Two Beers and a Pretzel

I wasted my ticket from Auckland to Sydney because it was cheaper to fly from Christchurch to Sydney than from Christchurch to Auckland.  I ended up on the same flight as Meghan.

Anyway, last night a group of us met for a final beer in Christchurch.  Neat town.  Lots of skateboard shops, cafe’s, and sculpture everywhere  - it just closes too early.  We had to keep Holly awake so she could catch her 4:30 AM bus to the Airport.

Speaking of Holly, at an after hours bar she met a very large and quite inebriated guy who offered her his cocktail (I assume thinking she’d stay and talk to him).  She came back to our table with a mixer, and the large angry guy shortly followed – accusing her of stealing his drink.  She apologized, gave the drink back, and he started getting menacing.  I was sitting next to her and honestly thought I’d get into my first bar fight since St Paddy’s Day 2001 with Joe (great story for another time).  He brought his hand near her and started talking about how muscular her was and that he would smack any woman who steals his drink.  She’s a former bartender, and was not intimidated in the least.  I stayed as calm looking as I could, but casually shifted my leg around incase I needed to kick him back if he tried to slap her.  He saw me and asked if we were together.  I didn’t need to say anything because Meghan can be quite a vocal little fireball if anyone tries to challenge her, so she spoke for all of us.  He apparantly figured that he couldn’t intimidate Holly, and there were suddenly 4 people rather than just one cute blonde, so he backed off while still sounding mean and left the bar shortly thereafter.

We stayed and danced to a great coverband that consisted of a guy with a guitar and harmonica, and his buddy with a fiddle…  At 2 AM we finally had to part ways.  I’m going to miss Holly.  She was a total blast to hang out with, fun to tease, ridiculously cute, and one of the sweetest Canuk’s on Earth.

This morning Meghan and I toured the Christchurch History Museum

Later, we caught the shuttle to the Airport.

A really good meal (for an airline) and a movie later (Narnia – Prince Caspian) and we landed in Sydney.  Emirates Air – nice service, 600 movies to pick from, and good food.  Why are US carriers to crappy and even TACA and LAN Peru were good??

Meghan is staying with a friend, but we may meet up one day for a show in the Sydney Opera.  Oddly, “Jerry Springer the Opera” in coming here early next week.  I got kicked out of a bar in Cincy for making fun of him publicly, not realising he was actually in the bar.  Heck, I also got kicked out of a bar for making fun of Larry Flynt while he was there also (unbeknownst to me) when the Hustler Store first reopened in Cincy next to the building I worked in.  I see a trend…

I hope Meghan and I get another chance to hang out, but if not, I’m going to miss her a lot too – super bubbly and cute, totally willing to talk to everyone, and into all the same travel activities I wanted to do…

Anyway… Wifi is expensive in Oz, so I need to get a cheap thumb drive to copy pics for the internet cafe.  I have another mess of pics to upload from NZ.  I’m going to relax for a few days and take in the city before going north for a week of surfing lessons.  No plan after that yet, but I may stay in Oz longer if Thailand doesn’t get it’s act together

I’m off to find some good Thai food…  I’ll try to get some more pics and fix that albatross video in the next few days. (done)