AUCKLAND: Day 2

It began at around 8:00 in the morning.

I took this Slovenian girl out to coffee. She tells me about her country and I ask a bunch of stupid questions. She is here exploring New Zealand, a Dental Hygienist, grown sick of her home-country politics and looking for work as a Nanny. Her name is Nina. She’s headed for Raglan.

An hour later we’re in an Asian Food-Mall and I’m looking for a jar. I need it for Pipe Tobacco. She buys some bananas and I leave with a Jar of Olives. We’re back at the Hostel. It’s starting to rain.

I decided to leave, loathing the uninspired state of my fellow lodgers, who seem contented, laptop cruising Facebook and YouTube in the common room.

My deck-shoes are brand-new, very nice, but my feet start to blister and bleed walking the miles of hills and alleys—I need to break them in, this will take time, not to mention blood, sweat, and tears.

I’m starving.

No, I mean: I’m freaking STARVING.

I end up in an alley with some old-school dudes, 60ish with grey-hair and crew cuts, wearing boxy-suits and wing-tip shoes, drinking tall dark beers. I order the fish and chips—good stuff.

A rotund mother-fucker sporting native tattoos and a salty beard is eyeballing my plate from a barrel-made table with his pudgy son. His name is Tony. He asks me if the dish is good, and then goes on to tell me how much better the food is outside of Auckland. Mega-cheaper too. He’s from the Bay of Plenty, born and raised.

He’s just here to see a Rob Zombie concert.

Anyways, so I’m in this park and the trees are like some kind of mythical organism—talk about surreal—long, irregular, spidery things reaching out over the paths and sidewalks.

I load up my pipe and feel like Tarzan sitting on a furry branch, high-above, as the smoke trails over my shoulder.

There are these two French girls looking very confused on a bench. I walk up and say something I don’t remember. They don’t speak English very well and are constantly extracting a Translation Dictionary from their bag.

So hey, what-up—we spend the day together, touring a few of the larger parks and places. Camille and Helene, from France, a fresh-from school Lawyer and an Engineer, here for a year, living with an Aunt.

In our journey from one side of Auckland to the other we passed a “Gentleman’s Club” and I explained to them what a looser was.

Good times.

At 6:00 they caught a bus back to the suburbs and I walked home to the hostel.

Nina was there. She was going to take a shower and wanted to go out. While I waited for her I met Yuki, a chief-in-training from Tokyo. He’s seated on a couch in the hallway, sipping a light-beer, watching YouTube vides.

Seriously: Yuki is one hell of a nice guy—maybe the nicest guy I've met so far.

He plans on being here for a year and expresses his admiration for America, also his frustration for obtaining an American Green Card. He has applied many times, unsuccessfully.

What a drag.

Nina is finished after 30-40 minutes and we head into the night. It’s pretty warm out. We walk to the bottom of the hill and buy a glass of wine at a bar that’s slamming tunes, lit-up with blue, turquoise, and green lights, and has outdoor seating. We talk for a while and then shift tables to chill with three guys our age, one from France and two from Holland.

We talk politics and art and antidisestablishmentarianism—and nobody really gives a shit that we’re all young, poor, and tired, out there, late at night, under a brand new sky—sharing life together.

It was a beautiful moment.