Vegas, baby!

When I said to people I was going to Rotorua with my parents I don't think they had any idea of what kind of weekend I had in store.

What better way to start of the weekend by polishing off the $50 bar tab I won at the Carpark bar a few weeks prior, not to mention the Jager shots we won from fortune cookies handed out while there. Chatty Tui was definitely out in full force when it came time to be picked up from the bar by the parents.

After some unsuccessful drunken attempts at taking a photo of the full moon and amazingly not needing a toilet stop before then, we made a much needed wine and dine stop at Matamata’s Workmans café. It has received best café in the country by Café Magazine and upon entering the café was immediately apparent why. The interior has been decorated with an assortment of collections including; fire brush sets, retro humour postcards, 1950’s mirrors, greeting cards, retro wall statues of African women, freestanding ashtrays, transistor radios, matching retro tables and chairs and not forgetting the coffin and sequined up mannequin thrown in for good measure. Singly the collections are all very kitch but as a complete scene it makes for a fun and quirky place that is not what you would expect to find in a small NZ town. To top it off one of the male waiters there was extremely “decorative”, as my parents put it, and was also personality plus. I couldn't help but give him a coy smile and wave before we headed off on our final leg of the trip (oh and the food was great too!).

We awoke bright and early on Saturday morning to find that it was a cracker day outside. Off mountain biking we went. Mum took me inside St Faith’s Church along the way and announced that it was her “favourite church in the world”, which coming from her, is a pretty big statement as she is a fairly seasoned traveler. I could see why though upon walking inside. The church has a very prominent Maori theme with all the woodwork inside being carved into Maori designs and the stained glass windows displaying Maori motifs and New Zealand summer scenes. The stand out feature of the church is the window with an etching of Jesus wearing a Maori cloak and is positioned so that he appears to be walking on the water of Lake Rotorua which is behind the window (symbolizing Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee). Anyway, that’s more than enough about godly matters.

Our ride began with a 9km cruise around lake Rotorua. As mum said it was “so surreal” riding along pathways through scrub before emerging onto boardwalks that wound their way through sulphurous pools steaming like a hot, grey, stinky soup. The next 10km were spent exploring the mountain bike trails of the Redwood forest – thankfully we didn't come across any dead bodies though. The final 9km was some more cruising back along the lakefront, where we returned to our hostel at Kiwi Paka. Due to my mum being the fitness freak that she is, she decided that 28km of riding wasn't quite enough exercise for the day, meaning a 10km walk through the Redwoods was next on the list.

We had definitely earnt a drink after that effort, and drink we did! A bit of a bar hop ensued before heading home to the bar at Kiwi Paka for a night cap. Somehow I was suddenly downing a Rotorua version of the Jager bomb (lift + Jagermeister, not as bad as it sounds I must say!) and having my photo taken with the people who’d supplied me with the drink. The guy who had given me the drink didn't take to well to me asking him why a local would want to hang out in a youth hostel though so I escaped to hang with my parents.

I was pleased I made the escape as I sat down in time to witness one particular young fellow put on a great show for us. He was sitting in the corner of the bar by himself and proceeded to make heart pumping movements, stroking his forearms and making his arms do the "snake". This was just a few of his wide range of extremely entertaining hand and arm gestures that he performed (all while seated) in what was possibly his own sort of interpretive hip hop dance? Luckily he was so caught up in practising his "moves" he was completely oblivious to Mum and myself in hysterics.

I don’t even know where to begin with Sunday except to say that it was one of the hardest days physically that I have had in a long time. It was up there with doing the Tongariro crossing (9 hours of scaling a mountain side). I must say though that the scenery was magnificent, riding through native bush alongside the blue and green lakes is a pretty amazing experience. It was just a shame that I was so focused on being able to breathe and having enough energy to make it up the next hill that I didn't take as much of it in as I would have liked. 34km along a tar sealed road isn't very much but 34km of up, down, up, down along mountain bike tracks is another story. Some of the ups were so uppy that it was physically impossible to make it up without having to get off and push and some of the downs so steep that I had to squeeze both my front and back brakes for dear life so as to prevent myself from becoming another Redwoods casualty. Aside from the moments where I was fight back tears of exhaustion and was screaming “FUCK YOU mum and dad for doing this to me” in my head over and over again, it was actually an amazing ride that, without a doubt, included some of the best tracks I've ridden on to date.

So that was it. 62km of riding, 10km of walking, eating delicious food and drinking delicious wine about sums up how my weekend away in Rotovegas with my parents was spent. There was plenty of laughs had, mostly at my nutty mother (not forgetting hip hop boy though) and maybe one sneaky tear of exhaustion, which I would never concede to mum and dad of course!

Good times with the olds... Not many can say that now can they.

Inspiration

This is a bit of a prelude to my next post.

As you might be able to tell I'm into two things at the moment, travel and writing. Naturally this has led me to become inspired to start writing more in depth when it comes to my travels. Obviously I will be able to submerge myself into this a lot more once I head off overseas but till then you are all stuck with reading about my sporadic travel within NZ.

Where this has all spawned from I guess is that I've begun reading Erik R. Trinidad's blog about his trip around the world, which I've found really interesting and a good way to kill some time during down time at work. I'm aiming to have a similar sort of format to him by having a daily entry and photo of the day, will see how long that lasts once I'm actually there though!

Apologies in advance if it's a bit boring and shite for you to read but is really more of an online journal for me (for now at least). Fingers crossed I'll eventually get into the travel writing groove though and it might actually become entertaining for you!

