: Duck Shepherd's Pie
Roasted Black Cod
Chicken Paprikash
Lamb Shanks
Desserts: Apple Tatin
Profiteroles

Tried to go to MoMA but we got there late and there was such a long line that we left. Sad day. Tim Burton exhibit was sold out as well.

Short. Running out of steam.

Oh yeah, crazy man on the subway. Tourette's I'm guessing. Yelled at my mom. Not cool, brotha.



Day 4.

Didn't actually write anything down.
Left this day. Went to Frick, first. Discovered two artists I liked.
T. Gainsborough. Wonderful portraiture.
J.M.W. Turner.

And on that note I saw a graffiti artist named Shepard Fairey or something like that...gotta check him out.

In short I could never live in NYC. It was an interesting experience and I'm happy to be home where it is 62 degrees, and no longer 20 degrees with winds up to 50mph.

To survive solely off of clementines, I would have to eat approximately 64 a day.

Easy.

I had a text document on my desktop that I had apparently been using as a running journal or something. Here's most of what was in it to those who for some reason find themselves interested!


June 19 2009
All I really need is like a 25 on the exam and I'll get a C in the class, but for some reason I desire an A. Damn American school system stresses being the best of the best; not just beating the system but beating every other person who's a part of that system. Sitting outside of exam rooms here (and getting there like two hours early, which is probably also something I do due to Wake) and running into people I know, they all talk about the least they have to do to pass the class. It's all about passing, not being the best. I wish I could be so damn chill. Every aspect of this country is chill! Why are we so competitive? Does it go back to the whole individualistic/collectivist societal difference? Whooooooooo knows, man. All I know is that I'd really rather not be doing this. And that in the future I will look back and have no recollection of anything I am currently studying, nor will I remember the pain I went through studying for it. And I don't know if that's depressing to think about, or uplifting.

I wonder what I'll do with this here blog after I leave New Zealand...maybe I'll turn it into a log of what Beamer eats in a day. You know, like "Today, Beamer ate nails for breakfast." "Today, Beamer ate three used tissues, threw up, and then ate that. I am beginning to think that he's not all that smart, and that he can't actually talk even though Michael assures me that he can, but only to him."

I just saw horse fucking on TV in a commercial advertising a candy bar.

June 13 2009
I miss Flinstones Push-pops.



FOB = Fresh off the Boat
When Dave went to Miami, everybody thought he was a Mexican. That's funny. (He's Maori)


10th of May
7:48am
Fat homeless man.
Pigeon with a limp.
Prostitutes coming or going from business. Not really sure.
Downtown Auckland's no different from downtown anywhere.

I wonder if the reason we do things is because other people did them before us. We get all dressed up and go out and drink at this age because when people before us were our age, they did the same thing. It's just a cycle. I didn't make a conscious decision to go to college, it was just the next stage in life after finishing high school. I feel like Tyler Durden calling home to his dad once a year and asking what to do next. And gettin' all dolled up is just another step. So I wonder who started it?
So I was thinking about this and then realized that you could do the same thing for God. Those who believe do so because others before them believed, and I feel that if you trace it all the way back to the beginning, to the first person or group of people that first believed in a/any god, it was a belief born out of ignorance and fear. And that's not a bad thing.

Feel free to call me a heathen.

So when we're mountain biking through the redwood forest of Rotorua, we go off on this grade 2 path, and it's got some pretty steep drops that freak Janelle and me out at first. I see JT fly out on some of them, and I kinda reason to myself "Well, A) JT just made it, so it's okay. And B) it's the only possible way to go, so it must be doable. I guess you just have to let go of inhibitions and just go" (This is a big thing I've learned here that has started to be applied to all aspects of my being). SO ANYWAY I start tearing shit up and I feel cool about it and we're all trying to keep together so we'll brake and let others go by, and one of the people that passes us is this girl who can't be more than 7 and she's tearing that shit up like it's her job. She's zipping through trees until her rainbow helmet and tassels on her handle bars are no more than a kaleidoscopic blur. It was hard to feel like a badass or like I had grown as a person at age 21 when some little 7 year old girl dressed in bright colors is kicking my shit all over the track, but I'd never mountain biked before in my life and she was probably a robot anyway so fuck her because her speed was inhuman. (6/8/09)

