And Then It Was 2009

We did the Whites Beach walk again, only this time we went further down to the beach (though not all the way), and we took a different trail there. The view was still incredible. When we were walking back we passed a bush that was some sort of quail hangout, because when we walked near it, a little one popped out (must’ve been some sort of bouncer). Further on our way down, we stopped on a peak to watch the surfers, who from so far up looked like raisins sitting on popsicle sticks. When we finally made it back down to the bottom, we found another one of the mysterious boob orbs (jellyfish) on the beach.

And then it was 2009. We spent New Years at our friend Simon’s house, a couple down from ours. I hung out with some Kiwi kids, who–just like everybody else here–were really nice. They spent at least thirty minutes entertaining themselves by asking me to say different words in my American accent. Every time I said something–the best ones were ‘grass’ and ’skirt’ because apparently Americans really draw out r’s–they’d giggle. A lot. Adults would come and say, “What are you doing to him? He’s just American, not an alien,” or something like that and the kids would say, “He’s like our toy!” One of them even asked if I could point out Africa on a map, or if we had strawberries in America… I didn’t mind, we had a lot of fun.

At Simon’s house, there’s a long, steep, grass hill. In New Zealand there are a lot of boogie boards. Yes, we slid down the hill. It wasn’t fast enough, you’d kind of sit there and scooch downward. So we grabbed some buckets and started pouring water down the hill. But we didn’t have to for long. Around nine o’clock it started drizzling. By nine thirty we were rocketing downhill, colliding with spiky plants and stuff, and eventually sliding across the grass and cutting up our calfs. It was all fun, but it didn’t become fun-ny until Neil Finn tried it. The fifty-year-old rock star went down, hit an agave tree thing (or something) and then did a full-on flip, out of sight. At first, we were worried he’d broken a bone. But he quickly recovered and started his way back up the hill, laughing along with everyone else. It was hilarious.

When we had had our fill of rambunctious hijinks, we started walking home. After going down the fifty bugagillion steps, we were met by a lost dog named Oliver (thankfully he had tags). At first, we ignored him. You see a lot of dogs in this part of New Zealand (or in general) so we didn’t think he was even lost at the time. But we realized he’s probably really scared from all the fireworks going off and we’d better help him get home. We didn’t have a cell phone, car, or anything to do that, though. Luckily, we encountered some drunk people (best sentence ever). One of them (the least drunk, I might add) was happy to help us with the dog, and got out his cell phone to call the numbers on the tags. Nobody answered the calls, so he offered to take the dog home until the owners could be contacted. In New Zealand, a man was willing to leave his drunken-street-roaming New Years Eve party to help a random person’s lost dog. Nice, huh?

This morning we went out for a quick body surfing sesh, ate some ‘fush n’ chups’, and then stopped by Neil’s house. “I woke up with an extremely bad shoulder ache,” he said. Haha! But due to an advanced chafing situation, we left for our house before we could talk and linger any longer. Oh! I almost forgot. Its another jellyfish-breast-implant story. Today, right when Sammy and I finished boogie boarding, we heard this little boy crying. A lifeguard was on his radio, dispatching a ’surf rescue 4-wheeler’. It came and drove the little boy and his mother and his sister to the lifesaving shack. We walked up and asked the lifeguard what had happened. He was stung by a jellyfish! Then we started looking around for any more of the gelatinous orbs. Within just a couple dozen feet, we had spotted at least four of the little creatures. Some were clear and round, others were blueish and discombobulated looking. And one was pulsating, making it look like some alien landing. Attack of the alien breast implants!