Eclectic Days

At this very moment, I stare at a blank Word page trying to figure out how to connect all the events from last week into one single post. Brainstorming with myself to find some ingenious and humorous connection that allows for me to smoothly described them all. Truth is, roadtrips, sea lions, the former President of Poland and trash tv are not the most obvious interrelated events. Perhaps their common ground is the fact that my life, as dull as it usually is, has a way of putting me in different scenarios in a five minute time spam.

Kaikoura

Saturday morning I was drastically removed from my bed by diligent German politeness: “Sofia, open the door! We just arrived in Christchurch and we’re going to Kaikoura for the day. Let’s go!”. In fifteen minutes time, there I was, barely out of my pajama, still half asleep and eating my cereals inside a car named El Cheapo. If taking a shower in a cold river feels like becoming a born-again Christian, than this must be the closest experience to a kidnap I had so far in my life (or at least to an episode of MTV’s Room Raiders).  Two hours later, Kaikoura was in the horizon. 

Saturday: eating fish & chips...

A little town by the ocean, tucked between cliffs and beaches with the main touristic attractions being whales, dolphins and sea lions. Whales and dolphins were nowhere to be seen but, fortunately, one can always count on sea lions' lazy life style of sleeping their day away in sun heated rocks to allow for jealous humans to take some pictures of them. Also, a little biblical adventure was in place when we had to crossover an ocean stream at the beach, which my city self had a little trouble accomplishing. Lesson learned here: if you’re going to make fun of your friends for accidentally producing unappropriated home videos, make sure they don’t hold a camera themselves when you are about to battle Nature.

crossing the stream of water ocean...

... and admiring sea lions life style

Comes Sunday, and the weekend theme of heading to the beach was kept. This time I revisited Sumner, a place I like more and more every time I go there, even though the effects of the recent Earthquakes are still very much an open wound. Also, there’s nothing like having a Cookie Crumble ice cream while witnessing people learning how to surf (if all it takes is to sit on the board and enjoy the waves passing underneath you, I can do that too!). 

Sunday: watching surfers at the beach

On Monday it was time to shake the weekend sand off me and put on a nice dress for a fancy event at work. The Mother of All Conferences promoted by NCRE was taking place and the speaker for this year was Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President of Poland between 1995 and 2005. I'm not Polish so I can not judge the man for his ten years as President, but for his forty five minutes as a speaker he was extremely sharp and humorous. My favorite part was at the very end in one of those moments when renown politicians with nothing more to prove and nobody else to please, just do whatever the hell they want: when the Q&A was long overdue and the chairman wanted to give the last question to the French Ambassador, Mr. Kwaśniewski (thank goodness for copy paste on this name) made the Ambassador wait so we could take questions from the anonymous human beings in the back. 

Monday: with Aleksander Kwasniewski, former President of Poland

Funny how forty eight hours before the Conference I was watching a sea lion enjoying himself and two hours after it I was home with the soon to be gone Germans watching the Kardashians on tv while pouring some kiwi beers, but at that very moment I was taking pictures with a former President and shaking the same hand that previously touched (among better people) George W. Bush at the White House. Surreal.

Oh, the eclecticness of my days.

From Queenstown to Liverpool

Once again, my astonishing luck for travelling hit me hard in the head as it was a pleasant surprise to discover that we would be arriving in Queenstown on Saint Patrick’s Day despite the fact that I booked this trip a few months ago with no recollection of such fact. Heck, I was even supposed to go alone. Partying hard with friends in a town painted in shamrock and leprechaun green was definitely not a planned event.

Queenstown Lake Front

First Day – Going Irish 

I’ll start by reporting where we stayed in case someone reading is interested in a future reference for a good place to lay their backpack at the shore of Lake Wakatipu:  Base Queenstown. It’s a chain hostel but cheap, new, clean, well located, with a bar inside and a receptionist that welcomed me with a “You are the first Portuguese person I meet in New Zealand! I've been to Silves!” (in an ocean of German and Dutch waves, who knew being Portuguese would make me such an exotic island?) And so we were off to a good start. After almost nine hours (!) on a bus, the plan for the night was simple: drop the bags, cook some pasta in the hostel kitchen, have some beers to the beat of drinking games in my upper bunk bed and finally go out and celebrate the arrival of Christianity in Ireland (double !).

At the Hostel

 
Second Day – Pure and Free Laziness

You see, right about now I could start lying about how we entertained ourselves in Queenstown. Lonely Planet describes it as “a place where you will never get bored”. True story but only if you have money (a whole lot of it) to spend. Bungee jumping, sky diving, jet boat, etc. Name the activity, Queenstown offers it. But nothing costs less than 150 dollars and backpackers (truly) on a budget can’t afford any of this. So here’s the honest truth about what actually happened on day two: we got up, checked out, had a lazy breakfast, discovered the town centre and all its souvenirs shops, checked in again (cheaper room), waited for a hostel barbecue that didn’t happen, had lunch, went for another walk, went  back to the hostel and enjoy the free bar drinks that were given to us as compensation for the broken promise of a Sunday barbecue. 

