Today I spent $10 on groceries, $11 on a movie ticket, and $5.50 on an ice cream soda. Vanilla with club, a dollar extra for the club. The movie was part of the world cinema showcase; I feel more worldly now.
The subject of my emails this week has been “what am i doing in auckland?”. Mostly, I am catching up on emails. Auckland is a good place to catch up on email. So is christchurch. Both are unpleasant and manky wannabes, but they both have big libraries with free internet. Also, Christchurch has a nice art gallery.
I came here to drop Kristina off at the airport. She left for Tasmania a few days ago, and I am traveling alone again. Traveling with her the second time around was painful– we both really wanted to have someone else to share all the burdens of traveling with, and not much else. We spent most of the time eating and complaining. I felt fat and tired, and now I am still in Auckland.
Originally I was headed down to Tongariro, to walk the Round The Mountain Circuit. It’s a good time of year– before the winter, after the crowds, and I am feeling like a real hiker now, so a six day trip on my own sounds more fun than terrifying. I was having some kind of internal struggle about whether or not I should work afterwards, so my plans were to head back up to Kerikeri to pick mandarins, but I was feeling ambivalent and whiny about it all. And then I was going to apply to grad school and get a haircut and call my brother and do my taxes and catch up on two months of correspondence festering in my inbox, but on the way from northland to auckland I broke my glasses, so none of that happened.
The only thing that happened was me paying for four more nights in my piddly hostel in ponsonby so I could go to the optometrist. Surprisingly, Ponsonby has a few optometrists sprinkled amongst the swank restaurants and fancy pants dress shops (the kind that don’t have any clothes in them), and to make a painfully boring story short, two days later I am the happy owner of trial contact lenses. Some souvenir.
I thought I would have to wait all week. I imagined myself extending my stay over and over again, paying for one more night at a time. I imagined digging around for a phone book, calling every eye doctor in it, not being able to get an appointment until next week, then waiting two weeks for my oddball prescription to be filled by some pharmacy in malaysia, and then paying $600 for the pleasure. But infrastructure works in mysterious ways here, and within 28 hours at the mighty cost of $60, I’m all set for the road again. The only question now, is where next?
