Working for the weekend.

For once, I had a weekend that resembled that of a typical college kid… well, minus the drunken stupor and bad decisions. ;^) Since I know everyone is eager by this point to read about my trip to Australia, I’ll try and get through everything as quick as I can.

Friday (Aug. 22):

I was woken up around 7 by Tina vacuuming her bedroom. Her and Dani had volunteered our flat to show to prospective Massey students as part of Massey’s “Open Day.” From what I understand, Open Day is a lot like the Pharmacy days ONU hosts, where hundreds of kids come at once to see the school. Except Open Day is kind of it – kids get campus tours, apartment tours, and get to talk with people in different colleges. It’s basically just a college visit, but just on a much larger scale. Apparently, not many kids visit uni any other time of the year. When I told Tina that people at ONU actually get paid to give campus tours, she was very impressed and slightly confused, because she’s never heard anything like it.

I spent the morning having random students and their parents come through my flat. Apparently, ours was the only flat in the Cube being shown. I was quite jealous that I couldn’t have gotten paid to show my room like Tina and Dani did. They made $15 an hour doing it! Unfortunately, Massey doesn’t believe in paying people under the table… damn.

After giving a few tours myself when Dani and Tina were too busy, I headed up to campus to meet Andrea and Jamie for a planning session for the south island.

We spent a couple of hours planning things – booking hostels, tours, side trips, etc. Our plans so far go as such: We’re taking the ferry to Picton on the last day of classes (Oct. 17). Then we’re getting a bus down to Kaikoura, where we’re going to go whale watching. Then it’s down to Christchurch by bus, and then on to Dunedin by plane. Once we get to Dunedin, we’re renting a car and making our way to Invercargill. From there, we’ll drive up to Queenstown for a few days. Activities in Queenstown will include a day trip to Milford Sound, a meal at the Skyline Restaurant, a jet boat ride, and (for me, at least) hopefully a helicopter ride. On the way back, we’re taking a day bus trip from Queenstown back up to Christchurch, through the middle of the island. We’ll get to see a lot of the countryside, which should be fun. Then we’ll head back to Wellinton.

We still have some hostels to book, but, for the most part, things are planning out nicely. Yay! I’m excited. I need to get my hands on a new memory card for that trip…

After our planning session (and stealing some free food and giveaways from the Open Day people), we parted ways. Jamie had to meet Karen, because she was staying with them for the weekend. Andrea had to go clean her apartment/pack, because her dad was coming the next morning. I went back to my flat and played around with Photoshop for a bit (care of Andrea, who gave me some fun pictures of her parents to dick around with).

I eventually texted Una, because I didn’t really feel like sitting around on my own on a Friday night. I met up with her and a few others at Te Awhina, with a plan to go to Jess’ for a party. The party, however, was only about 5 people strong, and Una wanted to go into town.

We ended up meeting up with Melinda and her German friend Rania who was visiting, and Fritz (the Austrian) and Remy (the Frenchman). I highly doubt that’s how you spell the French guy’s name, but oh well. We all proceeded to hit up what felt like every Irish pub in Wellinton.

Fritz and Remy, both being post-grad students and, therefore, a couple of years older than the rest of us, aren’t really very impressed by Wellington’s club scene. It’s a lot different from what they both expected to find here, apparently. So we headed to places with live music and a more relaxed atmosphere. Which was just fine with me.

We started out at J.J. Murphy’s on Cuba, but we didn’t stay long because they wouldn’t let Melinda and Rania in without passports as ID. So we went, instead, to Molly Malone’s, down on Courtenay Place. There was a live band there, so we stuck around for longer. The band was interesting. They were a mix between an Irish and country-western band, playing a bit of both. It was confusing to me. But the Lennon-esque keyboardist was wearing a T-shirt with the faces of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza on it, and said “Goodbye Fuckers!” underneath, so I could forgive them their strange musical selections. Molly Malone’s is an alright place – there are pictures of Ireland all over, and I got excited by a picture of Glendalough, where I’ve been. But the carpeted floor has soaked up so much beer over the years that it’s sticky. Which is pretty disgusting.