Skydiving Swinging

In the mist of such an exciting day, I realized that I had left my pajamas in the previous room, promptly running to the reception in a dramatic attempt to avoid sleeping half naked in a room with five other people. The same guy, who made being Portuguese seem like a cool thing the day before, was there again and in what might just be, from now on known as, the worst pick up line ever, I bluntly asked him if he knew where I could find my pajama pants. He looked at me and laughed in doubtfulness regarding my intentions but after providing further conceptualization to my claim, he did went to search for it and eventually found them in a pile of dirty clothes. If making a guy go through an industrial pile of dirty laundry for you doesn't make a good impression, nothing will! 

Germans conquering a tree

In retrospective, I guess we proved Lonely Planet wrong! The future New York Times bestseller "How to Get Bored in Queenstown" had been written. Or maybe not. Sure, skydiving would have been pretty damn cool but running and singing in the rain, climbing trees, use the children’s playground swings, enjoy a free Tequilla Sunrise with friends and make hostel receptionists think I'm a pervert, it’s really all the material someone needs to forge long lasting memories. And ending up the night at an Irish pub (for some strange reason we didn’t go to one the day before) didn’t hurt either.

Third Day – Tourism and Drunkenness 

Finally, a day from which I am able to report a few touristic activities. After breakfast, we took a walk along the lake, mesmerized over the flowers of the Botanical Gardens, discovered frisbee golf and went to find the oldest buildings in town - a tiny church and a tinier 120 year old house. At 1 p.m. we had an appointment for the self proclaimed "biggest Ice Bar in Australasia" with entries usually costing 20$ (32$ with cocktail) but I found us 1$ entries online (yay!). It was a veeeery cool experience! First, because it was my debut in an Ice Bar (I wasn't previously aware of my uncontrollable craving for licking ice walls and ice furniture. I am now.) and second because we had the bar completely to ourselves. Like the very awesome bartender/boxer, Tank, pointed out when I stupidly make a remark about the emptiness of the place, "who comes to an Ice Bar to have cocktails at one in the afternoon?". The same people who go to Queenstown to climb trees, that's who.

And given that enduring negative temperatures for almost an hour drains a lot of one's energy, the next logical stop was to grab a magnificent Fergburger by the water. It was the kind of simple but delicious situation for which I like to indulge myself into believing that the concept of 'quality of life' was invented for. With this gastronomic orgasm fully lodged in our stomachs and the sun still smiling at us, it was time to take a boat cruise. In all honestly, it was nothing extraordinary and it felt more like a real-estate lesson on pricey lake houses than anything else but just for the captain's sense of humor, it was totally worth it. Pearls of wisdom such as " is there a small child on board we can throw to the fishes to see them feed?" or "don't worry, I won't kill you. I'm not an Italian ship-captain!", were pure kiwi brilliance. And no, our stay in Queenstown didn't alternate solely between activities suitable for 8 or 64 year old people. At night we mostly behave like we were 15.

Burger with a view

On the boat

The evening didn't start very well. No one could agree on what to do and too much time was wasted just to reach the simple conclusion that we should cook, play drinking games and stay in the hostel. Wasn't really the ideal last night I envisioned to have in Queenstown but democracies are known for ignoring the minority voices so I bowed to the wishes of the People. Additionally, after eight years without drinking a drop of alcohol, I learned to love vodka, tolerate beer and absolutely continue to hate wine which happened to be the beverage of choice. Hence, while my friends and posterior attached strangers got increasingly drunk, my sobriety stayed the same. But life does have a way of sorting itself out.

When the drinking festivities moved from the kitchen to the laundry room, there I was, sitting in a bag of dirty laundry (pajama irony?) surrounded by a bunch of intoxicated international souls with a conversational IQ level similar to a Fox News' debate. By than, my inner Jon Stewart forced me to stand up and leave those poor washing machines to their own faith. As I also had no intention to go to bed at 11 p.m., I decided to go to the hotel lobby, write on my travel diary and give judgmental/envious looks to the hot blond (german/dutch/british) girls that would occasionally pass by. Sounded like a solid plan.

In the end, time flew by as I found myself chatting away with that very same receptionist which still remained nameless so I called him by the city he was from, Liverpool. The night hold a few more tours and detours between Queenstown and Liverpool but for the sake of your reading patience I won't dwell on it. Will share, though, that once again New Zealand proves to be tutoring me in all the right lessons. For this time, I am unshamefully proud to admit that I am utterly happier to sit in a couch of an empty hostel lobby at late hours of the night talking with the guy behind the counter than partying hard at the club next door.

