I'm having problems getting pictures to show up in my blog, so until I fix that here's some simple text for you!
These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things:
Lots of great things happened in the van. We played Botticelli often (a guess-who-I'm-thinking-of kind of game). My favorite quote came from Annie, "Is this person a little bit limp?" (Nope. Not Raggedy Ann!) We also had crazy snack time where we'd make a stop for cookies and pass around our loot. Tim-tams and Chit-chats are the best but then I also loved "100's and 1000's" which are like iced animal cookies but in round shapes. Wine gums, coconut chocolate thingies, various ice cream bars... Mmmm. And then there's always Rebecca to offer raisins. Nobody ever wants raisins, Rebecca. Sorry.
Then there was the time that Dave filled the other van with regular gas, not diesel, and everybody had to get out and wait for it to get towed, drained and refilled. Oh, lordy. There were also lots of discussions regarding van politics. The blue van always wanted to switch up the rosters in the vans and red van always wanted to stay together. Annie was always trying to figure out ways to make things better and had asked us for our input. The fact that the red van was always ready to go on time and the blue van would by 10, 15 or 20 minutes behind was a particularly hot topic. Our suspicion is that it's because Dave is always the last to finish gathering his own things and doesn't push people to get moving. Akina suggests, "Hey Annie? Do you think... for future references... you could ask Dave to, like... switch his way of thinking?" Round of laughter. See? THERE was the problem.
More about Dave. He loved to say these phrases over and over and if I never hear them again I will be a happy camper: "Consensus means you can live with it!" "Does this speak to...?" "Does anybody have strong feelings about..." and "Oi" which is a cross between an "oy" and a "hi". We're making hm a "Consensus means I can live with this T-shirt" shirt before we go.
"NOPE. Doesn't exist." When playing Scattergories Carissa was particularly upset about a word I had denied so sought revenge on the next word I played under "Things With Tails". I said "nightingale" to which the normally quiet Carissa loudly replied "NOPE." and then insisted nightingales don't exist. Nor have tails.
"DJ HOONAW?" At a bar in Queenstown over "teapots" (which were drinks served in teapots... duh.) Liz inquires about the DJ spinning that night, "DJ Who Now?" but in a thick ghetto drawl so it comes out DJ Hoonaw? I immediately say I want a t-shirt with this on it.
"What the fuuuuck?" Akina has the sweetest high-pitched, whiney girly voice and she loves this phrase. Especially funny was when we were on our way to see hooker seals and sea lions and she says, "What the fuuuuuck? I just want to see some fucking peeeeeenguiiiiiiins!"
"You got two friends, I got two friends." In Paihia Alice met some guy who was going to sell her some weed. She had to meet them at their truck and grabbed me and Carissa on her way as back-up. Alice, so sweet and giggly and innocent, adopts her best tough-girl voice and says to the guy, "What? You got two friends, I got two friends." with a little shrug and swagger.
The Camelpak. Katie has been lugging around this Camelpak (water bag in a backpack with a hose and mouthpiece so you can drink while you hike) all through our time here. She's taken it to every tourist spot, event, lecture, whatever for the last two months and I am so sick of seeing that fucking backpack and that fucking mouthpiece with it's annoying slurping sound wherever we go. It's been a point of discussion for some of us. She took it to parliament! How thirsty are you????? The night before hiking the Franz Joseph glacier, Katie raises her hand and asks if it would be acceptable to bring her Camelpak. Hiking. Up a glacier. Why she decided to ask THIS time instead of before any other place we've gone, I'll never know. Liz squawks, we all start stifling giggles, Carissa starts crying from laughing so hard and Amber tries to cover it up by saying she has the "sleepy ha-ha's". I die.
Amber tells a story from her last WWOOFing site: "So I'm woken up by this bright light in my face. It's Alice with her headlamp on. I'm like, oh crap, was I snoring or farting or something in my sleep?? Then I'm so out of it I mumble something and turn over and get the full story the next day. Alice heard something in the night and turned her lamp on to see what it was. It was a mouse eating crumbs off Wilson's chest while he slept."
Wilson, peeing. He has the world's smallest bladder and has no problems peeing wherever there's a patch of grass. Amber and I were outside of the backpacker in Nelson and he comes running outside and stands on the lawn, whips it out, sways from side to side to get the full range of ground coverage, puts his head down, grunts satisfactorily and then runs back inside to finish his drinking game. Please not there was an actual bathroom inside the backpacker. He has no problems continuing a conversation while he steps to the other side of the fence, or rocks or car or..., while he does his business.
And one of my least favorite things? The hills! There are insane hills wherever we go and we always manage to stay in a backpacker at the very top of the steepest one. This is particularly painful when we've just had big dinners with lots of drinks and then have to lug our full bellies up, sweating and panting the whole way, to our beds.