July 7th - The Best (and Worst) Things In Life Are Free

Lesson learned; the free gigs on Wednesday are free for a reason. Twice now I’ve gone to a venue on Cuba Street and had to wait hours for the band to take the stage only to be subjected to noise so heinous that my crew and I end up leaving after only a few ‘’songs’’. Tonight was especially excruciating and in hindsight, we should’ve gone and judged the book by its cover. They were a man and a woman, both dressed to the nines in makeup, wigs and skin-tight jeans with a random assortment of items for instruments including an Optimus Prime mask that modulated the user’s voice. They pranced about on stage to a pre-recorded back track, throwing candy at the audience and howling off-key. The man fell off the stage and broke his microphone stand during the first song but didn’t seem too concerned. I found it ironic that they were persistent in wasting precious minutes of stage time on tuning their guitars when it was clear they had no idea how to use them properly. Chelsea was wise enough to capture some video evidence of the affair on her smartphone though I’m not entirely certain I wish to relive that anytime soon. As poor as the music is on Wednesday nights, I’m going to miss the experience of it. Sadly there will not be too many more trips to the city center in the evening to meet up and continue our quest to find the best chai latte. After some serious soul searching I’ve decided to let Wellington go. After weeks of being in a jobless limbo the map of the country that I hung on my bedroom wall is speaking to me more clearly. I’ve decided to get back out on the road to see all the places on that map that I still haven’t seen. Chance would have it that Jaclyn arrives in Auckland on the precise day that my rent covers up to in Wellington so on a whim I asked if she’d agree to us meeting up and her letting me drive her about the country in a campervan that we’d split the cost of. It turns out she was more than game, perhaps influenced by my promise to take her to the Lord of the Rings filming sites that are so carefully displayed in the map book I bought. Now that I have something concrete on the horizon I suddenly find my optimism reignited. I’ve rekindled that indescribable feeling I had throughout my journey with Kelsey and upon my arrival here in Wellington. That spark has been sorely missed over the past couple of weeks as I became too caught up in my job search and forgot what was important. Even though it will be the polar opposite of my first road trip (I will be eating lots of budget beans and generally living like a homeless man) it will be just fine because the best things in life, aside from Wednesday night concerts in Wellington, are free. We’re going to do two more of the Great Walks, bringing my total to three, we will scale Mounts Maunganui, Ruapehu, and Taranaki in some form or another, and we will snap pictures of us doing the peace sign in all the famous film locations we can get to. I’d say it’s fair to say I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl. To conclude this preliminary farewell I must add that even though my time here in Wellington has been short, I will miss Sunday evening meals with my roommates. I will miss the pets, our Three Stooges; Pirate, Ninja and Morris. I will miss movie Tuesday and shitty gig Wednesday with Chelsea. I will miss running to Stellin Memorial park in the mornings but I won’t miss sucking wind on the way up there. I won’t miss getting cramps walking down the hills into the city center. I won’t miss having only 4 channels on the TV and I won’t miss not having central heating. Oh who am I kidding? I’ll be gone from here two days and I’ll be missing all those things. I really wish I could’ve had a bit more of a proper run at Wellington, it definitely has potential. That being said, I still have two weeks left here which includes two Sundays so I must be sure to cook up something extra special for our weekly flat meal. It will be hard to top my Canada Day feast from last Sunday that included poutine and pancakes. It’s always nice to be the one who introduces poutine to someone who’s never had it before.