the day began with the bad news that my bag still has not arrived. after some phoning the YHA in haast, it turned out that my bag is still in haast as of this morning. wtf mate… it was sitting there for a whole day? argh!!!
anyway, the choices were put as follows:
after some hesitating and deliberating i decided to wait here and try getting it here. if it doesn’t come today then i will leave my chirstchurch address (the hostel), and try to get it delivered there asap. argh. i miss my toothbrush, glasses, shampoo… FLIP FLOPS! dang it.
the nice thing about this town is that its so small, and the gas station attendant is doubling as the post office guy, and the hostel owner actually knows him (in the sense that she said “oh he’s a nice guy, you can talk to him and give him your cell number). after talking to the post office guy, further positive information came along – he said that the package should get here by 1:30pm. so, for now we’re hanging out in the hostel. it is 11:26am – we had breakfast, and at this point anja is reviewing photographs on oleg’s computer, and i decided to blog. i am 8 days behind!
some hours later…
so, upon spending the next 2 and a half hours blogging, at 1:30 (half an hour after the approximate 1pm deadline) i went to the post office/friendly local gas station/mobil. unfortunately, the guy said “another half an hour”, and i demurely went back (having bought an ice cream to celebrate the shiny blue skies and warm weather and to cheer myself up in general) to the hostel.
some minutes later…
20 minutes later a postal truck pulled into the hostel with a MAGICAL SINGLE PACKAGE in his hands! yup! my bag has ACTUALLY FOUND ME. apparently this whole concept of “mailing” “stuff” is not entirely flawed.
in joy and celebration we have jetted out of the hostel on the road to hokitika, which has been described as the jade capital of new zealand (and possibly THE WORLD, although i’m not sure). another waterfall of flyers describing things and places as “the best kept secret in new zealand” has accompanied the visit to this town. remind me to not really trust new zealand with secrets, as they tend to publish them in official visitor guides.
hokitika also greeted us with rain, and thus we have decided to hang out at the very posh, very large, very cool looking hostel, with a very calm and friendly australian sheepdog, sid. (funny that i can remember dogs’ names but not people’s…) here i’ve found a book by grisham, “the broker”, which addicted me right away. around 11:30pm the realization that i just won’t finish it (and i can’t take it cause the hostel libraries work on the principle of take-one-leave-one), so i went to sleep in our 3(people)-for-1(room). anja hasn’t been able to find a place in that hostel, but they very nicely made her a bed on a mattress on the floor, and other than that was a bunk bed, leading to generally cozy accomodations.
whoa airlines are teh suck. i think you should write a lengthy and angry letter about this to them. maybe they’ll give you some free airline tickets to keep you happy :P
yaaay for the bag
and airline? what?
yeah, airlines? :P
new zealand – you drive! or take the helicopter, but i’m too poor for that.