Wednesday, October 1, 2008

[Days 1-4] Auckland New Zealand. YES!

It's 730pm, Auckland day 4. This past week was fun as we acclimated to the backpacker culture...........

We left the airport at 7am New Zealand time & took a shuttle to our hotel (courtesy of our amazing parents) which turned out to be a kick-ass posh spot in the heart of Auckland! We met our first fellow backpacker on Queens St, which is the main drag of downtown. She was a bubbly dutch blonde who had just flown in from visiting family in Australia. While there, she got the Australian flag tattooed on her neck, which she proudly showed off to us. Bradon exclaimed 'That's phat' but she didn't understand the lingo and misunderstood it as him calling her fat! We quickly explained how it means 'cool' in the states, but it was very awkward nonetheless and Bradon felt horrible...great way to start out the trip eh? :)

Anyhow, we gave the front desk our ridiculous backpacks (55 lbs each) and asked for what the craziest thing to do in Auckland.... to the SkyTower we went! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland_sky_tower). Garrett raced inside, bought a ticket, and did a 630ft SkyJump off the top! To add to the randomness, New Zealand's own 'Harold the Drug Prevention Giraffe" happened to be there doing a fundraiser. It was ridiculous... a tall man wearing a big, furry, giraffe costume gave Garrett a hug at 10am, the time we normally wake up hungover. Welcome to New Zealand!

Then we got hungry and heard about an amazing 'food court' down the block. So we raced over to it only to discover that it was a mere food court, in a mall. LAME! So we decided to make the most of it and grub some weird New Zealand food. Garrett had a large portion of tuna-patato salad topped with sliced bell pepper and 5 hard boiled eggs. The dish was awkward... it tasted bland but was such a gnarly mix of things he was intrigued. He quickly devoured the whole plate and got a stomach ache. Bullocks!

Then we checked our watches and noticed it was booze-in-our-faces-thirty. We trekked down to the harbor and found a rad brewhouse... Imagine if Mother Goose hooked up with Karl Strauss and their freaky nursery-rhyme beer-master bird-child grew up and bought Basic Bar in downtown San Diego.... and then you randomly stumbled inside the place and the bartender was a Scottish girl named Ashley, and nobody could understand her because of her harsh accent. Then she decided to poor you free beer, and it was really good beer! Then she gave you free shots, and they were really good too! So you asked her what the shots were called she calmly turned, winked, and muttered out ''those were cock-sucking cowboys." Ummmmmmm kay.

When we got home the Jetlag caught up to us & we slept for 16 hrs!

The following night we visited our first bar. It happened to be something they call a "backpacker bar", which is somewhere that all the backpackers in the city can go, and in Aukland there happens to be many. Our first impression reminded us of the bars in Tijuana. Cheezy rap music, weird lighting, and stripper poles. The bathrooms were unmarked and doorless... Bradon discovered which one was the Men's Room compliments of a verbal lashing from a group of British girls... Score! We also befriended a couple from Amsterdam who were incredibly nice and hilarious and the four of us partied the night away!

Yesterday we checked out of our luxurious accomodations and into our first Hostel: The Nomad Fusion. It is a 7 story building that smells exactly like the Fraternity House back home! It's a delicous combination of musty carpet, dirty laundry, and old bread.... minus the hot-sorority-girl filled halls!

We proceeded downstairs to the internet room for emails and what-not. Within 15 minutes a hostel employee asked us if we would to clean the bar for a free-nights stay... why not? We soon found out that 'clean the bar' reeeeally meant paint the bathroom and clean the drink-stained everything...haha! So within our first half-hour at our first hostel Bradon was in a painters suit and Garrett was on a ladder cleaning disco balls....we loved it. We worked hard for 3 hours and were then set free for much needed food!

Soon enough it was party time. We met a few people from the hostel who told us the roof was the main congregation area. So we cruised up with our good friends Johnny Walker Scotchy and ipod soundsystem and attempted to start a party. It was all going great until the rain started coming down! The vibe began to die and Garrett's birthday was an hour away... we decided we needed to hit the bars. We stumbled over to 'Margarita', which was adjacent to the pub we partied at the night before. The first thing we noticed was how young everyone was! Coming from America, we forget that the drinking age in the rest of the world is 18 or younger. It was a bit of an awkward shock hanging around high school kids so we left. On our way out we saw a sign in the bar that said, "Student Night" which explained a lot. We just hope every bar doesnt look like an NSYNC concert or else we're in trouble...it's just not right!

Tomorrow we are researching the best way to venture throughout New Zealand and perform the incredible plutheora of extreme sports available. We're unsure of when we'll have internet access again, but stay tuned, as the next post is sure to be filled with crazy stories and pics!

As they say here... Cheers & Happy Days!

P.S.
Computer's act'n strange... pics come'n soon.

P.P.S.
4 Sweedish girls invited us to rent a camper van and tour the islands... Life is sweet.

P.P.P.S.
Everyone talks funny. lol.


Our 2-night Hotel... Our moms are better than yours :)

SkyJumping at 10am!

Harold the Drug Prevention Giraffe

1st backpacker friends: Moniek & Patrick from Amsterdam. Great people! Introduced 'em to the Jager Bomb. Moniek said "Wait! You mean I drink this whole thing at once?" HECK YEAH! "Wow that's really good. Another!"

Cleaning the hostel for a free night's stay

2 comments:

eric said...

I have to say that reading your first real post left me so tingly that at first I thought my syphilis was acting up again. Alas, after a thorough check it was clear I was just jealous about never getting a giraffe hug. Or maybe it was the swedish girls, definitely one of those two. Anyways, happy B-day Garrett - you're rad and that's all I have to say about that. Also you've got some mad blogging skills I must say, keep it up. Brad - you're the one who's phat. And rad. I can't wait for some pics and the next update. Oh and FYI - hooking up with 18 year olds IS an extreme sport, I Googled it to make sure.

Trevor Carlson said...

we need photos.