Woah! what a time I've had these past two weeks.
So for New Year's Eve I went to the rich part of town haha. No but seriously, I went to Devonport to a fellow Rotary student's house. His host parents were having a party and so we were enlisted to pour champagne at the door until all the guests arrived. My friend Jose Tomas (Chile) was leaving the country to go home the next day on the 1st. Being from the southern hemisphere, his exchange runs from January to January. He was probably my best friend here in New Zealand so I was sad to see him go but it's all part of the program we're in so that's alright. My birthday was pretty uneventful, a friend of mine named Asger, from Denmark, was suposed to come hang out for my b-day but it fell through so that was a disapointment but all was not lost. We had a bbq here and then Callum and I went across the road to our friend Earl's place, played table tennis and listened to music.. PARTY!! haha.
For the 10/11th I was supposed to go camping with all the Kiwi kids who are leaving New Zealand to exchange it up elsewhere. I found out the day before that it just wasn't going to be a reality, so Callum and I decided it would be a good opportunity to go to the West Indies v New Zealand cricket test. It was the second last game in a 5 match series of 50 overs, if that means anything to anyone (it hardly means anything to me.) I learned alot in that afternoon, but I'm pleased to say that I now kind of understand cricket. Unfortunately the game was rained out after the Black Caps (NZ) batted and bowled nearly half their overs. It was still a great experience.
After the cricket, during the next few days I was at the beach nearly everyday and Cal and I played tennis a couple times.
During last week (monday?) I left with my neighbor Earl, his dad, and our friend Sam on a boat up north to Kerikeri. The boat trip was rough, I was seasick for 8 of the 14 hours it took to get there. Things brightened up on terra firma though when Sam, Earl, and I went to Earl's uncle's orchards. We walked through kiwifruit and plum orchards, harvesting as we went, to the single most amazing swimming hole I may ever go to. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me BUT there was a waterfall going into a deep pool surrounded by cliff-like rock walls. Some of the jumping spots were around 4 or 5 metres and you could jump through trees and jump from spots where you didn't see the water until you were in the air. I could have stayed in the orchard living off plums and just swim there for the rest of my life. Unfortunately that didn't happen so we drove back to Warkworth in Earl's car that he'd left up there the week before, and I spent the next day recovering from the adventure (we'd sailed through the night and so I didn't get any sleep being seasick and all.)
Finally it was time for possibly the most intense day I have had in a long time: Friday the 16th of January, Big Day Out. I got up at 7am and ate then went over to Earl's. We chilled for a bit and then went and picked up Dan, Sam, and Lisa. We went down to drop our stuff off in the flat in Albany (15 minutes from Auckland) and then went to the Big Smoke. We got to Mt Smart Stadium and the day really began. There was 6 different stages with bands constantly playing through out the day from 10:30am to 12am. I got separated from the guys I came with while in the Boiler Room (a rave in a circus tent) but I met up with Asger (denmark) Petra (finland) Laura (germany) and Petra's friend that I forget the name of.. but she was super cool and had dreadlocks. Just because of timing issues I missed out on Tiki Taane, Lupe Fiasco, The Prodigy, and The Black Seeds. I'm over it though because I got to see The Black Kids, The Ting Tings, Ladi 6, Scribe, The Mint Chicks, random DJs in the Boiler Room, Pendulum, TV on the Radio, Arctic Monkeys, and NEIL YOUNG. I can remember being a kid and thinking that before I died I wanted to see Bob Dylan and Neil Young in concert. The summer before I came to New Zealand, I got to see Bob Dylan and on the 16th I finally got to see Neil Young. I couldn't be happier. After Neil played and destroyed his guitar following his encore, I met up with the other guys and we went back to the flat and fell asleep/coma'd out. The length of the day + the sun/heat + dehydration despite drinking heaps of water = pain and exhaustion. It was an amazing day, maybe just a little long, aye.
By now I think I have recovered from Big Day Out, two days later.
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