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Had hilarious night sitting in the garden the night before we left Auckland. There were 4 of us sitting out there at night, having a drink etc. when we heard a strange noise. All of a sudden my night went from normal to like being in a dodgy B grade horror movie....the noise came again, then again, then stopped for a bit. Couldn't see the origin of the freaky noise...so decided too one by one to check it out, oh no, sorry, we didn't that was the pretend horror writer trying to escape...um, no. It got closer and was weird. And we never discovered what was making the noise. Ryan thought it might have been a jaguar, but as he also thought Queen were American and had never heard the word burgled (I thought Josh and Ryan looked at me funny when I spoke sometimes, turns out they didn't have a clue what I was talking about) I am going for it probably being a possum orsomething. Actually, I feel bad for the possums, they're so furry and cute, but people run them down on purpose.

posted by Katie @ 5/25/2004 12:43:00 am 0 comments

My mind is absolutely racing with all the stuff I should have written on here over the last week.....the reason for the absence of posts is the fact that I have been working and we know how that encroaches on the spare time of an individual! Yes, I have been getting up at 7am to go and start work for 8. Had 3 days at Public Health dealing with refugee health issues, and am now at the hospital, older persons mental health section. Seems they can't call it Psychogeriatrics any more. But it is good money which is what I am mainly interested in right now.
The day after I discovered my brakes were less than perfect shall we say, Liz decides to go to Thames with a girl from the hostel, to pick up a couple who were selling their car in Thames, so they didn't have to get the bus back. And Steph's car chuddered to a halt on the motorway, giving them about 1.2 seconds to pull onto the shoulder. Poor Liz and her dodgy car experiences. She doesn't even drive.
SAuckland has a comedy fewstival on, so we figured while we were there, we should try and fit some in. Michael Barrymore has moved over here and was spotted by Steph in the local supermarket buying lots of bottles of coke. But no, he wasn't at the show we went to. In fact there weren't actually many people at the one we went to. The compere said it was like a sleepover at his house. He was called Russell Howerd and he was from Bristol and we found him hilarious. He even gave us credit at the end for laughin so much in an audience of disinteredted Irish girls and a would-be kiwi heckler. 3rd guy on did his entire act in japanese, conducted an interview at the back of the room while another bloke was on stage, ran up and snuggled up to Russell's neck, and there were about 10 TV cameras in the room. Trained on the audience. I have no idea....neither did the compere, except I could be coming soon to a japanese telly as he turned out to be a famous Japanese comedian. So yeah, I have seen Japanese comedy...and basically looked bemused the entire time!! Except when he put his false teeth in. That was funny, and possibly a bit racist. Hmmm. Had to be there I guess. :~} Was a bit offended by the Kiwi comedian who was half British, and was insistent that the British aren't exotic. Well I am. I'm very exotic thank you very much. Hee hee. We were talking to most of the comedians after the show, there weren't that many people there...so we decided to ask them the question that had been puzzling us since the name Phar Lap came up twice in trivial pursuit and once in pictionary the night before. Who was Phar Lap??? And more importantly, who was his young strapper?? They were most unhelpful on what a strapper was, but educated us on Phar Lap's being a horse, a famous horse who won the Melbourne Cup some ridiculously long time ago, like 1930 or something. Now we know...don't think they appreciated the drunk British girl humour too much.
Work gave me blisters, I attempted wearing smart shoes for the first time in ages and I got much blisters. So the next day I wore different shoes and again..gave myself blisters in different places. Am now walking funny so as not to make my feet hurt any more!
Walked up Rangitoto...volcanic island near Auckland. Black lava and stuff around. Was good. (writing motivation has left me....can you tell)
The worst film ever made,a cinematic assault on the senses entitled, House of 100 Corpses. Yes I know, it serves me right for watching such a stupidly titled film. Got bored of fluffy romantic comedies.
Marine Drive walking partner....can't believe you're going to go away again just as I get back!xx

