Cram a lifetime in

Gotta cram a lifetime in before dawn

Gotta cram a lifetime in

The trip to Wellington got off to a bit of a bumpy start. The bus was late in arriving so when it finally turned up there was a bit of a mad rush with everyone trying to get on board as quickly as possible. The British side of me wanted to point out to people that there was a queue and that as we all had tickets we should all have a seat. The new relaxed side of me let a few people push in front. I boarded and found myself a seat towards the rear of the bus as I had noticed that most people tend to be lazy and sit in the seats towards the front. If the bus isn’t full then sitting near the back seemed to give me a better chance of having the double seat to myself. Today though I had no such luck as the bus was full by the time we left. The woman in the seat next to me was not put off conversation by the presence of my iPod headphones. I kept removing the one from my ear nearest to her to hear what she was saying. I would respond and then return the headphone to my ear. She still continued. I hadn’t had a coffee and at that time in the morning I wasn’t that keen on spending several hours chatting to her so after what I deemed an acceptable period of exchanging pleasantries I return to my music and feigned sleep.

One of my next hosts, Dean, was waiting to pick me up at the bus station. Our introductions were all a little rushed as the bus had arrived late and Dean had to be at work very soon. To make matters worse he was having car trouble, one of his tyres had a slow puncture and he was trying to get to the garage to get that fixed. I apologised a couple of times on the short drive up to the house where I was staying. Dean showed me to my room, told me where everything was and headed out again. I knew I didn’t have very long in Wellington, roughly 24 hours, so I headed out for a walk, making my way down to the town centre where I had just come from. I grabbed a sandwich for an early lunch and ate as I walked. 

The weather was not particularly great but I figured I would make my way to Mount Victoria as it was supposed to have some great views over the city. As I made my way there I pondered upon the importance of correct capitalisation of proper nouns. The climb was a little steep and muddy in places but it was worth it once I got to the top. Had the weather been a little nicer it would have made for some stunning photos. I had to settle for some pictures of the city with drab grey skies as the background. When I got back from my walk Dean was home and a lot calmer. He had got the tyre fixed and made his work meetings on time. We had a glass of wine while I filled him in on my afternoon. He told me that if I had time in the morning I should head down to Te Papa to see the exhibition about The Treaty of Waitangi. 

I met up for dinner that night with Koro, a guy I had met back at the start of July when I had been in Ottawa. He ws a native New Zealander and had recently moved back. He was running slightly late so I stood waiting on the street corner where he had suggested we meet. I wondered if there was some practical joke being played with me standing in a spot known to be frequented by ladies of the night. I didn’t get propositioned so I figured not. Koro arrived and we headed to a place he had recommended called Sweet Mother’s Kitchen. It was quite busy and they put us on the list for a table, telling us it would probably be about a half hour wait. That was enough time for us to head to a bar a couple of doors down and get a drink while we waited. He was the first person I had seen in over 3 weeks who I had met before, albeit just the once, and the excitement of this made me talk a lot. I think my response to the question “So what have you been up to?” lasted about twenty minutes with very few pauses for breath. Luckily for Koro his phone rang. Our table was ready. We finished our drinks and retraced our steps to the restaurant.

The food brought memories of my time in New Orleans and Memphis flooding back to me. The menu was full of amazingly tasty sounding food that had, of course, been deep-fried. They even had hush puppies on the menu. As I ate a large plateful of fried chicken I asked Koro what he had been up to since Ottawa and how he was finding it back being in New Zealand. After dinner Koro headed back home and I walked back up to where I was staying. It had been really nice to be able to chat about mutual friends for a while with someone but it was another reminder of how far away from my family and friends I currently felt.

Before dawn

The following morning I was up early so that I could make the most of the few hours I had before I had to leave the North Island. I got myself ready and made my way to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. As I was headed out of my room I bumped into Jeff who was virtually out of the door on his way to work. We got to exchange hellos and put a name to the face before he had to go. Dean was in the kitchen and we chatted for a while. I managed to get all the way over to the parliament building, dubbed The Beehive. I didn’t go inside but contented myself with some photos of Dean (the toy policeman not my host) outside it. I also managed a very brief stop into Te Papa, read both versions of the Treaty. I knew some of my attempts at other languages had been less than successful but at least I hadn’t accidently taken over another country because of any translation errors. My whistlestop tour was soon at an end and I headed back to the house.

Having collected my case from the house I found myself a taxi and was dropped off at the ferry terminal. I checked my suitcase in, waited in the lounge for a while and then joined the queue to board. David, who had helped me organise my travel, had recommended paying the extra to get access to the business lounge on board as it would mean free drinks and food as well as being connected to the internet. I was the first one in to the lounge so had my pick of seats. I suddenly turned into Goldilocks, trying out a couple of different spots (this chair is too far from the plug socket, this chair does not have a nice view out of the window). Having found a spot that was just right (plug socket, good view, near to the bar but not too near) I settled myself in. The lounge was relatively quiet with only a couple of couples taking up some of the other seats that I had ruled out.

After we got underway I figured it would be rude not to have a glass of New Zealand wine given the trouble the country had gone to in making it. I headed to the little bar area and asked what whites were on offer. The guy serving was “one of us” so I returned to my seat with a rather large glass of sauvignon blanc and a little plate full of nibblies. During the crossing my wine glass was kept topped up. I noticed that I seemed to be the only person getting table service, not that I was complaining. Thinking back I had seen relatively few “service” gays on my trip so far. I struggled to recall seeing a gay flight attendant which given the number of flights I had made was quite a poor showing. There is always the hope that on boarding the plane there will be that knowing look exchanged which might result in being bumped up or at the very least guarantee a steady supply of gin on board. It reminded me of a story I had read about the Queen Mother, who upon being warned by a Tory MP not to employ homosexuals, turned to him and said “We'd have to go self-service”. By the time the ferry docked in Picton I was merry.

“Gotta cram a lifetime in before dawn” 
Lyrics from Boys’ll be boys from the musical The Pirate Queen