Hello guvner, got a piece of bad news for you old boy.
Oh dear. everything okay with the project though right?
Oh yeah boss, absolutely golden. Nothing but green lights.
Great, good to hear. So what’s the problem then?
The end date….
The end date?
The end date.
The end date?
The end date. Going to need a little flexibility there?
What sort of flexibility?
Two and a half years.
Two and a half years!!! How long was the original project again?
Not sure guv, not to good with dates you see.
Evidently! Originally I think it was only supposed to be a 7 month project. I’ve already prepared the unveiling, I’ve booked the mayor to open it.
The Mayor? Diamond fella. Did a bit of work for him last year back, paved his driveway. Turned into a bumpy project that one though, forget I mentioned it.
The project was ‘bumpy’?
Yeah, the driveway as well by the time we’d finished hahaha. Subsidence most likely, slippery thing subsidence, less said about that the better. Actually, just forget I mentioned it.
Doesn’t subsidence only affect houses?
Could be. You’re the expert on that one, you tell me.
So what about my grand unveiling with the mayor and a brass band and…
A brass band you say? Paid the deposit on that on already?
Just yesterday.
That’s regrettable.
No I’m sorry, a delay is completely out of the question. A deadly of 2.5yrs is unfathomable.
Fair play, I hear what you’re saying. I’ll tell you what I’ll do like, since you’re being so agreeable.
I’m not agreeable.
Hang on, let me finish. Since you’re going to be so agreeable about the whole ‘delay’ thing. The boys and I will pull an all nighter, save a day.
Great, so it’ll be finished on the Sunday instead of the Saturday then? I’m sure the Mayor will be fine with that.
Yeah the Saturday, no problem at all. One day earlier, two and a half years later. Right now that’s all cleared up I best get back to it, walkway’s not going to build itself now is it?
Woooh, wait a second. It’s still going to be 2.5years late?
Yeah, but a day earlier.
What do you mean earlier? That’s one day less late, out of about 850.
True I suppose. That’s a question of perspective though I propose. I see your a glass half empty type of individual. That’s regrettable.
One thing you can say about the English, we’re pretty good friends with politeness. Politeness is our first, middle and last name. Just a simple act like buying a pre-packaged sandwich (a daily occurrence) requires at least six of them, a please, four thank-you’s and a cheers will normally suffice to not appear rude and mean spirited. Now bear in mind that is social etiquette when you are buying something, an act in which you actually do the seller a favour not the other way round, they should be the ones thanking you, which of course they will do, repeatedly, assuming they are proper Brits. Nothing is more important to us than
a) being polite
b) not causing offense
c) being seen to be polite and not cause offense
Yes I”m hinting here with c) that it’s not always a case of genuine desire not to offend, this is what makes us so good at subtext and intonation which is what I think gives us our very refined humour. Although I also heard that it’s because we went very quickly from being the worlds colonial super-power, to near irrelevance in record time. You take that badly, or you take it with humility and humour. Easy come, easy go.
Of course when I give this little talk about the traits of the English I’m talking about the English middle class here, the lower class pikey chav clan you’ll know all about, but it’s the middle class of any country that usual give it its positive traits, the lower class provide the negative, the upper class are pretty much the same sorry bunch the world over, at least that’s what I think.
With all that discussed and agreed upon, now think about Christmas. Shouldn’t be too hard we just had it. What happens at Christmas? People give you stuff. Now just imagine how much enthusiasm is required when someone takes the time to personally select, wrap and deliver something to you! Then they’ll probably have the cheek to expect you to open it in front of them! Now you are in a pickle, you better show some serious appreciation, superlatives, love and thanks better rain down all over that gift and its giver. Even if it’s the pervy Uncle you’ve not seen in 5 years and is not even in the room, English social etiquette dictates that you act as if the Mickey Mouse socks he bought have unexpectedly ended your pursuit for life’s deeper meaning.
I’m reminded of this because I had forgotten this, logical huh? I was away last Christmas, Annett and I were in Australia and so it had been two years since I’d experienced a Fletcher family Christmas, which I’m going to assume is not uncommon to other English Christmas of my fellow island monkeys.
