Some new roommates.

I have become quite good friends with two of my new roommates. A Dutchman named Tim and a Englishman named Phil. I ended up going down to the Globe Bar with them for free pizza night and a few drinks. After a couple drinks I decided to go upstairs and grab my camera which was a good decision because now I have pictures to append to the end of this post. However I had enough drinks when going to get my camera that bringing my $800 DSLR down to the Globe Bar seemed like a good idea because it was right at the front of my locker and my cheap point and shoot camera was buried in my laptop bag. 

This blog post is about to turn into more of picture story now than an actual post with literary substance involved.

I ventured back downstairs with my DSLR in hand but not before stopping in the bathroom and taking some pictures. One of which is featured below...

Following this pit-stop I returned to globe bar and began snapping photos until my camera died. If it werent for the photographic evidence I would not of even remembered these Jagerbombs.

This group Jagerbombing was followed by a classy photo of drink running down my chin. The shot glass in the glass always throws me.

This was followed up by another round of Export Gold.

I wrapped the picture taking up by snapping a photo of Wes counting change before my camera died and presumably I packed it in shortly after this as the photo is time stamped just before midnight. 

Bed situation.

I made the unfortunate mistake two days ago of not leaving enough stuff on my bed to make it look occupied to house keeping. This created a chain reaction which leads to my current situation of changing beds two nights in a row and having to sleep in a bed that had been slept in previously on both nights. 

It started by house keeping changing my bed instead of one of the ones that checked out. I was downstairs for most of the day so I didn't notice this until 10PM when I came upstairs to put my laptop away and get ready for bed. I went over to locker to lock up my stuff and realized someone was sleeping in my beds. I then looked around and saw that all the beds were occupied and one was unoccupied but looked slept in. I eventually made the executive decision to just continue my evening routine of showering and brushing my teeth and then going to bed - even if it wasn't into my own bed.

The following day I tricked house keeping into making my new bed by leaving it clear again but this time I came up before check-in and put my two jackets on the bed to "mark it" as being my own. Thinking the battle was over and I had emerged victorious I headed back downstairs. Once more I came back to my room in the evening and once again THERE WAS SOMEONE SLEEPING IN MY BED AGAIN. This person had taken the care to remove my jackets from my bed and proceed to occupy it. Once again I was forced to sleep in a new bed that had to been made since the previous occupant had checked out. 

I finally decided to take drastic action. I woke up before house keeping again, cleared my bed and then proceeded to sit in the room and wait for house keeping to come. By doing this I was finally able to get everything back on track and although I have a new bed it's at least still a top bunk and has clean sheets on it. Problem solved.

Here is a picture of me eating some sushi I got across the street for $5NZD ($3.55CAD)

The Big Eat...

Tonight marks the most pizza I have eaten since my attempt at eating an entire large "Attic Special" in Ontario in the summer of 2006. Today was my first day being allowed to drink after being on medication for a couple weeks. I decided that I would participate in "The Big Eat" in celebration. For $10NZD ($7.26CAD) you get all you can eat pizza and a pint of Export Gold. Needless to say I went into this prepared to get my monies worth. I ate breakfast but skipped lunch and dinner. I mostly just drank water all day in preparation. I got down to Globe Bar around 7:30 and drank my free pint that came with my "Big Eat" voucher while watching some folks shoot pool. After that I joined in on a game (and befriended to nice guys from England, who also happened to be my roommates in the process) and made a mind blowing come back consisting of three consecutive ridiculously lucky shots and one final shot to sink the eight ball (for four shots it really looked like I knew what I was doing). I sat out a game and then played another which I lost. This game ended around 8:30 when the pizza for the "Big Eat" finally arrived.

The Big Eat consisted of two or three tables put together with about 12-15 Pizza's laid out on the tables. Every pizza was different and you could have as many slices you wanted. There was about 15 of us doing it and we were unable to consume all the pizza the Globe Bar purchased.

I ate a lot of pizza - a lot. I had a minimum sixteen slices which equates to two pizzas. I washed all these slices of pizza down with two pints of Tui and then packed it in to watch Heroes on my laptop in the lounge with a bag of skittles. Following this I went to bed.

I will close with a picture of me and Long John Silver at the Victoria Airport

THIEVERY!