Forth Day - Back to Reality

Waking up at 7 a.m. and standing at the bus station one hour later to catch a long ride back to reality, back to Christchurch. For a good part of those nine long hours, between mountains, lakes and sheep, I came to the realization that friendship can be easily defined: that second when you suddenly and instinctively  put an end to a good moment happening to you to make sure your drunken friends throw up in the right place. Even if they decide to disappear and go film their own adult entertainment hostel made production instead. The joke was definitely on me.

Goodbye Queenstown. Goodbye Liverpool.

Season 3, Ep. 21

Last Friday evening, I was unexpectedly asked: “we are going to be mentioned in your blog, aren’t we?”. Before I even got the opportunity to process the question (I took some time to first feel flatter by it) someone else rapidly replied: “oh yes, she will definitely write about us!”. Lately, I seem to get this question whenever something worth telling forges itself into existence which is not a far-fetched assumption as  I now, almost automatically, tend to see the acts of my life through the lens of my camera and the keyboard of my laptop -‘this deserves a photo!’ or ‘I need to write about this!’ are recurring thoughts. Accordingly, I shall not disappoint both the fans of my (always at risk of cancellation) sitcom life and the guest starring actors of this particular episode. Hence, let me, indeed, write about it. And given that this is the twenty first post of the blog, a diary of my third endeavour living abroad where the in-between summers count as webisodes, I hereby present you with the script for Season 3, Episode 21 of the Nomad Life of Sofia (working title). 

It was a cold, pitch black night in a place lost between the corner of no and where in the south island of a country already geographically relegated to the outskirts of human civilization. Outside, horses, cows, sheep, chickens and dogs faced Mother Nature's dark and ruthless hours. Inside, a cat and five humans (a Portuguese, a German, a Chinese, a New Zealander, and an Irish) enjoyed the warmth of a fireplace and the modern comforts imposed to an old farm house. In such a recipe-for-disaster scenario, we were lucky enough to avoid being trapped and painfully murdered one by one by a redneck serial killer, kidnapped by aliens or, the one that I most feared, being caught in a zombie apocalypse (with those big glass windows we would be so, well, dead).

Everything went perfectly according to plan, which for this particular episode meant to bring the characters closer together, not to kill anybody off. The script called for a nice dinner followed by fireplace bounded intellectual discussions about Europe (Lecturers, PhD's students and Interns of a research centre on Europe, will, inevitably, discuss the old continent continuously) and late night glasses of wine (or Coke to undisclosed members of the cast) with alcohol soaking the conversation into more mundane (fun!) topics. The hours past and faster than the falling of Europe's southern nations into disgrace, I found myself sharing a heavenly cosy bed with a Hong Kong woman named Cher (one of those experiences I can now cross from my to-do list). The next morning, I was awaken by the good morning chantings of a Rooster outside my window, a two year old playing in the living room and an Irish breakfast of bacon and eggs in the kitchen.

However, the twist that made this a rewatchable episode was not the who, the where or the what. It was the why. My supervisor invited me and the other (now written off script) intern to spend the night at her farm as a sincere thank you for all the help. I'm still an unpaid intern but it helps to believe that some things in life are just priceless.


Next week we are filming on location. Stay tuned!

Sumner Sunny Sunday

Last January, on my flight from Sydney to Christchurch, I met Susan, a New Zealander woman physically in her sixties but with an attitude so larger than life that makes her spiritually ageless. She lives in one of the most beautiful areas of Christchurch but also one of the most affected by the February 2011 Earthquake - Sumner, a little seaside suburb with dozens of houses built in the hills where the sun rises every morning to incredible views of the Pacific Ocean. Nowadays, a great part of those houses are set for demolition while another part faces the need of major reconstruction, all in the mist of unwilling cooperation from insurance companies and the overall perception of deep incompetence by the Earthquake Commission.

Overviewing Sumner

As the plain landed, Susan gave me her contact and an open invitation to visit her and a tour of the destruction among those past heavenly mounts. I was immediately keen on the idea not because I have a morbid desire to see other people's misery but because Susan spoke with such optimism, conviction of the better days laying ahead and absolutely no desire of abandoning Christchurch, that I truly wanted to be a firsthand witness of someone's almost unbelievable resilience. Her glass was shattered but also more full than ever.

(Broken) Houses on the hill

A few days ago, a friend of mine arrived from Germany to visit me and having done and seen everything there is to do and see in Christchurch (translation: not much), I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to finally take on Susan's offer to spend a day in Sumner. Her reply to my message and personal re-encounter was a revival of the woman I briefly set next to, high above the Tasman Sea - a welcoming smile, a strong hug and a contagious energy.  