Firstly, my family exchange a lot of gifts, easily over one hundred and twenty and that’s not an exaggeration, I’ve done the math. We usual wait until mid morning, after everyone has had time for a few cups of tea, then we get in a circle and round we go. Next year I will count exactly how many times people say “nice” or “thanks” in this one session, my guess would be near one thousand, and yes again, I’ve done the math. You can thank the women of the family for the vast majority of that though, being women they’ve got a little more to offer than men in terms of feelings and emotions. I like to think of emotions like a music. A set of individual instruments, noises, rhythms which when combines correctly produce beautiful sounds. I like to think that women are delivered their own personal emotional orchestra at birth. It’s hard to tell an individual instrument apart from the main, so when something is off it can take a long time to figure out exactly what it is that dragging the whole ensemble down. For many years it was all just noise, an uncontrollable wall of noise, but then they get better at understanding the various parts and what to listen and what to block out to make the best music. In contrast I think men are delivered two spoons and a thigh and told to get on with it. One spoon represents horny, the other hungry and from there we try to make the best of it. Okay let’s get back on point, I gotta learn to avoid these long sidetracking detours. Back on point Adam. Right, so we are in the circle, our presents are in a massive bag each at our feet.
Bear in mind this cycle will repeat until all the presents are opened and then for several hours more as you slowly revisit each one to reiterate again just how much you love them.
Mum: “Right, who is going to go first then?”
silence (another English trait, avoid the spotlight, resist being the center of attention)
Mum: “Dad? Ad? Gem?”
Gem: “Okay I’m excited I can’t wait, I’ll have the first one. Thanks everyone, so many presents, we are so lucky aren’t we?”
Gem: “Which present should I pick? Ohh. Let’s go for this one”
(selects gift)
Mum: “Can you guess what it is?”
Gem: “No clue. But I’m sure I’ll love it.”
Mum: “I’ve still got the receipt so if it’s not right it can go back, no problem. I’m not sure you’re going to like it now, I think it might be a bit of a boo boo present. Can you guess now?”
I should interject here to tell you that despite this little game of ‘can you guess what it is yet’ you are absolutely not allowed to guess correctly even if you know absolutely with the certainty of Jobe what lies under that wrapping. To get it right could upset the gift giver who knows the mystery is over, their gift giving predictability exposed to the group. So you would guess around it instead, if you think its a DVD say a book? Pocket-sized Ethiopian? Hand flannel? What you guess is not really important, just don’t guess right. Back to it…
Gem: “I have no idea”
Mum: “have a guess”
Gem: “seaweed?!”
Mum: “not even close”
She’s got half the wrapping off now. It begins….
Gem: “oh wow….that’s great”
Mum: “If you don’t like it, you can take it back no problem. I’ve got the receipt.”
Gem: “No, it’s very me, I love it. Great. Perfect. What exactly is it?
Nan: “If I’d seen it I’d of bought that for you.”
Mum: “It’s a holder for your bag you take it with you and use this to clip it to a table or desk.”
Gem: “Oooh brilliant. That’s great. Cos otherwise so many germs collect on the bottom of your handbag. That’s brilliant. Great. Look at that everyone? Did you see that yet? Dad? Did you see?”
Dad: “Very nice.”
Gem: “Did you see that yet Kathers?”
Kathers: “Oh great. I love it. What it is?”
Gem: “It’s a clip for your bag.”
Kathers: “Brilliant.”
Nan: “Oh I get it now, a clip for your bag, brilliant. Whatever will they think of next? Great.”
Gem: “Chuffed with that. A real humdinger. Oh that’s a nice colour. Oh yeah. Very nice. Yeah very nice, great, thank you. Wonderful.”
Mum: “I’m wasn’t sure if you’re were going to like it or not, but I thought it was very you with the colour and stuff and with you having a bag and not liking dirt and that, phew that’s a relief.”
Gem: “Who’s opening next? Ad, your go ay.”
Mum: “Hang on, first is someone making a cuppa?”
Collectively: “Oh yeah, I’m gasping.”
The funniest moment from my gift opening was when Kev gave me these:
I didn’t start laughing. I just looked at them and then everyone was looking at me like I wasn’t grasping something. Being a sweet sugar coated ball of innocence I was saying “Big Chicken? Big. Chicken.” in my head was:
back and forth, back and forth. Is it an insult? I was groping in the dark for the deeper meaning when I was shut down by Mum shouting “COCK!” at me. Hang on?!? I’m not the quickest but there’s no need to be mean. “Cock, it means Big Cock”.
Ahhhh…..
Incase you ever have to open a present in the company of the English I’ve produced this handy flowchart which should help you (click it to view full size).
