New Zealander? I barely know her.

I found this bike in a pile of garbage and quickly took ownership of it. It was intended for, but not limited to, use by children. It is yellow and I ride it most places.

After work, a Kiwi bloke might slip into some jandals and walkshorts and head off to the pub for a piss-up with his mates.  They’d have some greasies, scull some piss and try to give their ferrets a run at the same fanny who might be two sammies short of a picnic.  Brassed-off, they’d head home packing a sad, hit the hay and have to wake at a sparrows fart the next morning.  Still pissed, they might have a case of the trots and spend some time trying to strangle grandma in the dunny the next morning.

This is what I’m up against here, I’ve been involved in more than one conversation with co-workersd that at no point during were we ever talking about the same thing.  These conversations usually end with a confused head tilt sideways, followed by me saying “Wait, we’re not talking about the same thing.”

I share a tiny house with two Germans, Svea and Sventje in the back and two Chileans, Paula and Sebastian seated. We have no fewer than six types of tree in the yard, one of which is apple flavored. There was a bit of confusion in this photo. Its fun here.

I have been 37 days now in New Zealand and settled in a place called Twizel, in the middle of the South Island.  The area I am living in is called “The Mackenzie Country”, a very vast, open space with not many trees and not un-similar visually to New Mexico.  One difference is just over the hills from town is a rugged expanse of glaciers, ice fields and then rain forest. There is also a kind of mythical figure called the Southern Man.  He  is on the local beer cans and advertisements and roams the area on horseback drinking beer, a version of the Marlboro Man.  Twizel is small, about 1,500 people, secluded and quite a random place.  The town itself was only founded in 1968 to house and serve workers building a series of lakes and hydro-electric power stations.  Twizel was set to be abandoned at the end of the project but the residents decided to stay.  All the houses look the same inside and out.  Everything, in every house, is from the late 60′s to early 70′s.  I’ve landed a job on a salmon farm, of which I know nothing about, feeding and subsequently murdering salmon.  Its a viscious cycle really, more-so for the salmon than myself of course although they are quite tasty.

Some of the people I work with. Anette, left, lives at the salmon farm at all times. She must spend most of her free time shooting animals and birds because there is almost always a dead something, skinned, sitting at the foot of her stairs. Daniel and Shane, brothers, twins, native Kiwi's and pretty good dudes.

I bungee jump to work every morning and reverse skydive home in the afternoon, backwards.  At night I rustle penguins on sheep-back.  I have bitten the heads off of two salmon and will not answer any questions about it.  I also learned that mosquito repellant doesn’t repel mosquitos but actually blocks human scent which is an attractant to mosquitos.  In this case a less expensive option might be standard household cat urine.

So, this is where it gets tricky.  By the time you read this tomorrow, it will be two days from now for me, your time.  Now, I’m only half as smart as 50% of most people so lets do the numbers.  If we start at yesterday morning where you are, by this time for you a day ago, I will be up to my ears in tomorrow.  Basically its the future here.  It gets better. On the plane ride from the U.S. to New Zealand you skip a day, leave on Monday, arrive on Wednesday.   It sounds quite cool in theory but think about it.  You are losing a day, some of us can’t afford to just lose days willy nilly.  Now I’ve never been a huge fan of Tuesdays, more of a Thursday man myself, but I think we should be re-embersed for that day lost.   Its not the time lost that bugs me, its the possibility of having the best day of your life.  Who knows what could have been?  Instead, somewhere between L.A. and Fiji an entire day goes missing in some unidentifiable crevasse of space and time.  I think this the same basic plot of “The Matrix”.

So I am having a pretty good time here.  Really, the best part so far has been meeting people from all parts of the world.  Most of the people I am around everyday are all in New Zealand for the same reason, work and travel, so if nothing else we have that in common.  There are quite a few other migrants in the town. Most of the restaurants and farms are staffed by people from other countries.  There are only two local television stations that we receive here, TVone and TVtwo.  Rumor has it that a third station, TVthree, exists but I cant verify that.  The joke “sea food” (open your mouth to see the food) goes over pretty good in New Zealand.  I think that may be the key to my comedy career, when I stop be ing funny at home, its debatable as if I ever actually was, just move.  I am going to be gone for awhile.

How are you doing?

 

I spent the most interesting Christmas of my life at a hostel sharing facilities with about 30 mentally disabled people. I hung around them for a few days prior to Christmas and was lucky enough to be invited to dinner with them on Christmas day. Its hard to explain why it was neat, it was just something I never expected.

 

New Zealand rodeos are exactly the same as American rodeos.

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