Sunday, November 14, 2010

Germans, Asians, and Kiwis Oh My! (Aka One Crazy Week in Auckland)

About a month into my trip to New Zealand I was robbed.  I was parked in front of my house and in the middle of the night my car was “broken into” (I put this in quotations because the genius that is me left my door unlocked).  They got my Ipod, the fm transmitter, and my briefcase.  I have no idea why they didn’t take the gps but apparently these “criminals” weren’t very smart.  I had very little hope of getting any of this back and was all set to replace everything when I realized that my passport was in my briefcase.  Shit!  How am I going to get a new American passport in southern New Zealand?  I call up the American Embassy and discover that I can get a replacement/new one in Auckland.  About the same time I get an email from a friend (we’ll call her Jill) saying that she and her boyfriend (let’s go with Don) are going to be there for a week in November.  Looks like I now have a good reason to make the trip to the other side of the country.  So I set an appointment, get a plane ticket, and book a hotel.
I took a couple of days off work and boarded a plane headed for the “big city.”  Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city having about 1.3 million people (mostly Asians but more on that later) and does its best to look like a big city.  After a couple of drinks served by a sexy Brazilin bartender I head off on the short 2 hour flight across the country.
A long shuttle ride and I have finally arrived at my hotel.  Jill meets me at the door and the weekend is ready to begin on this Thursday night.  After a trip to the store and the introduction to Don we decide to go to dinner. 
Now this hotel is more of a hostel/backpackers building.  More like a big house than hotel and everybody gets to know everybody else pretty easily.  So I’m standing by Jill and Don’s room when I see this pretty blonde girl standing next to me.  I decide to strike up a conversation and discover that she is a German here on an indefinite vacation.  We talk for a few minutes and I head out the door only to hear “she was cute; you should have asked her to come to dinner with us.”  I go back in and ask her if she wants to join and she somewhat happily says “okay.”  5 minutes being in Auckland and I have a date with a nice looking German chick.  I love this country.
We walk into town and find a place to eat.  Things seem to be going well but I discover that she doesn’t speak the greatest of English.  I could understand most of what she was saying but subtlety sometimes gets lost in the translation.  After the worst excuse of Asian food (I think it was Thai but it was more like a very odd combination of food haphazardly thrown on a plate) the four of us decide to find a place to drink.  A couple of drinks in, German chick finally starts to warm up to the idea of being on a date with me (apparently she didn’t know I was asking her on a date until I paid for dinner).  A few drinks, a few smokes, and some laughs and we’re on our way to buy fireworks. 
 Side note:  Fireworks are one of the greatest inventions of all time.  I love them.  Jill and Don love them and it had the possibility to be romantic and fun as all hell.
I mentioned that Auckland is full of Asians and I’m not exaggerating.  Everywhere I looked were people stopping in the middle of the road to take a picture, driving very poorly, and running from Godzilla.  There were more signs in squiggly characters than in English.  We find an Asian fireworks store and Jill is officially in heaven.  All four of us start acting like fat kids on the candy isle the day after Halloween when everything is 75% off and your mom says go nuts.  Don spends too much on a ton of fireworks and we are prepared to go shoot them off in the park.  Or so we thought.
Something else I’ve discovered about New Zealand: the weather is often shit and even more so is unpredictable.  The one thing that could ruin this night is some rain, and sure enough a downpour begins.  We walk back in the rain and decide that the guys should go get alcohol and make it a good night anyways.
A short walk to the store and Don and I have alcohol to save the night.  Or so we thought.  I walk in and find the German chick.  She is in the kitchen with what can only be described as the soon to be founding member of the fourth Reich.  It is two more Germans (what are the odds of running into not one but three Germans who don’t know each other and are staying in the same hostel in Auckland, New Zealand) who I believe were what Hitler had in mind for poster children.  The girl was alright but the guy was a sight to see.  He was a blonde, blue eyed German asshole who happened to be ridiculously drunk.  He finds out I’m an American and immediately begins asking me questions about American politics.  Now I’m firmly in the middle of the road when it comes to politics.  I am a registered independent who infrequently votes and pays attention even less.  I am not the world’s most patriotic person but I do have some pride of country.  This ass starts yelling at me because I’m not really interested in what he is asking me in broken English.  Me not being one to back down begins insulting the kid. 
The rest of the night consists of me and him arguing (I tried like hell to continue the date but it seemed that he was not going to let that happen), him insulting everything American, and being ridiculously cockblocked.  By the end of the night I was ready to punch the kid in the ear.  I resisted because I was still making an effort on what was looking more and more like a lost cause.  I was right and she went off to bed never to be seen again.  I took a cab into town and should have just stayed home because the city of over a million people had a little over a hundred in town.
The next day was spent in town with Jill while Don was working.  We walked around, shopped, and just had a good time catching up.  It had been a few years since we’d hung out so there was a lot to talk about.  We also had to make a plan for the night.  After a few hours we headed back for a quick nap and to get ready for dinner.
The rain had stopped, the sun and people were out, and I had suited up in my beautiful new suit.  A much improved dinner from the night before and it was officially on.  Walking around town got me plenty of looks and dammit if I didn’t look fantastic in the suit.  We head to a bar and begin drinking.  Very few prospects here and I was definitely the best looking person there.  I assume that there have to be people somewhere and we just have to be patient because, well it is still early.  We head to another bar only to find a birthday party full of 18-22 year old girls…. and their boyfriends.  I attempt with a few of them but it’s clear that this path was not one to continue down.  A few more whiskey drinks and we’re on the move again.
