Leaving Port Macqaurie - Thursday
I set off from Country Energy on Nov 30th @ lunchtime, Chantal gave me a a lift to the local airport to catch a flight to Sydney, and onto an international flight to NZ.
Both flights were half an hour late, which was lucky, otherwise I would have missed the connecting flight. I managed to find my way around Sydney airport but it was a little confusing.
On the flight over I sat next to a Korean girl(25) Katherine, she was going to live in NZ for a year to learn English and fulfill a dream of traveling to an English speaking country. In South Korea she'd been a model and a receptionist and hadn't quite found her place in life. She was was staying in Forest Hill (North Shore), it was rather amusing talking to her as she wasn't crash hot at English but seemed to pronounce everything really well. I'm sure I talked way to much as I was very excited about getting home and catching up with everyone.
Arriving in NZ
At the airport Josh and Kez greeted me, Kez and Josh are really good mates in NZ and they put up with me for half my stay . Josh put me in his lounge on a mattress, thanks Josh you rock! Kez gave me a lift in the mighty pimp machine, anyway we went back to Josh's and then proceeded to go out for a quick booggie at G-Lobe. We caught up on all the goss and then crashed. The next morning I caught a bus to Takapuna.
Catching up with People - Friday
Arrived at Mum's in the morning @ 7:30am, there didn't seem to be any movement in the house. So I went around the back to admire the garden Allan had been working on. It was very nice, me and Allan had worked on it last year and I was pleased to see he'd done an excellent job.
Just then Allan popped open the bedroom door and announced that Grandma was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. Very strange indeed, unannounced and unexpected I went inside and had a good old chat to Grandma Harts. She's doing so well and she's such a social butterfly, I'm sure I've inherited some of her jaw :)
Mel was asleep so I pounded around the house in the hope of waking her up... (*grin*) and she did wake up! We had a chat and talked like two birds. Mum looked as happy as a clam, and quite rightly so, it's not everyday Mel from Boston is in the house and now me from Port Macquarie, Australia.
After a quick coffee I drove Mum to work and then went shopping with Mel in Takapuna. After that Mel went get her makeup done and I caught up with my good ole friend Lisa. We only had half an hour so we had a coffee in Takapuna. I found out Lisa actually reads my blog so she knew everything I'd been up to, very cool. After that I went to One Red dog and had lunch with all my old work mates. Everyone looked a little stressed but it was good to catch up with them, apparently Leon has caught up the slack of my old job 'te he he', I doubt it :-) . Service and food at One Red Dawg was actually good for a change, I was shocked to say the least.
After all that, I had a well deserved sleep back @ mums. Leon came over and Mel cooked dumplings very tasty, it was the only meal I had that night. Then off to Bex's 21st, we picked up Jason Barlow on the way, funnily enough he only had jeans as you'll see in the pix. Fancy coming all the way from Amsterdam and only bringing jeans. Well Jason updated me on Amsterdam and he's done very well for himself, congrats Jason glad you've finally made it :) Anyway we arrived at Ponies and they all let us in... Shocking as you'll find out later!
Bex's 21st - Part 1
It wasn't just Bex's 21st but for the purposes of this blog it can be :) Ponies was the venue it's a downtown bar next to showgirls and it's very pretentious and high class. Not exactly my style but Bex and her girlfriends were very happy with it all so that was the main thing!
Jason, Leon, Cam and I walked in and well everyone was dressed to the nines! Bex was looking stunning, I bought Rebecca 'Young Sexy Lovely' for a gift and a vibrating shaver. Since Cam doesn't usually buy gifts I wrapped the shaver and put his name on it, Cam & Rebecca had a run in at one time in regards to shaver use. So it was very funny and I'm sure Bex was found it funny as did Cam. Rebecca introduced me to Danyon Loader (NZ Swimmer Gold medalist) whom I'd met at 'Dancing with the stars' and he proceeded to talk to me about his new career - public speaking. Boy Danyon could talk, I was glad Mel came along because I wanted to catch up with Gaily from Gore.
Gailey and Sink were up from Gore and they're great family friends so we had a wee chat. Sarah was also up from Gore and she danced with Rebecca in Gore, they were real old school friends. Anyway after that the music was turned up and I could no longer hear so we just danced and Auntie Nancy danced with me very funny. Leon wanted to visit TelstraClear because there were some ladies there he had to catch up with and I couldn't possibly refuse catching up with ladies.
