Have A Nice Life
4,700 kms on the Stray Bus completed in just under three weeks as we rolled into Christchurch last night.
The Murder Capital of New Zealand.
So most people are finishing South Island trips here and the group is getting broken up once again. This, in tandem with James having a day off, meant a big night ahead.
Anyway, we pretty much finished up at 3am this morning having taken advantage of all that Christchurch has to offer on a Monday night. Intense conversation, drunken incident and shots to beat the band dominated the evening.
I had my eyes and ears opened by a number of people to their perceptions of myself. Nice that someone has taken the time and trouble to be watching and forming such opinions over the past week, just listening to their interpretations helped break me out of the funk that I've been enduring since Queenstown.
The most rewarding and hardest aspect of travelling is the human factor. Meeting so many new people in such a short space of time is a draining experience and when you are trapped in a bus all day you have no choice but to swap your life history, it's only polite.
There are of course the standard backpacker conversations (when did you arrive, where are you going, why are you going there, you should go here, here is so much better than there, etc.) but that takes five minutes generally. Sometimes you'll never introduce, there's no point and you generally won't even bother getting a last name until 3am and you know, chances are you'll never see that person again.
So whilst first impressions may last, a week on a bus travelling around New Zealand is like a whole year of University rolled into one. You'll see people at their best and their ugliest. You can't help but be voyeur about it, but then again it is not as if you are exempted from becoming the subject.
The reality is that it is high time that this group was broken up, so we can quit playing those mind games together.
The Murder Capital of New Zealand.
So most people are finishing South Island trips here and the group is getting broken up once again. This, in tandem with James having a day off, meant a big night ahead.
Anyway, we pretty much finished up at 3am this morning having taken advantage of all that Christchurch has to offer on a Monday night. Intense conversation, drunken incident and shots to beat the band dominated the evening.
I had my eyes and ears opened by a number of people to their perceptions of myself. Nice that someone has taken the time and trouble to be watching and forming such opinions over the past week, just listening to their interpretations helped break me out of the funk that I've been enduring since Queenstown.
The most rewarding and hardest aspect of travelling is the human factor. Meeting so many new people in such a short space of time is a draining experience and when you are trapped in a bus all day you have no choice but to swap your life history, it's only polite.
There are of course the standard backpacker conversations (when did you arrive, where are you going, why are you going there, you should go here, here is so much better than there, etc.) but that takes five minutes generally. Sometimes you'll never introduce, there's no point and you generally won't even bother getting a last name until 3am and you know, chances are you'll never see that person again.
So whilst first impressions may last, a week on a bus travelling around New Zealand is like a whole year of University rolled into one. You'll see people at their best and their ugliest. You can't help but be voyeur about it, but then again it is not as if you are exempted from becoming the subject.
The reality is that it is high time that this group was broken up, so we can quit playing those mind games together.
posted by Christophe at 10:45 p.m.
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