24/10/2011 - I have never... AND 26/10/2011 - Fire in the Oven

It's been a fun couple of days, alcohol-fuelled and fun.

On Saturday we mostly hung around the hostel, and in the evening had the plan to get in the hot tub with some beers and have a little chill out. It was lovely and hot but the night was cold, making the water even nicer. Couldn't really figure out how to make the bubbles work, but I queued up a playlist and it was was lovely. Matt and Dave joined us a little later and then two guys from New Zealand turned up and offered around their beer and stash. All in all a relaxing night, even nicer when Matt got his guitar out afterwards and we all had a sing.

Trying to keep the cold beer out of the hot pool!

Yesterday morning I helped Cheryl do the beds and rubbish jobs, which is pretty self explanatory in that you change the beds and take out the rubbish. We decided to go to the museum yesterday, but it would of cost $10 just to see some old ships - not interested. Instead Cheryl, Hayley, Matt and I went to the Aquarium which was right next door. Saw a giant squid body, a stingray and petted a lizard, a pretty cool way to spend an hour or so. We wandered around Picton for a bit before settling down for dinner and chocolate pudding back at the hostel. Whether it was the sugar rush from the pudding or from the shot of Jaeger I don't know, but I was suddenly really psyched for the RWC final which was that night. We'd made plans to go to The Flying Haggis, a Scottish pub we found on the main highstreet, so after getting a little bit dressed up we all left, with two additions who I'd apparently invited from the kitchen in my pudding stupor.

The game was amazingly close, with only two tries scored the whole match. The French played well, admittedly, but the All Blacks deserved that win and even though I am obviously not from NZ, even I felt a little emotional for them, you could see how much it meant to them to win, on their home turf, after 24 years.

Go the All Blacks!

We then realised how ridiculously under-prepared we were for an All Blacks win - we hadn't bought any more alcohol! This being New Zealand, and no less Picton, everything was closed at 11.15pm on a Sunday. We found ourselves dreaming of 24hr Tesco on every corner. Nowhere seemed to have any alcohol at all, so we'd decided we'd have a dry party back at the hostel, which we had to go back to since Hayley was on night duty and drinking out is very expensive. We'd pretty much given up, until when we were only about 200m from the hostel, Hayley spotted a bit, red illuminated sign that said 'Tui' on it and she remembered that was the beer that the NZ guys had had the night before. It was across the playing field that seperates the hostel and other things, almost like a town square, so me and Cheryl ventured over to discover a pub we'd never even known was there. Furthermore, it was a pub that was happy to sell us a big bottle of vodka and two big bottles of Coke - result! We marched back over to the rest, holding the vodka as if it were the World Cup trophy itself, and hilarity ensued. Joined by Stefano from Chile, Dave from Canada and some French guy, there were ten of us all together and we started off a game of 'I Never...'. If you've never played I never (which you really should...) it's a drinking game where each person in turn says "I have never...." then finishes with an action, eg "I have never... done a bungy jump." If you have done that thing, you have to have a drink. Of course, like all good drinking games it descends into the realms of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll eventually, the more you drink. We done another couple of trips over to the pub to top up on alcohol and moved onto playing 'Fuck the Dealer' before eventually deciding to move inside to listen to more guitar playing and singing along. Canadian Dave had a little dance, whilst the rest of us had a sing along to either Matt or German Dave playing. Between them, they played for a good three hours and the next thing we knew it was 4.30am, which made us all very awake that we all had work in the morning. Time for bed. I'd moved rooms that day so literally all of my things were on my bed, so I spent a good ten minutes gently lifting things to the floor without waking the others in the room.

Drunken smiles

Dave and Cheryl

Guitar times - Matt's a genius!

This morning felt like death, I didn't realise how drunk I'd been last night until I woke up at 7am this morning feeling like my brain had collapsed. Since the famed 2008 pick'n'mix incident, I've made a point of avoiding vodka at all costs, now I remember why. Went into the kitchen for breakfast and was greeted by similar looking people from the night before, all nursing hangovers and shaking our heads at each other, each of us knowing we had to work. I was on beds again today, not too bad except Yuki seems convinced to tell me everything I do is wrong but hey ho, I was probably a lot more easily annoyed due to the fact that I was being attacked from every angle by the hangover. I didn't have it bad though, poor Cheryl was on bathrooms this morning, a direct quote from Cheryl - "I wanted to puke cleaning those toilets, how can you lose that many pubes to the toilet when they're only here for one night!?" - In context, we had a massive tour group descend on us last night and then leave again this morning, leaving destruction in their path, it was a nightmare.

After work we decided the best cure would be to go and have fish and chips from Mr Chips (yep, he's here in Picton too!) and then do some shopping for the staff meal tonight. Once a week, Mike gives the staff $30 to cook a big meal between them to share, so tonight Cheryl, Hayley and I are cooking a Sunday (Monday) roast and the others are doing the dishes afterwards. I'm going to go make some Yorkshires now, so I'll be speaking to you all soon.

Oh oh, and a very exciting thing happened today, my beautiful best friend Nikki had her second little girl. I'm so happy for her and so so proud, I can't wait to see pictures. Love you Nikki! xxx

Well, I finished writing this on the 24th but then forgot to post it or upload any pictures, so rather than write it all over again, I'll add to the bottom of this! - 26/10/2011


I'll start by telling you that the roast dinner was mostly successful, except for that we did set the oven on fire. See, what was happening is that the butter from the yorkshires tray was dripping to the bottom and smoking, so we thought we'd put some tinfoil in the bottom to catch the drips, sensible no? Anyhow, the butter got on the tinfoil and apparently got too hot and set on fire. We didn't realise this until we checked the chicken and as Cheryl closed the oven again, I saw a glimpse of flame. It went something like this...

Me: I'm pretty sure I just saw fire in there!Cheryl: (Thinks whatever but checks anyway) Shit! The oven's on fire! Get Mike, get Mike!


Hilarity ensues, after the initial turn-off-the-fire-alarm-open-the-windows panic and miraculously, none of the food was ruined, although the yorkshires were slightly singed. So the meal was nice, if a little cold (silly roast dinner timings) though I think the Asian girls were a bit unsure of it. But everyone ate it and Matt even had seconds so it couldn't of been that bad at all.

Yesterday we worked and then after sitting about for a bit, had a game on Monopoly. Now, Monopoly always starts off being a good idea, but you soon remember how it has the ability to break friendships and after an hour of playing the atmosphere was tense. I like to take full advantage of the rule where if the next player has rolled, you can no longer claim rent if you missed it. So when I rolled a double and landed on Matt's hotel-ed yellows, I was happy to have rolled quickly enough to avoid the $1000 rent. He was not so happy, and was pretty mad, probably understandably. Everyone started to get Monopoly exhaustion and we finished the game, declaring Matt the winner... I'm not sure I've ever played a full game of Monopoly.

Last night was nice and chilled out. I made Hayley, Cheryl and I steak in pitta breads for dinner and then we hung out with Dave and Matt in the hot tub. Dave had been to see Jan which meant we could have a little smoke too and we just sat and looked up at the stars, told scary stories and asked questions like "Would you rather be an arm or a leg?" Also, I saw a shooting star and yes I did make a wish.

Today the weather is dreadful, chucking it down, so I'm in front of the fire with a cup'a'soup and a copy of Cosmo, lovely. One more day of work then I'm off to Nelson of Friday, sad to leave my new friends.