Remy liked the band, so we stayed for a set. It was amusing to me that he said he can’t understand the lyrics of English songs. I’d never really considered something like that before. He speaks English very well (even though a lot of people have trouble with his accent), so I would assume he’d be able to understand lyrics. But he can’t. So he just goes by how the song as a whole sounds to decide if he likes it or not. Interesting.

The girls decided they were hungry and had to pee, so they went into Burger King. I stayed outside with the boys, and talked politics with Remy for a while. We talked about how our countries see each other, which was very interesting to me. I told him about America’s “Freedom Fries” following France’s refusal to fight in our war with the Middle East, and he was really amused.

We then hit up Kitty O’Shea’s, which also had a cover band. But this one wasn’t nearly as good (and didn’t have a sweet fiddle player, so they automatically lost points), and there were strange drunk people in the small room (i.e. a guy rubbing his stomach as he danced and drank his beer, obviously believing he was being sexy), so we didn’t stay long. It was late, anyway, so we all decided to call it a night.

Saturday:

Jamie came over in the late afternoon, Office DVDs in tow. We only got one episode in, however, before it was time for us to meet Andrea and her dad for dinner at Hell’s. The pizza was yummy, and it was nice to meet Andrea’s dad; they are so much alike!

After Jamie stuffed herself full to capacity, we headed back to my place for a few more episodes of The Office before getting ourselves dolled up for our big night out in the city. We’d been saying we were going to go out again together for weeks, and, since it was going to be our last weekend in the same city for a while, we figured it was as good a time as any.

We started out at Temperance, because we’d liked it the last time. But there was no rugby playing, and also nobody our age. It was actually pretty empty at 10:30, so we didn’t stay long.

I suggested we check out Molly Malone’s next to see if there was another live band. There was, and we stayed for a short time as drunkies amused us with their dancing. But these creepy old guys were eyeing up Jamie and hitting on her, so we left soon after, much to their disappointment. I could tell that the rest of the evening might be similar in terms of the attention Jamie would get.

We decided to go into Establishment next, because at least we knew they played good music. We stood at the bar for a while because Jamie wanted to remain inconspicuous. But eventually we found ourselves on the dance floor when they started playing in “Grease” mix. I told Jamie that if she decided she wanted to leave every time some guy hit on her, we wouldn’t be able to stay anywhere for more than 5 minutes. I also told her about my club experience in China (i.e. getting dance raped by a guy who didn’t even speak the same language as me), and so she decided getting eyed up by a few guys wasn’t so bad afterall. Haha.

We did get some attention on the dance floor, but most of it was either because of Jamie’s crazy dance moves, or from this odd group of guys who were doing “the rabbit” and didn’t necessarily seem like they were all there. They were harmless, however, and I thought it was funny. As long as people don’t grab at me, I’m perfectly fine with weirdoes dancing around me.

After we’d had our fill of Establishment, we decided we should check out one of the spots Tina and her friends always go, just out of sheer curiosity. We decided to try Shooters, since it has multiple stories and didn’t have a humungous line outside.

It was a typical hip-hop club, packed with sweaty, drunk people dancing all over each other. Some random guy started dancing on me, pushing me up against Jamie and her into a wooden pillar. It was awkward, yet kind of hilarious. We were so close, I told her we may as well just start making out.

We ran into Tina in Shooters. She was really drunk, but decided she wanted to take up next door to Coyote, another hip-hop club. But, even though she was convinced she could cut the line and get right past the bouncers, they wouldn’t let her through. We eventually convinced her we should try a different approach. She just decided we should go into Jet.

Jet was this tiny bar/club playing standard club music. It was absolutely packed, and not really much fun. Tina didn’t really like it much, either, and left not long after we’d gotten there. Jamie and I didn’t really feel like staying, either, so we decided to call it a night.

Sunday:

I finished up my travel essay that was due Monday, and then Jamie came over in the afternoon to watch (can you guess???) some more Office. That was really about it… after such a full weekend, it was nice to just relax for a day.