So I told Dad we would be out for abit, and there was no schedule for the speeches or anything really so we unfortunately missed them. Sorry Bex (not that she reads my blog :p). Bex was talking to everyone on the night and I didn't really expect to talk to her that much, but we caught up at Matthew's end of year party which was very cool.
TelstraClear Party - Part 1
Jason, Cam, Leon and I went to the TelstraClear end of year function. We all got in and the place was packed. It was classic because everyone thought I'd come back to TelstraClear... I told them I came back for the free drink, it was all free incidentally which was very cool, although I only had 2 drinks. I spent most of the night talking and hardly any booze passed between my lips. Meanwhile Cam, Leon and Jason were getting hammered. On top of all this the venue had many different parts to it and I lost everyone about 3 or 4 times. Although we did meet some very cool girls from Price Waterhouse Cooper Melbourne, which were working in NZ. Leon tells me one took quite a liking to me, but I think he had one take quite a liking to him (see pix - lost some of em). So after trying to round up everyone 4 times I finally suceeded and we went back to Bex's party afterwards.
Bex's 21st - Part 2
Back at Bex's, we rolled in just as the speeches had finished and we partied hard. Dwayne had come in to finally and we rocked on down, again you couldn't really hear anyone so there was little talking. I did go and say hi to Tim Shadbolt and his wife Usher(SP). Otherwise we just boogied on down, after awhile we decided to sneak back to the TelstraClear party and catch up with the ladies and that's where the night went all wrong.
TelstraClear Party - Part 2
We arrived and it turned out all the people were going home, mainly the PWC girls. But I did catchup with Gina-Marie and Anita. These girls maintain the guys stares at TelstraClear for 80% of the time. Gina is an OLD school friend and Anita was wearing one of Gina's fashion outfits. They were very cool and it was funny to catchup with Gina, she told me I looked as old as Anita's father. So I must be loosing my boyish looks... no matter men get more distinguished as they get older, she tried to rephrase it but I wasn't to impressed. After all Gina is the same age as me, perhaps older :p! I thought it was just the girls in Australia that said these things but no Kiwi girls are just as bad! This is the second time a girl has told me I look old enough to be a father. Perhaps she's been reading my blog to :) After a quick stop we headed back to Bex's.
Bex's 21st - Part 3 - Disaster Strikes
Cameron and Jason had vanished by this stage and it was just me, Leon and Dwayne. So we rocked up to the door and we were denied. They wouldn't let us in and said that Rebecca wasn't there and that everyone from the party had gone home. What a load a bull s@^$, so I just said fine lets go. Fancy that coming all the way from Australia to be denied at the door or your sisters 21st. Never again will I step foot in that place they've definitely lost my custom and respect. Not that they probably need it, Ponies is for pretentious people with lots of money. So I was angry and Dwayne and Leon wanted to go to some bar I didn't really want to go to either. I wanted to meet up with Kez and Josh as it was still early in the night. As usual people all thought different things and I said sure you do that. I was still angry so I just sat outside a bar and calmed down for half an hour and decided to make the most of the night. I went back to ponies to see if anyone had come out but they hadn't. Then when I went back to the bar Dwayne and Leon had gone into they were no where to be seen.... So I was alone, no phone, no friends and in Auckland on a Friday night. What a crapper, on the off chance that Josh and Kez were at Globe I went there.
Globe
The bouncer at the door said the boys are downstairs, Globe is my local and although it is a crap bar you're sure to get in and there are always plenty of ladies. Josh and Kez were happy to see me and we boogied on down. After that we went to Providore and it wasn't to eventful. However after that we waited in an atm line, Kez was asking all the girls if they were pregnant and of course none of them were and then he proceeded to say something that upset one of the girls ALOT. So she ran over and went nuts, I told her all the boys were drunk and that they were all talking shit and she shouldn't take any notice.... So then she slapped me (2nd time a girl got violent this week), I took a couple of steps back then she went after Josh and Kez. We were rolling with laughter, she had just lost it and some boys were trying to calm her down. Ahh what a shocker, so we caught a taxi back to Josh's and crashed. Kez went somewhere else, he had a few things to attend to.
Lunch at Mums & the rest - Saturday
Lunch at Mums the next day was nice, I had lots of Turkey and had a sleep. It was our Christmas day, since I won't actually be in NZ on Christmas. That night I went out for abit with the boyz again and then had an early flight back to Port Macquarie. I've been recovering all week and finally got around to finishing off this post.
Hope you are all well.
Love Jamie
