My last few days have been great, although not really busy. On my last night in Taupo, Genna and I went and watched Breaking Dawn. I get that a lot of people don't like Twilight, and I'm not about to say they are the best movies in the world, but I have a soft spot for the books and I honestly didn't think Breaking Dawn was terrible. Sure, it could have been better, but I don't regret paying to see it. After that we walked over to Mulligan's, in what seemed like the freezing cold, for the Tuesday night pub quiz and were joined by Brad, Ben, Di, Bryce, Lisa and Jonny. Dom pointed out to me that the last post I wrote could be paraphrased into saying "I went out drinking... the next day I got drunk... two glasses of wine later...", I guess I have been drinking quite a bit recently, but there's been a lot to celebrate! That said, I've made a concious effort to turn down any drinks offered to me in the last few days as well as cutting out snacking and my skin is thanking me for it.
Anyway, back to the pub quiz! Since this was pre-detox I'll tell you that asking the barman to 'surprise me' is a great way to find out about new yummy drinks. Tom at Mully's mixed me up some vodka, peach schnapps, raspberry something-or-the-other and grenadine - it was bright pink heaven in a glass. Shame I was leaving really as I'd just qualified for locals prices since I was recognised now... not sure that's a good thing? With the quiz well under way, and remembering what the bottom number of a fraction was for a question (the denominator... it took me a good couple of days to rack my brains to remember the top number is called the numerator though...), I was lagging, just so tired. According to Tom, a jaegerbomb was the answer. I'd known it was coming, so bombs it was. Little did I know I'd start a revolt by the other bar staff since Tom didn't buy them bombs, complete with protest signs and chants! When the quiz was over, we ended up coming third. Which wasn't bad at all since there were looaddddds of teams!
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| Brad and Ben |
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| Me, Di and Bryce |
Wednesday afternoon, Brad and I set off for Auckland, stopping at Tirau on the way to pick up Estelle. All was good and we got Estelle to the airport on time, then the problems began. It was rush hour, that was issue no. 1. Then we punched in Kathy's address to the sat nav, followed it, and ended up in completely the wrong place. After renaming the woman on the sat nav after Genna's overall useless ex, we relied on Brad's navigational skills, which didn't go terribly and we ended up in the right place, but with a good two hours detour under our belts. Once Brad left and we'd had dinner, we went for a walk on Takapuna beach with Kathy's friends dogs. It was windy as hell (is hell actually windy..?) but a nice walk nonetheless.
On Thursday we went outlet shopping. Awesome. I probably spent too much money but hey, it's Christmas, I'm buying myself a present! Plus, a beach cover-up was a sensible buy since it's now officially summer over here and my pale skin does not approve at all. However, I did manage to sit out in the sun two days running and not get burnt. Bearing in mind I had my factor 50 on but I'd forgotten to reapply and that would usually mean sudden death for me. Maybe my skin is finally getting used to the heat? Surely not. We also went into a little British food store yesterday, in which I nearly died of excitement at the sight of PG Tips and Penguin bars. I bought a Penguin and told Brad the joke (What kinds of hats do penguins wear? .... Ice-caps!) and he was less than impressed. After a quick trip out to Albany Mall, and a short walk on the beach at Brown's Bay, we said our goodbyes and Brad dropped me back at Kathy's place.
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| Browns Bay |
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| Browns Bay |
The last couple of evenings, I've spent with Kathy at her friend's house (the one's with the dogs.) Peter and Susie are lovely, so lovely in fact that after my PG Tips story they dug out some tea bags that a British guest had left there, and they happened to be PG Tips! This made my night. I had a pot of tea on the go and was pretty much chain drinking it, so happy. Today was nice and chilled. Kathy's Dad's friends came round for lunch so I chatted away to them and then sorted out stuff I was going to post home, as well as the final Christmas present. In a nice turn of luck, turns out that Peter and Susie work from home and have a postage account for such doings, so they let me package the stuff up there and send it through their account, making it slightly cheaper for such a heavy parcel. It ended up being $80, so around £40. Whilst this is expensive, it was the size of three shoe boxes and weighed 3.8kg, so not all that bad, and my shoulders will sure thank me for it. Tonight for dinner, we went to the RSA (The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association) with Kathy's Dad and step-mother for a cheap meal in the downstairs restaurant. The meal was really good actually, I enjoyed it. I find now I'm not snacking that I'm enjoying meals more, not to mention eating a lot faster.
When we got back, Kathy and I took a drive out to Devonport, up to the summit of Mt Victoria to watch the sunset over Auckland. It's a nice coincidence that when I arrived in New Zealand I watched the sunrise and now I'm leaving I watched the sunset. This country and it's people are so beautiful, I can really see myself spending a year or two living here sometime in the future. I've met friends for life, easily, and I'm truly very sad to leave tomorrow, even though it's a guarantee that I'll be back before too long.
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