I don’t see much of planning. He’s like a brother I never had anything in common with and we just sort of grew apart over the years, civilly and without sadness.
Sometimes though my gross incompetency in this area does result in well, gross incompetence in this area. Today I wanted to go to Amsterdam to spend some time with Annett. Actually yesterday I wanted to go to Amsterdam to spent some time with Annett. I packed, prepared and was up early for just that reason (7am!). I even announced on Twitter to my tweeple that I was going to be out of town for a week and they shouldn’t inundate with requests for my company, which I’m sure they were going to do after ignoring me for weeks. As I went to leave I picked up the ticket and noticed that it wasn’t for yesterday, but actually for today. Waste of time. False alarm. Back to bed. Waste of excitement (especially for Annett lonely over there in the land of the toastie).
Anyway, I unpacked my ticket and filled the day doing what I do to fill the day everyday. The next day (today, hello there) I got up early again confident this time that I had the right day. I did. As I was packing a blazing row kicked between my two female room-mates. I moved to secure the crockery, then time dictated that I had to leave, the crockery would have to stand on their own porcelain feet, or their version of feet. I made it downstairs and with my big travelling rucksack on my back and my other rucksack wrapped on my front. I unlocked Annett’s bike that I was bringing for her and headed off double quick time for the Train Station. Then my phone rang, it was one of my roommates in hysterics upset after the fight and talking about relocation. Sorry. Bad Time. Can’t support. Barely upright. Many bags. Riding small girls bike. Late for train.
Feeling guilty at my roommate inadequacies I put the pedal to the concrete and made haste. Slow haste because I’d forgotten to clip Annett’s basket grips and they’d dropped down wrapped round the chain, got very tight, snapped in two, yet stayed tightly wrapped. No problem. I can still make it. Hands were inserted, eventually the clips, cord and the majority of chain grease removed and in/on my hands, let’s go. Small problem, bag on front too big, can’t peddle as legs lift up and knock it. No where else to put it, tram? Can’t, no cash, no time for cash. Pedal. Rotate legs outwards? Yes, works. Just. Not energy efficient. Not the time for efficiency. Pedal. Pedal. Tired. PEDAL. Tired.
I made it. With a cool four minutes to spare, with even enough time remaining for the acquisition of cash. Onto the train.
Are you getting on the train with the bicycle?
Yes.
Do you have a bicycle ticket?
No.
(silence)
………………………
(we stare at each other)
………………………………
(we continue to stare at each other, it’s become a sort of contest to see who will crack first. I give in, we only had four minutes.)
Well can I get one then?
Yes.
(silence)
………………………………….
(we stare at each other)
…………………………………
On the train.
Right….thanks.
I make the train, I get the ticket. Exhausted but with my two bags and a small girls bicycle I sit and relax.
I had a 17min connection window for the one change I had to make, in Hannover. The train runs 14mins later. The announcer helpful announces (well what else would an announcer do) that my next train is leaving from platform 12, ‘opposite us’ when we pull in on platform 11. I get stuck in the door as I hastily alight with the bags and the bicycle. A fat man watches me wriggle, stuck. He doesn’t help, he doesn’t smile, he doesn’t laugh. One of the three would have been a minimum. All was expected. Wanker.
I get off and see my train waiting opposite on platform 12 where it should be. I look for the bicycle carriage, I can’t find it. Whatever I’ll get on and deal with that later, its a 5hr journey, I’ll have time to find it. The doors shut eagerly behind me, I relax. Post relaxing I look up, the screen says the train is for Cologne. While not a whizz in Geography, I know that is not in the Netherlands nor on the way to the Netherlands. Wrong train. Shit. Getting on the wrong train is one of those annoying wrong decisions, as you are faced with your mistake out of the window at 150khr until the next station. Unfortunately this was an express, so the next stop was 120k and 50 minutes in the wrong direction. Shit sticks. Long 50mins.
50mins and a few phone calls to base HQ Netherlands later, I’m on the platform at Bielefeld (the next stop) waiting for the next train back to Hannover. That train arrived but it’s late, like every train so far today. With its late departure it should leave me two minutes in Hannover to get the next Amsterdam train at 2:40, costing me just two hours and a little embarrassment. People on the ICE train keep looking at me funny. Possibly because I’m sitting in the gangway with a small girls bicycle, and ICE trains don’t allow bicycles, and I’ve a ticket to go somewhere else, and I’m an idiot, and I have a stupid beard, and I need a haircut.
