Mid-term Break

Well, mid-term break was rather insane. Saturday announced the arrival of my 21st birthday, which was celebrated with a flatmate breakfast at Capers - where I received a large bottle of Jagermeister and a matching scarf for presents - and a day-long drinking extravaganza (if Curtis got 3 weeks, my friends and relatives certainly can't begrudge me 24 hours). How much of this should I divulge? Here it is in short: breakfast, jugs of beer at the Bog with flatmates, bottles of Tui with friend's at Sarah's flat, back to my place for power hour (the one-shot-of-beer-per-minute version, which was actually way more insane than I expected), drunk pizza and cake baking, living room strobe light/Daft Punk dance party, staggering to Castle Street for front yard mingling and observation of forming riots, Gardies for beer-jug chugging races, back out to Castle Street to participate in now full-fledged riots, then to the Bog one last time for several more jugs of beer. I passed out happy, mostly coherent, and headache-free by 4:00 am, and though the next day was rough I've certainly survived worse.

The riot itself deserves a bit of description. I would place a conservative estimation of the number of participants somewhere around 800, though most were just standing safely on porches and sidewalks as they threw bottles. About 75 policemen in full-on riot gear were congregated in the middle of the street, and I have no idea how they didn't flip a shit being pelted by so much glass. Every ten minutes or so they would form ranks and rush the people further down the street, and in this way eventually dispersed everyone when we were all pushed into the large central square of campus. For a complete sensory experience, you should be imagining the roar of couches on fire, the incessant baseline of hundreds of competing speaker systems, hordes of idiots chanting "scarfies on the piss" (which I SWEAR I wasn't a part of...), and the continual tinkle of glass shattering. It was a ball.

After packing the next day, I left for Auckland. What had been planned as an intrepid solo adventure soon turned into full-on boredom, and I traversed the city for three days in between repeated visits to the city museum and the Sky Tower (don't let the name fool you... I paid $18 to stand on top and it aint so big at all). I'd have to say the highlight was experiencing The Dark Knight in an IMAX theater (another $18), which was incredible. All of the exterior shots and action scenes filled the entire rounded screen, while the rest was projected in a larger-than-normal crystal clear widescreen fashion. Palm trees and sun are like a regular thing up north, and I was digging their down-south vibes. Also, I spent a good hour or two hunting down Mexicali Fresh (the legendary NZ restaurant run by those people who had Mexicali Rose in Bend), only to find it closed for refurbishments until September 1. I tell you, my life... By day three, however, I had literally become one of those smelly people with a backpack who sit on park benches for no apparent reason and mutter to themselves. It wasn't good.

Wellington proved a different story. That city has genuine character, dammit, and I enthusiastically searched for its elusive source (along with a group of five friends whom I rendezvoused with) at the bottom of every bottle within arm's reach (every bottle I'd paid $7.80 for, that is). We went to the city museum, Te Papa (which has nothing on Auckland's, for future reference), walked along the wharf, and hit up dozens of cheap bookshops and CD stores (softcovers STILL cost around $25-30, though). I arrived back in Dunedin last night minus $400 NZD, a healthy throat, and the first half of my time here, which expired sometime last Thursday.

Some more things:

-Sweet potato french fries are readily available here at hamburger restaurants. They're pretty good.
-The Graphic novel "Watchmen" is way better than I expected... read it if that kind of thing doesn't embarrass you (I tried cowering with mine in lesser-traversed portions of the airport, which didn't really work because the cover clearly announces what's inside).
-Looks like Thailand is out of the question for my two week trip, because with taxes (something NZ flights don't have), a ticket is like $1700 NZD. Maybe Australia?
-So far, September's weather in Dunedin is no better than July or August's.