Have Love, Will Travel

The last few days have been amongst the longest of my life. In fact, it just felt like one big, fuckity, mahooosive day. Left the house at 11am on Tuesday 31st March, and arrived in Auckland on April 2nd at 7.10am local time. The second flight, from Heathrow to Hong Kong, had the potential to feature the worst 12 or so hours of my life due to the in-flight entertainment system malfunctioning for the ENTIRE flight. Luckily, I was sitting beside a lovely couple who were travelling to Hanoi to meet their brand new grandson for the first time. Their son has been living there for ages and has set up a charity working with street children which sounds like it could be a potential opportunity for me if I get round to coming back through South East Asia on my way home as I have been hoping.

On finally reaching Auckland, I eventually got through passport control, baggage collection (after a good 20 minutes of watching the same two suitcases lazily make their way round and round the carousel) and customs/biohazard checking to find that the weather was glorious. Score! I was feeling surprisingly good at this stage and resolved just to stay up all day and try to do a quick reset of the old body clock by sleeping when I am meant to. I seem to have been somewhat successful too; I really don't feel too bad at all, considering.

Yesterday afternoon I met Kate, which I had been looking forward too for so long. She and Cathal are living in a converted garage off Kyhber Pass, which is a really nice space. Hilarious to find an empty Bertoli jar in her sink, all rinsed out and ready for a Guinness. Although it didn't know it was ready for Guinness at that stage, I made sure it learned quickly. We headed down to the Dog's Bollix on K Road that night to a gig that Cathal was doing sound for, where I got one fairly decent pint of the black stuff, and one that I wouldn't expect any human to drink. Really, really boggin' like. Swapped it for a Monteith's, sharpish. Highlight of the night - Gay McDonagh winning the $200 tattoo voucher in the raffle that I had my eye on - a highlight because she just might use it! Ha. Lisa was also playing a gig in the Wine Cellar that I would have loved to try and make it down for, but by the time we got sorted in the Bollix, it was kind of late. I did manage to catch her afterwards quickly, and I'm sure we'll get meeting up properly soon enough.

I have now managed to get a NZ mobile number sorted (+64 21 0657723), and almost instantly lost my UK sim card. Pain in the arse - I can still see texts I receive to that number on o2 bluebook, but can't use my free texts to home. We now have the weekend to hang out in Auckland before heading down the Hamilton and therabouts until the end of next week for Katie and Mikey's wedding. Big dinner tomorrow - my Dad and Jo, Kate, Cathal and both their sets of parents (who are incidentally meeting for the first time - eeeek). Considering an early, sober(ish) night tonight. Seems sensible. Losing. Ability. Form. Sentences.....

Other things of note:

• Really need to get to the post shop.
• 'Cazi', the drummer of a shit band in the Bollix. Only in profile, mind.