The train runs late on its journey back to Hannover. 2 minutes later. I get off with zero minutes to make it to the Amsterdam train, I carry the bike forward, down, around, up to another platform and just in time to wave the 2:40pm on its merry way to the city of the illegal made legal from the chilly comfort of the platform.
While I’m not the most perceptive, I was getting an inkling that someone was trying to tell me its just not supposed to be. Go back to your attic hibernating bear.
I waste two hours becoming intimate with Hannover train station, every train station in Germany is a clone of every other train station it seems, so don’t make a special trip there if you’ve been to any other one. It’s only remarkable in its unremarkableness.
I get to the platform 30mins early for the 4:40pm. I’ve learnt my lesson. Later than some perhaps, but learnt none the less. I ask 5 different staff members if this is the platform, and exactly where the bicycle carriage will be. 2 can’t understand me (in either language), 3 agree one particular section of platform upon which I should park myself and my bicycle. At 4:38pm I enter the bicycle carriage of the train to Amsterdam and park my small girls bicycle. Exhausted I sit, I could kiss the seat and the fat man who sits next to me as I write this and I hope can’t read English, if you can fat has become an English slang word for perfect proportioned, please stop hogging the arm rest.
I’ve been working hard, mentally, if that’s not an oxymoron to turn my one word review of skydiving – intense, into something a little more descriptive. I’m making progress, slowly and can now offer up – super intense. I wasn’t particularly nervous beforehand, but became more nervous once I met my tandem skydiver Freddy (the bald Bavarian). I could detour to tell you how I’m a magnet for Germanism, how Germans follow me the world over, how I can’t escape them, but that’s for another day. Instead I’ll tell you that Freddy is a Skydiving World Champion, listed in the Guinness Book of Records. When questioned he was quite blasé about the whole world record this
“Hey Freddy I heard you in the Guinness Book of Records”
(heavy German accept) “Ya”
“I always wanted to be in the Guinness Book of Records!”
“Just do weird shit.”
Profound Freddie, profound.
He’s been a professional skydiver for 26 years completing 80,000 skydives! That’s not an error I really said 80,000 skydives! For most people that would put their mind at ease. You’d be thinking, ‘oh great it’s not his first day, this guy clearly knows what he’s doing I’ll just hang there let him do his thing and we’ll slowly drift down on a blanket of air back down to the deck.’
That wasn’t what I was thinking.
I was thinking…
‘80,000 jumps? Still alive after 80,000 jumps? You’ve more than pushed your luck buddy, your streak should have ended a long time again, all good things must come to an end.’
Today’s the day you accidentally pick up the wrong backpack, not the one with the parachute in, the other one you brought to work, the one containing a ham sandwich, a Dean Koontz novel and your football boots. Let’s see what use they are when you’re dropping like a stone at 12,000ft.
If we make it through this one Freddy get out, get out now.
I’m not scared of heights, no-one is really scared of heights let’s face it. We all share a common fear of the ground rising very quickly to smack us in the face. That’s what we mean when we say we’re scared of heights. So when the green light comes on, the door is lifted up and Freddie says “okay, here we go, hang your legs over the edge” and you look down you’re not thinking ‘geez its pretty high, I’d like to be slightly closer to the ground if that’s possible could we come down a little bit I’m afraid of heights.’
You’re thinking
‘shut the door you bald buffoon, this is a completely ridiculous idea and I’ll push every last one of you out of the plane and land the damn thing myself if I have to there no way in hell I’m going to jump out of a perfectly serviceable plane with a guy whose luck should have run out 79,900 jumps ago.’
“Get ready, head back” and then whoosh, we’re away and into free fall.
It’s loud and every second it feels like you’re being repeatedly punched in the face by the air, the wind resistance is that great. Freddy is tapping me on the arm and making thumbs up like gestures. As I’m sort of committed, it’s not a ride you can get off, sorry everyone it’s not working for me, up you get and head for the nearest green sign. You’ve little choice but to stick your thumb up as well. Oh yes I’m having a splendid time Freddy, could you turn up the G-force a little? A mixture of the restrictive jumpsuit, being harnessed to Freddy and the drag of gravity made it feel I’d popped all my insides in a blender – one Adam shake, coming right up. If anyone tells you freefall is a pleasant, drag them to a cliff edge and throw them off. They’ll die happy, and the world will be short another liar. The freefall only lasts 45 seconds, then the parachute is released and you start the more serene gliding part. I can see how this part could be fun. You drift slowly to the ground soaring high above everyone, you can see for miles and the descent is gentle and you can experience first hand what it might be like to be re-born as a kite. Personally, my insides still playing Organ Jenga I felt very little but sick. I’m pretty sure I would have been sick right there in mid-air, but I was afraid I might vomit on my shoes, and I like my shoes. I was also conscious that it might be unpleasant for whoever received the sick on the ground..
