NZ
Hello to everyone!
So it's been an interesting trip so far. We got on the plane, a beautiful 777 with the little TVs in the back of the seats. They had a full selection of movies, TV programmes (hehe, I like the spelling) and games. I found something that caught my eye, and being that there were 12 hours in the flight and I can never sleep on planes, I took the challenge. I ended up watching all three Lord of the Rings movies in sequence. It was intense. We got into Auckland at about 4:15am New Zealand time, and got through customs and Biosecurity by 5:30am, which is pretty good. Most of it was us waiting for our baggage. We flew to Tauranga just before 7am. The rest of the day was spent trying to stay awake, walking up and down Mount Manganui and going to my Grandpa's club.
The Tauranga Club is a place where businessmen and upstanding men of the community go to drink, hobnob, and socialize. It being right before Christmas, there was almost nobody there, except the bartender. My Grandpa bought my brother, my dad, and me drinks. If you're ever in New Zealand, I recommend the Export Gold beer. It's pretty good.
After that, it was difficult to do, but we managed to get to bed at a fairly decent time.
Today, we got up and went for a long run around and estuary, and found that someone, in a fit of intelligence, decided to drive a car into the estuary and drink around it, and on the rugby pitch right next to it. We figured that by the time we got back to my Grandpa's house, that the tide had come in and flooded the car. We then went to do some Christmas shopping, and found lots of stocking stuffers for all the relatives. Tomorrow my cousins from the South Island are going to be arriving, and then things will get really crazy. But so far, the most we've done is torment my mother by buying really good dark chocolate and a good port to drink with it. Obviously, we were tormenting her with the port.
Merry Christmas (10:37pm December 23, NZ time, 1:39am December 23, PST)
Installment 2: Our Cousins came today, it was quite the time. We had a delicious dinner, followed by some excellent dark chocolate and port. In the process, I got drunk to a pretty good level, and then went outside and chatted with James about how both of our countries are going to hell in a handbasket. It was also interesting to hear about my cousin Geraldine's experiences in the hostel she was staying at for University in Wellington. One of the hospital orderlies who was staying there sounded like he might be able to drink some of my frat brothers under the table, definitely including me, although I'm glad that I couldn't from the "running on the pitch after the game, getting tackled by the police, and managing to talk the magistrate out of charging him with anything" stunt. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to put any of this up yet, internet is being harder to come by than I thought it would be.
(T-20 minutes until Christmas NZ time, T-21 hours and 20 minutes until Christmas PST)
So it's been an interesting trip so far. We got on the plane, a beautiful 777 with the little TVs in the back of the seats. They had a full selection of movies, TV programmes (hehe, I like the spelling) and games. I found something that caught my eye, and being that there were 12 hours in the flight and I can never sleep on planes, I took the challenge. I ended up watching all three Lord of the Rings movies in sequence. It was intense. We got into Auckland at about 4:15am New Zealand time, and got through customs and Biosecurity by 5:30am, which is pretty good. Most of it was us waiting for our baggage. We flew to Tauranga just before 7am. The rest of the day was spent trying to stay awake, walking up and down Mount Manganui and going to my Grandpa's club.
The Tauranga Club is a place where businessmen and upstanding men of the community go to drink, hobnob, and socialize. It being right before Christmas, there was almost nobody there, except the bartender. My Grandpa bought my brother, my dad, and me drinks. If you're ever in New Zealand, I recommend the Export Gold beer. It's pretty good.
After that, it was difficult to do, but we managed to get to bed at a fairly decent time.
Today, we got up and went for a long run around and estuary, and found that someone, in a fit of intelligence, decided to drive a car into the estuary and drink around it, and on the rugby pitch right next to it. We figured that by the time we got back to my Grandpa's house, that the tide had come in and flooded the car. We then went to do some Christmas shopping, and found lots of stocking stuffers for all the relatives. Tomorrow my cousins from the South Island are going to be arriving, and then things will get really crazy. But so far, the most we've done is torment my mother by buying really good dark chocolate and a good port to drink with it. Obviously, we were tormenting her with the port.
Merry Christmas (10:37pm December 23, NZ time, 1:39am December 23, PST)
Installment 2: Our Cousins came today, it was quite the time. We had a delicious dinner, followed by some excellent dark chocolate and port. In the process, I got drunk to a pretty good level, and then went outside and chatted with James about how both of our countries are going to hell in a handbasket. It was also interesting to hear about my cousin Geraldine's experiences in the hostel she was staying at for University in Wellington. One of the hospital orderlies who was staying there sounded like he might be able to drink some of my frat brothers under the table, definitely including me, although I'm glad that I couldn't from the "running on the pitch after the game, getting tackled by the police, and managing to talk the magistrate out of charging him with anything" stunt. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to put any of this up yet, internet is being harder to come by than I thought it would be.
(T-20 minutes until Christmas NZ time, T-21 hours and 20 minutes until Christmas PST)