Bedding down in a Borstal...

After a pretty uneventful ferry ride over the Cook Straights, I arrived in Wellington at about 9:30pm, and was picked up by a guy from "Rowena Lodge" where I had booked a bed. The wind was so strong that the van was rocking violently from side to side and it was bloody freezing, but I didn't mind because I was looking forward to seeing the hostel, which was described by The Book as being small, welcoming and homely. When I arrived I walked into the reception area and was surprised to find it was a cavernous affair, with huge high cielings. The girl behind reception was friendly enough and gave me my key. "You're in room 51" she said. 51!!!? How many rooms did this place have?? I was used to being in room 3, or maybe 6, but definitely no number higher than that. She pointed towards the kitchen, tv room, and pool room, all of which were painfully depressing, and sent me upstairs to find my dorm. My dorm, it turns out, was little more than a broom cupboard with 3 bunk beds squeezed into it. There wasn't even any room to put my bag down! The beds were those rickety iron ones that you would expect to find in a rumanian orphange, and they had thin matresses to match. The room stank of beer BO and I started to get a fairly good impression of what I could expect from my room mates.

All in all the hostel felt like a young offenders institute and was not at all "small, welcoming and homely"! It was about this time that I realised I had traced a slightly less than horizontal line accross the page of my lonely planet to the phone number of my chosen hostel and ended up booking the wrong one! Oh well, it's only one night I figured. I headed downstairs to the enormous but messy "communal area" where a few plastic chairs and tables made up the rooms only furnishings. There were a few people sat around so I joined them and played a few songs on my wee guitar before heading for bed.

When I walked into my dorm, the lights were out, and from the light coming from the door I saw a rather large guy climbing/falling from the top bunk next to mine. "Shit beds aren't they?" I said, and he replied, rather oddly, "I'm not gay!". This seemed a rather unusual response to me, but then I noticed that the bunk he had just climbed down from was still occupied! "Okaay" I said, and started trying to get to my bunk. At this point I reslised that all the beds in the room were full, and that the smell of beer had become stronger since their arrival. I decided I had to turn the light on briefly to find my torch, but this turned out to be a big mistake. Once the light was on, the big guy who wasn't gay and the guy on the top bunk who he apparantly wasn't trying to have sex with took the bright light as a sign that they no longer had to be quiet and launched into a loud drunken argument over who had been the most successful at "almost pulling". Eventually I managed to get into my bunk but these two drunken idiots, who were of course English, continued arguing in a tone and volume of voice that suggested that they thought all of the other inhabitants of the room must be finding them amazingly entertaining. Luckily for me my super japanese airtight headphones from the future saved me from their mindless drivel and I was soon asleep.

The next morning I was up at 8:30 and out searching for another hostel. I found one round the corner which seemed much more up my street. It was run by an eccentric and grumpy old singaporean who apparantly has gained a real reputation as a complete freak. The house is a complete mess, with years of junk and random paraphenalia scattered around the floor/tables/shelves in every room. Just like home! I checked in, which basically just involved saying hi to a german guy called Urs who was apparantly running the place, and 5 mins later was sat outside in the overgrown garden enjoying the free breakfast and having a rather interesting discussion about the number of words in the english language. :)

Since then I have been to an exhibition of Wim Wender's photographs (guy who directed Buena Vista Social Club), been out on the town, watched 4 games of Rugby, and been to the beach. All in all I think Wellington is a pretty cool city. But alas, I have to leave, as I fly in about 6 days and I have to hitch to Aukland. Anyway, S America soon! Woo Hoo!