I posted earlier about my iPod getting stolen from my room - or more specifically from my bed while I was asleep listening to it. Apparently this was not isolated incident. Apparently it was not isolated to my room or even my floor or even that day for that matter. So far the following has been stolen from my room since I've been there (outside of the iPod none of this is mine)

• 8GB iPod Touch
• $400 windows mobile phone
• $400 cash
• $50 cash

This stuff was stolen from four different people on three different nights. After $450 cash was stolen in one night the hostel changed the lock on our door. I learned from a friend who has also been here for awhile (who also got robbed of his credit card and some cash from a different room on a different floor along with another guy in the room) that some people decide to eat the $20 key deposit and keep the room key when they check out because it gives them easy access to 8 peoples stuff seven nights a week. The key gives them access to the entire floor through the elevators (the elevators only let you go to the floor which your key corresponds to) which can in turn give them access to more rooms than they have keys for. Some very devious people have taken to damaging the locks to make the doors challenging to close. These leads to situation where sometimes people leave the room and door open because they don't check to make sure the door actually closed. My rooms door was like this for the first week but it's since been fixed (and since been damaged again last night). As a result of this nonsense I keep everything except my clothes, toiletries and food under lock and key all the time. I also have started warning people to not leave out anything they care about it.

In addition to all this I've started monitoring the fire doors. People have been known to prop open the fire doors on floors when they can because this gives them access to that floor from street level without having to pass any cameras on the third or entrance floor.

I still enjoy the hostel I am staying at but I am becoming increasingly paranoid anytime someone comes in or out of my room particularly at night.

In happier news. Here is a picture of my hotel in Fiji and a picture of me pretending to be a pilot or an astronaut or something.

The Dark Knight

In a startling change of pace and break from tradition I decided to end my "not going to the movies" streak and went to the cinema to watch a film. The last movie I saw in theatres was "The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift" (2006) and before that it was "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003). 

This may shock and surprise many but before tonight I had not see "The Dark Knight". As a result of this and the general disappointment I receive every time I am forced to tell someone I have not seen this movie I decided now was as good a time as any to see it. Three of my friends asked if I wanted to go see it in IMAX with them and the price was right so off to the theatre that is literally 200 metres from the entrance to the hostel and also host to New Zealand's *only* IMAX screen we went. The night ended up costing me $8NZD for my ticket, and $16.50NZD for a large popcorn, large coke and a bag of peanut M&M's. That translates to about $17.50CAD which is pretty damn good from what I remember of movie theatre concession and ticket prices. 

Before the movie John and I were forced to stop at Globe Bar downstairs to take advantage of the free $1000 bar tab for Auckland Central Base guests. Of course I can't drink right now due to being on steroids and anti-biotics from my recent bout with poor healthy so I just grabbed two drinks and played cup holder while John drank his and then reloaded him as he finished.

After this 15 minute detour we met up with Sophie and Sarah and proceeded to the theatre. I have to say the movie was really amazing. It was quite long but it never felt like it over stayed it's welcome. It had a lot of great lines in it and a number of really impressive scenes. At first I wasn't sure it was a movie I'd want to watch again but after sleeping on it I can see myself picking it up on Blu-Ray when I get home.

Following the movie we decided to hit up Burger King for some food and drink (with free refills!). I grabbed a triple cheeseburger meal and we sat down and played cards and chatted for an hour or so before heading back to the hostel. Back at the hostel we watched random videos on youtube for a bit and then packed it in for the night. All in all an enjoyable evening.

I don't really know what this has to do with anything but I bought some chocolate milk the other day. MMMMMMM!

Another grocery shopping trip!

Once again the time came where I ran out of food and needed to make a pilgrimage to Foodtown to acquire more groceries. Mike and I decided we'd head down together as he needed food too. So off to Foodtown we went. I decided because I was feeling healthier I'd actually buy some food this time because I had the strength to carry it back. I haven't been brave enough yet in my cooking skills to branch out from grilled cheese sandwiches yet so I bought a loaf of bread and some processed cheese. I also bought some instant soup packets because those are nice and easy to put together. I also decided I'd eaten enough toast for breakfast so I bought some cereal and milk as well. To once again give people an idea what stuff here costs I am going to post my receipt. I'm also posting my receipt because it's a good time killer.

