Auckland 24/06 – 03/07

Tess D:

Wow, what a leg this was. Let me start where i left off, sitting in the airport waiting for Pam to get in.

Pam got in a wee while after i finished blogging and we got picked up by Kylie and Jordan, it was so great to see them again. They are great. We piled into their already full car with packs and bags on knees and under feet and started to make our way to Pam’s office in Parnell where we could put some of our stuff into her car before we made our way to the Kimya Dawson concert. But (of course, there is always a but) the car, that had just come back from the mechanics, was being temperamental.

SOL:

like a flatulent child whining and whinging about wanting to go to the zoo.

Tess D:

Yes, its true. There was something wrong with the fuel injection, so we spent most of our journey into town lurching along the shoulder, going all of 30kph. With Auckland rush hour traffic at a complete stand-still, we were actually going faster than everyone else. It probably worked in our favour. Good thing to remember – if you want to get through rush hour traffic at light speed, bunny hop along the shoulder with your hazard lights on and you’ll get from point A to point B in record time. We even bypassed some cops who didn’t seem to care, or had more important things to think about.

We finally got to Parnell and had some Renkon for dinner, and went to Kimya Dawson. (in Pam’s car )

Its a bit blurry but its the only photo i could get off Pam. Kylie, Me, Jordan and Sam outside Kimya.

I really enjoyed the Concert. It was odd, in a school hall, but really cute and the kind of thing that made you feel like all was well with the world. Unfortunately I left my camera in the car, so I didn’t get any photos and being as slack as I am, I didn’t end up copying any of the ones that Pam took. So no photos for anyone. But take my word. It was cool. The warm up act was this Band called the Tea Cups, who are based in Auckland and they play kinda Folky, Indy music. It was really awesome. I have to say, the audience was made up mostly of 11 – 12 year old girls and their parents. But hey. We all know I am an 11 year old girl at heart.

For those of you who don’t know who Kimya Dawson is, she did a lot of the music for the motion picture JUNO which we all loved, didn’t we. (and who directed it??? Jason Reitman of Montreal, Canada)

anyway. went home that night absolutly zonked and went straight to bed. Found out later that Kylie and Jordan managed to get home ok in their naughty wee car.

The second night there we went out to a rushed, nevertheless, lovely dinner with Clare. Went to this cool place on Ponsonby road that was a weird mix of Turkish, Italian and New Zealand Cuisine. I know it sounds odd but it was so so good and nice to see Clare one last time before we split. There were no tears shed, which was a surprise, but it all happened so quickly. Clare and her workmate, who was there also, had to catch a plane. It was all a bit, “Hi”, Eat, “Bye” but nice.

Sam and Clare at dinner. (laughing)

pam and seph at dinner. (loving secretly)

To tell the truth, it’s all starting to blur. I cant remember now the exact order of events. But we managed to visit our old hood and bumped into Stewart (our old flatmate) on one of the first days there, with his bubba Xavier. That was pretty cool. We also got Il Buco, which is maybe the best Pizza in the history of man. (Outrageously expensive though, $5 a slice. yes, per SLICE) My favourite is the tuna one, and it is one of the only times I cast aside my rule about NOT eating tuna and shove my morals in some hidey hole and… munch munch munch. Everyones allowed their vices right?! Anyway, enough about Il Buco.

We spent day three (as much as we could) with Pam, as it was her birthday. She ended up spending a lot of the day at work, which was stink for her I’m sure,. But we (Sam, Pam Seph and I) went out for a lovely Thai dinner and went to another place just for the desert. Gosh it was good. We had plans I think to at least watch a movie or something that night when we got home, but we were all so full we just went to bed. I think. As I say its all getting a bit blurry.

I do know we got to see Maddy and spent a whole day with her. That was nice. It was a typical Auckland day weather-wise. We had to drive with our headlights on, it was so black and rainy on the drive into town, but by the time we got there it was beautiful…Auckland. (I’m rolling my eyes)

We had a good day though. Sam and I got our consumer kicks by watching Maddy buy a costume for a dress up party she was going to. We went around all the op-shops and tried on outrageous things. Good fun! We got back to the car just as it was getting dark and as we hopped in, the sky opened up and it started pouring down. I was thinking to myself “Horay! What perfect timing, we missed the rain by moments.” But just then, just as I was sitting snug and smug in my warm little world, Sam tries the ignition, and…well… Nothing.

No whir. No beep. No anything. The car just sat there. Silly Auckland got us. Sam had left the headlights on all day and none of us had noticed when we got out of the car, because, as I mentioned before, it was sunny when we got to town.

So out we had to get, into the pouring rain. We all got out, which in retrospect was probably pretty silly. There wasn’t any need for us to ALL get wet. But i think there was an unspoken agreement that we would all go through it together. And anyway, it kinda felt like an adventure. So off we went door knocking to see if anyone had any jumper cables to help us out. We picked the cutest house on the street, a hard job because most of the houses on Picton Street are lovely dainty little things. The man who answered the door seemed a bit cautious. i guess we must have looked pretty odd, standing on his door step in the pouring rain. like REALLY devoted Jehovah’s Witnesses or something. we were all wearing grey/black woolen coats too…hehehe
he got a bit friendlier as we pleaded our case to him and actually seemed kinda gutted when he told us he didn’t have any jumpers. i think he really did want to help. he pointed us across the road to a house where a “handy man” lived and said that it was probably our best bet. So we went there but only their teenage son was there “are your mummy and daddy home” said Maddy. he looked at us with a “ugh” look said no and closed the door.
THEN we remembered that our old flat was just down the road. And someone there was bound to have a jumper. we ran through the still pouring rain and got to Tahuna St totally drenched. it was kinda stink because we had to be at Pam’s birthday dinner that night, so we couldn’t really stay for ages. but we did hang out for a while with Stu and Jackie and Xavier. the house looked really different, they have been doing heaps of work on it. Unfortunately Ricky wasn’t there. Out partying.
it was lovely to see them though and after a bit of catching up Stu and Sam braved the rain again and came back with a running car! hooray.
we left puddles in their seats, thanking them profusely and ran off to Pam’s dinner dropping Maddy off on the way. BYE MADDY.