So Sylar from Heroes was on David Letterman last night here (as far as I know, the only late night show they get in NZ is David Letterman, which is terribly depressing. He's absolutely terrible and old and Paul Shafer or whatever his name is really needs to shut up and die in a fire. But I digress...) because he's going to be Spock in the new Star Trek movie. So anyway, Zachary Quinto (his real name, figured I'd give him proper props) is talking about it opening and he's all "Yeah, we just got back from the world tour and it was awesome! We were in Australia and New Zealand and stuff. I got to jump off the tallest building in the southern hemisphere while I was in New Zealand, too." And Dave is all "Is that what we have a picture of here?" and it's a picture of downtown Auckland, and when I see it I'm all "Holy shit I'm THERE RIGHT NOW!" It was a really cool feeling. And Quinto was explaining how they were in a hotel downtown and all the sudden saw a guy falling outside their window (he acted it out with his fingers jumping off the Sky Tower and yelling "Whaaaaaaaat's uuuuuuuuuuup I'm jumping off of you!" It was funny. You had to be there.) And I was just all "DUde I have totally been there!" Not actually up the Sky Tower, but I've been drunk at the base of it and looked up, which is almost like the same thing, right? I guess my point is that David Letterman sucks and Sylar is pretty funny sometimes.

First half of the semester over, I guess.
So here are my two favorite quotes from the books I've read, wooo:
"We all alike are slaves to our respective dimensional prejudices."
- from Edwin Abbot Abbot's "Flatland"


"Some of the greatest atrocities of humankind have been committed in the name of love."
- from my psychology book explaning one of Freud's defense mechanisms


This school is very different from Wake. The classes actually have a pretty crap set-up. For example, my english class meets three times a week, each
meeting lasting for an hour. Two of those three hours are spent in straight
lecture. The teacher prepares a powerpoint, which he then proceeds to read
directly from. This process is mind-rotting.
And it gets worse!
This powerpoint is then put online so you can download it yourself (generally available for download before the actual lecture!). What this means is that if one were so inclined (Tyler Durden), I could download the lecture, read it over, and then present the class myself. If I memorize all of the info and come up with some creative input, I could do a better job than the actual teacher. Heyo.
Anyway, the third hour is spent in a tutorial. UoA has tutorials because the regular classes are all too big for you to just raise your hand and ask a question. When I say the classes are lecture, I mean pretty much straight lecture. Teacher talks. You sit and listen...and sometimes drool a little. I've heard about 4 questions asked total out of all of my classes. But the tutorial takes care of that! It's limited to 20 people and you all come together and talk about what you've been doing in class, always one week behind what's actually going on.
In theory, this sounds cool. You get to read books, then you get a full hour to sit and talk about the material. Grand! The problem is, either the TA or the teacher him/herself has come up with questions of exercises for you to address in your tutorial. This means that you are discouraged from talking in lecture, and then are only allowed to talk about predetermined topics in your tutorials.
What the fuck?

I mean if you really wanted to you could just raise your hand and start goin' off with whatever you have to say, but I'm lazy. And braindead by how stupid the lecture environment is. And some of them are 2 hours long. I'd rather receive a gravy enema then sit through one of those without my laptop to take my mind away from the monotony of watching somebody read off a bunch of slides that I'm then just going to read off of myself when I have to study for the test.

But I don't want to give the impression that I don't like it here. All you have to do is download the lecture slides, go to the mandatory tutorials, take the tests, turn in the papers, and the rest of the time is yours all yours. This is definitely better than still taking role. Seriously, Wake Forest? The only person that loses out when you skip a class is yourself. We're 18-22 years old. We're already fucking each other. Let us fuck ourselves, too.
The fact that I can't miss more than two or three classes ever is pretty ridiculous at this stage in my life, wouldn't you say? Guess you're just getting us ready for that monotony of having a daily job to get to! Ya-fucking-hoo. Anyway, that'll all probably suck when I get to it, if I decide to do anything like that. I like volunteering with kids, maybe eventually I'll get paid to work with kids? That'd be cool. And until I get to that shit stage in life, I'm going to stop taking this shit so seriously and enjoy myself more. Do I care that much that I almost have a 3.8? Will it change my whole life getting that extra bit of honors announced when I graduate? Probably not. My diploma will hang on a wall and people will walk by and say "Ah, Wake Forest...where's that?"
(So far up its own ass you can barely see it.)

"Nothing's gonna change my world."

Writing all this to avoid editing my first Auckland essay. It's easily the biggest turd I've ever written. It's 20% of my final grade. If I get 10%, I will excrete a sizable chunk of masonry. It actually kind of scares me how little this troubles me. I'm such a little over-acheiver usually. This country's chilled me out a lot. Opened my eyes. I saw through the bullshit, as Mitch once said.

