Mar 27

EDIT: I’ve been called out by DB.  I better get my details straight!

“You made one small mistake though …. Your awkward-explain-the-sign-moment didnt took place in the fergeburger, but already outside on the ‘beach’. Just to be punctual ;-)”

tl;dr Hiked up the mountain in Queenstown, met some new people, awkwardly explained slang, I was the ugly tag along friend in our group.

Three things, this post is more about my interactions with people and less to do with activities. So I think it has a different feel to it and if you’re looking for NZ ideas skip it. This really does just revolve around my silliness. Second, this post is a bit…less classy. Nothing bad, I do try to keep my stories somewhat clean as there are many…ok, a few professionals, who know me and know of this site, including some of my bosses (whether they read it is a different story, but better safe than sorry). Either way, no judgement! Third, some of the pictures were taken by my travel friend; she has some really cool pictures and I wanted to share.

The campsite in Queenstown is massive and right in the city; I had campsite spot number seventy-something. CG and I had agreed to meet around 10am and it looks like the Dutch Belgian (DB) might join us as well. We planned to do the hike up the mountain overlooking the city instead of taking the Gondola this time; it will save us $30 each plus I need the exercise anyways. I do my usual morning routine and we exchange a few messages as we try to find each other in the city center. We meet up and turns out that DB is a no-show this morning; she’s not replying to messages either. I blame CG for this; she probably said something offensive to our Belgian friend and ruined my chance at making more friends. After a few messages and several minutes of no responses, we decide to go ahead and take off for the mountain. The climb up was rough. Non stop incline for over an hour with some big step ups; roughly 400 meters of elevation. Must. Not. Show. That. I’m. Out. Of. Breath. I’m starting to think Belgian knew what we were getting into and wittingly avoided us this morning. The starting point said it was only a bit over an hour to the top, but it felt like an eternity. I’m having some mini flashbacks to the Tongariro Alpine Crossing as sweat is waterfalling down my back and soaking my backpack. We stop three times on the way up for about five minutes each. I swear they were all for taking in the different sights and self-reflection but don’t ask me to prove it. Good thing we didn’t go for the 8 hour hike that was also available; I’m already sweating like a madman. After what felt like 10 hours, we make it to the top and the views are amazing. The weather here is pretty much perfect again. We take a ton of pictures and I find out that she is just as much of a stickler about pictures as I am, perhaps even more so. If there is a backpack or other random item in the shot, you must move it out of the way. She finds a spot she likes at the top, kindly asks a guy to take a picture of us, and he politely obliges. He clicks away, and she reviews the picture but I can tell she is not happy. I ask him if he can capture more of the scenery behind us so he takes a few steps back and hunches down a bit. Normally, this would be the correct thing to do, but we are on a ledge overlooking the city a few hundred meters down; we actually need him to get closer and higher. The German, almost instantly makes a displeased noise under her breath. I hear it and we both start laughing. The photographer must be confused at this point. He clicks away and we chalk it up as a loss as we thank him for his time. I better be more careful next time I’m asked to take a picture. We end up sitting on the grass at the top of the mountain watching the paragliders take off with the city, mountains, and lake in the background. I really like this spot. While we’re watching, a group brought their friends/family up to watch them take off on their paragliding trip. They do all the typical pictures with the employees (remember the quota?), but one person yells out, “Do the family sign,” and they proceed to pose with their hands in the ‘shocker’ orientation. I don’t know if it means the same to them as it does to some of us in the US, but I chuckle.
CG notices.
“What are you laughing at?”
Oh crap…
“Ah, this family just made a funny sign.”
“Why is the sign funny?”
Double crap, get out of this hole before it gets deeper, you fool.
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“What is it, tell me?”
Fail. There’s no getting out of this one now. I cave in and explain. The next few sentences uttered were full of stuttering and awkwardness. She seemed to enjoy how uncomfortable I was while explaining it as she laughed at my explanation. Perhaps she was being polite. (If you don’t know what this is, I recommend you don’t bother, as you will be disappointed. However, if you must, please note, that I told you not to, and do NOT look it up at work.)

