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May. 22nd, 2009 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clo_againToday I did nothing. Well. I repacked my backpack (it took me an hour. I have so much crap), was annoyed again at my hostel for closing the kitchen 'for cleaning' when I tried to make lunch at 2pm (SERIOUSLY YOU CLEAN IT AT 11PM EVERY NIGHT WHICH IS WHY I CAN'T MAKE TEA PAST THEN. WHAT. THE. FUCK.) so I stalked off downtown to post a box of stuff home including a rugby shirt I bought my dad as a present (I saw a nicer one today after I posted the box and was so pissed at myself for not finding the All Blacks shop here before), all my collected leaflets, my bone necklace in case Australian customs confiscated it, shells I'd picked up, a few of my t-shirts because I've bought more, a few bits and pieces like keyrings etc.... all of which cost me $64 to post. And that's “economy” rather than the fast post. I really hope it gets there because I love some of the stuff in that box but I just can't carry it all back to Oz. It can take up to 25 days though apparently, which means I may even beat it home and dad'll have to wait for his present which kind of sucks but I'll take it getting there intact over it getting there fast.
Actually it's just occurred to me that the necklace I bought the woman (and kind of want to steal for myself because it's so pretty *wants*) has paua shell in it, but I didn't post it because it would've made the box too expensive to lose. Hm. Australian customs are obsessive but I don't know if they'd be quite that bad. Also it's more annoying when I'm only there two weeks anyway, during which time it'll sit in my backpack, and then it'll go back to the UK.
Maybe I'll hide it in a sock or something, just in case. Though I really don't think they can be that bad. Maybe. Hopefully.
ALSO TODAY, in my day of nothing, I sat in Starbucks for hours reading and messing around on the laptop to avoid coming back to the hostel, had another 'famous' Fergburger, updated my travel diary almost current and finally, finally, after looking over most of New Zealand, found New Zealand stickers small enough to fill all the gaps on Beaver's lid so now he's totally stickered up. I keep turning him around to look and admire the pretty. There're tiki stickers. Tiki stickers. I love the ugly little tikis over here; they're so ugly and incredibly freaky that they stop being ugly/freaky and become cute. I even bought a bag today with one on, though I shouldn't have spent the money. I saw laptop cases with them on in Franz Joseph but now that I want a laptop case I, of course, cannot find any.
I have hopes of Christchurch though. Apparently it's as big on the souvenirs as here or Auckland, so hoprefully... A tiki laptop case for Beaver would be awesome or failing that, a plain one that I can buy a big tiki sticker for.
Also also today, I spent $10 on a magazine called M2 'the complete lifestyle magazine for the New Zealand man' because Hamster was on the cover and there was a great article on him inside, with a gorgeous picture of the TG3. I was even happier I bought it when I discovered their review on Star Trek started one paragraph with the exclamation “By Grabthar's hammer!”Clearly NZ magazines win at the random scifi references. :D They also asked Chris Pine if Kirk wasn't just about fighting and fucking, then gently mocked his shock at a journalist saying fuck. Win!
I'm a little sad that I never made it to Arrowtown today as I was contemplating, because it looked really cute on a postcard I saw this afternoon. But I was mainly going to see the Ford of Bruinen location and when the LotR location guidebook mentions you might have to get your feet wet in the river to get there, on top of all the rain there's been recently... I figured it was probably more effort than it was worth. Not to mention it's the kind of thing I'd rather do with another LotR fan, so maybe I'll drag people along next time I'm here. I'm definitely coming back to Queenstown when I come back to NZ because yeah okay, it's the party capital but it's also pretty. It's the only NZ town I've been to with actual personality approaching that of a European town. Plus being able to just glance up anywhere and see snowy mountains or a beautiful lake with snowy mountains helps a a lot.
Tomorrow I have to be in town at 7:45am to head to Dunedin.I'm thinking I might have to take a rain check on the scenery and sleep, but every time I think that I end up unable to sleep because I'm worrying that I'm missing the pretty scenery. Even though New Zealand is nothing but pretty scenery. I only have five more days of it. I can sleep on June 12th. Or rather 11th, since I'm planning to sleep away as much of my flight as possible.
I have time to kill. Bah. I hate having time to kill in this hostel because there's nothing to kill it with. I have one episode of Good News Week left to watch... but I can't download the newest one until maybe Monday so I don't know if I should hold out. Mmmmm.
*
And to conclude, I just went looking for this on Youtube on the offchance they'd uploaded it and there it was! My camera was attached to my laptop uploading pictures through the whole thing and I was just mourning not having a record of it this morning, but hurrah for Youtube.
Okay, brief backstory: this is from the Tasman Bay Backpackers which is where I stayed in Nelson, probably one of my favourite hostels of all despite the crappy internet. Every night at 8pm we got free chocolate pudding and ice-cream which was so awesome that George, amazing talented George who was already there when I arrived, had composed a song about it. (By the way, he is totally going to be famous today. We watched him write another song called 'Japanese Lady' and then none of us could stop singing it the next day. So. Talented.)