• White Milk Standard 2L - $3.58
• Green Eco Bag - $0.99
• Keloggs Frosted Flakes 430g - $6.55 x2
• Molenburg 700g Whole Grain Bread - $4.19
• Bananas (0.983Kg) - $2.62
• Royal Gala Apples (0.708Kg)  - $4.23
• 300g Baguette -  $1.48
• Chocolate Milk 2L - $3.99
• Instant Noodles Five Pack - $2.99
• S&S Fresh Orange Juice - $6.49
• Lynx Arctic Shower Gel - $5.49
• Pepsi-Cola 1.5L - $1.75

Grand Total: $50.90

If any of you math types add all this up and realize that it doesn't actually add up t $50.90 that's because I signed up for the "One Card" which saved me $1.90

I should go check my mail and see if my actual one card has arrived yet. I like having cards.

Anyways that's all for today.  I will sign off with grocery pictures.

My Room

As I said yesterday many people have been eager to see what kind of room I'm living in. I am in an eight bed dorm room at a hostel in downtown Auckland. My room is basically four double bunks with a walking path down the centre and a mini fridge at one end. Under the bunks are boxes where you can lock your stuff up. House keeping comes in every morning around 11ish and changes the beds of the people who left. So far in lieu of an alarm clock I have been using house keeping to wake me up in the morning. The beds have pretty skimpy pillows so I've been using my fleece jacket underneath the pillow to bulk it up. The really cool aspect of sleeping in an eight bedroom dorm (especially for as long as I have) is that you get to meet a ton of people from all over the world. So far I've roomed with people from Germany, Sweden, Canada, United States, Australia, South Korea, Malaysia Ireland and England. The dorm experience for me so far has been great. I really enjoy it. I've adapted to sharing a room with 8 people much better than I thought I would. The only downside to the eight bed dorm compared to the four bed dorm is it has less of a family feel to it. When I was in the four person dorm the four of us staying there seemed to bond better. We'd go out and do stuff together and just generally were more tightly knit than I find people are in the eight bed room.

Each floor in the building has a set of three guys showers and three girls showers. It also has two male washrooms and two female washrooms. So far I have yet to have to wait for a shower to free-up so it's not as bad as it sounds. The showers are push button meaning you push the button, get about 10-30 seconds of water and then have to push it again. This was a bit of a hurdle at first but it doesn't bother me anymore.

The hostel also has pretty decent cooking facilities with 24 burners (12 gas 12 electric), 8 sinks, 3 microwaves, some industrial toaster over thing, 3 refrigerators (two of which have been broken since I arrived. They also have a boiling water dispenser which is great for making instant soup (which I lived off of while I was sick) which provides easy access to instant boiling water. They also provide lots of cooking and eating utensils (there never seems to be spatula's though) as well as pots, pans, plates and bowls etc. There is also a "free food" shelf were people leave stuff they dont want to bring with them when they leave. I'm probably going to start tapping into this soon as it will provide a good way to keep costs down. There also seems to be a decent selection if you get there at the right time.

Cost wise I am paying $26NZD per night or approximately $18.81CAD per night. Which works out to around $570CAD a month. In addition to this I am paying about $108CAD a month for internet. Budget wise everything is working out great. I'm keeping my food costs down, not eating out very often. I'm eating a lot of fruit because most of it is pretty cheap. I've also lucked out and had roommates leave a lot of food behind (loaf of bread, bag of apples) so I am living as cheaply as possible food wise right now. I'm hoping I can build up enough energy to hit the grocery store again soon to get some pasta sauce so I can make some kind of pasta for dinner one night.

I think that about wraps this up for now. I will close out with some pics of my room and the lounge in the hostel.

Shot down the room. My bed is in the back right corner on the top.

My bed. I can't be bothered to make it up.

A guy who's name I cannot remember, Mike and Ian sitting at the desk.

The high cost of doughnuts.

The cost of doughnuts in New Zealand is insane. To purchase a dozen doughnuts from the Dunkin' Donuts across the street from where I am staying in Auckland will set you back $20NZD or approximately $14.47CAD ($1.21CAD per doughnut). As a Canadian who regularily frequents the local Timmies for the occasional doughnut or muffin or whatever else it seems completely insane to have to pay $1.21CAD per doughnut when purchasing 12 doughnuts considering that one doughnut in Canada at a Tim Hortons is only about eighty cents. It gets better still though because this $14.47CAD for a dozen doughnuts business only applies to "holed" doughnuts (ie no fritters, no jelly filled, no cream filled).

