Printing fiasco, 6hr drive to Rotorua, wine

Saturday, December 13th

The nice couple were not so nice this morning.  They made a ruckus leaving at 6am in the morning.  It wasn't their fault because they were packing, but still it woke us all up.  At 8:30am Steph, Bernice, and I woke up to go to a yoga class at 9:30am.  The class was pretty good.  Not as intense as Bernice and Steph would like it, but it was good to exercise.  It was hot yoga, but the room was steaming hot.  After the 75mins class, I went to custom printing to check out our tshirts and hoodie.  They were still not done.  Needed another 2 hours, so I met up with Steph and Bernice at pomodoro for brunch.  It's a pretty good bakery in town.  I got a veggie panini.

We then went to Te papa, the museum of New Zealand.  Nilesh met up with his high school friend, Christina, and her husband Jack.  They were both really nice.  Te papa translates as "our place."  The museum was interactive.  Reminded me of the museum of natural history.  In te papa it has a huge maori collection, so it was interesting to learn about.  I love the sound of their language and the songs.

We went to check on our printed stuff and it still wasn't done yet.  They needed another 2 hours.  I purchased another one and the lady working there, which we learned was the manager later, was pissy at me.  She was just rude.  We walked around the shops to kill some time.  I went to a ski shop to check out some jackets.  I need a new one because my north face broke last year at hunter mountain.  I found two that looked ok.  One was an oakley for usd150 and the other was helly hansen for usd270.  Too much pressure to decide, so I ended up not getting either of them.  I need more advice from people.  It's a hard decision.

I had to go back to the store to check on our clothes.  It was still not done.  The dude asked me what angle the kiwi bird should be on the hoodie Steph and Bernice ordered and I told him.  So he started to iron them on, and it ended up being wrong anyway.  Not the angle but the side it was suppose to be on.  That was not my fault and he tried to blame it on me.  Sigh.  Steph was not so happy and asked for a refund, but the manager didn't want to give it to her.  Called us fussy with where we want the print to be.  And Bernice's response was, wasn't this the whole point of a custom printing shirt?  She was pissed and refused the refund.  Steph then threatened her that she would refute the charges on her capital one card.  We all know by now capital one is no good at that and they would not reverse the charges.  It's still worth it to threaten her.  It actually worked and she flipped.  Said she would refund everything.  Eventually Steph just bought the correctly made one and got a refund the wrong ones.  The dude couldn't figure out how to do a refund on Steph's card, so he gave her cash.  Oh wells.  My stuff came out pretty much ok, so hopefully the gift receivers will like them.

Man the shirts took a long time.  We ended up getting subways and hopped in the car to start our 6+ hours drive to Rotorua around 3:30-4pm.

The scenery in the north island is so different from the south island.  Still tons of sheep and cows, but the land is flat with more rolling hills.  It is also very lush and scenic, although I prefer mountains more.

The car ride was fun.  We stopped by mcd's for some ice cream, sang some backstreet boys, some candy, scenic shots, and of course chatted.  Nilesh was a bit antisocial playing his ps2.  This will be the end of Nilesh trying to stop us from reading from now on.

We arrived at the base backpacker at Rotorua at around 10pm.  We crammed ourselves into the parking lot that was completely full.  And then quickly locked our van to go get some food.  We were concerned that they would stop serving eventually.  Nilesh spotted an Indian place, so we went to check it out.  It was rather good.  We then went back to the car to unload before heading out.

We're a tough late 20s crowd.  We were all about staying in again.  Alfio even put on his pj's.  I was like it's our last Saturday in New Zealand, we should really go out.  Steph said Alfio needs to change, and he did.  He is a champ not a pooper.

We went to the lava bar that base owned.  Bernice met us later.  There was a huge line in front of the bar.  Are you kidding me?  It wasn't because they were not letting people in, but the flow of people going there was faster than the bouncer was able to check the ids.  There were tons of drunken underage (younger than 18) trying to get in with their prom outfits.  We felt really old.

A group of kiwi girls, one with a tattoo of New Zealand on her shoulder which cracked Nilesh up, was trying to get in and was kicked out for being too drunk.  Later on we saw that they got into the bar, and they got kicked out again.  We also heard there was a cover of NZD4, which Steph was not happy about it.  But Alfio commanded that we paid it because we waited on line.  When it was time to check our ids, the bouncer said my NYS id was fake and wanted to see another one because it wasn't a hard card.  I was like it's supposed to be bendable, that's what's special about the New York id!  Then Nilesh said if we were doing fakes we would be 21, which is totally true.

The bar inside was fine, but lots of kids.  I was sticking to rum and diet, but the rest were drinking beers.  Steph ordered a light montegue beer.  It tasted yucky.  Sweet and citrus.  Beer with sprite?  I eventually brought it back and asked the bartender if the beer was bad.  It taste horrible.  He tasted it and said it tastes fine.  There's a hint of lime in it.  But it tastes horrible.  I can give you another pitcher, but it's supposed to taste like that.  He was nice.  Yea.

People watching was great at the bar.  Nilesh and Alfio concluded that there were tons of girls there, and they all have one thing in common - all busted looking.  We also saw a bachelorette group.  The bride to be was carrying a huge blow up doll with a big penis.  They eventually got too drunk and were sitting on the floor outside the bathrooms...and eventually were kicked out.  A swarm of police people came in too.  They were looking for criminals according to one kiwi.  It was definitely an eventful kiwi experience.

At 2:30am, we went back to our hostel.  Instead of sleeping, Steph thought it would be fun to crack open a bottle of white wine.  Alfio went to bed in his separate room and Bernice decided to stop drinking, so it was all on Steph, Nilesh, and I to finish it.  We had no problem finishing it, we even opened another bottle of red and finished it.  To class things up, we took swings out of the bottle.  The main topic of discussion over wine was drawing on Alfio's face.  Steph tried a few times, but Alfio stopped her.  At 4am, we finally went to bed.