My day out

Well today I met that girl from CS I was telling you about. She is from Malaysia and really cool! Her name is Cassie and she is here on a working visa like I am. She is also studying theatre and her English is great. We ate at Denny's (The American Food Chain) and it was SO good I haven't had Denny's in 13 months! It made me home sick. Along with riding in my mate's very American Jeep Grand Cherokee. I just miss the little things about home and my Texas comfort food.

We went to a "Jazz Festival" which actually turned out to be only 4 guys, the youngest of which was like 65 haha. But, they were really good and it was free so we had a good time. I also got to talk to some kiwi's about okra and I know where to get it now! I am excited for that! In just a few days I will be having a real American Thanksgiving with real Americans (and others too) so it will be awesome!

I will also meet that German girl tomorrow and show her around the city if I don't get called in for any work. I do enjoy this whole tour guide thing even though I have only been here 3 weeks haha. Oh ya, I wanted to mention how I got ripped off of 10 bucks. It isn't that much money but, when your an unemployed backpacker it is! So I went to the transport centre to ask the best way to get to my job interview and they told me. Then I asked if I could walk there and they said it would be a 40 minute walk. I was on a time budget so I couldn't go for that. So I took a taxi. Well it ended up being MUCH MUCH shorter and I totally could have walked there!

Anyway such is life. Oh ya, I have heard there has been an explosion in a mine here in NZ so my thoughts are definitely with all those guys trapped underground and I hope they get them all out safely! It is never a good situation when stuff like this happens so hopefully everything will work out for the best. NZ has a pretty good safety record I have heard.

Unrelated late edit: I just wanted to say that I miss the "bum gun" from Thailand (well all of South East Asia really) for those of you who don't know what a bum gun is, basically its a hand held water gun you squirt water up your bum to clean it as opposed to toilet paper. Because in Asia it is a cultural thing not to use toilet paper and honestly even if they had toilet paper to use their city sewer systems are so bad I doubt they could handle it.

Now coming from an exclusively toilet paper using Western society there is a big learning curve on figuring out how to use the bum gun and not soak yourself with water but, once you learn how to use it, it is so much easier, cleaner and more sanitary! If/When I get a house I plan on installing a bum gun for myself. It is a great system. The only down side is if you don't have anything to dry yourself with or you miss and spray water everywhere haha. Just thought I would mention this!

Yall take care,Tyler