After a week and a half of snowboarding, recovery massages and a really expensive salt bath it was time to say goodbye to my good mates and end the holiday. Or so I thought. Saying goodbye at an airport is never easy, but as I stepped out the doors knowing I wasn't going home to Townsville like the rest of them I couldn't supress a feeling of excitement tainted by the smallest amount of angst. All I could keep thinking was, Please God don't let me blow all my money, stuff this up and have to go back home. But if this was to be the case, it was however many less weeks spent in Townsville.
Nomads was the only place with availability for a whole week, and I figured it was a good bases for myself where I would call home and look for work from. My first new friend I made there was an Argentinian named Gaston, who came to NZ to work and for the rugby world cup. We decided to look for a place together to make it cheaper and also gave each other a heads up whenever there was a job going. Brazzers was the venue for a few social beers before heading out to Altitude and the biggest arse kicking in pool I've had in ages. After my humiliation I called it an early night and headed back to Nomads.
Unfortunately for Gaston he lost his job at the hostel and was kicked out. This put an acceleration on his need to find a place, and before long he found a bed at a sharehouse on Fryer st. Being on the inside he was able to give me a heads up for a bed becoming available the week after he got there, so I paid a deposit and had to follow through with my stay at Nomads to wait for the person in my bed to move out. Job hunting was now my main priority, and it was fairly successful until the three rowdiest english ladies I've ever met entered my dorm when I was resting with my Ipod on (Triple J Friday Night Mixup). This put a standby on job hunting, because then ensued a destructive cyclone of nights out in the famous nightlife of Queenstown. Thanks to a top bloke buying me a bottle of scotch as a going away present I had something to share, and I traded a few nips for some bacon with some soup kitchen specialists from Perth. Between the three pommy girls and the lads I had randomly met over $4 per kilo bacon we had a funky mix of people geared up for a drinking session.
Then the card games started. International drinking games I had never heard of before had rules flying at me from drunken mouths in no time, and it was intense. These games were designed for one purpose. Intoxication. Beautiful girls, good drinking buddies, and a Fergburger made that one of the best nights I have ever had. And thanks to a little encouragement from a random stranger when I took my jacket off under the heater in front of Fergburger, I stripped completely naked in the middle of Shotover Street to a crowd of cheering drunks. Being approximately -8 degrees and raining, I was too cold to put my clothes back on, and luckily had Andrea to help me. Fully clothed once more I headed back to Nomads, their soft bed and the hangover that awaited me in the morning.
The next three nights contained similar stories of drinking; great people, insane conversations, wet t-shirt competitions, cheap drinks for taking your shirt off, passwords for free grog, and $1000 bar tabs at the world bar. Drinking from tea pots is lethal when its filled with Long Island Iced Teas. After gaining a reputation for being the guy who always took his clothes off when he got drunk I made a conscious effort to tone it down. In no time my stay at Nomads was up, and I had to move into my shareroom at Fryer St. Saying goodbye to the Perth boys, the Brisbane lads and the Goldcoast cads was hard, as I'll miss their comradeship as brothers in arms fighting under the fog of inebriation. As of today, 1st of August, I havent said goodbye to the gorgeous English ladies, as I have a hope to see them again before they leave on Thursday. I have positive feedback on a job in a call centre, which is dull work for a reasonable rate of pay in the NZ currency, but other than that I'm still applying for jobs like a rabied dog applies its teeth to its favourite toy. By the end of this week, I hope to be employed, and then I'll work myself up a bond payment and get my own place. A place of solitude and seduction. This town has been so unbelievably good to me, and I hope it continues to do so.
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