By this point we had been to a couple of bars and picked up a random guy to join our night.  He was an Australian (call him Daniel) who was there on vacation and getting drunk too.  I was playing third wheel, so me being awesome and generous decide I’m going to wingman it for this guy.  Jill and Don decide that they are going to be old and call it a night.  Down to just me and Daniel.  We head to another bar and the hunt officially begins.
Wingman rule: If the guy has potential, you should try to help him out.
Wingman rule 2: Never try to help out the guy who’s wearing shorts, socks, and sandals to go meet women.  It will not work out in his favour and you end up being the guy in the awesome suit who makes this guy look like shit.
“Excuse me (random chick who I should have tried with instead), have you met Daniel?”  I thought I was doing him a solid and he had a shot.  I walk away to get a drink when I discover that 30 seconds later he was gone from the chick.  Okay, not that one.  I was going to find him and we were going to try for a different one.  One problem, he’s gone.  I don’t mean he’s working another chick, he’s officially gone.  Not at the bar anymore, and in the immortal words of Whitesnake “here I go again on my own.” 
A few more drinks and a few unsuccessful attempts later I am being told “you’re cute, let me buy you a shot.”  Now usually it’s a bad idea for me to take shots this drunk into a night but this is a hot, I’m assuming half Asian with a ton of tattoos.  Any girl with that much ink has to be a little crazy and have some serious daddy issues.  Sounds like just my type.  We take some shots and are talking a little outside when she says “let me pee and then we’ll get out of here and have some real fun.”  She then goes inside never to come out of that bathroom.  I’m assuming she passed out but who knows, she might have died. 
While she was gone I had begun speaking to her friend (we’ll call her Ganna).  Another good looking Asian who seemed to be interested.  She said she was leaving and asked if the “hot lawyer from Chicago (not a bad story and somewhat of a future dream) wanted to go to a different bar with her.”  After a few more drinks and some dancing we are now making out in the middle of this crowded bar full of, surprise surprise, more Asians.  Now it might have been the loud music but I was having a very difficult time understanding this girl.  I blamed it on that anyway.  I knew she was talking a lot but I had no idea what any of it was.  By the time 4 am rolls around I discover that she is not going home with me but wants to hang out tomorrow.  We exchange numbers and I head home.
The next day comes, as it always does after a 10 hour drinking night, with a hangover from hell.  I spend most of the next day sleeping it off when, to my sheer amazement, Ganna sends me a text.  We make a date to meet up later and I am thinking this could turn out in my benefit.
We meet up and have dinner.  I discover that she is easier to understand when she’s sober but also she never seems to shut her mouth.  She told me, besides essentially her entire life story, that she is Mongolian.  I was annoyed with this girl very quickly and wanted to lemon law (you have 5 minutes to decide whether or not you want to commit to an entire evening.  Similar to the “call from the hospital”) her but I had (and still haven’t) an Asian.  So I was determined.
This girl turned out to be a pretty awful human being.  To top off her just being unpleasant to be around, she yelled at the waiter for whatever she ordered not having enough of whatever it was.
Advice: Now I have never worked in the service industry but have plenty of friends who do.  These people work hard and when they have less than an hour of work until they close, don’t be an douche to them.  And tip well.
So we eat dinner and go for a few drinks.  Now I had to be on a plane the next morning at 7 am.  Meaning I had to be in the shuttle at 530.  I let her know that we are on a time limit but she pushes on.  A few drinks later I realize that my god can this girl talk.  She talked on and on, and on, and on, and on.  Plus I also discovered that the more she drank, the worse her English became.  So there I am, buzzing in a strange city on the world’s most annoying date.  I kept saying that we needed to head back (partly because I was trying to get some but mostly because I was trying to get out) but she was determined to keep going.  This is where the night officially goes to hell.
The next bar we went to was what she thought to be an “Asian bar.”  It wasn’t.  We had stumbled into a gay bar.  And not just any gay bar, a gay bar after a big drag show. 
Now I am not at all homophobic.  I actually like the gays.  I like their music, I like their style, and I like how they tell me when shit is appropriate or not.  I however am not a fan of being taken to a gay bar on a first date when I have to leave to get on a plane in 4 hours.  But we stay for a drink, and then another.  At this point I’m officially done with this girl and just want to get away, but every time I try to leave she kisses me and convinces me to stay for a few more minutes.  The gay bar produced her becoming desperate and no less than 4 drag queens telling me I’m hot and she should sleep with me.  Didn’t work.
It’s now 330 in the morning and I’m officially over this but I agree to one more drink at a different place.  After that drink I start to leave and she tries to stop me.  She was fairly close to convincing me to stay when she lets that broken English say way too much.  The next words out of her mouth are ones that most people long to hear but not after 24 hours.
Advice to you women: Never, never, ever, ever, ever, ever tell a guy “I love you” when he is leaving town and you have no idea what his actual name is.  That’s what happened though.  I was freaked but luckily had gotten my out. 
“I had fun, later” I say as I run towards a line of cabs.  I jump in the first one and tell him “I don’t care where you take me just get me the fuck away from here.”  He understands and I head back to the hostel.  Ganna was left with a shocked look on her now annoying to me face and I was headed out of freaky Asian land.
I got on the plane feeling worse than ever.  I had reached that combination between being still drunk from the night before and the initial onset of the hangover.  A short flight and too long of a drive later I had arrived back in Invercargill. 
I told this story to Axel and Counter when I got back.  They are now firmly of the belief that the girl was a “ladyboy.”  I don’t think so but I never got a chance to check.  So this will now forever go down as “the time Zack picked up a ladyboy.”  Thanks for that girls.
I’ll keep going out being awesome, hope you will too.
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