SPLAT!!!
”What’s that on the car windscreen hunny?”
“Erm…looks like mansick.”
“Oh, that’s good luck right? If a man from the sky vomits on you?”
“Yeah must be. Hey have I told you I’d really like to do a skydive”
Freddy was sensitive to my sickness. “It’s all in your head. There’s really nothing that can make you sick, no pressure on your stomach, just a gentle descent” he said whilst spinning us around and around in the sky. It takes several minutes to reach the ground, the landings are really smooth. I managed to keep my breakfast (just) in my stomach and Freddy completed jump 80,001.
“This is what I’m living for, every day in different places around the planet” he said as we approached the landing.
Each to their own Freddy, each to their own.
Afterwards I stumbled around in a daze. Happy to be alive, happier to never have to do another skydive. My body didn’t feel like my own anymore, words were hard to form, my ears had popped and my nerves were shot. So I just said “intense” to any question asked of me until I could get back in the car and begin re-arranging my vital organs on the drive home to Auckland.
I’m pretty sure we left off with me having just reached the bottom of the rabbit hole. If it wasn’t surreal enough to be standing in a dark watery cave looking up 30m to where the world made some kind of sense, the other guide says “I hear you work in IT. So I’m thinking, and I’ve not researched it or anything about getting a new laptop, what would you recommend?”
For starters I’d recommend asking someone who works in Dixons, not someone who you met in a hole.
Annett rescued me from this conversation by dropping down just a few minutes behind me. The sounds was uniquely Annett a combination of ranting, swearing and general hysteria in a mix of German and English. What was unusual were her bloodied hands, a result of her gripping the rope so tightly that the burns from which she is still suffering broke the skin. How she dropped any distance with a grip that tight is somewhat of a miracle but for a girl who can find stress in any circumstance as her brain cycles through a never ending loop of worst case scenarios, the fact that she’d attempted it at all was pretty impressive. I was proud of her. All bloodied but still challenging her fears, which are pretty much everything.
Next we skirted round to a zip line. This area was unlit except for a ceiling of glow worms. I was first and through the cave I hurtled attached to the zip line staring up at a sky of animal stars wondering where the red button the guide said I’d need to press to stop was. I could see no red button, just a wall, which didn’t appear to be red, at least no yet as it wasn’t smeared with my carcass a technicality that was going to change rapidly if I didn’t stop. Luckily I did stop, the red button gag had been nothing but a cruel joke. I stopped on a ledge, watched everyone else have a go and then we lined up to jump 20ft off the rock edge into the freezing water below. I was glad I didn’t have to go first for this one and once the other members of the group had tested the water for rocks, I, jumped for it as well.
The water was cold and wet, so often how it’s served I’ve found. We had black rubber rings to sit on and could paddle with our arms or where they were provided pull ourselves along with the cave using the ropes attached to the wall. Using the lights from our head torches we could partially illuminate the majestic, huge cave covered in glow worms. For the next hour we paddled, swam, walked, slid, crouched, crawled, our way through the cave (we’d signed up for the extreme course) navigating our way back towards the surface. Despite a scary moment where we got lost and separated from the group in a narrow passage of tunnels, Annett’s head torch stopping working we re-emerged to kiss the sweet, sweet turf of civilization. Should the earth become over-populated and we have the choice of moving underground or up to colonize space, I’ll be on that shuttle before you can say ‘Neil Armstrong’.
Tense and unsure if this whole adrenaline thing was going to work out, we retired to our novelty accommodation, the captains quarters of a converted ship. It was noveltyastic with a little mini chandelier and portholes and other ship type stuff. They also have a hobbit hotel and a plane and a train which have all been converted into noveltyastic accommodation. They also had sheep, idyllic scenery and no caves so it was rather pleasant and fitting for two residents from the city of sails.
