Stories from the street... [UNCENSORED] [WARNING: RACISM, DRUG USE, VIOLENCE]

Entertainment is expensive in Wellington, a movie ticket is around 15 dollars and with popcorn and soda, that quickly doubles - so you have to make money last, or make sure that what you get in return is at least worth your time in terms of value.

Wellington, like many many other cities have these people who wander the streets and try to bum cigarettes off of you. And me being a business man, I can't help but wonder what I can do to monetize on this, and if not money, at least get some sort of value in return. So I have developed a plan that allows me to get something in return from these people. Usually, the results are mediocre, but from time to time, I get something worth writing about - today I hit the jackpot!

It's actually pretty simple, whenever a bum approaches me to get his fix, usually by saying something along the lines of: "Bro? Bro? BRO? Can I have a cigarette off of you?" at which point my face lights up and I reply: "Well, I've got a special offer just for you, limited time only! I will give you TWO cigarettes, one now, and one later, but in return, you have to tell me the story of your life, what do you say?" - "Ar... Are you serious?" - "Yes I am."

"Well... Fuck it bro let's do this shit! Come here, let's go sit... This is going to be a long one - I might have to charge you three cigarettes!

When I was seven, I don't remember shit before that man, sorry. When I was seven my parents moved to Australia, Melbourne eh, because... work. I went to school there but it was shit so I dropped out, started hanging out with friends. My parents, never really saw them, working and shit, so I hung out with these people who did some tagging and stuff. It was sweet, hung out, started smoking at eight-nine. Then on weekends drinking, then every drinking, more smoking. When ten-eleven perhaps more than that, weed. Twelve snorting lines after I hung out with this gang, they did graffiti."

 - All while telling me this stuff, the guy was simply staring into the rain, correcting his cap from time to time. He seemed to be around 25 years old. A gust of wind brought his scent to my nose - this guy had definitely not showered for a day or two.

"Tagging, weed, snorting. It was pretty bad eh? The gang started stealing cars - not to sell or anything, just to drive around and have a bit of fun, skids and shit. I was fourteen then I think. Years start blowing by man, it got really serious, pills down the drain, not just on weekends, get me through the days and stuff. Went to juvenile when I was thirteen the first time maybe. I go in and out for like, at least five times. Had some fun with that. The gang stuff got really serious, dealing with another gang of niggers and shit. Fifteen, got into fights all the time, we won, niggers couldn't do shit.

So I turn 16 I think, my mom decides it's time for something to happen. She threatened me a long time, I told the gang and shit but they didn't believe it. One day my mom drives me to the airport, she booked a ticket to Wellington. So to the airport, Christchurch and then in Wellington. I call up my mates at home and be all like: "You know how my mom said she'd fly me to New Zealand? I'm in New Zealand now!" They tell me to come back but fuck them. I get this job at a friend of family, do some gardening for some time. Get a car, do some skids, because fuck it, it's my own damn car now, I can do what I want. Nice BMW too, real good. I met a girl too, Airini, maori, freaking great girl. Some time later my employer falls or some shit, breaks his knee - out of business no job. Wait I have picture, see this..."

 - He pulls out his phone, an older Nokia, powers it on and shows me the background photo of his girl and two grownup dogs.

"She's great man. Yeah and these two babies. So I'm out of a job right because this cunt can't fucking stand on his legs. I start hanging out at home, get bored, go to town, meet some people, do some shit. Pretty much the same as before, start tagging, hanging out with wrong people. Steal cars, drugs and all that shit again. Stole a bunch of cars, not just to drive anymore, we took the tires or whatever we needed that week, then burned it or dumped it somewhere. Doings skids and shit my car breaks down, goes to the trash, no car anymore. Bummer.

So one night we out getting a car, drive around, fucking police catches up, get arrested, detained for a month - couldn't go anywhere. As soon as it's over I'm out doing shit again, get caught and detention for three months before they put me on 24 hour curfew. I get one of those fucking ankle things, you know so I can't go anywhere outside the house. Airini offers I can move in with her parents in Palmy. Fuck no, but I couldn't go anywhere else, so we do that shit. Got to know her family really well, like, all of them, fucking horrible. I get a job, picking fruit, means that I can go out between like 9 and 5 every day which was really good. Airini and me save up some money, get our own place close to their parents because I couldn't stand that shit anymore. We get some puppies too, the dogs I show you, amazing, they were little then.

