New Zealand Cronicles Part 3

5/26

Sonofabitch. I should probably wait until tomorrow to write this up, but we’re on a tight schedule here. Besides, I’m too tired to go to sleep right now.

I went on the Franz Josef Glacier walk today. The full day variety. I believe it has a "difficult" difficulty rating. Perhaps I should have paid a little attention to that. It suggested that someone be reasonable fit. I guess I’m reasonably fit since I made it through the day, but goddamn it was tough at points. Walking up step stone and/or ice steps got me winded pretty quickly and it took me until lunch to really catch my breath. Actually had to use my inhaler at one point, mostly out of precaution, but also because I noticed I was wheezing slightly. I continually busted my knuckles on the ice as we were squeezing through tight cracks and crev-asses. I even got stuck once in the narrowest crack. I got through with the help of the guide (his name was Basil and as a result I thought about Fawlty Towers most of the day).

Don’t get me wrong, it was an incredible experience, but I won’t be doing it again soon. Unfortunately I felt like I was sucking wind more than looking around at the amazing ice formations and surrounding rain forest. I think next time I might shell out the dough for a helicopter lift up to the top where there are supposed to be breathtaking ice caves.

Tomorrow I have a short four hour bus ride to Greymouth. I’m relishing in the idea of doing absolutely nothing at all, nothing at all, nothing at all. I don’t feel like doing anything for weeks. I’ll be dead tonight while I sleep.



















5/27

I still haven’t caught my breath from yesterday—literally. I’m having some trouble exhaling and from time to time I give an asthmatic cough. I’m curious if all the overexertion yesterday has lead to some illness today, though I hardly feel ill, I just struggle with deep breaths. I’m surprised all my bones and muscles aren’t screaming today, all I feel is a little fatigue, and when I step up or down my legs feel a bit dead. My ass is bruised; I fell on it a few times yesterday during our dissent. The most annoying thing is the rawness of the back of my right hand. I’m missing tiny bits of skin here and there.

Today has proven a bit more eventful than expected, mostly because on the bus ride to Greymouth we stopped in a town that had a small indoor aquarium/zoo which included two Kiwi birds. But before I could see the rare nocturnal flightless birds, I got creeped out by a tank of 20-30 large eels. These guys were huge—and over 100 years old—and a bit too snake-like for my liking. As I was walking toward the Kiwi Room, a man asked me if I wanted to feed the eels. Shit. I have no idea why I said yes. So there I was with two small Middle Eastern boys, their mother, and the old man on a small, wooden platform above the eel tank (the eels were easily six feet long and as thick as my leg). We had to get down on our knees and lean over the water to feed the eels slivers of ox heart (why I asked what we were feeding them, I have no idea), placing the food in their mouths with what looked like salad tongs. The eels’ heads would come about a foot out of the water, their mouths gasping for food they could hardly see (“You gotta place it in their mouths cuz they don’t see so well.”). I’m getting chills just thinking about it again.

Greymouth is located at the mouth of the Grey River (hence, Greymouth). I’m sitting right now on a bench next to the Grey River with the town to my back. The river looks anywhere from 300-500 yards wide and is divided by an island of large rocks, boulders, and bushes. I’m maybe a mile or two from the Tasman Sea, and the sun looks to be setting in about a half hour. It’s setting into some clouds, the first large wispy clouds I’ve seen in a few days. The sun behind the clouds is giving off a bright white blinding light that makes it look like there is a deity up over there starting to peak around the other side of the world.


5/28

Traveled on the scenic train ride from Greymouth to Christchurch. I kinda wish the train left a little earlier than 1:45 because some of the beautiful scenery became quite dark and made taking pictures difficult. The good news is that I still took a bunch of good pictures, and I’ve nearly filled up my camera with pictures from my Australia/NZ trip. I’ve taken almost a thousand pictures since the middle of February which is a hell of a lot more than I expected to take, but I also didn’t plan on visiting NZ where I’ve taken a good 400+ pictures. Far too many to upload.

I had a surprisingly eventful night last night. I roomed with a German guy, a female French winemaker, and a French guy who did not speak much English. We went out for drinks and pool and they asked me several questions about the States and about English and I answered the best I could. We would have stayed out later, but by 11pm, we couldn’t find anything that was open so we went back to the hostel, drink some tea, and went to bed. There were only about six people total staying at The Duke, an awkward, pastel colored building, and it seems as a result of the lack of backpackers, the owner neglected to turn on the heat. We could see our breath in our room. I huddled under two comforters and slept surprisingly well considering the initial discomfort.







