Six Curious Tales

The first Monday in our house, our landlord, BG, came over to pick us for sailing. He tells us that he goes every monday to get rid of "Mondayitis" as we get into his Land Rover. After picking up the outboard, petrol, and some pies ("in case we get lost out there in the ocean") we get to the dock. We unload all the gear and travel down the gangway to the floating (or, more accurately, sinking) dock and begin to load up the boat. After some trouble with the outboard and the sinking dock, we get underway. The weather is beuatiful, and BG tells us that the bay is not usually this windy, so we picked a good day to come out. Noah takes the tiller while Keller, BG and I raise the sails, then we all settle down to some of the meat pies BG brought along. We through a couple of fishing lines out the back of the boat, lay back, and relax. As we get back into port, BG's friends from the RSA (Retired Serviceman's Association, I think) meet us at the dock, and we spend some time sitting on the dock, drinking beers, and shooting the bull with them. 

Tuesday, while coming home from an evening run to the video store for more episodes of "House" (we've watched this show to the point where we routinely have medical sounding conversations in an attempt to convince passersby that we are doctors) we run into our neighbor, Halley, her (or possible someone else's) children and an Arabic man we assume (falsely) to be her boyfriend. Halley is nearly falling over drunk, but we manage to have a casual conversation as we hear through the park home. At our driveways, she invites us in for a beer, and despite many (made up) excuses on our behalf, we accept. We have a seat in the living room with a Tui apiece, and talk about the neighbothood, music, the othe rneighbor, Brian (whom Halley refers to as "Old Brian") and the colony of aroused, feral cats that live and under our back porch. Her cat, Sambo (guess what color he is), had just had a batch of kittens (as well as a startling sexual revelation) after suspected late-night activites under our house. The kittens are brought our by her daughter, as well as a new beer for me, and are AMAZINGLY cute. The kids get put in bed (via a process of Halley yelling at them to go to bed), and our Arabic friend, who is attending the Polytech school outside of town gets up to leave. After he's out the door, Halley turns to us and says "Who the hell was he? I'm glad you guys came over, because he just followed me home.". A couple days later we met the Arabic guy again, and he seemed very nice. Who knows what was up that night.  

Wesnesday, Mike (our Real Estate agent) came over to check the damage report. After going through the kitchen and living room, we got to the garage.

"Know what that's for?" he said, pointing to an old fridge in the corner. "That's the beer fridge! The kiwi women don't let the men keep all thier beer in the kitchen fridge, so they get another one just for themselvs!"

After traveling through the upstairs, Mike asks us if all we've got are single beds, which  we confirm this to be the sad truth.

"Ah, that'll be OK," he says, "until you bring some girls home. You know the rule? If she's good lookin', she gets to come here, but if she's ugly you've got to go to her place. That way you can get out real fast in the morning. If you let her come here, you'll have all kinds of trouble gettin' her to leave in the morning." He pauses to let this sink in, and as we head downstairs, adds one last bit of advice "Never wake up next to an ugly woman. It's the worst thing you can do.".

Thursday our neighbor, Brian (Old Brian) came over to give us a friendly warning (unrelated to the previous night's meeting) about the feral cats living under our house. We tossed around ideas for repelling them, and he explained garbage and recycle pick-up to us (surprisingly complicated). He asked us if we had gone on any tours, and when we responded to the negative, he said "Well, I'm not doing anything today. I'll be back for you around 1." and took off. At around 1:30 (Kiwi time is unsurprisingly relaxed) he came by, and took us off to the "Taradale Boobs" (formed by the legendary 1931 earthquake that leveled the city and brought the surrounding region (priviously under the bay) up 2 meters (the flat, irrigated unpopulated plaines giving rise to the region's vitriculture industry)) which he said "could not have been shaped by man". After the boobs, we drove around the town to the Mission winery (oldest winery in NZ) and on to Westshore for a look at some shipwrecks. After that was The Hill (previously the center of town, when most of the present suburbs were underwater), with the gun battery from WWII, derelict Hospital (which Brian helped to build) and old prison, converted to hostel. Once we got home, Brian took us over to Halley's house (she was gone) and shook us a ton of grapefruit out of her tree (with the standing offer to come fetch him to shake the tree for us if we wanted any more). 

Friday, I was sitting around the kitchen looking for food in the morning when i was startled by a loud knock at the door, and looked over to see BG. I let him, and, as per usual ignoring any greeting, he said "The rule is, I bring the cake, you make the tea." while handing me a paper bag. He berated Noah for sleeping in so late (Keller woke up and joined us for tea and cake) and gave us a couple of numbers to call for work.

