shitona stick
Yet another awesome update from Cousin Kim on Location in Auckland, NZ.
13/08/1999
Well, I am back in Auckland after 2 days in Gisborn. OK. Where do I start. We left in the evening for the airport, in the pouring rain. We made it to the airport in one piece and I was feeling ok about the flight. We were sitting in the VIP lounge waiting for them to call our flight, and I was reading, casually, comfortably, listening to the incessant rettling of the air conditioner, but slightly calmed by it. That is until, I realized that was not the comfortable humm of the air conditioner, but the pounding of torrential rain on the tin roof of the Auckland airport. Great. I looked out the window at the current monsoon, then the pitch black at the end of the runway, and thanked God that I had turned down that Kennedy marriage proposal. So they call our flight number and Noel and I are off to the gate, or should I say, exit. We leave the airport and head on the tarmack, in the pounding rain, towards our....plane? If you can call it that. I learned later that the Gisborn locals call it the flying pencil. 10 seats. Piloted by Doogie Howser and Macauley Culkin, we boarded the pencil and headed off into the black night, scribbling our way across the New Zealand sky. I put on my Walkman and prayed to every god I have ever read about in my entire life. It was bumpy, quite bumpy I might add, but I was too preoccupied with my human sacrifice to the sky god Io to notice (I figured he was my best bet at that moment)We landed with our dignity as no one threw up or soiled anything, and we walked off into the Gisborn night. We were picked up by Mr. Ken Baker extraordinaire. I think he was already drunk. He whisked us through town, if you can call it that, to our hotel. Both Noel and I were expecting a seaside motel with magic fingers and bedspreads that had not been washed since the visit of Captain Cook, but we were pleasantly surprised. We pulled up to this Victorian Mansion that resembled the house in the haunting. it was a renovated estate cum hotel, 5 bedrooms and a billiards room. BEAUTIFUL. We were greeted and brought into the dining room and served a 3-course meal. meat meat and meat for dessert. (I exaggerate. They had venison.) Off to bed to be up by 6. My room was huge and lofty, with a comfortable bed that I did not realized was equipped with an electric blanket until I woke up at 4 in the morning convinced that I was burning in hell...from the feet up. I imagined I was being dipped in the molten river of sin slowly and slowly until I would soon be engulfed by fire. Then I realized it was the electric blanket. OK. It is hard to sum up the next day in the short time I have at this cyber cafe before super Noel comes swooping down, cape made of fax paper and memos, toting his indestructo briefcase and his super powers of recall to whisk me to our next meeting. We went to an expo of student projects endowed by Ken Bakers foundation (too boring to go into) Many of the student were Maori. We looked at all the exhibits and were treated like celebrities. The whole town was there kindof, Mayor all that stuff. It was weird. The town is like the one in Northern Exposure, with all it's characters playing their roles, and we were the city yanks visiting. The Maori kids, and some older ones, performed their Haka's, their traditional chants. Complete with the tongue maneuvers and eye stuff. It was amazing. I will go into more detail when I have time later all I can say is, I was happy to find out later that many of the men were not part of the teen contingency and were older. This settled me a bit, because seeing all of them in their little skirts and chanting like that made me feel a bit like a pediphile. They sure are ...... I don't know a word but I have a few..primal..brutish...large...aggressive...sexy! But on the flip side, all the ones I spoke to were articulate, polite, soft spoken and respectful. All the kids were great and there were some real talents there. Then Noel and I went off to find a gym. We found one and had a good workout, although it was like a meat locker in there and smelled. then we had 45 minutes to make it back to the Norman Bates home and get ready for the chamber of commerce dinner, where we were honored guests.
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