Oh, and so ends part 1 of my semester abroad experience. Well, academically. I leave tomorrow for 2 weeks of exploring the South Island. In a spaceship. With 3 girls. I'm going to go insane.

Is it bad if the one thing I miss most about Wake is the gym?

I wonder if popping your collar here in New Zealand means you're a douchebag like it does back home, because there are a LOT of them here.

Hey it's still nice here. Time to write a paper.

Random shit from Monday and Tuesday:

Listening to Girl Talk raises a lot of questions I've always had with music and its influence on culture. By mixing oldies with the songs of my own generation, I'm wondering if he feels the same way: that they're entirely different. The oldies present love and relationships in such a pure way with no sexual desire, at least not on the face level (obviously, there are exceptions). Music nowadays is incredibly sexually explicit and sets sex up as a commodity and women as pure sexual objects. Or maybe by playing them on top of each other, he's stressing that they're the same? I mean I'm sure even all The Beatles wanted was just a quick piece of ass, but sadly she was just seventeen. And nowadays the Kings of Leon sing about the exact same problem...Anyway, his music's pretty amazing.

This country is too fucking beautiful.
There's so much it can make you cry.
I think it's the cause of the laid-back lifestyle. No worries. It's just calming...everywhere you look is beauty. Calm.

From the mind of Brian Clevinger:
Really, Lex Luthor is the hero. Think about it. Superman is the invader, he's the anomaly. He's the thing that doesn't belong. And what's he do? He robs humanity of its drive. Why excel at anything when Superman is already, by definition, inhumanly better than you at EVERYTHING?
Lex Luthor is giving us back our dignity. And he does this all while he's labeled a villain for doing it. How sick is that? The people of his society are so invested in Superman's superiority that they fight to lock up the man who dares suggest they may actually have some worth. We should all aspire to be Lex Luthor.
(He's got a point there, you know)

I can't wait until break. Things will slow down and I can write again.

New Zealand is good about making me wait to see movies I want to see.

Free association free association free assocation nothin yet.
Fuck your war, cause I'm fat and in love
I wonder what will be carried into the future from my generation. More-so I wonder if it will be something that I liked. It's probably going to be the shit I hated when I was around to see it the first time. Unless it's Pokemon...But like - Pogs came back, and who could have hated Pogs the first time around?
What about music? Will rap become classics? Will we ever hear Coolio on the oldies stations? Sir Mixalot? Or will it be the rap with a message? The Sugar Hill Gang, Public Enemy? The Roots, Jurassic 5, Del the Funkee Homosapien?
Where did music come from, anyway? I hear none of Beethoven's Eroica in the songs on the radio today, but music has evolved from his time to ours. But a lot of popular composers met with minimal success in their own time. Hopefully the money machines that can't write a song for shit (Kiss Me Through the Phone? Seriously? Soulja Boy Tell 'em how much dick you suck. Hint: it is all the dicks) will be put to the wayside and the real musicians of our time will be passed on to future generations: Elliott Smith, TV on the Radio, Jeff Mangum. And yeah I'm pretentious as fuck to think I can name who the reaaaal musicians are, maaaan, but oh well.
Transform and roll out, bitches.

I was bored before class...

So, today.

Today was the Pasifika festival, where there were a bunch of different booths set up representing different Pacific islands and cultures and such. Janelle, JT, and I went together, but it kinda rained all day and there were huge throngs of people so we didn't spend too much time there. We went to Hell's Pizza and ate Mordor and Lust (they're both delicious). A window-wiper dude outside told me to "say that to [his] face" (I had said nothing, so I looked him in the eyes and repeated myself as best I could), then he told me to fuck off, so I went ahead and did that as well. That was fun.
Hung out in Mt. Albert for a while, then went to walk home at around 7:30. I found out just then that my bus no longer runs that late, soooo I decided to try and walk home. Turns out I'm not very good at this, and the 20 minute bus ride turned into an hour and a half walk through I-don't-know-where, but I did eventually get home.
ANYWAY, reason why this is cool, is that as I was walking, the cutest, chubbiest little puppy came running up to me and started tagging along. I checked his collar for an address and found a phone number, but when I dialed it a voice chimed in that said it had been disconnected. My heart immediately went out to the poor little fella; I thought he had been abandoned, making both he and me alone and far away from any place either of us could call home. We walked past a whole mess of other people and homes and shops, but Bobby the dog would always come running back to me. Animal magnetism, man.

Or as my host-dad Mike suggested, Bobby smelled terrible, and so do I, so he wanted to hang out with me. Thanks, Mike. (Ass.)