I walked past the Dunkin' Donuts today and saw that they were having a special promotion. You could get a dozen "holed" doughnuts for only $15NZD or $10.85CAD. While this is approaching a more "reasonable" cost ($0.90CAD per doughnut) that's still pretty high considering you have to buy a twelve pack of doughnuts to get this price.

To put the ridiculousness of the cost of doughnuts here in to better perspective a 15 pack of bottled Tui (popular New Zealand beer) is $15.99NZD or approximately $11.57CAD ($0.77CAD per bottle). This makes the whole doughnut situation even more odd sounding than it already is.

Anyways that's enough complaining about doughnut prices for now. I'm sure I'll cave and buy some at some point anyways. I love me some doughnuts.

I'm going to try and get some pictures of my room later as a number of people have been asking to see where I am living currently. Hopefully my room clears out and I can get some decent photos.

I'll close out with another group dinner shot from my first week here.

Real Dinner

Lately I haven't put a lot of effort into "cooking" meals. I usually have toast for breakfast, maybe a sandwich for lunch and a sandwich for dinner. Occasionally I'll stop down to the Globe Bar for free pizza when they do that which is always a pleasant treat. The main reason I haven't put much time into actually cooking food is because I feel bad walking around coughing on everything while everyone is cooking their food. However every now and again the group of us here (Mike, Devon, Casey, myself and usually one or two other randoms) all chip in for food and put something clever together for dinner. To date two stir-fries and spaghetti have been made all three of which were very good (and very cheap!). Tonight was one such night where we did one of these group dinner functions and because I'm still moderately sick I decided against touching any of the food during preparation and just left it to the healthy people. So naturally instead of being helpful I just took pictures instead. Good times were had by all. The food was also awesome. Mike did yet another stellar job cooking. Enjoy the photos!

New Roommates!

At the hostel I am staying at in Auckland I currently reside in an eight bed dorm room. Picture a tiny room with four double bunks packed into it. A four foot walk way down the centre and a little corner with a mini fridge. Good times. Last night seven beds cleared (I am unsure if this was coincidence or a bi-product of my coughing) and I got to meet my new roommates today. The interesting and significant part of this is that all of them are from Canada. Since leaving Canada I have met maybe three or four fellow Canadians in several weeks. As you can imagine suddenly having seven fellow Canadians move in was kind of cool. One of them is even from Victoria. I know this is pretty cheap thrills but it's all I've got right now being sick. I did go out for a bit tonight. I went down to the globe bar for some free pizza which is always good. Met up with my friend Casey who is back in town for a few days and after leaving the bar went and grabbed a Kebab from "Istanbul Kebab" on Queen Street.  After our Kebabs we went back to the hostel where I have been working on Amazon stuff for an hour or two now and Casey headed back down to the bar with Mike "The King" Ansley to party it up for a few hours. I on the other opted to just keep working away on my Amazon stuff and now here I am at one AM putting up a filler post to pad my blog and keep people happy =)

Here is a picture of some Polynesian Fire Dancers taken off the balcony of my hotel room in Fiji...

Grocery Shopping

I did some more grocery shopping today. I'm bored and have my receipt handy so Im going to provide an itemized list with prices so everyone back home can get a bit of a feel for the cost of stuff here.

• Eco Chill Bag (those reusable grocery bags, only this one is insulated) - $2.95
  
• Five Slices of Pita Bread - $3.89
  
• Whole Wheat Loaf of Bread - $2.49
  
• Colgate Whitening Tooth Paste w/ Tartar control - $5.08
  
• Kraft Chunky Peanut Butter 375g - $4.06
  
• Large Rose Apples (1.098KG) - $4.37
  
• Bananas (0.738KG) - $1.97
  
• Hummus 175g - $3.68
  
• Charlies Pure Squeezed Orange Juice (not from concentrate) - $6.39
  
• Surf Laundry Detergent 1KG - $2.64
  
• Berry Explosion Meal Replacement Drink 3pk - $3.99
  

Grand Total: $41.96NZD or roughly $30.03CAD

Apparently I could of saved another $1.20 if I had a Food Town "OneCard" but I don't know how to get one of those. Perhaps something to look into tonight.