That night was really cool.
We had the most incredible roast lamb and Kylie and Jordan were also there with Adele and Pam and Sam and I. We played Bucket, which is the best drama game in the world. We tried to play Cranium, but Jordan and I were winning by miles, so everybody decided thay wanted to play something else.
Then after probably the most outstanding game of bucket, we played a few games of pool and about a thousand games of Foosball. Then Sam and i looked up from a particularly intense game, i was getting a thrashing of course, and realised that everyone had either gone home or gone to bed. So we turned out the lights and I carried Sam on my back all the way from the rumpus room to our upstairs bedroom.(that’s quite a long way if you don’t know). We woke Paul up (sorry Paul) and he must have thought we were a bit strange, especially when i told him I was weight training (did i mention it was 4am). hehehe.

The next day we went  for a visit to see Sam Arcus. Who is a big shot in the TV industry now. It was really nice to see him. we hung out and went for a walk to the local pet shop and had a look at the cute puppies and rabbits and birdies and fish fish fish. Then we went for a coffee down at the local coffee joint. I am not drinking coffee anymore. it seems to make me go a bit nuts. but seen as though they don’t really do proper milky coffee in the states its probably good that i don’t. i don’t know how Sammy is going to cope with filter coffee. i don’t know what it is like in Montreal. maybe they are coffee fiends too. i guess the curse of growing up in wellington is you cant help but grow into a coffee snob. its harder to get a bad one than a good one i think.
Anyway i only really have the one photo of me and Sam A because we had a recent photo mishap and lost a few of the good ones. But you can see that we are having a good old chat.

Later that night we saw Aunty Trish and Family. That was really nice too. Got to finally see Dom on ALT TV, they have lots of recordings, and that was super cool. I’d just like to take a moment to say that Dom is amazing and that i wish i could hold that much info about…anything… in my brain. His music knowledge is out of this world and its funny, cos it is rubbing off on the rest of the family. They seem to all be doing pretty well though. it was a sunday that we went around. so they were all pretty tired and everyone had work/school the next day. so we left them pretty early. but it was good to spend some time with them.

like i said earlier, it is starting to get really quite blurry. Sam fell sick with the flu at some point after that and we spent a whole day at Pams house hiding in our room. He was running a huge temperature and got all achey and just generally felt pretty crap. Luckily, thanks to all those kids i work with, i have an imune system that is in a whole relm of its own and it didnt even touch me. so i remained helthy and happy and got to play doctor for sam. (or slave, depending on how you look at it)

I played a bit of Phone Tag whith Shirley while i was there but we never managed to get together. it was really stink. The day sam fell sick was one of the last days we had free, and we couldnt go out. i would have gone on my own even, but sam is the only one who could drive and we were staying in coatsville which i think is the official middle of nowhere. thats why it is such a beautiful place to stay.

We spent a night out in Onehunga with Sams Aunty Mary and Uncle David. The whole family was there – David and Mary, Cousin Melissa and Tim with their kids Hope and Thomas, Cousin Jenny and Bruce with son Daniel, Laura, and Lauras boyfriend came later and his name is Junior. It was a lovely dinner of course and ther is somthing about being at a huge table full of people all eating and being merry that feels really…good. Laura works at the Auckland airport in the Duty free Place there. so we planned to meet her on our way out. she’d be the last familiar face we saw in New Zealand. we ended up staying the night which was nice. they have the most amazing old house. it feels like you are staying in a big old mansion. Its cool. We woke up the next morning, early and picked up pam and adele form the airport. Oh yeah Pam and Adele went down to Wellington, for yMedia stuff. We picked them up and played taxi for a bit. i dont even remember what we did that day… maybe it was one of the library days.

We ended up spending a few of the days at the library for some reason. Sam really loves librarys, and who can blame him really. especially with auckland opening its angry rainy black skys up all the time. it reminded me of when i lived there. i practicly lived in that library for a while there. it feels like another home to me. all it would need was showers… life would be sweet. I have been thinking i might try to get a job in a libraray in Canada… but its just a thought. here are some library photos. look how much fun we are having

We flew out of Auckland on the 3rd.
It was nice. our send off at AK airport was bigger than our one in wellington. i guess it shows where our TRUE friends are… badd wellington friends!! Bigger of course meand that there were actually people there. Pam came of course, because she worships us, and Kylie and jordan came with a very sleepy Jack. it was cool that we got to see him. even though he was sleeping pretty much the whole time. Beautiful friends. we just sat and chatted and almost missed our flight because we lost track of time. it was really funny. i hate to think how embarrasing it would have been to miss a plane while sitting in the airport. Not a good look i dont think. so the actual goodbye at the gate turned out to be super rushed and kinda silly. but i like it like that. i hate goodbyes, they feel so final and they never are. we’ll see you again, dont know where, dont know when. Save the cheese for my pizza as pam would say. threre were tears shed and hugs all around. those hugs that go for a bit longer than a normal hug, because you secretly just want to drag them through customs with you and never let go!  We even got to see Laura on the other side. Which is usually just no mans land. We got some Duty free booze for people in Australia and by the time we got to the gate the plane was boarding and the line was only like two people long. So as perfectly timed as you ca get pretty much.

And that was that. If i have missed you out or missed an important

My dearest Pam, the card was beautiful and i love you too and we will see each other before long. You cant stay away.

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