posted by Katie @ 5/21/2004 08:36:00 am 1 comments

Met a lady the other day before I left Auckland, who actually used to live on the same road as me in the Isle of Man. Coincidency...and she used to go and watch Steve's dad's bands gigs. Helped out Paul from the hostel sitting in the really dull backpackers car market to sell his van for a morning...really the wrong time of year to sell a campervan. Went for my first ever long drive on Thursday, about 3 1/2 hours from Auckland to Paihia. The need for putting air in my tyre delayed us a bit, but otherwise really easy drive. Got beeped at by large truck right behind me, almost had heart attack, think I was going too slowly for him. Basically, Paihia has knackered me out...I have been chucked in the choppy sea to swim with dolphins, dragged along in a big net and today got on a bus to go to the Northern tip of North Island and flung myself down a mammoth sand dune on a small bodyboard.
The dolphin boat yesterday was a little rough...(one of the girls was v ill) and the 7 of us actually invented a new extreme-ish sport. Boat walking. Pretty difficult to stay upright, so barefoot Mike took to crawling around the floor. And then we met a fairly interesting (please read as "slightly mad") old skipper in the pub in Russell. One of those people who sits down, starts talking and then doesn't stop. Plus he was almost completely unintelligible and said yeah a lot....back to Auckland tomorrow to start work!

posted by Katie @ 5/15/2004 07:46:00 am 0 comments

Well...guess what not having a telly does for you...We all played Trivial Pursuit AND Pictionary on Monday night, and last night went to the Irish pub down the road and came 3rd in the pub quiz, even with the handicap of no telly therefore knowing nothing abou NZ Idol and the even greater handicap of knowing nothing of NZ's greatest (and daftest) sporting achievements.
I have a job which starts on Monday, wandered off to the recruitment agency yesterday, did lots of tests...imagine taking an excel test when you haven't looked a computer in that kind of way in 4 months! I really enjoyed it actually! Chance to show off. My job sounds dubious in a phoning up people who have taken things from Public Health and not returned them in a kind of way, but I assume it's like a data tidy exercise. Only for a week...so Liz & I are off to the North for the rest of this week and then back to Auckland for next week and then take off in a southerly direction.

posted by Katie @ 5/12/2004 03:04:00 am 0 comments

The blog creation page has changed...and while I am sure it's better, these things take time to get used to, like automatics, people speaking English everywhere and boys that are older than me!
Cathy and Kate left this morning (I bought my car from them, and it's working so far so I still like them :P)...I too have left Albert Park, partly because they left, partly because it was starting to feel like home (a bit too cosy like). Had my second "Sunday Funday" at Albert Park last night, Richard is a little bit persuasive at getting everyone drinking and out and blatantly mad (ina good way). When I got home on Tuesday night he was just going out, and finally rolled in at 8am the next morning. I have also managed to get ID'd a lot in the last few days, obviously I am suddenly looking much younger so I've had to start showing my awful driving licence picture to people. Yeah, so I've moved, I'm up in Parnell now, have an appointment with an employment agency in the morning and then will take off up north for the remainder of the week. There's a comedy festival on here, so trying to sort myself out to go to one of the shows before I go driving madly off to chase dolphins around. Just noticed my recent lack of entertaining stories...I re-discovered alcohol. Forgive me.

posted by Katie @ 5/10/2004 05:25:00 am 0 comments

Dad, don't worry! My car is fine, I know where the oil, the water AND the brake fluid go. One of my leccy windows is a bit dodge though, which makes getting in and out of car parks interesting. I have to wrap myself around the car door to reach the ticket. Started off on Thursday night at a bar made from ice, glasses made of ice, and they give you a bit coat and gloves when you go in. They had some amazing ice sculptures, but you can see through the window into the next door bar which is decorated in red and has an open fire. Obviously that is the first place you want to go after you get out of the igloo! So then checked out the bars on Princes wharf, and ended up back in Globe. Anyone remember how bad I am at the game of pool? Well, I came 2nd in a pool comp later on in the night. Liz chickened out of playing with me, so she persuaded this bloke called Paul to take her place..and he was obviously better than me, cos out of 30 or so teams we managed to come a very close 2nd. And as we had done a bit of a deal with the guys we were playing against, we split the bar tab prize at the end anyway. Had the world's healthiest kebab on the way home too. No grease, nothing. Just nicely cooked chicken, fresh salad, and some may and chilli sauce. Was kind of unnatural actually. Yesterday was the day of the 12 hour hangover, I read, ate and went on a city tour (because it was free) and found out some interesting stuff about Auckland. Got a party to go to tonight, and tomorrow is Sunday Funday again, courtesy of Richard in room 48.