5/29

Back in Sydney and not feeling too well. Woke up with a head cold after a bit of drinking with someone from the Internet last night. Flying with a head cold is about the worst thing in the world, and I can’t hear much out of my left ear because it’s all blocked up and nothing will unpop it. Time to get some drugs imo.

It was not only a painful flight, but a bit sad, too. I wish I had more time there, but this just means that I’ll be going back there some day, and I urge all my friends and family and anyone really to take the time to go down there. The sites you’ll see will drop your jaw to the floor and leave it there for the duration of your travels (unless you’re in Christchurch which is very uninteresting). Many foreign currencies go a long way in New Zealand, so it can be a surprisingly cheap vacation, and lemme tell ya, you’ll get your money’s worth and much, much more.

New Zealand Cronicles Part 2

5/23

Took a bus from Queenstown to Dunedin. A rainy, gloomy day and that made the scenery slightly less exhilarating, but I never thought I’d enjoy long bus rides as much as I have. After I arrived I needed to figure out what I was going to do between Monday and Friday. My first option was heading to the north to the Marlborough wine region and doing a winery tour. The problem with this plan, however, is that I am traveling by myself and I would need other people up there to be interested in winery tours, which apparently isn’t the case this time of year. Plan B: Franz Josef Glacier walk. The problem with this plan means that I’ll have to leave Dunedin tomorrow and not Monday as I had planned. Since I was determined to do one of my two plans, I opted to leave tomorrow from Dunedin to go back to Queenstown, so I can get up to Franz Josef Monday, do the walk Tuesday, travel to Greymouth Wednesday, and take a scenic train ride from Greymouth to Christchurch where I fly back to Sydney Friday. I got a bit frustrated figuring that all out. A lot of this backtracking and day after day of bus rides could have been avoided if I had done a little planning beforehand. But I’m lazy and put shit off all the time (hence, the Australia trip). Will I ever learn? Unlikely.

5/24

So apparently the best pancakes I’ve ever eaten are in Dunedin (duh-NEED-in), NZ at a place called Capers on George Street. It was one large blueberry pancake folded over and stuffed with a variety of fruit (including bananas, which I’m allergic to and hate, but was good in the context of the pancake) and cream, topped with a blueberry sauce and maple syrup. If you’re ever in Dunedin, go to Capers and order the gourmet pancakes.

I woke up feeling really good, having amazingly slept through the night uninterrupted in a hostel. I awoke to the guy in the bed next to mine presumably touching himself and assuming that no one else was awake in the room at 7:30. Well, I was. Of course, maybe he wasn’t doing anything, but I was not in the mood to investigate.

I felt pretty tired and lifeless last night—probably from a combination of stressful planning and later beer consumption. I also had a conversation with what I’d call a hillbilly Kiwi.

“Hey, brew, you from Scandinavia?”

“Nope just let me talk a little more and you’ll figure it out.”

“Canadian!”

“No, little south of there.”

“A goddamn Yank! You’re a goddamn Yank!”

“That I am.”

Around this time he pulled out a cigarette and started smoking in the bar—which is illegal here.

“Oon a gen?”

“What?”

“Uh gen. You oon uh gen?”

“Oh, no, never even touched a gun.”

“Thet all you goddamn Yanks ooned em.”

“They’re not for me.”

Around this time he pulled out a bowl and packed it right there in the bar and offered it to me.

“This like bars in the states?”

“Yes, you can easily find bars like this.” Meaning Yes, we have dive bars, too.

“Coo coo.” And he kept on smoking.

As I had somewhat predicted a couple days ago, the batteries in my camera died this morning. For once, though, I came prepared. I’m not surprised they went dead because of all the damn pictures I’ve been snapping. Ideally I’d like to reach out and grab the mountains and shove them in my pocket and sneak them over to Chicagoland. Might be a bit difficult getting past security, but the effort would be wholly worth it. But instead I take pictures like the tourist I am. It’s just a futile effort, but about the only other thing I can do is look up and gape like a fool—I suppose I do that a lot anyway.