So a week after we move in, this bunch of niggers moves in next door. Doing drugs and shit, drinking all night on the porch every day, just yelling and screaming. They did some tagging and shit too just when I was doing better away from it all. I start hanging out with them, then I have a breach, meaning I was out when I was not supposed to so I lose my job and have to stay home for three months. So I just sit at home and smoke weed all day, go to the niggers next door and smoke with them, play games all day. Anyway, three months later I can go back to work.

First day back at work,  I come home and my house has been robbed, they took fucking everything; laptop, big ass plasma TV, Xbox, everything. I go knock the niggers door and tell the fuckheads to give me my shit back, they don't do anything. Fucking retards. So the next few months get really weird man, every night they're out there drinking and yelling and shit at me. They don't give a shit about Airini, because she's maori too, but I'm white. They do this every night man, I go out there and tell them to fuck off, they give me shit, but I'm not going to let them get me. So for a month or so, whenever I see their tags anywhere I spray it over and write my own next to it. I know they're getting pissed, talk about it all the time.

Then one day I call my mates in Wellington, next day I grab a fucking car and drive there, with no license, police took it in the car chase. So I drive down, pick up my mates and drive back before five. That night they didn't come out, but the next one, they're there.

I go out and tell them to fuck off, their tags are no good anymore, getting sprayed over. Niggers ask me if I'm the one who's been doing it; "Fuck yeah what you gonna do bitches?!" They walk over and start acting all cocky and then my mates show up behind me, bigger than me. I grab the first one and headbutts him in the face, he falls down, silent. The kiddies then start walking back as we walk towards them, I knee the next one in the ribs and he falls on the ground as well, we chase them over to theirs, my mate hands me a hammer and then the police show up because of the noise so the niggers start running because they're not 18 yet, underage drinking. There's like six of them and I follow them, they keep running and split up. I get two of them, and I got them fucking good.

The problems stop, they don't drink or make any noise anymore, and when they see me they run, that was pretty good. We moved back to Airini's parents though, the place was shit. I lost my job after that. Maybe two weeks later we decide to move to Wellington, more job opportunities. I met the people I knew in Welly again, and they wanted me to go out and shit, but I didn't, just stole a few cars and stuff again but nothing big, just some weed. Then I got a job down on the wharf, unloading containers, but I lost that a month ago. I want to get back into gardening but it's just hard to find anything. I had a job last monday, but that was just one day. We live out in Miramar now, Airini and me, and the dogs. It's good shit, away from all the problems. So I go here, try to find work."

I offer him his last cigarette and thank him for the story, offer him my lighter but he says he's got one himself. Then he stands up, turn around and walk away - as it has happened before.

Do note though, I have a deal with myself: I don't tell them my name, and they don't tell me theirs - I don't want to know. Their stories is all I want, nothing more. Names in the above text have been altered, jobs may be different, places probably are too - but the story is true. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did.

EDIT: Forgot to add, he is only 19. But living a life like that does take its toll on your body.

Wherever the wind blows!

Wellington being windy is no news, but recently it has picked up and carried me in a different direction than what I expected, or was prepared for when I left Denmark a little more than a month ago.

The company I was supposed to intern for, turned out to not really have enough time for me, which lead to me being quite bored with nothing to do on a daily basis. So what is one to do? Sit around and wait? Not me.

I overheard a conversation next door and when a topic I'm knowledgeable about came up I decided that perhaps it was time to approach them, and so I did. We talked and knowing both Michael and David from my stay at the office last year we casually talked about my current situation, to which there seemed to be a solution: "Come work for us!"

After some emailing with school, a haircut, and a VISA-application, I have moved my internship to Hunter Safety Lab, who are manufacturing the IRIS, which is a truly amazing product, if you don't want to get shot (by a hunter). Check it out, it's really cool!

