If I could have video taped our thoughts, conversations, and actions throughout this 2-week vacation I probably could have made a sequel to the movie "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles". Pretty much in sum, Colleen and I could be in the running for the nation's worst backpackers.
Let's start with hostel living and the the anxiety we go through before we open the door, praying to God there's no one else in the 8-person room we're sharing. It was pretty pathetic because living in a hostel is pretty much like summer camp and you are constantly surrounded by people, which is part of the whole point of a hostel. Can I blame this on the fact I grew up in CT, rated #1 most unfriendly state in the US?
Then there's how we really poorly handle strange people we meet. There was a Korean man at our first hostel that just really struggled with social cues. He walked in our room for the first time, a squid tentacle in hand, and right away started chatting our ears off in such a heavy accent and broken english all we could do was nod and say "yeaah!". He then put the squid tentacle floating in juice under Colleen's bed and started pulling things out of his bag and telling us 10 minute stories about everything including his rad pumpkin he got from a farmers market and his oyster shells he wants to get polished. He then asked if I was German. I said my ancestors were....and that was probably my biggest mistake this whole trip. He then showed me about 10 videos of this girl he met at a hostel just to get me to listen to her voice because he said he knew I was german "by my voice" because I sounded like this German girl he met. I did not sound like the German girl. She clearly had a very thick, different accent than I. The whole rest of the time he kept saying "I KNEW YOU WERE GERMAN FROM YOUR VOICE" on repeat like a broken record. All I kept saying was "I don't have a German accent. I sound nothing like that girl. I'm not even really German, I'm American". Didn't help. Colleen and I ended up keeping our headphones in our ears the entire time we were in the hostel and literally straight up ignoring the man. Just a couple of warm, friendly, culturally patient Americans!
We also didn't get the memo that backpackers don't bother with make up, blow dryers, and hair straighteners. We may or may not have been made fun of a couple times but hey, we were the best looking ones at the hostels.
Then there's the food situation. We decided to grocery shop together and cook our meals together to save money. However we SERIOUSLY overshot how much we needed and had to throw 3/4 of it away because it's all perishable. Also we left an entire 12-pack of eggs at a random hostel by accident along with a big jar of honey mustard and pizza sauce (but don't worry, we remembered the pizza bases). We got enough shredded chicken to feed the entire country of New Zealand for a month but not enough wraps to put them in and an entire block of cheese that we used a little crumble of. We also make like, gourmet meals. Everyone else at hostels eats pasta and butter for literally breakfast, lunch and dinner and we are over here making like chicken falafel salads and stuff. We are just SOOOO good at roughing it!
Then we had our Planes, Trains, and Automobiles day. Our 6 hour drive from Queenstown to Christchurch turned fun an hour into the trip when we realized our Google Map directions were wrong. Thankfully, Christchurch is a big enough city that at every intersection there were signs pointing to what way it is. It did get tricky though when we got to the huge city and had no idea where the hostel was because our directions had us going somewhere else. Christchurch was also hit by several huge earthquakes in 2011 and roads and buildings were destroyed. Because of this, every other road was closed and detours were crazy. Street signs were still down and we were just so lost. We finally found the street we needed after stopping at several places for directions. Then we had to drop the rental car off and it was back to detour after detour and tear after tear trying to find this place before it closed and we had to pay for another day and a late fee. We also had to fill up the tank but every single gas station we came across was still shut down. When we finally made it, I think the guy saw the horror we went through driving on the opposite side of the road through a city of chaos and just asked how much money we had on us (we owed about $30). I had $10 so he took that and said it was fine. Then we had to walk back to the hostel, which was also nearly impossible with all the road closures. We almost made it back though, 25 minutes later, when Colleen realized she dropped her wallet. SO we had to turn around and try to trace our steps, but who knows since our path was impossible to keep straight with all the broken down buildings and roads and closures. We had no luck. So Colleen lost all her credit cards, debit card, social security card, all her keys, etc. So I now am the sole money keeper. (Good news, Colleen got a call 2 days later and someone had found it and will mail it to her in Wellington).
Our flight was at 5am from Christchurch to Auckland where we then took a bus from Auckland to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. It was beautiful landing in Auckland. I was able to watch the sunrise over the giant city that the airplane flew past and landed about 45 minutes outside the city. Because we are such awesome planners, we forgot to find a way to get from the airport to the actual city where our bus left. We eventually found a serrriously overpriced shuttle and we were able to make it to Auckland and make the bus.
Now we are in Paihia and seriously, just want to be back in Wellington. Traveling does seem all fun from the outside but MAN, I think I'm going to have to take travel off my interests lists.
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