I made a silly life decision about an hour ago. Should I ever have a child, I’m going to name it Brown Patrick Brown so that s/he can follow in the footsteps of Ford Madox Ford, William Carlos Williams, and Bond James Bond. I suppose that would put a lot of pressure on little Pat—we’d call it Pat regardless of gender. Me and the mother would raise it androgynously, treating it as a female on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and as a male Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Resting, of course, on Sunday. This way the child will have a more objective look at gender and society as a whole. This—combined with my literary talents and the mother’s distinction as the grand dutchess of Newark, NJ, Esq., politician, obituary writer, gardener, and amateur boxer. Perhaps I’ve pigeonholed my future wife a bit, but I can be flexible. She doesn’t need to write obituaries. That’s a bit morbid anyway.

I’ve been having a very good hair day today, but I’ve been covering it up with a warm hat—not because I’m cold, but because I’m trying to be stylish and slightly less metal. I think this is the longest my hair has ever been. I last got it cut on December 1 and that was more of a trim really. Perhaps this is a sign that I need to buy an Ibanez and Metal Zone distortion pedal and play in drop H. My love of flannel will need to be suppressed, though, as Kurt Cobain died fifteen years ago and he was never metal anyway.

5/25

Took an eight hour bus ride from Queenstown to Franz Josef today. It’s amazing how enjoyable an eight hour bus ride can be. I’ve never taken so many pictures from a bus. Many of them turned out surprisingly well considering they were taken from inside a bus. We traveled along the west central coast of the south island. It’s almost all rain forest if it’s not mountain and in many cases it's both. It became a bright, sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky.

Other than the bus ride I didn’t do much. I checked into the glacier walk office, so I’m all ready to go for tomorrow morning. Don’t really know what to expect other than awesomeness.

New Zealand Cronicles Part 1

5/20

So tired, so very tired from the long, long day. Christchurch is a flatter city than I expected, but it wore me out today, toting my backpack all over—to Starbucks, to the travel information center, to the department store, to the art museum, to an Irish pub. It must be the backpack I’m not longer used to carrying that lit my back on fire. It’s only 7pm and I’m exhausted. I haven’t even begun my travels within NZ, and I feel worn out. My dinner tonight will be sleep. I’ll eat dreams and wake up before the sun comes up. I slept for about twelve hours last night. I woke from time to time and listened to the sheets of rain pelting the window of the dorm room, and I felt happy and warm on the top bunk, hidden and protected from—from what I’m not sure. Maybe the unpredictable weather patterns. Or maybe protected from having to make any decisions about anything and having no worries, no pressing matters at the moment, no existential crises, no obligations, no weight on my back.

5/21

There is some stupid scenery, just retarded, ridiculous scenery on the trip from Christchurch to Queenstown. I took a bus called the Atomic Shuttle. I now know why it’s named atomic. It’s because the bus does 120kph+ on two lane highways that twist and wind through mountains. A stretch of about 10 miles had some snow spattering the road and the scenery was an immaculate white that blended smoothly with the solid grey-white clouds. Is it a cloud? Is it a mountaintop? These are good questions and I thankfully spent more time considering these questions than the more dubious How is our little bus staying on the road?

The passage from Cromwell to Frankton (not to be confused with sprankton n. a disease you get from chewing too much) was particularly Lord of the Ringsy. Bluffs, cliffs, river rapids, waterfalls, rocky snow covered peaks, green-yellow-brown mountainsides, one-lane bridges, wineries, vineyards, bungee platforms—I felt like I was in fiction.

And to think this is just the start. I don’t know if my jaw can take it. I don’t know if my camera can take it. I don’t know if my pen can take it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words can are your our visions worth?

Click click click I take pictures out of the bus window and take even more here in Queenstown, but why? Nevermind the overcast, drizzly weather, that doesn’t matter, the scenery is still ridiculous—why bother trying to capture this? In the end I’m already convinced no amount of words and no number of pictures can capture these scenes. I think I’m starting to understand these people who tell me that New Zealand is just something you need to see. And lemme tell ya, you must.

5/21 (li'l later)

Oh god oh god, I finally found some great beer. It was in NZ all along! It was hiding. Sonofabitch! Well, I’ve found it and I’m consuming! Delicious!

