Done and Done-er

So Mykle just wants to close his eyes and be at home eating a burrito, but here we are back in Christchurch trying to sell the van along with 20,000 Germans . It's Fall, and we are all heading back to whereever we came from (us: the U.S.A. and Everyone Else: Germany) and the trees in the Botanical Garden changed color and didn't even send a memo about it. In the South (where we just arrived from) there is supposedly a typhoon, so thank goodness we aren't there, I guess. I am digging the change of weather, it's overcast and windy. I had a summer, a fall, a summer, a fall and then I'll go home and it will be spring, which in San Francisco feels like fall. Haha. Travelling between hemispheres rules.
We almost gave in and went to the burrito place in town today (I know I mention burritos a lot. It's a motif, o.k? Get over it.) cause the sign in the front said "It's Unburritible". heh. Instead we sat on the bank of the Avon (the river here where people go punting) and ate a salami and baugette and apples and drank gin(ger beer). It was very Ye Olde. We are trying to save some money, cause Christchurch is a Money Hole, much like Our Fair City of San Francisco. Actually prices are comparable, but it's dangerous, cause NZ money is colorful and plastic and has a tiny window in it and therefore looks like a toy. To be played with and spent freely. The exchange rate is like 70 NZ cents to a dollar. This post cost me $4! You figure it out!

I don't think I've posted since we were going to Dunedin. It was a college town experience, and we did go to a show at a cool cafe/club, which was quite a humorous time. We researched the happenings around town, ate kebabs, had coffee, checked out the stencils and graffitti and posters in the alleys, and decided to go to random show listed as "garage rock", with a scary Christmas Tree on the flyer. We were mainly taken with the name of the very first performer on the list: "Banjo Stuey". I mean, how can you go wrong with that? Our intuition seemed to be right.
We went to the show (on St. Patty's, where all of a sudden Kai in her bright green jacket and striped stockings was dressed like a leprechaun instead of just Kai and people kept telling her that her outfit was "wicked, eh!") and the band members were all children, probably no more than 17 or 18 years old. They had fun, their little mohawked friends all jumped on stage and danced and sang, the bass player with the mop of slash-inspired hair was in ALL THREE bands, basically it was really entertaining and funny. Banjo Stuey, however, was an old codger with a huge long white beard and a stony beanie. He played banjo and sang songs with lyrics like "tralala, tralalee" in a tinney, high pitched voice and seemed totally stoked to be there, opening for a passell of punk and metal-head homeschoolers. They seemed to return the adoration. He was like their old-guy mascot. We surmised that they met while hanging out and busking and skateboarding in downtown Dunedin. Who knows. It was great.

This whole trip has shown that we are popular with "the help". I'm just saying "The help" to be mean, what I refer to is: waiters, bar-tenders, club-employees, and anyone who is a younger person in a service position. I'm not sure if we seem wildly interesting/kindred spirits because of our obvious tattoos or silly demeanors or large sunglasses and serious bed-head or what, but we tend to make friends easily with these types. We stopped on the way back from Dunedin in a horrible tourist strip, much like a Reno Casino-complex, to have a terrible and over-priced dinner (which was still very fun) at a swanky place. As we left, the waiter asked where we were staying, mentioned what bar HE would be at, and basically gave every indication that we should stay and make his life in casino-hell a bit more interesting. It made me somewhat sad to leave.
It was flattering too. So far we have bailed on two seperate invitations of a local place to stay from two slightly-sketchy but possibly very fun kiwis (both male). It's sort of interesting to think that if I wasn't travelling with Mykle I would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS consider accepting these invitations. In this case, though, I was sort of bummed that they didn't work out. Ok, I'm just bummed about one not working out. The other was a bit too sketch; drunken brother, no lights, spray-painted house number and all that.

We are staying at the backpackers in Lyttelton, which is nothing to mention, other than Lyttelton itself is very cool. A town on a hill, you have to drive through a very long, tiled, badly-ventilated toxic tunnel to get there. Lyttelton is home to the COOLEST BAR EVER; Wonderbar, of which there are pictures on my Flickr page, from my first visit there. Across the street is also a VERY awesome restaurant/cafe/bar; The Volcano, whose decorating motif is sort of tropical with strange Louise Bourgois-type sculptures and potted plants hanging from the rafters. I am taking Mykle there for dinner some night this week, after which my ATM card will spontaneously combust. Wish me luck!

P.S>How is the weather? I am sort of homesick, even though that's sort of sad. Much Love.