Some contact info!

Here is some info for anyone looking to keep tabs on me while I am away. 

E-Mail: blackmagiic@gmail.com

Phone Number (Washington, USA): 1-253-777-3418

Skype Name: blackmagiic

You can also keep up on some of my pictures if you don't have me on facebook by watching my Flickr Feed

The last spaced out post...I promise!

Im going to start with the positives of my trip thus far before I spiral off into a long diatribe about how far down hill things have managed to go in the past week. Anyways here we go.

I lucked out with my room mates for the first week. A guy from Ohio named Casey and a girl from Maine named Devon both are recent college grads and out exploring the world for the first time. This in itself makes me feel really really young and out of place considering these two have already finished college and I *just* finished highschool. Fortunately we all get along great. In addition to these two a third person has been cycling through the fourth bed in our room usually every other night or two which was kind of cool to get to meet a new person every day. All of them were great two, although the guy on the final night was a bit energetic for me (he came in drunk at 3AM knocking on the door, after knocking on all the other doors on our because he forgot which room he was in). Outside of him though we had a guy from New York, a guy from Melbourne and a guy from Manchester named Adam who is by far one of the funniest people I have ever met in my life. This guy would make a great stand-up comedian. He comes up with the funniest asides about absolutely everything. Good times were had with him until he left to do conservation work a few days ago. However he offered me a place to stay if I ever come to Manchester so that's a plus. In addition to these people I also met a guy named Mike which really illustrates the "small world" nature of our fine planet. He is from White Rock, BC but upon his return he is moving to the West Shore and going to Royal Roads for his degree. In addition to this he he recognized the name Brandon Rosario when I mentioned it because he'd seen the speech on youtube.

The first night here I didnt do much, I ended up packing it in before my roommates despite bugging them all day for being so jet lagged and tired. Day two was a different story,  I was introduced to a drinking card game called "Kings" this game is played with a standard deck of cards and a seemingly random set of rules based on what card you draw. I've played with multiple people multiple times now and we seem to use a different ruleset every-time, maybe this is just the beauty of the game. Anyways the game on the first night was entertaining I was the clear cut winner or loser depending how you want to look at as I had to drink all five (my quota of the fifteen bottle case of Tui) of my beers in the first fifteen minutes of the game and as a result I was drinking pepsi for the other thirty to forty-five minutes of the game. After this game we went out to explore the pub/bar/club options around our Hostel, we picked up a few drinks along the way but concluded that the best place in the near vicinity is the Globe Bar conveniently located in the basement of the hostel. Our experience at the bar the first night was interesting because the police showed up and were checking the ID's of anyone who looked under age. However, they were not only checking ID's they were also checking visas to ensure you were actually allowed to be in the country and not just allowed to drink. That was kind of kind of sketchy but fortunately the bar only took passports as ID for foreigners so I had my passport anyways. 

Second night was a lot of more interesting. We got warmed up for the night playing another game of kings in which I performed better or worse depending how you choose to look at it. After the game was over we headed down to the Globe Bar for some free pizza and the drinking started. By the end of the night at the bar I'd had 3 Heneikens,  2 Woodstocks (Bourbon & Cola), 1 Jagerbomb, 2 Vodka Demons and 4 or 5 pints of Tui (popular New Zealand beer), not including the 3 or 4 bottles of Tui I had before we came down. All of this was mixed in with probably two litres of water in attempt to keep myself in the game. Long story short I was in the mood for dancing and danced the night away with random people. Good times.

In amongst the nightly partying I decided I was in the mood to jump off a tall buidling. It was less than a five minute walk to the Auckland City Sky Tower which is apparently the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. It cost me $175NZD to dawn a ridiculous looking jump suit and ascend tower to the 53rd floor wherein I was harnessed up and taken out to ledge from which I proceeded to jump and plummet 630ft at approximately 80Km/h. After my first jump I was given the option to jump again at no extra cost so naturally I was all over that and back up the tower to do it again five minutes later. That day was definitely a trip highlight so far.

