Schwelmo's Welt

It is hot. Really hot. Difficult to work but don’t want to complain. Right now I will destroy your illusion about the freedom of the Internet. You have been watched! By me. I know when, from where and how often my webpage is accessed. I get your IP address too. Well, you might say as long you don’t do anything illegal you don’t care if you are watched. Like surveillance cameras are just there to protect you. Yeah right! People who rate security higher than freedom don’t deserve either of them. Take care!! Nevertheless I am hoping that you will come back to my blog and I promise you I won’t use the information against you! At least not by me but maybe by the people who saying they protect you by stealing your privacy.

Thanks to this “spy software” I got to know about a new country called Nauru. The only country in the world without an official capitol. According to the German Wikipedia site it’s the country with the fattest people in the world. They live of phosphor (ancient bird shit) and can food. There is a close connection to Germany as well. The only Airline which flew to Nauru went out of business as they couldn’t afford to repair their only plane. But check out by yourself (en/ger)! I am pretty sure they are lovely people. “Kia Ora” to everybody in Nauru visiting my blog. I love you and if you have a holiday home I will bring my own can food!

The last to weeks have been beautiful and I don’t know why I should ever leave Aotearoa. 30 degrees, 30 minutes to the beach. Lots of sun, lots of music. Nice people. Relaxed people. Well, asked me again in 3 weeks when the students come back to Palmy, or in Winter when I am sitting in the lounge wearing a wool had and jacket inside the house and I probably can’t tell you what I am doing here. The reason for both is probably very simple: I have to leave because sometime my scholarship is running out at sometime and I have to stay in winter because I am getting paid. Right now I am enjoying it. And I finally checked out my body board this Sunday. I sucked! Yvonne told me that it isn’t very difficult; you just had to hold it and lay on it in the water. Well, I was allright with floating on the body board, but I really sucked in catching any waves. So I might still need another summer to practice. But there are other things to think about when I consider staying. Sometimes I think some of the women of Nauru moved to NZ. But then again it could be just Palmy. This is a theory which always seems to be supported if I am somewhere else. Last weekend I went with Carel and J-Lo to Petone to the Jackson Street festival. Fat Freddys were playing and Batucada. Beautiful day and beautiful people. I am sure half of them were actually from Palmy and everybody looks beautiful when it is nice and sunny (so my impression might be wrong). But sometimes it can actually drive you crazy if people are too relaxed. I also miss the different opportunities for going out (“What’s wrong with the Winchester!”) and the existence of subcultures. I like rugby but I miss football.

Even it might get a bit cheesy…I miss my friends and family back in Germany, the people I love. But I know when I finally leave Aotearoa it will be pretty much the same the other way round (who is playing music then?). And nobody will ask me for my ID when I am buying beer anymore. Soon I will be 13 years over the legal drinking age, but I still get asked sometimes. I dunno why. Either people just look much older here or I don’t dress according to my age.

Pictures: Somehow dead animals were involved in this weekend. We used (actually abused) a nearly dead Weta for taking pictures and scaring Yvonne. Carl showed how Belgian catch dead fish (they collect it from the beach). We found a giant shark and a skeleton of a giant fish on the beach (take Kapitit Island in the background as reference). I went sun bathing and swimming in the Tasman sea on Sunday with Trina, Scudy and Kimboz, and Saturday with J-Lo and Carel. The other pics are impressions from the Petone Jackson Street Carnival near Wellington and from the free Anika Moa concert in Palmy which we missed (didn’t really matter).

We had a long weekend with Monday off because of Wellington anniversary day. The original plan was going to Wellington to see some X-games stuff but somehow I did not make it. So I spent my short-holiday in and around Palmerston North. It turned out to be a good one. We had a very international dinner with Chilean, French, German, Scottish, Irish, Belgian, Italian, an Unborn and Kiwis gathering in a Japanese restaurant lead by a women with a Dutch accent (apparently she was born and bred in Palmy…but I wouldn’t admit to be Dutch neither). We confused the hell out of her in having special diets (Gluten free, Lactose free, Vegan, shared dishes…..) but they managed somehow and the food and Sake was good.

On the next day I went with my flatmates Yvonne and Dorbert (names are altered) and some friends to see other friends playing their last gig in a vineyard near Masterton. It was bloody hot. we enjoyed having beer in the vineyard (the wine wasn’t vegan and mostly white anyway…and a cold beer is always good on a hot day).

I considered doing some gardening and realizing it was too hot for that. So I went on a mission to buy some fly strip. This would have been the advantage not to spray poisonous stuff everyday. Once trapped it should stop them mating at your head and sucking on your food. It also would prevent us to stain the wall with the inner body content of insects. I tried hard but Palmerston North was out of fly strips. Not one. Sent fly strips (und Schwarzbrot und Altbier)!! Apparently people bought it in ten packs. At least Palmerston is very popular under flies. Probably because it is so windy here that they don’t need to fly by themselves.