Saturday evening, our friend (perhaps "mate" is the proper term) Sam came over for a movie. He played us some Kiwi death metal, and we played him some Dave Matthews. We watched Saving Private Ryan, then headed out to Billy's (the local Irish pub) to play some pool. We listened to the live band for a while, and ultimately decided to head to the Thirsty Whale, an upscale party bar in Westshore. We take a taxi there, and experience the hospitality of the kiwi cabbie yet again. We headed into the bar, only to find that there was hardly any space to move - the entire (large) building was absolutely packed. Sam pushed his way in, yelling over the music "This looks like kinda a slow night, usually it's much more packed!". We danced, drank, screamed along to Sweet Home Alabama with Maoris, and learned the requirements for calling yourself "Dodger" (if you're curious, you're name has to be Rodger, as opposed to Roger, with no "d") before taking a cab home and gratefully crawling into bed. The next morning, Sam took off for a day with "the missus" (what he continually, and to my great enjoyment, refered to his girlfriend as) and we settle down for a day of movies and pies.

More to come as events warrant - BG promised us that if it snowed in the mountains we'd take off a weekend and head up there, so we'll see what happens.

Housin'

We moved into the rental house yesterday, if you haven't heard... I know it's been a while since the last post, but we've been busy/sitting around.
We're getting internet and phone service in the house pretty soon, so I'll write more then, but for now, we're settling in and things are awesome. We met our landlord B.G. today, he's a 68 year old kiwi guy who grew up in the bush, he's deaf and has a wooden leg. He kicks arse!

More later... also, tons of pictures OTW.

Part II

We left the hostel to get dinner from the grocery store. On our way there, we see no people. None. I am convinced that some grizzled old man is going to jump out of a doorway and say something like "None pass this way! You will be doomed like all the rest!", or that we have accidentaly stumbled onto the grounds of a nuclear test site. Noah is convinced my fears are unfounded. As we reach the supermarket, my fears that P. North is controlled by demonic forces is realized as we pass car upon car, parked in front of the store, with people "sleeping" (dead, I think) in the front seats. On our way back, we pass a scruffy man carrying a child (whom he probably just finished consuming raw) 's bicycle. Oh dear.
After returning, we head into our room, and find out where the other guys were. They were (we assume) out drinking in a gutter. As we walk in, one rolls out of bed and says, to Keller, "Lawry? Are you still up?" to which Keller replies that he is not, in fact, Lawry. This prompts much apologizing, and the man falls back asleep. Keller and I crawl into our nice, warm sleeping bags and fall asleep. Later, Lawry (we assume) stumbles into the room. and into bed. He screams at his friend to stop snoring, then begins to make noises that I have never heard another human being make, asleep or awake*. I manage to fall asleep, though I do wake up periodically during the night in fear of the rapture. The next morning, I awake to the unprecedented sight of Noah not asleep. His bed is empty. I get up, and head to the kitchen where I find him huddled over some cereal like a Holocaust survivor. He tells me that, finding no blankets in the hostel, he was forced to sleep under a pile of his clothes and nearly froze to death (due partially to the window being open). He said that he slept for 2 or 3 hours before gettig up at 5am to take a hot shower. As soon as is possible, we depart from the hostel, leving it's rotund owners and irritating decor (hundreds upon hundreds of little wooden signs hanging around with cute little sayings like "There are no strangers here, only friends we haven't met" on them) behind. After hanging around P. North (slightly less creepy during the day), my purchasing of a new hat, and eating "American Hotdogs" sold by a guy going to Massey University (just out of town) - who also offered us his opinions on good bands, places to work, and music festivals (The only quantity he knew of was "heaps" - and he used this word to describe anything and everything (i.e. "It's heaps fun" "heaps of people" "heaps good music" etc. etc.)) we headed to the bus terminal - headed to Napier and hopefully orchard work. The bus ride took seemingly forever, but we arrived at Napier and checking into an Art Deco hotel turned hostel - very nice.

Tuesday, Keller and Noah slept until, roughly, the end of time. A construction crew outside our window is jackhammering the pavement apart, and we all agree that this is soothing compared to the snoring from the night before. We made some calls about jobs, houses etc, and did another puzzle. I start describing the pieces as people - based on thier appearance (i.e. a short man, a dancing morgan, and bright angel, etc. etc.) which irrates Noah to no end. We finish the puzzle except for the 5 missing pieces (in 2.5 hours) and decide that we will never do a puzzle not freshly out of the box ever again. That night we head downstairs to the bar. It's not very crowded, and we get a chance to watch the other patrons. They are: "Suity", a 32 (he announced this) year-old buisnessman in a suit and tie, who was boisterously intoxicated and bought round after round of drinks, a younger guy with a goatee and turtle-neck sweater who would alternate between grinding on his male friend and making out with (we presume) his girlfriend. We played copious amounts of pool while enjoying the "2 for 1" drink special. We had a brief discussion of the merits of different beers (Keller favors Tui, Noah Export Gold, and I Waikato) but arrived a the mutual conclusion that they are all delicious.

Today we are hopefully headed out on bikes to look at a house we might rent, and enjoy the lovely weather and beaches around Napier.

Peace,

Nathan

*Not even Corey. I'm serious.