July 11, 2005
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New Zealand day 3...
After staying up until 1 or so talking to the beautiful and silly Leigh, I had to get up at 6 am, like everyone else, so we could head south through Auckland to pick up more Contikers, and then continue on to Waitomo to see the glow worm caves.
On the drive south, I stared out the window most of the time, watching the greenery pass me by, mostly rainforest, which was very beautiful in the misty morning. We made our stop for lunch at Auckland where I went to a Westfield Mall (there was nothing too exciting in the city) with Leigh, Vickie, and Melissa. I felt a bit like I was following them around, but they seemed to like me okay. Then we jumped back on the bus, and headed to Waitomo. On the ride, Cathy let everyone know about the previous night's occurrences including Vickie having a dishwasher (a potent drink that you swish around in your mouth and has bite to it). Vickie claims she only burped, but her burp had follow through. She was apparently the first person to throw up in the bar. What an honor.
Once we got there, we got our rooms. I was with Justin, a really nice guy from the UK, and two new people: Scott, the dairy farmer with anger problems, and Todd, a young teacher who was in a teaching program in Australia. I misjudged Todd as a cocky guy, but in reality he was very genuine and cool.
I went on the general tour of the caves, instead of black water rafting which was climbing through the water and the caves in a wet suit. Going through the caves in a little boat, while everyone was dead silent was very relaxing. Above us were thousands of tiny blue lights, like alien stars in a far away sky, and all I could hear was the water dripping from the stalactites.
Afterwards I hung out with Claire, Todd, and an aussie girl, who's name I can't recall. We ended up swinging (on swings, not wife swapping), and just being weird while the sun set.
I went to the only pub in the tiny tiny town (made up of two hotels, a couple of stores, and several houses) to meet a few new people including Allison and Wendy from Seattle, who reminded me of the two radio women from SNL, who have really monotone voices and finish each other's sentences. There was also Louise, the 30-something shy nurse from Western Australia, who had never had a drink in her life (that changed in a hurry). After having pizza for dinner, we convened back at the pub. It was obnoxiously loud inside, so I went outside where some people were talking. The three girls made their way over and I talked to them the whole night. Another very enjoyable evening, that could have been boring, had I been stuck hanging out with the drunks, not that they aren't nice people... It's just not that fun hanging out with drunk people. Anyway, we talked about all kinds of things, and I was feeling even more comfortable with all three of them, especially Leigh, which is strange for me considering I'm usually very shy. In fact, the previous nights when we talked was even more unusual because I rarely take the extra step to meet people. I think it's because she jumped in the conversation and asked me a question that made it easy. There I go overanalyzing again...
more soon...
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