So yeah this little dog and I walked for an hour and a half all over Auckland with no leash until I eventually found my way home (after a panicked call to Janelle because it got really dark and I was in residential areas and I heard a lot of yelling and then I started to wonder "Hey I wonder if Auckland has a ghetto and if I'm currently in it?"). We gave Bobby feed and discovered that I had dialed the wrong number...oops...but we found his owner and got the little pup home. His owner seemed grateful since Bobby had actually been lost for a while, but he made it sound like this was a regular occurence, at which point we decided that Bobby's owner must be kind of a big dumb. Anyway, it made me really happy to have a fellow adventurer on my journey home, so thanks Bobby the dog.

And that was today. (originally written on saturday the 14th)

I told people I'd update, so here:

One day in the early 40's, a mother of five living in London left her home for work. Her husband was at war, fighting to protect his family but too far away to do anything to help them directly. In this exact situation, however, there's nothing he could have done anyway. And luckily, no one was in the house when the bomb hit.

Many of the bombs that Germany dropped on London worked by being fuel-propelled until they were over London. Once there, they ran out of fuel and dropped from the sky onto the city below. The citizens of London feared not the buzzing sound of the incoming bomb, but much more-so the silence when the buzzing ceased.

On a day when she and her children were all away from the house, a V-1 cruise missile destroyed Mrs. Hawkins's home entirely. It was a direct hit. She returned to complete devestation; a lone mother now made homeless and left with five children to take care of. She knew of an abandoned house further down the street, which she then broke into and refused to leave.

It was in this house that my host-mother was born, becoming the youngest of six children.

How absolutely amazing to hear of somebody's life beginning under such extraordinary circumstances. And you'd never know, it just came up in conversation while she was on the phone with her brother, who still has nightmares of the buzzing sound of the "doodlebugs" (as they were nicknamed for some reason) dropping over their heads.

There, I updated. It has nothing to do with me, but it is something that I found incredibly interesting. I blame this on my dad, who is a history fanatic, and I guess some of that curiosity found its way into me.

I still like it here it is super. There.

Wasn't planning on writing anything today, but then this happened!
So I was waiting for the bus, and a guy walks up and sits down, and I'm all friendly and he's all friendly, and he asks me if we've met before. It's when he gets this close that I notice that he reeks of alcohol, and that it's only 11 am. Then he starts telling me about how he lives in a tree up on the North shore and that he has a million dollars hidden inside of it and that he just bought himself a woman and he was looking for friends to introduce her to.
But then the bus came and we parted ways.

The host family

So, about where I'm staying and the host family.
Tina: Tina is my host-mom. She's fantastic. Originally from England, and very open about things. She's a teacher, her favorite subject being teaching 11-13 year olds sex education, because she thinks it's really funny.
Mike: Mike's the father figure. He's a principal at a local school. From New Zealand, and he knows a whole bunch and we talk about fancy stuff. He believes that the power of teaching and gaining an education/having knowledge will allow us to overcome our differences and realize how similar we all truly are and that we will then respect one another and stop being dumb and kill each other over things like differences in religious beliefs. I like Mike. He likes Top Gear a whole bunch.
Jane: Jane is Tina's oldest daughter. She works in aviation, as does her husband, who is Maori-born. She's "heavy with child". Tina asked me if I wanted to feel her stomach approximately 5 minutes after I first met her. Awkward.
Robert: Tina's oldest son. He works at...somewhere...and does something. He's kinda quiet and reminds me a lot of my older brother Chris. Robert seemed adamant about the family getting wireless internet, though, which would mean I wouldn't have to come to campus to get online, so I like Robert too.
Tess: Tess is 17 and seems like the typical teenager. I think she thinks that America/the rest of the world is some magical place where everything is bigger and better, because whenever I say that something in NZ is just like it is back in the states she's shocked. She loves to play Netball, and when I said that I had never heard of it and it doesn't exist in the States, it looked like I had shattered her world. Oops.
Beth: Beth is 15 and as far as I can tell a total flower-child. She likes peace and love and plays guitar and wears sundresses and has long uncombed beach-blond hair. I hope that my kids are this cool someday.
So Tess, Beth, Tina, and Mike live in the house. I have a studio-apartment-sized room to myself that's separate from the rest of the house. My hostmom calls it the Loveshack after the B-52s song. There's also a trampoline and a hot tub. I live in walking distance from about 30 restaurants.
Umm. It's awesome. I love it. Wish you were here and all that?

They all talk funny and are really sarcastic and we get on pretty well so yeah that's all cool.