After an hour or so, we are both hungry and I recommend burgers; we burned enough calories today! We start our hike back down the mountain. She begins telling me a story, but I get distracted by the mountain bikers speeding down the hill towards a jump.
“…Rick?” I hear my name in the form of a question. Wait um, what, ohh crap, I’m a horrible listener; I’m like a kid with ADD. She politely laughs it off and finishes her story to my full attention this time. Seriously, how am I single right now? We discuss our upcoming plans for the next few days and she asks if she can tag along for the next couple of days. “Sure!” She is a cute girl and we’ve had fun so far, what did you think I was going to say? The hike down took us about 40 minutes and another 10 to the burger place. We finally get a hold of DB and turns out that CG has another friend she met in a different city that is also going to join us for lunch. They meet us at the spot and we order our meals. The new girl is a Romanian/German, I believe. We will call her “the Negotiator” because she seems to negotiate all kinds of deals. During our meal, CG thought it would be funny to bring up the shocker story from the top of the mountain, and to my fantastic luck, neither of the other two girls had heard of it before. CG thought it would be best if I explained it. Pure evil. I glare at her to let her know my dissatisfaction. Sorry to ruin your image, America, this one is on me. The Negotiator finds out about our next stop and asks to tag along. Ha, I just met you 10 minutes ago, but um, sure, the creepervan, I mean campervan has another spot. We have reached max capacity.

We finish food and spend the rest of the evening in the park area by the bay. I enjoy people watching, but DB is made super uncomfortable by this. My best description of her is a slight hippie vibe, super shy, very respectful, clean, and the kindest of hearts. She is an elementary teacher and she fits the mold. She does not like to think that anyone ever looks at her and does not like attention. I get a kick out of this and start saying “hi” to every person walking by just to make her more uncomfortable. I am such a nice guy. I tell her she should be more confident in herself and be proud that people would notice her, she’s a good person. She wouldn’t have any of it. While we are doing this, an older man, in his 70s I’d say, is walking by with this younger girl from Hong Kong. The Romanian shouts out, “Hey you, what are YOU doing?” in an accusatory tone. Holy crap, I know we’re saying hi to random people walking by here, but she just one upped me. The Belgian and I exchange awkward glances. Turns out the Romanian was hostel mates with the Hong Kong girl walking by. We end up talking to them for a while before they head off. We then begin to plan our next activity, and the Negotiator was about to ditch us for laundry when all of a sudden the older man shows up again and offers to buy us a drink.

The Belgian girl seems uncomfortable and passes on this (maybe it was my teasing her with the people watching?), so it is just the two other girls, the older man, and myself. The girls decide they wanted hot chocolate so we head to the local coffee/chocolate spot. I’m just a tag along at this point. We order drinks, and the guy pays for us as we find a table to sit at. The old man starts off by showing me a picture of a book he bought for a lady employee friend of his, titled “How to Poop on your Date”. I laugh but I have no idea what the book is about or what his intentions were with showing me the picture. Playing nice, this granddad just bought us drinks. He doesn’t want to show it to the girls (I don’t know why) but ends up showing it to them anyways. He then begins discussing stories with us, but his focus is completely on the girls. Can you blame him? Wait a minute. Am I…is this…am I the ugly tag along friend here? We discuss where we are from and he pulls up some pictures from a balloon festival in New Mexico he attended after hearing that I am from the US. Hot air balloons, enormous balloons, balloons of cartoon characters, you name it; almost like the Macy’s parade but in grassy fields. As he is showing this, he says, “America has a lot wrong with it, but also has a lot of good things too.” Wait, was that a backhanded compliment? Is this what being the extra friend feels like? Man, I should be nicer next time. I give up on talking for most of the rest of the conversation and let the old man talk. He did have a lot of knowledge and enjoyed talking about his experiences; apparently he hiked from the UK down to Australia. Besides, you can’t learn by talking, right? We finish half an hour later and wish the man farewell as we thank him for his hospitality. The negotiator heads out as well, and CG and I decide to wander through town in search of some souvenir gifts. Apparently CG wanted to find Koalas in NZ to buy as her Australia gifts because all she bought during her SEVEN month trip in Australia were pencils. I compliment her on her awesome gift giving skills and tease, “Sometimes, no gift is better than a gift.” So much for being nicer next time. I don’t understand how the ladies aren’t lining up here. Needless to say, it is very difficult to find Koalas in NZ, but we did find lots of sheep and Kiwis. She wasn’t sold on these. CG and I plan out the activities for the following day and she convinces me that hiking 1300 meters up a mountain called Roy’s Peak in Wanaka is a good idea. My legs tremble in fear at the thought. What did I get myself into?

Cheers