5/22

As much of the bullshit I spewed yesterday about not having words to describe what I’ve seen, I have even fewer words today. Here are some pictures. They’re stupid. This is all stupid. Don’t look at them, just hop on a plan and get to NZ as fast as you can.





Reminder: to see the whole picture, you need to click on it.

How to Sound a Little Ungrateful

I was feeling thirsty so I decided to take a short walk to the heart of Chinatown to a bottle shop that has a decent beer selection (for Australia). On my way I passed a homeless man I’ve seen a number of times (who I may have even seen on my previous trip here last July) who is presumably mute because he walks around holding a piece of paper up with words written on it to passersby, presumably asking for money. Each previous time I had ignored his paper and just kept on walking.

When I had first arrived in Sydney back in February, I had gotten into the habit of giving change to those who asked me. But I then considered that I was giving away a lot of one dollar and two dollar coins and that those coins (the gold) really added up. Then I decided to put all my gold in my left pocket and all my silver in my right pocket and only give beggars some of my silver. This made me feel cheap so I just ended up ignoring a vast majority of the beggars. I do feel bad about this especially because almost all of them are incredibly polite and nice and the few that I’ve gotten to talk to have been interesting if not fascinating.

Perhaps I’m just a product of capitalism and this leads to me not wanting to give my money away. Perhaps it’s my reaction to not having any kind of income at the moment. I’ve never been rich, but I’ve never been poor. I’ve never had to beg. I’ve never had to worry about having enough food or water. I’m reminded of a book I’ve never read. George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. Orwell purposely lived a life of poverty in the poorest areas of the respective cities and wrote a book about his experience. I could never do that. I don’t think so anyway. I’m too used to the ordinary comforts of life, and far too lazy to really challenge myself. It’s been a challenge enough not having a TV for the last couple months. But when I pass by the beggars I see, I feel a twinge of guilt and hope that someone else gives them some loose change. The guilt quickly passes a block or two down the street and I go back to thinking about whatever I was thinking about before I was asked for some change.

So, anyway, today I decided to look at this homeless man’s note. I wish I could have copied it down because it made absolutely no sense. The first line was something like “THECOMMEDPEOPLETIXTOKTIXTOK.” There were a few more lines like this and then a message written at the bottom of paper in a noticeably different hand, “Give this man change money please.” I looked up at the man. He was on the old side with a thick beard that was mostly grey and dirty, a face like leather, and large sad pleading eyes. I could not say no to this guy and I reached in my left pocket and pulled out a few gold coins for him (pretty much all it could buy him was a can of Coke). After he held the coins in his hand, the man reached up to his beard stroking it and smiled slightly, mostly with his eyes—he was clearly complimenting me on my own beard. I almost laughed out loud, smiled, and returned the gesture, happily stroking my own beard to compliment his. I then turned around and silently walked off.

Koolewong

Earlier this week I spent of couple of nights in Koolewong. COO-lee-wong is a distant suburb to the north of Sydney located more or less in the middle of a national park. I hesitate to call it a suburb because it didn’t look like any suburb I’m familiar with, but if most of the residents there commute to Sydney and back (about a 75 minute train ride) to work, then I suppose that’s at least part of the definition of a suburb.

Koolewong lies next to Brisbane Water, which is an inlet, something like a bay and means that the water is salty but nearly still. I’m still confused as to what a Water really is, and after looking on GoogleMaps, the official name of this body of water really seems to be Brisbane Water (even though it’s not remotely close to Brisbane). Being the former Geography Bee champ that I am, I was never taught what a Water is. I think the Aussies are just making shit up.

I was welcomed to Koolewong by an internet turned irl friend Josh and his family. Josh, who leads a life of whimsy and adventure, suggested we climb a hill in the Brisbane Water National Park, conveniently located right behind his house. It was a bit more arduous of a hike than I’m used to (I’m pretty sure at one point we were climbing up something steeper than a 45 degree incline and I had to go back down on my ass for fear of falling and rolling to my death), but it was highly rewarding. The scenery was stunning. The rain held off, and we could see towering clouds towering over the really big hills/really small mountains that were covered in thick, deep green. The rolling verdant hills seemed to go on forever into the hazy horizon. I almost thought I was looking onto a rainforest, and I’m sure had the rain come I would have felt like I was (and had the rains come, we would have likely been stuck on top of the hill).