So that's what's been going on lately, hopefully soon I'll have more updates. I can't share much more as of right now, but things are great, and I'm looking forward to see where the wind takes me next!

Eszter arrives!

This Friday was a day long awaited, as it was the day that Eszter arrived! Which means I now have someone to talk with at the office, about other stuff than just business. Potentially someone to go party with as well, as soon as she's over her Jetlag :p

First up, I went to the Airport to pick her up with Barrie, her host. We all went to their place for dinner, before splitting up so that she could get some much desired sleep after a long journey. Like myself, Eszter flew Emirates, and absolutely loved it, it's a pretty amazing travel provider I'd say.

Saturday we met up again, and got dropped off at the beginning of the waterfront, from where Eszter and I walked to Te Papa, where we would meet up with Joe to watch a Chilean movie about the war that never was between Chile and Argentina. It was really good, and definitely worth watching, Mi mejor enemigo is the title ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410316/ ).

Eszter wanted to go home and was tired, so that we did, and watched the game between the All Blacks (NZ Rugby team) and the Wallabies (Australians). It was a great game, actually quite fun to watch, and All Blacks won, so later when I went back to town, there was a pretty good feel everywhere on the streets. Chips was busy for a while, and so before meeting up with him, I took some pictures of street artists in Wellington, which can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/HW362#0

Sunday was dedicated to spending time at Chips', to once again see Mike, another Magic Judge I got to know last I was here. It was nice catching up again.

All in all, a pretty good weekend.

Magic!

As in the cardgame I play, and pretty well if I may add that. More about that in a moment.

A few days has passed since my last update, so here goes: I started my internship with Yonix, and I've got my project more or less figured out.

Wellington is to my delight very much the same as last year, with awesome food at the Foodcourt where I meet with Chips just about 3 out of 5 days a week - and we're meeting again tomorrow to plan a trip to Brisbane, Australia - to play Magic.

So far things have been going well, 2nd place in the two tournaments I've participated in, a $10 investment total worth winnings worth $50 - not bad.

I've also won the earthquake lottery, in that I've actually experienced one this time here. Last year they happened over night while I was sleeping, and didn't wake me up, but this time I was wide awake and got to see things fall off shelves and people run around, that was fun.

All in all, things are quietly progressing as expected and for a study trip, this is pretty awesome!

Showering in the Elevators

So today at around 10:10am here on 50 Manners Street (Check Location), the fire alarm went off. My first thought, learning from last time when we had a fire drill, was to grap my gadgets and then get out. So I did.

10 minutes earlier, I could swear someone was showering on the other side of the wall, I set next to the service shaft and it really sounded like there was water in there.

I wasn't wrong. I walked down the fire exit and on my way out, I saw the elevators getting full of water... Once I got outside I talked to Gilles, who told me that he had been downstairs to grap a coffee, and when he was, he saw everyone from the 11th floor coming down soaking wet, reason: A water pipe had burst. Note: You can easily recognize people from the 11th floor because that's where the Spanish Embassy is.

And then came the fire brigade, 4 trucks loaded with firefighters, ironic, when all we needed was a plumber. Anyways, some pictures:

Featherston French Fair

This weekend was awesome!

So Hayley was coming, which in itself is pretty cool since I haven't seen her since her housewarming way back on January 20th.

Friday night we went out and played pool, luckily Hayley and I both suck really hard at it so noone really won a game, rather we would take turns losing for pouching the 8-ball too early. After a few games we met up with Hayley's friends and went clubbing until 1:30. When we went home we sort of talked a bit too much and forgot to get off, so we had to walk for 30 minutes to get home.

The next morning we were going to visit Gigi in Masterton to go to a French Fair in Featherston. We got on the train and went to Solway Station where Gigi met us and walked us back to the Copthorne Hotel and Resort. We dropped off our bags and went to the playground for the kids (Gigi and Hayley) to play.

After that we went to KFC, while there we planned the rest of the day: Go to French Fair, go back to Masterton, go shopping for me to cook again, go home and watch TV and drink loads of New Zealand wine. Pretty good plan we thought.

Girls and their bags and hats...

Pizza-machine!

