When I first got to New Zealand I landed in Auckland, and upon arrval, realized it was just a city like everywhere else and made immediate plans to get the hell away. I chose to roadtrip from auckland to Akaroa with a couch surfer I met named Chris. Chris was from Switerzland and was going to Geneva to study Neuro-surgery or some shit and was just in NZ for a few months to perfect his English. He was vegetarian and at one point on the journey said he'd rather starve to death than eat a fish if he was stranded in the middle of the sea. I chose not to believe that I was travelling with someone so stupid, so I pretended he was joking. Chris and I set out on a lovely August morining and ended up in some tiny town that was used to film a few shire scenes from LOTR...I think it was called matamata. The only hostel in matamata was closed when we got there so we decided it was best to sleep in the car in the parking lot of the information center. As we stood at the boot/trunk of the car and tried to figure out how to lower the back seat, a middle aged, red haired man lumbered up to us. After a few moments of chatting he invited us to sleep on his couch. His name was martin. Martin lived with his 80 year old mother. He stayed in the living room (where chris and I were sleeping) watching TV late into the night. At one point, he was watching porn, and his only comment throughout the evening was "nice tits" (this, thankfully, was directed at the actress on TV who was showing her tits, and not at me, accidentally flashing them.) Martin liked to educated me about NZ slang and culture and took pictures of me while I was sleeping.
So chris and I moved on. We slept in the car one night, but it was freezing cold and in the morning when I went to use the toilet, a woman told me I looked like I'd "had a rough night of it." That day, we went on a hike. My swiss friend took off at a light jog and never slowed pace. I had to take frequent rest stops and occaisionally walk backwards up the hill to relieve the burning fire in my calves. We stayed in a hostel near the beach the following night, and in the morning went searching for paua shells, at which time I dropped the rental car keys into the surf and then spent the next several hours phoning the rental car company/key manufacturers to try and sort out a solution. When it seemed like all hope was lost and i would be stuck at a backpacker in the middle of nowhere for weeks, waiting for a car key that would never come, I went back down to the beach to throw things at the seagulls. Lo and behold, one of the first things I randomly grab from the beach is the rental car keys I thought had been swallowed in the sea.
So we went forward. Chris took over the majority of the driving responsibilities because my driving was too fast and I was totally knew to the whole concept of driving on the left. Hours after CHris forced me to switch to passenger so he could drive, he veered suddenly onto the right side of the road and nearly drove straight into another car. My grabbing the wheel and nearly running us off the road was what prevented a terrible head on collision. Weeks later, our final days together approach, and we decide to go out to eat to say goodbye. (We had been living off of cheese, bread, and apples, and for me, the occaisonal can of Tuna.) I ordered soup and chips and couldnt finish my dinner. Chris was very disappointed in my lack of etiquette and told me that its rude to not eat everything on your plate. I didnt really enjoy the lecture so I made up the total lie that in Texas its rude if you everything on the plate because that implies to your host/hostess that they didnt feed you enough. CHris appeared to be mildly intrigued but still utterly convinced he was in the right.
When we arrived in Akaroa we found that the main Tourist attraction was swimming with dolphins. It costs $100 NZD and all they do is give you a dry suit and put you on a boat and drop you in the middle of a dolphin pod. You arent allowed to touch the dolphins, and they dont do tricks. We decided to try it out for ourselves. We rented a kayak and brought rocks to bang on the side of the boat to attract the dolphins curious natures. 2 dolphins approached the boat and when they were about 6 feet away we jumped into the harbor in order to say that we too, had swum with the Hectors Dolphins.
Then chris pissed off my boss and left.
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