As we arrived at her home on a sunny Sunday, I felt myself entering the paradoxal reality that Sumner now is: an amazing house with a breathtaking view but with half of its walls destroyed and replaced by temporary wooden boards with a construction logo on it. But we didn't set down and grief, we laughed and shared stories. We told her how my friend and I got together one day in the Netherlands to make a decision about coming to New Zealand, in my case, and to Japan, in hers, even after the destruction caused by the earthquakes in both countries. While most people around us were advising us against it, we realize that we actually had no inner doubts about what to do. In return, Susan told us how she travelled the world, lived in Japan for more than a decade and enjoyed every step of the way as much as she could. Somehow, her laughs echoing in a greatly destroyed house that still felt like a home, didn't seem odd at all to us, they seemed familiar.

Dozens of containers along the road holding the hills

After driving us around the hills for about one hour, telling us what happened to this and that house, to this and that friend and to the community as a whole, she drop us off in one end of the beach long pedestrian walk (the dictionary tells me the word for this is 'esplanade') so we could enjoy the rest of that sunny day before heading back into the city. As we were about to leave the car, in the context of the goodbye she told us something about her life, I will never forget:

"I made the most of it and I have no regrets!" 

followed by a loud and sincere laugh. How many people are lucky enough to say the same?

Into the ocean

As we strolled down the esplanade with an ice cream in our hands, the sun above and the ocean besides us, we kept mentioning those words and being certain of one thing: one, ten or forty years from now, all we want is to look back and have that exact same reaction about our own life. Not everything will be good, not everything will work out but as long as we have the courage to try, everything will be worth it.

Make the most of it and have no regrets.

Happy Go Lucky

Luck. For the second time in a few months I felt this incredible feeling of being hit by a lightning full of luck right in my core. The first time was in Australia (which I am still owning my 3.5 readers a post about) and the mentioned second was last week on a short trip to Dunedin. Just like in the land of Oz, I was constantly mesmerized by how lucky I was for everything that was happening around me and involving me. For the lack of a better explanation, it seems like an involuntary stream of bliss you just need to appreciate and let yourself go with the flow. Happy go lucky.

Dunedin Railway Station

With my financial budget resembling the current status of a bankrupt southern European country, travelling must be an inventive economic process. Nevertheless, good things can actually come out of such restrictions. In that sense, the bible of any backpacker who 1) is on a budget, 2) loves to travel, 3) wants more of a town than partying hard and get laid on a hostel bunk bed, it’s called Couchsurfing. After such a great couch surfing experience in Sydney, I was eager to try it again and fortunately I did! Hence, our luck in Dunedin started from the very moment we set foot out of the bus. Our host, Phil, went to pick us up by car at the bus station and drove us to his place, where his girlfriend, Asia, welcomed us with a big hug. The best thing of being involved in couchsurfing is that, you will, for the most part, meet people who are genuinely good, generous and are keen to open their house to you. It is a community of people who share a passion for traveling and even when they are not traveling themselves they like to help and share experiences with those who are. More, not only were Phil and Asia wonderful hosts (including an amazing vegetarian dinner served with homemade beer. all to the sound of Deolinda) but their home was a cozy apartment right in the city centre with a fantastic view over the harbor. 

University of Otago

cute cafes all over town

And because being so lucky with our accomodation apparently wasn't enough to make this a fantastic trip, my partner in travel crime, Manu, received a call from a high school friend, Florian, saying that he was also arriving in Dunedin with is girlfriend, Chiara, the very same day as we were. This pure, and again very lucky, coincidence allowed us to go on a day trip to the Otago Peninsula with them on their car. As the back seats were transformed into a bed, I spend my day poppin in and out of a mattress and watching stunning scenery from a horizontal position. 

Otago Peninsula

Otago Peninsula - Sandfly Bay

By the end of the day, and keeping in touch with a backpacker's budgetary limitations, Florian decided that we should catch our own dinner. And by we I mean the Germans who went into the low tie to dig almost 200 muscles and the Portuguese who documented the moment for future reference. Cooking such dinner took a long, cold and rainy two hours in a parking lot by the beach and ended up being eaten in the parking lot of a supermarket in the city. Despite the challenges, we were happy and proud of our accomplishment. 

Catching dinner

Dinner!

To finalize the last night in Dunedin, after an exquisite meal homeless style, we met our hosts in the local Scottish pub to try and restore some blood circulation and have a goodbye drink. Even at the pub, what could have been a very awkward evening with people that have met each other in 48h, 12h and 30 minutes periods, turned out to be filled with mutual and sincere laughs.

Scottish Pub - Albar

As for Dunedin, it was the perfect background to such amazing times. Beautiful town full of life (it has the oldest University in New Zealand, University of Otago, with 24,000 students) and great little cafes. All of these within a 10 minutes car ride from the Otago Peninsula which is home to rare penguins and sea lions who like to hang out in the local beaches. We weren't lucky enough to see any but after four very nice days, I think Luck gave me more than enough.