Monday, August 11, 2003

South to Kaikoura (and beyond). Alter Ego!

Up about 8:45, showered, breakfast (free breakfasts at this hostel!), then packed. It's crappy weather, so I'll come back later when I head back up the north island.

Left about 10:00, headed south to Kaikoura. Got there about noonish. Small town on the coast that's popular because they have lots of dolphins, whales, sharks and seals near, so there's lots of various wildlife tours. I wanna swim with dolphins, but the weather is really crappy, very windy and cloudy and cold and rainy, so I'll come back here when I head back up to the noth island and do my dolphin swimming. So, I continued on to Christchurch. Kaikoura has an awesome mountain range towering over it on one side, with amazing views of snow covered peaks.

Got to Christchurch about 3:30, checked into The Old Country House, thumbs up from Let's Go.

Drove downtown, used internet for a while, back to hostel, made supper, then went in search of an ice cream place, but found nothing, so back to the hostel and went to the corner store and bought an ice cream treat, then back to the hostel and watched the Aussie versino of "Who Wants To Be Millionaire", the Entertainer Edition. They had Dame Edna as one of the guests, he/she was hilarious. Of course, the celebs were doing it for charity, and Dame Edna missed a question for $8000 or something like that, and dropped back to $1000 for her charity. He/She felt so bad that she announced at the end of the show that she would make up the amount out of her own pocket.

As we were watching TV, a British guy and I were chatting, he asked me where I was from, Canada I said, he asked me where, I said Saskatchewan, expecting the typical "Huh?" response. But didn't get it. He met a guy in Australia from Saskatoon, so know of Saskatchewan. He also had another story about Saskatchewan. While living in Australia, he was living with some Canadian's, and he was always getting razzed by the Canadian's because he was British, so one of his flatmates gave him a Canadian alter ego: he was Todd from Moose Jaw. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. I looked at him, thinking he was taking the piss out of me (British phrase meaning screwing with me), and I looked at him, thinking I must have met this guy before and he knew who I was, and was joking around with me, because he knew I didn't recognize him. But no, I'm sure I hadn't met him before. Finally I said to him, "You'll never believe this. My name is Todd, and I'm from Moose Jaw!" And I told him I could prove it with my drivers license. He nearly fell off of his chair, then started laughing hysterically! He's like, "You can't be serious???", I showed him my drivers license, and he couldn't believe it. He says to me he has to take a picture of my ID, his friend that gave him the alter ego will NEVER believe this. Talk about coincidence, eh?

After Millionaire, watched Picket Fences, then to bed about midnight.

Notes:
- Weird traffic rules. One very strange traffic rule I'm not used to yet, remembering that over here I drive on the left hand side of the road. If I am going to make a left hand turn , I have to give way to someone making a right-hand turn from the oncoming lane, and crossing traffic. So, if I'm making a right-hand turn (and crossing oncoming traffic to do it), and someone is making a left-hand turn into the same street, they give way to me. Strange!
- There's lots of hostel work available. It's not paid work, you get free accomodations and laundry and stuff, but lots of hostels looking for work.

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