"Market trash"

So on to the busstop, get on bus and go to French Fair. As expected we forgot to get off (again), and so we thought we had to walk but didn't. Because as it turned out, Rick the busdriver (who's going to play a major role later on!), offered to go back that way after stopping at Featherston station, we kindly accepted! 20 minutes later we were at the French Fair and could check out the attractions. Rick said he'd be back at 5-10 past 5 which gave us about 3 hours at the fair.

Personally I don't think it was awesome, but there was a lot of what I would call regular market trash for sale. They did have a fucking (and this is AWESOME!) mobile pizza-bakery! That's like, amazing! A car with a giant wood-fired pizza-oven on the back of it! Oh well. I bought a gift for Marta and the girls went shopping too and got a few things. The coolest thing was probably the Betty Boob coasters that Hayley got. How she can call them girly I have no idea about!

French Fair. That was the name. While people did dress up like stereotypical french people, we didn't meet any. 7-finger chocolate man was from Belgium and the apple-juice man from Romania. The rest were presumably Kiwis.

Eventually it was time to go and so we left, waiting for the bus. Rick did come back, but he was going the wrong way! Well: He had misunderstood us or we had misunderstood him, so he thought we were going back to Martinborough and not Masterton. Whoops! We got on the bus anyways because we did not want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere at a closed French Fair without french people.


We got to Featherston station where we would have to wait for 3 hours for the train to arrive. Rick saw that we were in a kinda sucky position and gave us an amazing offer again:

Featherston

He would go to Martinborough, come back and fuel up, park the bus, and take another bus home and drop us off at Copthorne because he lives in Masterton and Solway is on the way there. We couldn't really say no to such a great offer and got off in Featherston.

Back in Featherston we went shopping for groceries and got an ice cream while waiting for Rick to get back. Rick got there and fueled his bus, we got on, he parked it, and boarded the smaller slightly broken schoolbus. On the way back we had some great discussions on the development of the whole area where he's lived most of his life, spending 18 years in Australia since there was no work in New Zealand.

Bus 199 before departure to Solway

So Greytown, which we passed through on our way back, was the first inland town in New Zealand. It was created when all the rich people had bought the good land along the coasts mostly on the South Island, so poor people had no options for starting up. For 25 pounds they could but 1 acte land in Greytown to build a house on, and get 25 acres of land to grow to grow crops on somewhere around the city. With no money however, they couldn't afford to clear off the bush and start growing crops so after a few years you had a small town with a whole lot of poor people with big houses and no land because it had all been sold to the rich people. Masterton and Carterton which are nearby, were named after the two people behind this seemingly great initiative, Masters and Carter.

Anyways, we got back to Copthorne and thanked Rick many times for being so damn amazing throughout our day (which without him would have gone terribly wrong!). And I started cooking.

Pasta with a sauce made of: leak, carrots, beans, capcicum, tomato sauce and then some fried bacon. The girls loved it and it was truly amazing!

That was my weekend! Tomorrow back to Welly and work on project and relax! It was great seeing Hayley again and we had a great experience just, messing up our entire plan for saturday!

Those Wellingtonians

So on the bus morning, I noticed something quite peculiar, and since the traffic was slow I had plenty of time to ponder for the reason of it.

All the way in, the areas outlined with yellow stripes for the buses to park in had trash in them. It's most likely trash collecting day, but why would it all be in the bus stop areas?

Well, suburban Wellingtonians probably agree that parking is quite a hassle and also very expensive. The city council recently announced that prices will increase, again!

So to avoid blocking their drive-way or ruining a perfectly good parking spot, people simply dump their trash in the busstops, because these people have a car anyways and don't care about the buses. Smart eh?

A weekend in Karori

So this weekend was definitely not boring!

Friday after work, Gunhild (another Dane who works on the same floor as me) and I went to the train station to wait for Gigi and Sara who were on the train from Masterton. The train however was so full, that they dumped a bunch of passengers including Sara into buses so they could drive over the mountains instead. All this moving people around delayed the train which Gigi was still in by an hour and 15 minutes, but at 6:15 we were finally gathered in Wellington and ln our way towards the bus towarda Gunhild's place.