In other positive happy news I have had some really good food since I've been here. I've had some sushi and finally learned how to use chopsticks. I've also explored Turkish cuisine and had a lamb Kebab. I've also had some good food cooking with my friends at the hostel. We had a very enjoyable stir fry the one night with prawns and chicken. We also had some spaghetti and lastly the old staple of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. 

I think that's enough good news for now. I will summarize my bad news below with an itemized list of the lovely things that have happened in my not so pleasant second week in New Zealand...

• Sick, very sick. After a week of doing my best to just be a man and deal with it I finally folded and saw the doctor and apparently have some kind of Bronchioconstriction issue. Good times.
• Five prescriptions + over the counter stuff I'd been taking before I went to the doctor + doctors appointment. $300NZD
• Doctor says I will be sick for atleast another week. So that puts my sick time at a minimum of 2 weeks
• iPod Touch Stolen
• Right earbud on headphones stopped working, possibly due to a problem with my iPod Nano
• iPod Nano possibly being a headphone killer

Rangitoto Island Adventure Day

Rangitoto Island is a volcanic island in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland, New Zealand. The 5.5 km wide island is an iconic and widely visible landmark of Auckland with its distinctive symmetrical shield volcano cone rising 260 metre (850 ft) high over the Hauraki Gulf.[1] Rangitoto is the most recent and the largest (2311 hectares) of the approximately 50 volcanoes of the Auckland Volcanic Field. It is linked by a natural causeway to the much older, non-volcanic Motutapu Island and is separated from the mainland of Auckland's North Shore by the Rangitoto Channel.

Today me and some of my friends decided to take a day trip to Rangitoto Island. I've posted a quote about it from Wikipedia to give you an idea as to what the island is all about.





We headed out late morning to hit up Food Town to get some ingredients for Peanut Butter & Jam Sandwiches to eat on the island. After that we proceeded to the ferry where we all grabbed muffins from a little coffee stand before purchasing the $25 ticket to take the ferry to Rangitoto Island. Once we got onto the island we began our trek to the summit. Part way up the mountain we ventured off into some lava caves and met another American named Kelly who happened to be staying at the same hostel we are all at. She joined us for the remainder of the trek to the summit.





The summit sported all kinds of neat stuff as the island was home to a coastal defense base during the second world war. We took a handful of photos and walked around the crater rim and then geared up to head back down the mountain.





After wrapping up at the summit we took the extremely scenic route back down the mountain which took well over twice what it did to come up. We stopped by a volcanic beach which was cool, no black sand though. The weather on the island felt remarkably like home. It switched between comfortably warm and raining at-least a dozen times. Upon our arrival back at the wharf we busted out the bread and made some mighty fine peanut butter and jam sandwiches.






While we were waiting on the pier to load the boat Mike discovered an entertaining game to play with a seagull. He just checked bread into the air and this thing could pick them out of the air like it was nothing. All this despite a very brisk wind. It provided a great deal of entertainment for all of us and everyone else waiting to load the boat.





You can check out all of my photos from Rangitoto either on Flickr or Facebook

First Week Recap

It's been a hectic week or however many days it has been. It already feels as if I have been gone for a month. Im making this post just cover my first little bit of the trip. I landed in Fiji on the 28th of September after leaving Victoria on the 26th. The plane ride to Fiji was very comfortable as the plane was half full so I was able to lay down across three seats and sleep for most of it. The hotel in fiji was really nice and allowed me plenty of time to recover from the incredible jet-lag I experienced after my flight. I spent a full two days getting my internal clock sorted out and inline with the local time. The weather in Fiji was great probably between 25-35 the whole time even at night. The hotel had a great restaurant even though I didn't eat much for the first bit. It's important to note the Canadian dollar is doing really well against the Fiji dollar with the exchange rate around $1CAD = $1.53FJD.

Since then I have made my journey to New Zealand and am currently residing at the Auckland Central Backpackers Hostel in Auckland, NZ. It's a nice place and I've met some cool people here. I am currently sharing a room with two people - a guy from Ohio and a girl from Maine. I havent done much here in Auckland yet but I plan to go base jumping off the Skytower here in Auckland early next week.

I'll be doing my best to post here every day or two and will be posting pictures when the cable for my camera gets here.

-Ryan