On Saturday we rose early to drive to Taupo for our skydive. We’d originally tried this last July, but it was too cold and windy and they wouldn’t let us jump. But January in NZ is akin to August in Europe so without a cloud in the sky we had no excuse this time. It was a beautiful drive through the back-roads of NZ, two hours of pure bliss as we saw almost no cars but plenty of breathtaking scenery. As I’ve said before living in NZ is like living in the middle of a painting, a painting of rolling green hills, empty beaches and blue vistas. Taupo is a nice little town on the edge of Lake Taupo a huge volcanic lake, 160km in diameter. We didn’t have too long to enjoy it today as we were heading out of town to the airport to do our skydive.
Since the moment my feet (oh no wait actually it was my ass again) first touched the ground at the end of the jump, I’ve been trying to put into words how it felt to do a skydive. I’m still nowhere near, which is partly why I’m writing this post as the act of having to write it down should help my poor little man brain process and file it away. All I can up with to describe it so far is intense. This was the one word I used immediately after it when the staff and fellow jumpers were ask me
“How was that for you then?”/“How was it?”’/“Incredible huh?”
“Erm, it was intense” was all I could muster. Other people were literally, and figuratively doing cartwheels, whooping, hollering and celebrating having tumbled 12,000ft from a plane and survived with the help of a big duvet and a bald Bavarian. My face was more ‘glad that particularly long trip to the dentist is now over, hope that’s it for another year’ than the standard ‘sweet, rejoice, look how brave I am, I’m king of the world I can cheat death and I so can’t wait to get this on Facebook and make everyone jealous they’re going to hear every detail on Monday’ which was the expression everyone (incl. Annett) was wearing.
I’m no stranger to thrill sports. I regularly get in a car with Annett who drives like she’s playing a computer game in her head in which she’s eaten a special mushroom and has 999 lives. It’s a white knuckle ride no-one is tall enough to ride. Besides this occasional brush with certain death we’ve kept it fairly pg-13 while living in New Zealand. Recently we wrote a Kiwi Bucket List of 10 or so must do activities before we leave.
Rather than spread these activities equally across our final two months in summer-locked NZ we packaged up all the dangerous ones into one giant long weekend of adrenaline (no idea why we got Monday off, no doubt it will involve the Maoris and some legislation where we promised to be a bit less mean hundreds of years ago). This weekend we’ve:
- Gone caving
- Gone rafting (black water rafting in the dark)
- Flew on a zip line through a pitch black cave.
- Done a 30m vertical abseil (for both of us, our first ever abseils)
- Jumped out of a perfectly serviceable plane at 12,000 ft strapped to just a bald Bavarian, skydiving it’s commonly known as.
- Rode the famous ‘death trap luge of Rotorua’
- Went to natural spa complex (okay so that wasn’t so deadly, but the danger of slipping on water splashed over the edge of the one of the 7 hot, spa pools was very real, very, very real because if I’ve learnt anything from movies nothing adds emphasis like repeating yourself, that’s right repeating yourself, yourself, repeating, yourself. So I was right to tread so lightly.
I should probably tackle one at a time and then offer some sort of anecdotal review of the activity, so lets give that a go.
The weekend began like all other weekends, only shitter. I went ahead to collect our hire car, drove it out of the forecourt and directly into a traffic jam from which it sat almost stationery for almost an hour. Hot, tired, fed up of driving (despite having gone nowhere, did I mention I have no love or patience for driving?) I gave up, no actually cancel that. I chose not to let the traffic jam win, I decided to be the bigger person. By quitting. Auditioning for a spot on iparklikeanidiot.com I parked like an idiot pulling the car over and refusing to move, .com. Sweaty, fed up and longing for water and a bicycle in equal measure I did what any adult would do – through a hissy fit, refused to drive anymore, accidentally bought a parking ticket valid for about 5 days and stomped off to find Annett give her the keys and let her deal with it. The joys of delegation.
Annett eventually got us out of the city, I got that water and we were on track. That track being a road and that road ending in a place called Waitomo which is Maori for big watery grave. No hang on, I’ve mistranslated that. It’s actually Water/Big Hole, but you can read the subtext. Its a natural complex of caves where stupid people go to prove how brave they are by swimming about in the dark under the light of maggot shit, or glow-worms to use they’re marketing name. The descent starts with a gentle 30m sheer vertical drop down a hole. Heard of stairs people? Stairs, it’s how the civilized ascend and descend. The guide said it was possibly the biggest straight descent available in New Zealand the guide said. I’d never abseiled before so I was keen to start with a 30m drop into a dark hole as a little appetizer, you know to the serious abseiling I’ve planned for after I’d grown some balls.