Fortunate Flatting

I've been thinking a lot lately about how fortunate I am that Duncan decided I was good enough to make the cut to move into Brown Street.

The thought of flatting again terrified me. I had had a bad experience living with a friend, who became a friend no more after about nine months of living together. Due to this experience I decided I hated flatting and never wanted to do it again. Ever. Well, a few years later circumstances eventually forced me to have to look for a flat and so the flat hunting begun. The first flat I visited the couple were the playboy bunny type, you know the ones... the girl is a bleached blonde with regrowth, wears lots of pink and the boyfriend wears white singlets, flat peaked caps and is into cars (gross generalisations here). Knowing living there wouldn't be for me I politely declined the room. The second flat I went to I met a kind of shy, giggly (quite cute) guy drinking a macs beer (promising!) and he showed me around their cute villa. I liked it and told him so but didn't spend too much time talking about myself as I tend to feel awkward and clam up in situations where I'm meant to "sell myself".

Well that giggly guy was Duncan and after me being sure I wasn't going to get it, I received a call a few days later from him offering me the spot in their flat. I now know I was actually pretty lucky to have managed to get the room for a number of reasons, a.) they offered it to someone else first(!!!), b.) I barely talked about myself when I came to look at the place (I discovered while we were looking for a new flattie that they don't like that at all) and c.) Celine and Neha didn't even get to meet me, so they had to rely solely on Duncan's judgement of me.

Aside from the obvious plus of our flat having such a sweet location, the best part about having moved in there is the people. Having never been to varsity, I'd never really had the opportunity to meet any new people since leaving high school but I struck lucky and found a flat of strangers that turned out to be cool, like minded people who I can now call good friends. I've also met a heap of new people through my flatties (mostly Duncan), all of whom I get along with well, some very well (you know who you are), and some too well! It's made for lots of great times over the last eight months and a very welcome change from the same crowd I'd been hanging around with for far too long and was in desperate need of moving on from.

So I think I owe some thanks to Duncan... for suggesting me as an option for the flat, for being a cool flatmate, for introducing me to all your awesome friends and girlfriend and last but not least, for introducing me to d'n'b!

It is going to be sad day for me when I have to leave you guys at Brown in only a few months time.

The Brownies - Celine, Tui, Duncan & Laura

Update: Ideal Job

Since writing the blog post 'Ideal Job' (see here) I continued to think about this and realised what my ideal/dream job would in fact be. It is still within the realms of Media and Journalism too which is promising! So, I would love, love, love to be a travel show host. I'm actually having to wipe away drool just at the thought of it.

Now I am aware that there is quite a high likelihood that it's not nearly as glamourous as it appears when they are on television, but I do still think that it would be an amazing job. I cannot think of anything better than being paid to travel the world and pass on your experiences to your fellow citizens back home. The only con I can think of would be that you would be away from home a lot, even though this doesn't really bother me right now, I guess it could pose problems later on. Meh.

In my original 'Ideal Job' post I mentioned getting ideal monetary return in balance with job satisfaction. Now, in my books being PAID to be flown around the world and experiencing the local culture and different activities locations have to offer gives a pretty ideal job satisfaction/ideal monetary return ratio. I mean shit, people (including myself) generally SPEND their money doing these things, not get paid for it.

My problem is that I need to stop being such a lazy ass and actually start taking steps to reach a goal of mine... watch this space.

Precognition

My Mum once told me (the precise details are a little hazy) that when I was a baby a family friend of ours was holding me and he said something along the lines of "this girl is going to have augur type abilities." I know it sounds ridiculous and I thought so too when she told me (and my mum being as much of a sceptic as me wouldn't have taken it to be true either).

Anyway, lately I've begin to wonder! No way do I think I can predict the future or any bullshit like that, but over the years quite a few things have occurred that I'd just known were going to happen. I'm aware that I probably sound like a raving lunatic about now, but it is seriously starting to creep me out (stop rolling your eyes Duncan). There's the old txting someone at exactly the same that they txt me that is at one end of the scale then there is the knowing what someone is going to say before they are going to say it and then, what really scares me the most, is when I dream things are going to happen before they do.

I suppose it all could just be some sort of weird coincidence each time it has happened but the frequency in which these things happen is what makes me wonder.

What the HELL, just now I was looking up something on Answers.com and then there was a link saying "are you a psychic?". So of course I clicked on it and whadda ya know, the test result is shown in the screen print below....

I rest my case.

Five boys and a Tui

Going to the mountain with five boys, only two of whom I knew, was quite a scary thought. But to my delight, it turned out to be quite a treat.

It was insisted that I sit in the front seat for the whole drive down where I was handed cold Corona's and toilet stops were only given upon my requests. When we finally made it to where we were staying, rock paper scissors was played for one of the double beds and the other left for me. I was woken up at 6am on Saturday morning to "Tui, breakfast is ready", whereupon I stumbled downstairs to find a full cooked breakfast laid out on the table ready to eat. Up the mountain they would all check to see if I was ok when I bailed and then wait for me after each run. The cherry on top was when we were out at the bar that night and I was being hit on by an extremely drunk snowboard instructor, where my bodyguards looked on and discussed giving him a beating before deciding to come and escort me away from him. Aw, bless.

I always knew that I find it easier to get along with guys but holidaying with guys is so, so easy! I guess it's because there is no competition being the only girl and providing they are decent enough guys, they will look out for you. Sorry to all my girlfriends, but think I might have to make it a habit of mine to only holiday with boys from now on! Mind you, can you really blame me after getting royal treatment like that?!