As I am flatting with French and live in a Celtic dominated country it was kind of unavoidable to watch “ Joyeux Noël”. I heard it should be good and I enjoyed it. At Xmas eve during the 1^st World War the Scots played their pipes, the Germans, which happened to have a Opera singer in their battalion, brought some classical music and Christmas trees and after they agreed to a cease fire the French brought Coffee and Champagne. They even had a football match (which probably the Germans won in penalty shootout). It is pretty much the same in our flat. Except that I don’t like Champagne, have my own coffee, the music providers are more the French, Dorbert doesn’t play football and we don’t celebrate Christmas. But we don’t shoot at each other and quite often listen to Celtic tunes in the pub. We went off to the pub to do exactly this. First we were greet by a completely pissed Kiwi which thought my flatties were from Uruguay and I am a Kiwi. He was (a white ginger haired, Irish) Maori and wanted to say hello with a Hongi. I outed myself as not being Kiwi by giving him more a head kick. As he was drunk he didn’t mind that much. He was harmless but annoying so he was friendly asked by the usual patrons of the pub to leave get some sleep and to shut up. The way was interesting “ You shut up know and get the fuck out off here. You are pissed and annoying. Go get some sleep, leave us alone for today. I promise you if you come back tomorrow I’ll buy you a pint and we are the best mates. But know you fuck off. Come back tomorrow at 5 and I buy you a pint.” “Mmmh…Can I go to the loo before I leave then?” “Yes.” He left after (apparently visiting the women toilet) and I don’t know if he came to get his pint the next day. Inspired by his leave one patron picked up his guitar and started playing and singing. It turned out to become a long session. A wide range from traditional Irish and Scottish folk songs over Janis Joplin, Pogues, The Band, David Bowie and the unavoidable “Sweet home Alabama”. I was a bit disappointed with the performance of The Clash, but I will not complain. Dorbert did a good job in slowing the spontaneous session down by picking up the guitar not knowing what to play. He was asked for a French drinking song but couldn’t play or remember one. At this stage I was happy that I never learned an instrument and not be able to sing so nobody could expect a German drinking song from me.Suddenly P and S turned up having their fidel, flute and harmonica with them and joined in. Our “one pint” after the movie turned into six and we went home reasonably drunk. It just fitted great into the spirit of the movie we just seen before. I am terrible disappointed to be a total musical retard. I think the “Musikalische Frueherziehung” (early musical childhood education) did no good for my rock star dream. “Musikalische Frueherziehung” actually means “being forced to play Glockenspiel (carillon?) and Blockfloete (recorder flute?) with the annual highlight to perform terrible dressed in front for the whole family at Christmas”. As the repertoire you get teach is especially for the just mentioned occasion, you lose your interest after 2 Christmas and can convince your parents after 2 further Christmas. For the kids: keep playing or you will regret it later.

The next day was terrible hot. Fortunately the hang over wasn’t too bad. I could convince Yvonne to go to the beach. That was great. The water did its job. It was refreshing. It even didn’t matter that the beach was full of parked cars. Kiwi nature experience sometimes just exists out of taking the car to beach and sit in there hiding from the sun. As I got sunburned again I have a fair idea why they do it but I still do not like it.

Back home I got 115 episodes of “???” (deutsch/english)audio books. So can do at night again what I did after my “Musikalische Frueherziehung” lesson failures. Yippie yeah! And next weekend should become another very musical one as Fat Freddy Drop playing for free!!

(public toilet wisdom)

I just thought to come up with a stupid headline and think I did pretty well. It might be too much sun I had on my 2-week holiday. My best friend L. came down with his girlfriend K from Germany. I haven’t seen him for a while (2 years) and was quite curious to see how it will be. Nothing changed, what’s a good thing. Even the contact we had was restricted to a few emails before he came down I couldn’t notice a difference to when I left. Well, I guess that’s how it is between friends. I was also excited as I had a good reason to leave Palmy for a while and actually see something of that beautiful country I live in.

We had a good start as their luggage got missing and we stayed a night in Palmy to wait that their stuff got delivered on the next day. To sweeten our stay we went to a BBQ at friends place where I promised K.and L. some live Irish music. This way they also could see some of my friends here. We drunk beer and too much whiskey (I think I must have been forced as I don’t like it). Subsequently our early start was delayed to about 4 (pm).