Umm...hi.
So I've been writing stuff down on paper, since internet-access is sparing. Anyway, here's a bunch of random stuff from New Zealand. (Oh and real quick: it's amazing here and I love it)

Anyway let's see what we got.
2/20. Learned the All Blacks haka. Drank a beer called the 12 Gauge on a table with a buzzsaw for a counter-top. It was the manliest moment ever. Also the pub had a kitty and that's awesome, we should adopt this policy in the States.
2/21 Bunch of cool stuff happened. Totally cool.
2/22. My host mom reminds me of Sarah Flowers in a shameless way. I like my host family a lot, they're all spiffy, and my house here kicks the crap outta anything I've had back home. Sorry mom/Wake/Crouse, you've been bested. My host dad said bullocks and "that's the dog's wobblies" and that's just awesome. Referring to a dog's balls means that something's really cool. Obviously I am in the greatest country of all time.
- We drove past the prime minister's house. His security detail consists of a van parked near the garage with one officer in it.

Ok now for the much longer entry woo! This was Saturday night:
I was dropped off downtown on Queen Street so I could get a bit of cash, hit a liquor store, and make my way to Sophie's apartment in Wellesley. This was 8 o'clock. The bank I went to was closed, but a dude and his lady had set up with a guitar, some drums, and two massive amps and rocked their way to becoming the best street performers I've ever seen. Imagine if The White Stripes just set up on the street-corner and that Meg White was really hot and had talent. And they covered a Sublime song. Amazing. Anyway...eventually got some money, so it was off to Wellesley Apartments.

Wellesley Apartments are not on Wellesley Street.

I don't think they're on Queens, either.

At this point in time, nobody has a cellphone yet, so I can't call and find out.

So I ended up wandering about downtown Auckland for a good two hours, forty-seven minutes, and some spare seconds for change. Figured I'd find the apartments eventually!
Walked past the White Stripes-with-the-hot/successful-Meg a few more times (read: 8), went to an internet cafe for half an hour only to leave it and say to myself "Why the hell didn't I google the address of the apartments?"
So now it's 10:30. I figure they've all left the apartments by now, and I'm getting a little freaked by the darkness, the homeless people passed out everywhere, the people fighting in the streets (it was about 15 people just duking it out), and the transvestite prostitutes. So I got a cab, and in a voice not at all my own I gave the driver my address. Turns out I said something wrong. He stops and we're in the wrong place. It's totally dark and I have no idea where I am. He asks me a question and again I respond in the foreign voice. Later I realized that that's how I sound when I'm scared shitless.
And lost.
A few thousand miles from home.
With no way of contacting anybody I know.
The taxi driver turned out to be nice, though. His ID said "Singh 78". I asked him where he was from, and in a thick Indian accent he said "Easy guess, my friend." I felt like an asshole but we both laughed. When we got to my homestay he offered me a lower price on the fare, but I paid full and tipped the brotha since it was my fault we got lost.
So how'd my first night out in Auckland go?
Look up, and it kinda sucked and it was scary and I wanted my mommy.
Or
I got a free concert, I saw an adorable little girl in all pink dance with a homeless man to the music of said concert, I did a $10 bungee thing ($5.40 USD, bitches), and Singh 78 is one cool taxi driver.

Kinda weird to start by writing this night/experience down. Everything else has been absolutely fantastic. It's still so surreal. But it's probably more fun to read about how I fucked up and got lost than to read about what would have happened that night had it all gone according to plan. Would have been more expensive, too.

Oh well! Better luck next time, eh? (Again, contrast this attitude with the one I had while still at Wake. Never realized how unhappy I was there...but I do miss some of you a whole bunch.)




2/24
- As I walked down the street, I sneezed. A girl said "Bless you" as she drove by. I am in the most polite country ever.
- You can strike up a conversation with literally everybody. Just nod at anybody as you walk down the street and they'll smile or wave or say "G'day, mate" (this one's my favorite).
- 3 condoms cost $20 NZD. But they were extra ribbed...maybe extra ribbing = extra dollars...
- I ate Hokey Pokey ice cream but had no desire to then turn myself around. If anybody is wondering what the hokey pokey tastes like, the answer is toffee.
- Thrift stores are definitely cooler for girls. There's more variety for you.
- Sat next to a middle eastern lady with everything but her eyes covered. She had ear buds in and I could hear drums and the far-off sound of a woman singing in a wailing voice, which I assumed was Indian music. The bus jolted, an ear bud fell out, and out of it bolted the musical stylings of Taylor Swift. The look in the lady's eyes was that of pure terror. I giggled.