Everybody knows that everything worth knowing is learnt from TV. For example I know you can run off a cliff and you’ll just keep running on an invisible ledge until you look down when, and only then, the normal rules of gravity will once again apply. Wrestling has also taught me how to fight. First you wear lycra and live in a trailer. Second once the fight begins you should have to look mean, throw some punches, a kick or two land a few early blows but then, and this bit’s crucial so pay attention, what’s really important is you have to lose. Let the other guy pummel you into the ground, kick the living shit out of you until you’ve almost nothing left. Then with you on the ground, bleeding profusely from multiple wounds and feeling generally very sorry for yourself, reach out. Reach out with your hand, open your hand and extend your arm as far as possible. Then grab. You won’t find anything but worry not, you are doing important preparation. Now even though every fiber of your being has mobbed up to chant “give up, give up, it’s over you loser” grab again, a tiny bit further this time. Throw your shoulder into it. Ah ha, you’ve found something now haven’t ya? Clever aye? Where did that come from? That my friends if the strategically placed now-the-underdog-who-couldn’t-die-because-he’s-too-important-to-the-plot-anyway-creatively-uses-found-object-to-win. What it is depends on the movie/wrestler. In most movies it will be a shard of glass or a bit of table or a chicken leg or something. In Jackie Chan and martial arts movies it could be anything, a hot dog to be inserted directly into the assailants brain via the ear. There really are no rules.
It’s quite a detour I’ve constructed here. I hope it’s worth it.
So when approaching my first abseil I wasn’t filled with fear, TV has taught me all I need to know about abseiling. I’ve seen people climbing mountains or abseiling down buildings dozens of times. Just put the clip thing in the hooky thing, put your legs out and walk down in a way that would make Neo proud, and perhaps slightly jealous. Ropes also play a factor, but it’s minor, c minor at best.
So I stepped off the platform into thin air and began abseiling like TV had taught me. There was one slight problem though. TV lies. I know this because I did walk sidewards down the cave, dignified like a gravity defying Chameleon. I couldn’t get my legs to go anywhere which might have been on account of their being paralyzed by fear. Instead I just sort of dropped slowly, every time I released a little more rope I bounced a little more down the hole on my ass. I know this because when I got to the bottom the guide said:
“What happened, you sort of just bounced down on your ass”. Which was accurate. Feeling buoyant to still be alive I responded “Ah yeah, had some issues with my legs. The next one will be much better I’ve got the hang of it now”. He laughed because he thought that was a deliberate pun. It wasn’t. A man doesn’t joke when he’s paid $200 to skid down 30m of hole into the earths inner core, dressed in a red jump suit, a jump suit now missing a patch of material on its ass.
This has turned into a longer post that I’d planned so I’ll stop here and do the rest another day.
The detectives amongst us may have sniffed a few clues hidden the depths of that last post. So I guess absolutely no-one will be surprised by this post and our bit of good news….
We’re leaving New Zealand and returning to Europe!!!!!!!!
A year after arriving (where did that go? Somewhere down the back of the sofa probably, I’m sure I’ve seen a month or two lying around here somewhere) we’re packing up and heading off. As lovely as NZ is, and it is lovely, to look at, it’s just too remote and at our age I think a year here is just about perfect.
Annett’s never found a job she’s happy in, we’ve seen a fair bit of the country, I will have worked pretty much a whole year (unbelievable I know), we were able to setup and live in a beautiful, quaint little home stuffed full of cushions and other assorted big ideas.
Now back to Europe, but where in Europe I hear you ask?
Not a $m dollar question this one, I guess especially when you consider the following factors:
1. Annett is German. Very German. Very, very German. Which is fabulous entertainment no matter how often I make it sound like a disease on this blog. It’s also a bias for future relocation.
2. I’m completely in love with East Germany. It’s always documented here to the point of me sounding like a stuck record, a stuck german record presumably with a chorus something along the lines of “Liebe Deutschland, Liebe Deutschland woo, woo, Leibe Deutshchland, woo, woo.”
3. We need somewhere cheap, as I have no plans to get anything more than a part-time job (if I absolutely have to).
4. Most of our friends live in the small town of Leipzig.
Can you guess? Okay, enough already! We’re moving back to the Fatherland. But not Leipzig, instead……Berlin.
