THE PAST TWO WEEKS

Okay, okay, okay - I guess I've fallen apart. This is the third post in how many days? Ah, all the adventures unwound, shamefully unrecorded. I wince, been baring the weight of "got behind" for far too long. I'm going to fix this. Now. 

We've arrived in Queenstown at last. I met with Marcina today and then bailed on her and on all of our plans. What a jerk right? I just wasn't feeling it. What can I say - I'm moody and I find most people boring? I miss my Golden Bay pals! Adrian and Caitlin and John and John's girl and Cecile and Aina with the succubi eyes. Those kids were positively dope! We spent all night, from bar to campsite, and all morning, from 8-3:00, talking about what we all love and had in common. I can't say I've ever in all my travels met a cooler group of people and felt more among my own.

My father and I had previously been in Christchurch, and before that - Picton, Wellington, Taupo. I already told you about Taupo. Here are some notes, pieces of those ventures.

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Wellington.

Arrived from Taupo and right off the bat loved the hostel, situated across from a grocery store in the near-center of downtown Wellington, where everything's slightly-worn and unbearably hip, packed with surprising little shops -restaurants, cafes, bars, tucked into street-sides and alleyways. Out of place neon slung in low dirty windows and parquet floors and mismatched furniture, quirky decor and old posters, faded, frayed, and framed. We've got two losers in our room. Moana and "Peter Lorre" as we've taken to calling her rather repulsive travel companion. They spend their days lounging in their bunks and refuse to talk. Fortunately we met Simon - a very un-German German escaping Germany for a year in New Zealand, a bit disgruntled at the sheer volume of other Germans also traveling, permeating the hostels and cities. He tells us all about the Kiwi Fruit farm in The North - a concentration camp of rowdy Germans and militant, mechanical Asians. And of the Pakistani owner who forced the workers, when working inefficiently, to hit themselves. Yeaaaaah. HELLO Wellington. Another guy checked into our room wearing a tie-dye tee shirt and about a million arm-bands from various concerts. He's from Chicago, in the [rather complicated] process of immigrating to Australia. He introduces himself as Pancakes. 

Simon and I go to a concert in the Botanical Gardens and meet Leo and Baktie, both French, we sit on the grass and they share their wine and after the concert we go for drinks and on the second round discover my Dad, seated in a pub, who then joins us. Before bed I meet a girl named Elisa who's on her way to take a shower. One side of her hair is tastefully shaved and pulled into a bun. She's from Belgium.

Following day we hit the Te Papa museum were I met two French beauties, Nancy and Vanessa. The Museum was also nice. That night Pancakes and Elisa and Vanessa and Nancy and I went out. 

We danced and ate pizza.

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Picton.

My hostel is by the cemetery.

I'm walking down the street when this scrawny - though somewhat sexy - bitch with short hair meets my eyes and draws me in. I sit and am introduced to a brother and sister and some guy with a mustache. The siblings are feeling each-other up. Everybody is on drugs. I excuse myself after a brief excursion on the subject of defensive metaphysics.

Walking again. The usual group of drunks crowd outside some bar, smoking. Local goons. One objects to my passing, says, "Cut that thing of your head and you might get laid." He is referring to my hair, pulled back. I said, "You could, and I could cut your throat and you'd never get laid again," then laughed. We all laughed. Then some runt tried to light my hair on fire.

Don't go to Picton.

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Christchurch.

Something about the empty scaffolding, perhaps. The distant clatter - a lone hammer burst, ringing in the silence. Buildings in ruin, street corner rumble sprayed over with colorful names and shapes and nondescript nothings. Shipping containers stacked and graffitied. The locals, rubbed raw and wrong by hundreds dead and irreparable damage - and now the tourists. The economy writhes. Pubs expose dubious signs of life and bombed out grocery stores where everything is for sale but hope of resurgence.

A group of screaming goons pass in a sudden blur of headlights and taillights, going nowhere fast. The writer stalks the busy streets while the night wears perfectly thin around him. 

Some of the off-beat places harbor good looking strays in stripped dresses. Clackitty-Clack: into the night. The sound of your pretension is obscured by a passing Saab with a busted muffler. 

Try as I may, I just don't like going out in the conventional sense. Beers and Bars and those who drink and dress up, all in excess, fail to interest me: I become bored. This isn't fun. The expense is your worth - you become cheap. Pardon me if I'm not involved. I am guilty of wanting to know you. Guilty of adoration - would rather converse than drink, loosing you amid the noise. You look fine without make-up, outside your dresses and off your high heels, barefoot in the sun. Guess I'm a bore. I'll smile for you, but I won't demean you. I am guilty of wanting to know you.

I'd sprinted from the Thai place to meet with the musician, Elle, who I'd met in the bar while drinking cold ciders alongside my Father and the Swedish dude from the hostel, David, with the odd shoulders who had malaria once. When I got there she wasn't there anymore. She'd packed up and left because I'd been late, untrue to my word. I met the Brazilian woman on a street corner holding a map. I never knew her name but she licked her lips before each smile and I found her rather boring despite her good looks and long tanned legs. Matter of fact--I wasted $15 bucks on the bitch. I suppose it serves me right, coming at it with this wannabe sexpot shit. As if I'm Don Fucking Juan writing the Irish-American Karma Sutra. I finished my drink and left her there. Left her there with her immaculate smile and finger-nails and long brown legs, and shorts cut so short you could see the fringe of her lavender lace panties. I got out of there and onto Facebook and Angelina from the bus today beckoned me back toward the Pub down the block but after the Latino Slag I'm too broke to choke down another pint or slug of whiskey, so I whisk away toward the hostel and decide to call it a night. I walk a mile before realizing I've walked the wrong way typing this while I walked.

We tried to escape Christchurch and couldn't. So we rented a car and drove back the way we came.

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We hiked Abel Tasman (so gorgeous) and arrived in Takaka - beat after a night sleeping in the car. We drifted around, awesome town, slept, met the aforementioned group the next night and left the day after that for Greymouth through the winding hills and beautiful forests. Greymouth was grey. We left in the morning for Hokitika where we bounded with local shop owners over a mutual appreciation for New Zealand jade and spent two nights. My Dad went crazy. We spent money and met Malachi and Martang. We drove to the Glaciers and then on to Milford and now, Queenstown.

I haven't been writing. Just the notes. 

There is so much there, the stories, the people, the adventures. I've had to severely summarize these just for a record, to catch up and continue on. I hope someday to write of the last two weeks in detail. Through ups and downs, my Dad and I have had a lot of fun. 

This trip is precious.