New Zealand

I was sure I was going to move to New Zealand one day and the whole purpose of travelling the world by going to China, New Zealand and then USA before going home again was to see my new home before I went there permanently. I love the sun, dramatic landscapes and the sea so what more could I ask for than New Zealand? 

After arriving from Hong Kong I was getting really tired of travelling through so many time zones, at the same time as I could never fall asleep on the planes. I took a quick look at the lines in custom and thought it might go quicker in the left lane instead of waiting behind Christian who was standing in the right lane, so I switched and the custom asked me stupid questions like "what are you going to do here?" and I gave dumb answers back like "visit your country". When he asked if I travelled alone and I said that I travelled with Christian in the other line he got suspicious but let me through after a while. When I came out of the customs I waited for half an hour but still I didn't see any sign of Christian and I started to worry, could he have left with the bus already? Should I go by the bus and meet him at the hotel? Is he just at the toilet? And all I wanted to do was to go to the hotel and get some rest even though it was day time. I saw a guy coming out of the customs and he seem to look for someone and I hoped it was me so I would understand what was going on, but after he saw me he just kept on walking. After a while he came back to me and said "Are you Jim?" and then he started questioning me about Christian as if he was a drug dealer in alliance with me. I mostly laughed through the questions and said he could search my bag too if he wanted too, but in the end he just said "no, it's OK, just wait here and I let Christian go" and finally we could go to the hotel. On the bus to the hotel I got a feeling of being let down by New Zealand, it didn't look as amazing as I had hoped for, but I didn't want to tell Christian about this. He didn't say it either but later on we both admitted that we had felt this way when we arrived. 

Walking the streets of the biggest city in the country, Auckland, I thought it was the opposite of vibrant. It seemed kind of boring and rural even though it was a huge city with skyscrapers. Christian who is a thrillseeker had already booked us a jet boat ride through the harbour the next day and we got the instructions that if we don't hold on to the boat we might fly off into the sea, as other passengers had. The last thing I wanted to do was to be lying in a shark infested water so I did hold on for dear life and believe me it was a struggle. At the same time the water came straight into my face from the boat speeding by and I could almost not breath because of this. It was a horrible experience except for when the driver chilled down and the boat just went by in normal speed and the harbour looked amazing and we even saw a guy jumping bungee jump from Auckland Harbour Bridge. I'm more into having a nice time than seeking thrills so I was happy when the boat ride was finally over.

Christian wanted to get a traditional Maori tattoo so we went to a tattoo shop to talk with them about it, but they told him it was impossible. Maori are the people that originated from New Zealand and they see tattoos as a part of a ritual. They often use shark teeth or sharpen bones instead of needles and every tattoo is unique. Christian had to settle for the usual tattoo parlor and while I was there I was thinking I might get one too. I had always been totally against getting one but now that I was on the other side of the globe I wanted to commemorate it somehow and I thought of a strange cross that I had seen before we went on the trip. I had plans for it to become a symbol for my new band Slutet and I wanted to get a tattoo of it on my left shoulder to show myself how serious I was about the music and the art that it spawned. I was just going to think about it for a day and then return.

Since the city itself was so boring we went on a guided tour to Ruakuri Cave about 2 and a half hours away with a bus. In the images that we had seen in a flyer at our hotel it looked like a water park underground with slides and stuff like that.

What I didn't expect was to go be going through what seemed like an endless cave with water up to my stomach while the guide tried to scare us by saying he heard rats and stuff. We had to jump down cliffs to land in water and getting water splashed up our nostrils, and I couldn't stop to imagine what creatures could live in a dark cave like this in New Zealand, that was only lit up by glowworms.

It would definitely be possible for a snake to turn up and those aren't the sizes of the ones in Sweden. Then we all had to lay down on a water wheel each and hold each others feet while we slowly went further down the dark cave. The guide said "schhh, can you hear it? there's a waterfall coming" and I thought to myself that he can't be serious that we will be going down a waterfall, or could he? The sound got louder and louder and just when I thought "here it comes", he stopped us and there was actually a slide down to the lower level of the cave. Damn I hated that tour guide. When we were finally out of the cave after almost 2 hours I was just happy to be alive and I couldn't wait to get back to a boring city again. 

To my surprise I had noticed that drugs were sold legally in New Zealand, and I thought it was funny that I could buy them at the same time as I could buy some snacks. I bought a drug called Purple Haze, because of the Jimi Hendrix reference, and it stated it was a drug to make you more social, and I thought it can't be that strong since it's sold this legal way. We went up to the roof on the hostel and I smoked a cigarette containing Purple Haze, and when I had finished it, Christian asked me if I felt anything, but I didn't. Just when I was about to smoke one more, I said "Or wait, damn I'm growing!". I suddenly felt three meters taller than Christian and I could see blocks with question marks on them out in the thin air from the game Super Mario Bros. I felt the urge to hit them with my head but at the same time I had some sense left in me and understood that I couldn't fly out to them. I told Christian that we needed to go down to our room because I was afraid that I would go off the building without understanding what I was doing. When we arrived to the room I heard a bull trying to get in through the door. It gored the door again and again and I was afraid it would get in. I went inside the bathroom and the countdown for New Years Eve began, 10, 9, 8 etc. When I came out it stopped being New Years Eve but everytime I went inside, the countdown started again. My brain felt like a record player that just went faster and faster and it felt like the brain was burning, but then it stopped and it felt like going back to the real world again, such a relief. Then I could feel the record slowly start to spin again and I was like "no, let me stay in the real world, I don't want to go back!" And they call this a social drug? Drugs are bad, m'kay!

The next day we were going to USA and I was so scared that I would have forgotten some of the Purple Haze in my suitcase. I searched it through many times to be sure I wouldn't be caught by the customs in USA. I had such a hangover from coming down from the previous night and while Christian went out fishing I just laid in a park all day on a bench eating Munchkins Donut Holes from Dunkin' Donuts. I felt like a homeless person and damn such headache. In this shape I was not ready to get the tattoo that I had thought about before and I sure wasn't ready for another long flight through time zones without sleeping.

* Best things about New Zealand – slowly drifting through the harbour in a boat while catching the always sunny weather

* Most mediocre thing about New Zealand – I hadn't been to USA before New Zealand but in hindsight it felt like a cheap version of USA

* Worst things about New Zealand – the legal drugs and to spend time with a tour guide who just wants to scare you down a cave, and the speed boat just trying to throw you off while you can't breath because you would swallow half the ocean then, and that accent that make them all sound like farmers

Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):

1. Croatia

2. Montenegro

3. Andorra

4. Cyprus

5. Greece

6. Italy

7. Monaco

8. Malta

9. Netherlands

10. Iceland

11. Denmark

12. Lithuania

13. Macedonia

14. New Zealand

15. Ireland

16. Belgium

17. Estonia

18. Kosovo

19. Finland

20. Latvia

21. Norway

22. France

23. Bulgaria

24. Luxembourg

25. Liechtenstein

26. China

27. Bosnia And Herzegovina

28. Albania