Christchurch was going to be a short stop for us before we headed to kaikoura. Just a day or two and then we'd continue. The first day (well, actually the second but we arrived in the evening of the first day) we headed into town to see if we could find any travel agencies and after checking the internet we came across a backpacker travel agency. After about an hour we had picked a flight on the 15th of april and we'd return 3 weeks later. We decided to let her hold the flight and that we'd come back the next day to pay and book a hostel. We spent the rest of the day in an internet cafe. The next day we headed back to the agency pay for our flight and accomodation with a huge stack of 20$ bills in our wallet (900$ worth). When the girl that helped us the day before tried to book the flights she'd reserved for us she found that they were gone, even though the machine had told her that we had 48 hours to pay for them. After a lot of calling back and forth it turned out that the seats were gone and that there was nothing we could do about it. Luckily we could find 2 tickets for 2 days later, we then booked a hostel for the first 2 days and a shuttle to the airport (it's going to pick us up at 5:15 AM!). However they couldn't get hold of the hostel so they'd have to send them and e-mail and we'd have to come back later to see if they had space for us. Unfortunately the next day was saturday and they were closed in the weekends so we'd have to come back on monday. The whole ordeal took about 2.5 hours and afterwards we spent some more time in an internet cafe (don't ask).
That evening we made pancakes and while we were doing this we started talking with a Dutch guy who had just checked in with two Finnish girls he travelled with, turns out they were in the same dorm as us. After dinner we played cards and just had a lot of fun with the occasional outburst of singing and dancing (without even a drop of alcohol as well!). We both shared a bit of our language and we now know haw to say "I need a hug" (Mula on halipula) and "Cheers!" (Holokyn kolokyn) and we taught them to say "Hey cutey" (hey lekker ding) and "Want to kiss?" (Zoenen?). We ended up playing and talking until 2 O' clock in the morning and the asian girl that shared the room with us probably wasn't very happy with us! She got us back in the morning though when she got up really early (at 8 or 9!) and started walking in and out of the room a lot and opening and closing every single zipper on her bag. We walked to the city centre together in hopes of seeing "the wizard" (a strange fellow who dresses up as a wizard and holds speeches on the square). Unfortunately we didn't see the wizard so we just went our seperate ways; Siem and the girls (Netta and Outi) went to the library to look for jobs while me and Jasper had important bussiness to attend to in the internet cafe *cough*computergames*cough*.
That evening was filled with a lot more cards, dancing and language lessons, the girls even baked a delicious chocolate cake and before we knew it it was around 2 again. The asian girl must really hate us by now. The following morning however she woke up really early again and packed her bag to leave. We were all really wondering who'd replace her and were hoping for someone nice!
This time we took the car to town in hopes of catching a glimpse of the wizard but we were disappointed once more. However there was a funny Scottish guy swalling swords and electric breadknives, he even walked over glass! We went our seperate ways once more as the girls went to the library again to look for jobs, Siem went to park his car and would join Jasper and me in the internet cafe later. The three of us ended up spending the entire day playing video games, the girls were very disappointed in us for wasting our time so badly and called us to ask when we were coming back. We then headed back to the garage where Siem had parked his car only to find that the garage had closed 15 minutes earlier. Siem decided to let his car in there until the next morning. That is, until he remembered that all his stuff (including his sleeping bag) was still in the car and that he'd need it to sleep. As we were thinking of what we were going to do next a girl said that she'd already called the security agency to come and pick up her car and that they'd arrive in a few minutes. 1 minute later they showed up and opened the gate; they had to pay but because there was two of them they could split the cost. We hung out with an American girl called Evelyn for a while and me, Jasper and Siem made pancakes for our group. After the pancakes the girls thought it might be fun to go to to an arcade hall. We had to hurry a bit because the hall closed at 11 and we didn't finish eating until 8:30 but we ended up having a lot of fun there playing dance dance revolution and guitar hero and the likes. The girls also wanted to use one of those asian photo booths so we had something to remember eachother by. the photo's ended up being extremely tiny but it was still worth it.
This time it wasn't a chinese girl we were waking up, but two german guys (who according to Netta and Outti weren't very nice). They retalliated by rustling plastic bags all morning. Siem was going to check out and continue today (he was actually planning on doing that the day before but decided against it). Before he went he agreed to come into town with us to use up our last arcade hall credit and have some last minute fun with us. He had found a wwoofin adress and was going there that day, but since he never said what time he'd be coming he figured he could arrive whenever he wanted to. After we played some DDR and Guitar hero (I even beat some guy who wanted to play against me!) the girls went job hunting again and us guys went for a last round of computer gaming. By the time we snapped out of our computer game state it was 7 and started to walk back to the hostel (Siem decided to leave his car there after what happened last time). However as we approached the hostel Siem's car was nowhere to be seen. We were afraid it was stolen, since it had all Siem's stuff in there as well, it turned out to be towed away. We waited with the girls while he went to the police station to get his car back. When he finally returned after two hours it turned out that he couldn't get it back that evening; his car had been towed away because it was within 1.5 meters of a drive-way though it wasn't blocking it at all. We had some carrot cake that the girls made, which was peculiar but very nice. After another fun night of cards and music we each headed to our own rooms (we were too late to get the same dorm again so we were split up all over the hostel). The following morning we all said goodbye to Siem and me and jasper headed into town with the girls to book our busticket to kaikoura. The girls wanted to do something fun on our last day (they were going on the next day as well) so we went to the gondola just outside of town. After a 20 minute busride we arrived at a barren landscape with a couple of hills scattered around. The gondola and the hill itself weren't impressive at all, even the most interesting attraction (the time tunnel) was closed. Still, we all had fun hanging out. When we got back in town we all had an ince-cream before the girls went off job-hunting again (this time they found a job that they really liked, I hope they get it).
The following morning we had to say goodbye to them, unfortunately, as they got picked up by a friend of theirs.
Now we're waiting for our bus to Kaikoura.
What was supposed to be just a day or two turned out to be well over a week, but it was time well spent!
http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%20April%202/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QorGHvqpP8E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-0XEaipuP0
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