On the way to Mordor (Tongario National Park) I accidentally bought tramping trousers in XXL and realized “no more whiskey for me” ( as I have size S here). The next day we did the Tongario crossing which was crowded, full of Germans but beautiful. Even it was cloudy I was quite happy this time as it cleared up when we came to the Emerald lakes. Last time I did it I only could see 2m in front of me (it is not fun to walk through a white wall for 17km).

We spent New Years eve at the Rhythm and Vines festival in Gisborne. 18h to Kiwi Reggae. I loved it, sunshine, beautiful girls and wind (well that wasn’t so good). K. and L. bought 3 Cds of the bands playing, decided to get married and we listened to Fat Freddys Drop for the next 10 days non-stop so I figured they liked it as well. The Maori population is quite high on the East Coast and we runned into some from the local "Coffee Tongue Iwi".

After that we visited the gannet colony at Cape Kidnapper (Toelpel unter sich). We walked there. It’s a 6 h walk (return). When we came in sight of the gannets and their chicks we tried keep our distance and not to disturb them. Perlen vor die Saeue! Just at this moment the trucks arrived. Each with three hangers carrying about 40 tourists. Cape Kidnapper ADVENTURE tours, yeah right! Well I don’t think they actually deserve to see it. OK, if you are a retard under 6 or over 67 or (genetically) overweight person then that’s might be your only choice. But about half of them were in their mid-twenties, some having rastas or wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. Yeah guys, that’s against the establishment, FUCK YOU! The trucks driving you there release probably more oil into the sea as you had dolphin on your last tuna pizza after your “swimming with dolphins” ADVENTURE. I know, the guide told you that the chicks die once they fall out of their nest, because the mother stop feeding them. But I guess they just get stucked on the wheels of all this squads and trucks driving there. I still enjoyed it!!

We had a terrible rainy drive to Wellington and 2 Guiness (after the drive). The next shock came when we took the ferry to Picton at 3am. We got told not to take any pigs, pig semen or embryos to the South Island (It had something to do with saving the New Zealand agriculture). So I asked them where I could get rid of my 20 kg pig semen I had in my boot and what to do with the embryos on the back seat (don't click that link if you are not feeling 100%). As they didn’t had any storage place in the terminal we throw it into the sea (just kidding, we sold it to McDonalds. Kidding again we didn’t had any semen or embryos, or did we? You shouldn’t go to McD anyway. For more convincing reasons read/see: Fast Food Nation, No Logo, McLibel, Supersize Me, McSpottlight).

On the South Island we stayed 2 nights in Havelock refusing to eat green mussels. We stayed at the Blue Moon a backpacker with a lovely and very chatty host who show us the local glow worms. Glowworms in Aotearoa are actually worms, not as our Gluehwuermchen, which are fireflies (I think..help me, Pete). Well, I would show a picture but the only one who took one used the flash (it was not me!).

I ordered a vegan breakfast at the Black Cat Café. It ended that I bought some baked beans at the supermarket next door and they heated them and put them on toast with no butter. A long way to go (actually only to Nelson, see below)!

In Havelock I also realize that he only French sentence I can speak fluently actually doesn’t help you to get into conversations. I warned her she will be offended, but she insisted to hear it.

After some sea kayaking in the Malborough Sounds, which started in good weather and ended that we got picked up half way as rain and wind were against us, we went on to Nelson. At Zippys I got some real vegan food (yummy Chocolate Cake and Muffins, mmmh Muffins).

We spent 2 nights at the Abel Tasman NP just to hang out at the beach (I walked it already twice so I wasn’t too keen to walk it again). We saw dolphins and a sexy lady from East-Berlin. (As I have seen dolphins before I was more moved by the latter).
K. and L. got a rental car and got hit (after 10 min driving) by a young girl. Unfortunately she was so stupid to make a runaway so that the cops deal with it now.

waiting for the ferry. Good design but not very intelligent. One highlight was that I got told I have a bit of Kiwi slang, but it probably just meant I have a funny mix of German and Kiwi accent but still don’t speak no English.

Back home we had to de-flea our flat. After that I went to the Celtic (For those who have seen “Shaun of the Dead” … the Celtic is like the “Winchester”). On the way I met one old flatmate, two friends on the supermarket car park and one of my old students. So the 20min walk took me about 1h. At the Celtic were the same people I left there 2 weeks ago including my 2 French flatmates. Looks like I am at home in Palmy!!!

It’s rainy and windy. Nothing changed.

Not quite true. I just heard Tana Umaga stepped back from the All Blacks. That's a shame. I loved watching him. Partly because he looks funny but mostly because he was an awesome player and captain. But I think he has chronical hayfewer and lives near a pollen factory. Maybe he is just always stoned. Have a reason to see a Hurricanes match now.

Just some pictures.. not in the mood to write something..yet ...;-)
And somehow I got problems to arrange the pictures in a nice way.