The girls got ready, with their showers, makeup, clothes swapping and shoe picking, and eventually we were ready to go back into the city and party all night long, and so we did.

We didn't really know where to go except around Courtney Place, which was a great idea. There is nothing but clubs and bars in that area, so we had fun all night walking around and trying most of them. We got drunk and danced, and that's about all that went on friday night/saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon was spent in the garden, playing badminton and other beach games that Jenn and Barry, Gunhild's hosts, had in a little bag full of toys. Since noone else was home to do it, us danes decided took some potatoes and a really good Danish persille-sovs, om nom nom!

After we had eaten, Jenn took us all to Zealandia, a sanctuary for some of New Zealands hunted wild like the Kiwi, that can't defend itself against cats, dogs and other animals imported by the Brits back some few hundred years ago. It was a really great trip but unfortunately it's hard to take good pictures on a nightwalk, which is when the Kiwi is out, together with their indigigeneous reptile, frog and the glow worm. A funny little fella that glows bright blue at night to attract little insects and eat them.

Sunday we spent sleeping late again, except for Gigi who got up early and went home. The rest of went on a drive down the south end of the north island with Barry as our tour guide, telling us a lot about the earthquake fault lines in Wellington. Then we dropped Nena, a german backpacker, off at a cloister or something, at least she was handed over to Sister Lucy. Barry then told us it was a community that used to have schools, daycare, hospital, church and much more but have had to cut down due to the decreasing amount sisters in community.

Today, monday, it's time for another week of work! But it won't be boring, that's for sure.

Pictures will come a little later.

Weekend update

So it's been a wee while since I last updated, I'm not dead, just so you know.

I previously posted about Educa, the company I work for, well Nathan and I are getting along very well and the job is both fun and interesting. Unfortunately I can not share details but I like it there, the environment is great at the office, lots of friendly people.

Wellington is a cool city, and I prefer it over Auckland. Auckland seems very uptight, over-polished and stressed where Wellington is more down to earth and relaxed.

Thursday and friday I worked. Thursday I met up with Gene Brumby, a Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering) player and his friend Chips (I think was his nickname? Not sure) in Brooklyn where he lives. We played some games and talked about his trip to Honolulu to play and hopefully win a lot! (Best of luck mate!). Friday after work Nathan and I went out for a beer and after that he dropped me off at home (Robyn's place).

Saturday I slept long, because I could, then Robyn was going shopping and took me to the train station, where I then headed off to Wellington. I went to Pulsar Max, a store where geeks who like to play Magic, can hang out. I entered a tourney and had fun with the locals. I met a guy called Charlie, and while we were playing a game, he checked his phone for messages, one his friends have invited him to play at Toi Whakaari, I asked if I could come because my last train had already left. We went there and saw Tom Keeper Passes, a really fun and interesting play about society, very well thought through and played. Despite their low budget (I assume), they did an amazing job!
After the play we went to Charlie's, watched a movie and went to bed. Sunday morning we went back to the store and did another tourney. Eventually Charlie had to leave so I decided to head home, around 5:30 or so.

Now, the only way to ge directly home is to take the schoolbus, schoolbuses naturally don't run on sundays, so I had to take an alternate route. On the 83 to Queensgate, Lower Hutt, from where I'd wait 40 minutes to get on the 150 towards Kelson. The short story is that I wasn't home until 7:40, after walking from Speedy's Reserve and up the hill to Robyn's. Here was Richard, Robyn's friend, with his kids. They only just finished eating so they cooked some more for me which was really nice of them. So I had my own little buffet with salad, rice, sausages, mushrooms, corn and beer.

Monday february 6, was a national holiday, celebrating Waitangi Day, the day when Maori (the people who lived here 'first') came to peace with the brits, accepting the Queen of England as their ruler. So I slept long again.
Around afternoon, Robyn asked if I wanted to go for a drive, I didn't have anything else to do so I went with her, a good choice. We went up a hill, I took some pictures of the landscape and we continued, Robyn was going to say hi to her daughter. So we drove to her place. They had kids all over the place, turned out the pool was out and that's where all the screaming was coming from, 3 kids (around 6-8 I guess) was swimming and jumping in and out, they had fun. In the garden was Robyn's daughter, husband and some of their friends sitting and drinking wine, and 5 minutes later, dinner was server. Quite awesome, considering that we didn't really plan anything for food. We talked lots and had fun, then went back home.