I’d like to take the time here in my blog to publicly thank Josh and his generous parents for welcoming this stranger from a distant land into their home (and cooking me homemade meals!).




Here we see a wild Kyle looking all too indifferent to his beautiful surroundings, looking all too metal for his own good, his decade old Radiohead shirt contradicting the metal hair, the gathering storm clouds perhaps insinuating that nothing good can come out of this caption:

Ten Days of Nothingness

Wrote this blog a few days ago:

I just ordered another beer. This is one more than I planned on drinking during today’s happy hour. But oh well, it’s here now. Can’t turn back now. Gotta drink it. Paid for it, gotta drink it now.

So I figured that I’d open up Word and write out a little ditty, type up something because, yes, I do realize that it’s been a little while since I last wrote about anything in here, and no, it’s not because I’ve been so busy doing things that I just haven’t found the time to write up the exciting account(s) of my exciting activities. No, mostly I’ve just sequestered myself in my little hole above a bar and stayed out of the rain. I haven’t even been reading or writing as much as I like, and that makes me wonder just what the hell have I been doing.

I went to Manly on Monday. I think it was Monday. Knowing how much I enjoy alliterating, I’d think that I’d like going to Manly on Mondays. So I went to Manly on Monday. I had heard that Manly has a nice beach and is popular with surfers and beach-goers. I am neither a surfer nor a beach-goer so I went to Manly. I found Manly to be aesthetically pleasing. Note the pictures at the bottom of this blog.

I took a ferry over to Manly. I hadn’t ridden on a ferry since I was about eight years old and on the first of my family’s four family vacations to Toronto. We rode a ferry on Lake Ontario to a little amusement park out on an island in the lake. I don’t remember any details of that ferry ride. This ferry ride was pleasant. I was surprised how smooth the ride was. I enjoyed the gentle up and down rocking of the sea. It felt like I was on a gentle teeter-totter. I wondered whether or not I would enjoy sailing in general. I have never considered sailing as a possible pastime that I might enjoy.

On this ferry there were a surprising number of beautiful people. They seemed all about my age or a little younger. They were dressed fashionable, Europeanly. They wore scarves and loose sweaters and tight jeans or leggings. They had clean, shinny, healthy hair. Many wore large sunglasses even though we were sitting on the shaded side of the ferry. On the ferry ride back to Circular Quay, I only saw families. Families on holiday taking the 25 minute ferry ride back to Circular Quay, back to their Sydney hotel rooms. They—the beautiful people and the families—all looked happy.

This is some pretty flowery language I’ve been using, but it’s my artistic way of showing just how little I’ve been doing.

It occurred to me sometime last week that I had somewhat planned on maybe working while here in Sydney. Doing what I have no idea. What do I do? Good question. My novels always stall at the 30k word mark, and it has happened yet again. I hope I can dig up some inspiration to write another 30k words or so. I know I have the material.

I’ve been trying to rekindle my relationship with poker. Not with the best results. So I’m left in a pool of self-doubt. That’s a bit hyperbolic.

Miscellaneous: I was reminded that I saved the day in Perth a while ago back when I was in Perth. I met up with someone from the Internet. He was a cool dude. A small dude, but a cool dude nonetheless. He bought a Rolling Stones shirt from a highly attractive female that I would advise he hit (sexually). After he bought this shirt we were walking down the main stretch of the mall in downtown Perth really hitting it off with conversations about music you have never heard of before when a disgruntled, fucked up guy comes up to my new friend and takes his bag with said shirt. What the fuck? someone yelled. My friend reached for the bag and grabbed it. The strange, fucked up dude looked like he was ready to start throwing down. My adrenaline raced and I started getting ready to throw down—keep in mind I’ve never thrown down before; I only get down. I was bigger than the fucked up thief and I put my weight on the balls of my feet. I think I even clenched my fists. I’m sure I did. Just at the pinnacle of excitement an undercover cop comes by and takes care of the situation. The wind is let out of the balloon. My heart still races and my adrenaline is still up, but there is no where for it to go. We go off and buy a coke.

There is a man who lives somewhere around Abercrombie Street who can often be seen walking his two pet goats and small dog. The first time I saw this man walking his goats and small dog, it was nearly dark out and I thought that one of his dogs was eating a bush. As I walked closer, I noticed that it was a goat. One of the goats was wearing a sweater. I hope to talk to this man one day.