I'm not in this vid but I am just out of camera shot applauding with everyone else. I'm so glad they uploaded it.
And finally, now you've waded through all the random backstory, here it is: George Woodhouse sings 'Chocolate Pudding'. Trust me, it's worth watching just for George. :)
God did I love that hostel. <3 Though maybe it would've been less awesome without random guitar-toting blonds but maybe not. Free chocolate pudding doesn't come along every day.
That's put me in a good mood. Hurrah! :D And I'm leaving this hostel to-mooooorrrooowwww. Double hurrah!
Actually it's just occurred to me that the necklace I bought the woman (and kind of want to steal for myself because it's so pretty *wants*) has paua shell in it, but I didn't post it because it would've made the box too expensive to lose. Hm. Australian customs are obsessive but I don't know if they'd be quite that bad. Also it's more annoying when I'm only there two weeks anyway, during which time it'll sit in my backpack, and then it'll go back to the UK.
Maybe I'll hide it in a sock or something, just in case. Though I really don't think they can be that bad. Maybe. Hopefully.
ALSO TODAY, in my day of nothing, I sat in Starbucks for hours reading and messing around on the laptop to avoid coming back to the hostel, had another 'famous' Fergburger, updated my travel diary almost current and finally, finally, after looking over most of New Zealand, found New Zealand stickers small enough to fill all the gaps on Beaver's lid so now he's totally stickered up. I keep turning him around to look and admire the pretty. There're tiki stickers. Tiki stickers. I love the ugly little tikis over here; they're so ugly and incredibly freaky that they stop being ugly/freaky and become cute. I even bought a bag today with one on, though I shouldn't have spent the money. I saw laptop cases with them on in Franz Joseph but now that I want a laptop case I, of course, cannot find any.
I have hopes of Christchurch though. Apparently it's as big on the souvenirs as here or Auckland, so hoprefully... A tiki laptop case for Beaver would be awesome or failing that, a plain one that I can buy a big tiki sticker for.
Also also today, I spent $10 on a magazine called M2 'the complete lifestyle magazine for the New Zealand man' because Hamster was on the cover and there was a great article on him inside, with a gorgeous picture of the TG3. I was even happier I bought it when I discovered their review on Star Trek started one paragraph with the exclamation “By Grabthar's hammer!”Clearly NZ magazines win at the random scifi references. :D They also asked Chris Pine if Kirk wasn't just about fighting and fucking, then gently mocked his shock at a journalist saying fuck. Win!
I'm a little sad that I never made it to Arrowtown today as I was contemplating, because it looked really cute on a postcard I saw this afternoon. But I was mainly going to see the Ford of Bruinen location and when the LotR location guidebook mentions you might have to get your feet wet in the river to get there, on top of all the rain there's been recently... I figured it was probably more effort than it was worth. Not to mention it's the kind of thing I'd rather do with another LotR fan, so maybe I'll drag people along next time I'm here. I'm definitely coming back to Queenstown when I come back to NZ because yeah okay, it's the party capital but it's also pretty. It's the only NZ town I've been to with actual personality approaching that of a European town. Plus being able to just glance up anywhere and see snowy mountains or a beautiful lake with snowy mountains helps a a lot.
Tomorrow I have to be in town at 7:45am to head to Dunedin.I'm thinking I might have to take a rain check on the scenery and sleep, but every time I think that I end up unable to sleep because I'm worrying that I'm missing the pretty scenery. Even though New Zealand is nothing but pretty scenery. I only have five more days of it. I can sleep on June 12th. Or rather 11th, since I'm planning to sleep away as much of my flight as possible.
I have time to kill. Bah. I hate having time to kill in this hostel because there's nothing to kill it with. I have one episode of Good News Week left to watch... but I can't download the newest one until maybe Monday so I don't know if I should hold out. Mmmmm.
*
And to conclude, I just went looking for this on Youtube on the offchance they'd uploaded it and there it was! My camera was attached to my laptop uploading pictures through the whole thing and I was just mourning not having a record of it this morning, but hurrah for Youtube.
Okay, brief backstory: this is from the Tasman Bay Backpackers which is where I stayed in Nelson, probably one of my favourite hostels of all despite the crappy internet. Every night at 8pm we got free chocolate pudding and ice-cream which was so awesome that George, amazing talented George who was already there when I arrived, had composed a song about it. (By the way, he is totally going to be famous today. We watched him write another song called 'Japanese Lady' and then none of us could stop singing it the next day. So. Talented.)
I'm not in this vid but I am just out of camera shot applauding with everyone else. I'm so glad they uploaded it.
And finally, now you've waded through all the random backstory, here it is: George Woodhouse sings 'Chocolate Pudding'. Trust me, it's worth watching just for George. :)
God did I love that hostel. <3 Though maybe it would've been less awesome without random guitar-toting blonds but maybe not. Free chocolate pudding doesn't come along every day.
That's put me in a good mood. Hurrah! :D And I'm leaving this hostel to-mooooorrrooowwww. Double hurrah!
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Date: 2009-05-22 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-23 07:25 am (UTC)