All in all, lots of things going on all the time, New Zealand is quite fantastic.

I would have liked to attach some images, but the internet is really slow, so, not this time :s

Educa

So for someone like me who never heard of this until now, I just thought I'd introduce this to everyone, so you get a basic understand of what the company I work at does.

Educa is their name, referring to "Education", specifically "Early Childhood Education" or ECE. Many schools, daycares and kindergartens have a system for tracking the learning and growing up of the kids they take care of. This is usually a physical folder with paper and sometimes pictures stored at the institution, rarely accessible to the parents.

Educa is all online, where the parents and the teachers have easy access from any device with internet, can upload pictures and share learning stories that their kids participate in. That way, parents get to track the development of their kid, in an easy way.

If you want to know a little more, check out the website at www.educa.co.nz

Educa is located at 50 Manners Street, as part of Creative HQ. Creative HQ is basically an incubator for small start-up companies in Wellington. They have strategists, marketing people, finance people and other start-uppers in the building with expertise within many different areas to use during a start-up process.

Warm Welcome Wellington - What?!

So Gigi and I got out of bed, rushed to the bus station, and got aboard (considering I was dragging along a female I consider 45 minutes from wake-up to bus station fast).
Auckland to Wellington went smooth, Jetstar hasn't been as terrible as expected. We got to sit on row 2 for some reason so we're pretty good, getting off first and everything. My only problem was the amount of legspace (about 5 cm less than 'normal' airlines), and this weird buzzing sound that the airplane made once the engines turned on. Thanks again to China Southern Airlines for providing me with an airplane survival kit, the earplugs came in handy once again!

In Wellington Gigi and I took a shuttle (cheapest) to the train station. It was pouring rain even before we landed and it is still raining outside (it's 10 in the evening at the time of writing). After I ran across a big street for 2 cheeseburgers for her, we said goodbye to eachother. I then proceeded to Creative HQ where I'll be working for 3 months, to meet up with Nathan and get introduced.

I'll talk more about my job, the things that I'm allowed to say, in case any competitors snaps up my blog, in a later post. It's really exciting and I'm looking forward to get my hands dirty (not like in the picture below though!).
If you want to know more about the company and what they do, check out the website: www.educa.co.nz
Apparently that kinda thing is big down here ('apparently' because I never heard of anything like it existing in Europe or US, maybe because I don't have kids yet.

For now I'll just leave you with this children's book cover I stumbled upon in a magazine, seemingly teaching kids about the great terror that puberty can be for some.

When the weather clears up I'll make sure to take some pictures from the balcony where I live, Robyn's house is amazing.

Goodbye Auckland

So, Gigi and I went our separate ways earlier today, she did wait for me apparently, but she wasn't in front of the store we agreed to meet by. Either way, she didn't waste her day, but went to Waiheke as well and went on a wine tour. She had her fun it seems, so that's all good.
We met up at ACB around 18:00 and went out for bubble tea, Gigi doesn't like it. So after drinking a liter of tea, we went back, Gigi wanted to take a quick nap, and I should wake her up shortly. 40 minutes later I was hungry . But she didn't want to leave. So, McD for me, then back and into bed. Guess it's the best, since we're flying with Nazi Airlines... Ahem... Jetstar, tomorrow.
Jetstar provides you with a 30 minute timeframe to check in and board their airplane, if you're late, you miss your flight. On top of that they have a whole bunch of other regulations, word on the street is (that'll be backpackers and other NZ people I've talked to and mentioned the name Jetstar), that they're horrible. It get's you from A to B, nothing else. The Ryanair of new Zealand so to say. I'm looking forward to see how it actually goes though.
Tomorrow we're getting up early and then heading to the airport. Then I'll take Gigi to her train towards Masterton, and I myself will go meet with Nathan at Creative HQ (the place I'll be working). He'll take me to Robyn's and I'll start working on the 2nd. So I guess this marks the end of my vacation. :(

So far!