Genesis

And so begins our epic New Zealand journey. The three hour flight was tolerable and we made it to Christchurch unscathed. I always hate the way I feel when I travel, it mostly has to do with the ridiculously crappy night sleep I inevitably get the night before. Anyway, we're tired, but fortunately we also skipped ahead two time zones, so we are justifying going to bed at 10pm NZ time, which is 8pm Melbourne time. We love sleeping, especially on vacation.

We have our rental car: the monstrous, the terrifying, the envy of all Raiders fans: the Nissan Sunny. They have basically the same cars here and in Aus as they do at home, but many of them have different names. Our Sunny is probably equivalent to a Sentra or some other relatively crappy but manageable car. Kane is deftly attacking the chaotic roadways of NZ while I hyperventilate in the passenger seat. He can't get the hang of the turn signal lever being on the right side of the steering wheel instead of the left. We have had much unnecessary use of our windshield wipers thus far due to this - yet another screaming indicator that we're not from around here.

Our hostel is really nice; it's the first time I've stayed at a youth hostel besides my initial trip through Europe (which was on a tour where we stayed in hostels and, at the time, I didn't even know they were called hostels). The staff is super nice, they have relatively reasonably priced wireless, a common room with couches and TVs, and a giant kitchen where you can store and prepare any or all of your own food. Very sweet indeed if you don't mind being emerged in a sea of potential weirdos.

I would say that most of the people here seem to be what I would expect: younger travelers seemingly trying to travel cheap. The word "youth" in "youth hostel" is not necessarily a requirement, however. And then there is the fact that our room is a tiny 2-bed cell surrounded on three sides by similar rooms (we have no window, but we do have a skylight). This is fine for us as we will only be in that room for sleeping, and for that it is more than adequate. We did notice, in the brief time that we dropped off our bags, that there is a tiny opening in the top of the wall that connects us to the room behind us. It is a small opening, maybe 1" tall and a foot wide, but it seems to make audio privacy an impossibility. Once again, not a big deal, we're not expecting the lap of luxury here, but the first thing Kane and I heard when we originally walked into our room was a woman on the other side.

"Fucking Jesus" is all we hear. She says it about half a dozen times.

I don't know who she is, and, obviously, can't see her. She is talking softly, but certainly loud enough for us to clearly hear her. Kane and I just stared at each other perplexed, stifling giggles. Does she know we can hear her? Does she know we're here at all? Is she ok? Is she crazy? These questions flashed through my mind. We turned to leave her to her mantra, but did not manage to get out of the room in time to miss her loud fart. Apparently we're getting rather friendly with our unseen neighbors here - excellent. We'll see if there are any other incidents during our stay here; all we can do now is laugh and type it out on the internet for all to see.

An easy day in Christchurch tomorrow, then we're off on our south island tour. Tune in next time for updates on our adventure and insight into crazy people staying at hostels.