a huge week had

Last weekend kicked off a fairly big week for me which has been sadly absent recently and long overdue. Saturday, I caught up with Suze, a chick from Essex whom I met on my first night in Aotearoa. We had planned on meeting up in Qtown but for some reason that never eventuated, and now we'd even both been in Welly for a good few months before catching up! It was nice finally seeing her again..
The following day, Tom (a dude from work; coincidentally also from Essex) and I caught up for some sushi and to check out the botannic gardens. We found this (apparently famous) tree which you can climb up and sit on top of, which we did. I found a traffic cone somewhere along the way to the gardens and dragged it up the tree with me - ultimately becoming a makeshift megaphone for a couple of skater-boys, also up the tree, to make animal sounds much to the bewilderment, amusement and sometimes horror of unsuspecting passers-by.
Myself, Tom and couple of his buddies went to the cinema to watch The Good Shepherd on Tuesday night. I personally think it would make for a good DVD movie.. I kept almost falling asleep.. :P
On Courtenay Place (one of the main hubs of activity in Wellington), there is a games parlour which is where we ended up on Wednesday night. $10 for 3 hours unlimited arcade-style entertainment, including laser skirmish! I've never done any kind of skirmish before - it was a riot.. Might try my hand at paintballing, but I've heard that's a little more painful..
The next night there was a Motor-X type competition in the middle of the city when a narrow sidestreet was blocked off and a big 75ft jump set up. Myself, Brian (another dude from work; from Glasgow) and a couple of his mates, Rob and Pablo, went to check it out. There were some pretty daring stunts pulled off by the guys on motorbikes, very entertaining. And what night wouldn't be complete without having a photo taken with the Jim Beam girls?
This weekend just gone, Wellington was host to New Zealand's biggest free street festival, the Cuba Street Carnival (Cuba St being a slightly more alternative version of our Rundle Mall back home with a bunch more clubs and bars). Friday night there were short movies playing, including This is Spinal Tap - hilarious! Partying into the wee hours of the morning ensued.. On Saturday: Hundreds of stalls, plenty of street performers (including a man driving around in a toilet bowl!?!), a huge night illuminated parade and thousands of Real Hot Bitches! Now, before you call the People Against Sexism hotline, I must explain that there is a very fashionable, lycra-wearing dance troupe based in Wellington that call themselves the Real Hot Bitches. Basically a bunch of (mainly, athough not exclusively) 30-50-something women that get together on Saturdays to bust some moves in overly-flattering attire. Suze and I were luckily in the right place at the right time early on Saturday evening when the Bitches were attempting to organise the largest sychnronised dance routine the world has ever seen, out the front of a Courtenay Place bar called The Establishment.. Along with over 1700 other shameless participants, we helped break this world record by performing a cheesy dance routine to Bon Jovi's '84 classic, "Shot Through The Heart". Such fun being able to openly claim Hot Bitch status (not that I didn't already)!!! More partying into the wee hours of the morning ensued..
OK, so I've been staying in the Adelaide Road flat for 10 weeks.. Yesterday we had to be out.. After a marathon cleaning/packing session on Sunday, we all finally left around 2130hr. Sash and I grabbed a bite at Nando's after this and went on to play a few games of pool in the nearby pool lounge. By the time 2300hr came, I still hadn't found a place to stay for the night! Brian is staying in a hostel called Nomads (which is incidentally where I stayed in Melbourne when I decided on the date of my flight to New Zealand), and so I bunked down there for the night. Because Uni has just started back this week, almost all the hostels in Wellington are full of returning students so it's quite difficult to find a spare bed; I've only been able to book 3 more nights at Nomads since after that they're all booked out! I'm still not quite sure what I'm going to be doing, but I have been throwing around the idea of chucking in my job here at the Polytech in a couple of weeks time, and moving up to Taupo (the massive lake in the centre of the North Island) to find some bar work. Eh, only time will tell..

I'll get some photos up here for the last 2 posts soon.

Check these guys out: Flight of the Conchords. Sweet as bro!

Photos:
1. DJ's 21st (night out with guys from the flat): Me, Louise, Kelly, Jason, Sash and DJ - Anyone up for beer bowling?
2. View over the city from the top of that tree
3. "Daddy, what's that man doing?", "Just keep walking, son..."
4. Our team at work - Clockwise: Brian, Harry, Me, Sana, Tom and Brendan
5. Told you we met them.. with Rob and Brian
6. Covered in foam at the night parade - Suze, Tom, James and Me
7. Those are some Real Hot Bitches!
8. A float at the parade
9. Save time, just don't get up from your desk!
10. The painted man + Suze and me
11. That's me in the middle! ;)

12. Oh the things we do when we're drunk.. Brian and Pablo