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
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