Just one and half hours from Leipzig, yet different enough to be un-comparable, many more jobs and still an adventure.
It’s going to be great, I’ll be all confused and exotic again being back in a country where I don’t speak the language. We’ll buy beaten up old bicycles with baskets and peddle as if they contained E.T. himself.
We’ll go to weird little hidden clubs in shabby basement or car parks, places with no signs which play freaky german electro music that I’ll hate, but love, because I’ll get to try and understand what must have misfired in peoples brains to make them not understand that they’re dancing to fuzz, electronic fuzz.
We’ll hold BBQs in parks with our friends and drink beer until sunset and then all climb on bikes and cycle to a bar or houseparty. We’ll have friends again. They’ll like meeting up with us, they’ll appreciate that we’re a little odd, flippant, fight a lot and have no interested in talking about sport or the news or the real world or sub-prime mortgage induced gloom.
We’ll, we’ll, we’ll….I don’t know but I’m excited because I don’t know what it will be like but I know it will be alive and buzzing like a city should be and like Auckland isn’t.
I’m aware that people like specifics, things that can be circled or underlined, so here is a small itinerary.
5th April – Headless packing chickens
6th April - Airport waiting chickens. Packed in coup on plane chickens. Irritable jet-lagged chickens.
7th April – Free range chickens – in Tokyo, Japan.
You’ll be pleased to know I’m going to break the chicken theme now to elaborate on that one. My main goal once we’d agreed to leave (which happened when we were in Sydney over New Years and reminded what an alive city feels like) was to work out a way to get myself to Tokyo the one place I want to go most in the world. I used all of my man imagination skills to concoct an evil plan that would sweep us off to the land of weirdness. It involved bribery, theft and disguising ourselves as vending machines….
I was immensely proud of it.
So proud I wanted to tell somebody, having no friends I called a travel agent. She said and I quote “why you’re a criminal mastermind” yet I felt she was patronizing me. “Well tell me your brilliant idea then why don’t ya!” I said with just a hint of disbelief, because I knew she has nothing, nada. But I was wrong. “How about I sell you a flight to London stopping at Tokyo on the way for a few weeks and I’ll make it really cheap because the worlds gone into financial meltdown and a planes just crashed into the river in NY and had to inflate its fun slides and now everyone’s too afraid to fly because of bird terrorists”. “You’re on, lets do it” and so it was done, and now we’re going to Tokyo.
Back to the plan
7th – 16th April – Arrive in Cambridge Stansted, some people call it London Stansted but that’s a lie to trick tourists because its closer to Cambridge but if they called it Cambridge Stansted no-one would fly there, but I call it that because it gives me a smug sense of one-up-man-ship that I can see through their marketing con tricks.
16th – 20th – Fletcher Family reunites for bonding with special guest.
20th April – Special guest (Annett) fly’s on to Leipzig. I stay to do further family and UK bonding.
27th April – I fly on to Leipzig.
Then after some friends bonding and memory re-living we get stuck in with house hunting and new life building in Berlin.
That’s about it. I’m off now to finish sewing my vending machine disguise just in case, just in case….
I’m planning a proper post on how I’m finding New Zealand so far. I’ll probably put it on HipHipUK though, the Zig type stuff that I don’t mind just anyone reading will be on there from now on. It’s be a t-shirt free blog at last, as I don’t have to fund the traveling trip and Tjunction is making a tidy amount.
Whats the point of this post? Well after a mind-numbing 1.5hr spent researching discounted beds for the beds affiliate site, I need a break before I tackle wine or supermarkets. Its impressive that I picked these three niches when I’ve never brought a bed, don’t like wine and don’t buy my groceries online. Actually maybe its more impressive that they make money. Whatever.
Get to the point. What was the good news? Ah yes, I’ve finally uploaded pictures of the flat onto flickr. The plan was to do it earlier but the flat was always too messy. Annetts out working (short-term temp thing) so like the little bitch I am, I just cleaned the place up and now its dazzling clean. So go and take a look at where we live now if you’re interested. We’re off to the capital Wellington for a few days now, enjoying my last days of freedom before I start work on Monday
After 5mnths off its going to be a big culture shock to re-enter the world of working. Grrr. If you don’t know where I’m working you can read about it on HipHipUK
That it? Yep, now get back to what you were doing.