posted by Katie @ 5/08/2004 04:15:00 am 0 comments

The BCG has finally healed by the way.

posted by Katie @ 5/06/2004 05:20:00 am 0 comments

So I purchased a car on Tuesday, it's my very first one. At first I was a little flummoxed as obviously there were no Rover 213s for sale...and then I purchased a black car with zebra print front seats. It's a 1985 Honda Prelude, and yes, I did look at the tyres and all that. It's OK, but I didn't really intend to get an automatic. So last night, I did my first ever bit of motorway driving, and my first driving of an automatic (for longer than 5 minutes anyway). I was petrified all the way, and my back and legs are aching today I was so tensed up. Really though, it was the cd player that swung it. And all this for only NZ$750. Bargain. And then Tuesday night I went out with the girls I bought the car off and they drank hideous amounts of vodka, probably in celebration that they didn't have to spend days at the backpackers car market trying to sell it, as there's a bit of a glut of cars for sale at the moment...start of winter lot of people leaving for warmer climes. Today I have been to look at a lot of art galleries & shops with cool stuff in, and found my Georg Jensen necklace in one of the windows and went in to gaze at it for a bit as I've left it at home. Apparently it has matching earrings......Michelle and her friend Karen were here on Monday night, so we didn't rweally do much, just had a bit of a chat about the mad stuff that went on at camp in Pennsylvania, just little things, stuff I'd forgotten about car accidents, power cuts, bears (burrs) on camp and no-one being able to understand Michelle's accent when she announced it. I think, "eh, what's a burr?" was the reaction most of us gave. And then we scootled off the museum for a bit before they went to pick up their campervan, and looked at the lizards and frogs (and various nasty insects with far-too-big legs) in the alive section of the natural history bit and then had to leg it back to the hostel. Back to the job search...............................................

posted by Katie @ 5/06/2004 05:12:00 am 0 comments

Look what turned up in my inbox this morning! Please go and take a look at the great photo that Tav sent me. I am the one in the pink top posing. So cool...thanks Tav!
So it's Monday morning....me and my hangover have just dragged ourselves reluctantly from bed, having been woken up by the bagpipes playing "what shall we do with the drunken sailor", then what seemed like an entire university full of new graduates in cap and gown (well, gown, everyone always takes the hat off!) walked down the street in a big procession. The bagpipes are not part of my tried and tested hangover cure of salt & vinegar crisps and flat coke. Today is the day I go and get myself a tax ref number, and sign myself up with some agencies. Think I will stick around in Auckland for a couple more weeks...I keep meeting cool people, and now I have actually met some that live here. The discovery of an Irish bar that serves Drambuie Cream may also be a deciding factor. Sexy Michelle actually arrives today, so I'll see her later....first time in about 5 years!

posted by Katie @ 5/03/2004 12:34:00 am 0 comments

I have been op shop shopping this afternoon.....was great, I really enjoyed it, and then I got a discount on a large collextion of nose studs from a new agey shop because she didn't have any change. I'm so good at the bargaining thing! I really am living on the cheap. I raided the free food in the hostel kitchen for my dinner as well. Met up with Piran that I met yesterday for a bit, watched some simpsons and had coffee, and then fielded mucho questions about who my gorgeous friend was. Oops. Didn't notice really till they mentioned it! Went out last night, found a selection of bars, and a kebab shop called Lord of the Kebabs. No really.

posted by Katie @ 5/01/2004 06:52:00 am 0 comments