You may find yourself.....

living in a shotgun shack (check) You may find yourself

in another part of the world (check)

You may find yourself

Behind the wheel of a large automobile (check)

You may find yourself

in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife (negative ghostrider)

You may ask yourself: Well, how did I get here? (check! check! check!)

I'm not the first person to feel connected to the lyrics of David Byrne and Brian Eno, but as I scurry around trying to get ready to leave Auckland, I can't get this song out of my head. It really fits me at the moment.

Hello fair readers. I apologize for the delay in posts but I do have a lot of material to cover so I'll get right to it. As you can see from the photos I have acquired a home on wheels of sorts, but to understand how I came to be a proud owner of a toyota mini van, you must first understand how I came to know Harry Bowers.

Before leaving the states my uncle phoned my dad and informed him that his neighbor was leaving to travel to New Zealand on business, the day before I was to depart. He provided a phone number and asked that I call this lady, Becky. I had a nice conversation with Becky in which she provided useful information about traveling the country and I shared my plans with her. These plans included buying a used car in Auckland. She mentioned that she had a friend who worked on vehicles and sometimes also bought and sold them and offered to put me in contact with him. Enter Harry. I emailed Harry with a list of questions and he politely replied to give him a call when I got to Auckland and he would help me sort out finding a used car.

Harry thought I was from Tuscon and I thought Harry was a friend of Becky's. Needless to say, we knew very little about each other. Last Tuesday, after one night in the hostel, when I was ready to began my car search, I rang Harry up. I was very surprised when he not only offered to help me find a used vehicle, but also offered to have me as a guest at his house where he lives with his son Jeff. While the 2 irishmen, the long haired french guy and the blond from Sweden made great dormmates at the hostel, I gladly accepted Harry's offer to stay with some real kiwis. It has been the best decision I've made since I got off the plane.

As it turns out, Harry is a "petrol head", and an extremely generous and friendly person. I have lived with him and Jeff for a over a week now and we have carried on like long lost friends. Jeff is also a petrol head and shared a boat load of information with me about the New Zealand car culture. They use an interesting term here called "boy racer" which refers to teens who drive cars that have had distinctive performance modifications made to them. The street racing scene was very prominent here until the law made a concerted effort to end the accidents it was causing. If you get three "boy racing"-type citations (i.e. illegal modifications to your car, being caught at an illegal race), then the government will impound and crush your car. Glad I'm not a petrol head. Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching Harry and Jeff drive Harry's 1987 Mazeratti Biturbo around a professional raceway. It was my first time to go anywhere near a car racing atmosphere and I thouroughly enjoyed it.

On Sunday we attended the Auckland car fair in an attempt to sell a car that Harry had been working on flipping, and also to try to purchase a ride for me. Harry successfully sold his vehicle and I looked at lots of camper vans that tired backpackers were trying to sell before there visas expired and they had to go home. In the end, I bought a 1992 Toyota Estima from a buyer off of tradme.co.nz (New Zealand's ebay), only after receiving Harry's mechanical stamp of approval. I've spent the last few days gutting the van and building a bed and now I'm ready to roll. When I first started driving the van I was reminded of Liz Lemmon's trip to Kenneth's hometown where she painfully asks "Why is everything a little bit different here", while staring at a bottle of Pepty Bismilk. Point being, everything in my van is ass backwards. The steering wheel is on the right side of the vehicle and when I try to signal a left turn, I end up with the wind shielf wipers on at full speed. But I am getting used to these nuances and I have managed to navigate the roads safely, so far....(I did purchase insurance and roadside protection just in case)

On Sunday night, I cooked a chicken gumbo for Harry, his girlfriend Brenda, and Jeff. I was lacking several key ingredients, but was impressed with what I was able to pull off. On Monday, we had a farewell dinner at a nice japanese restaraunt. And finally, I am ready to leave Auckland.

Introducing SHORT CIRCUITS

Short Circuits is a new feature of the blog I know I will enjoy. Can't really promise too much for you though. This will basically be my version of random thoughts by jack handy. It may include rants, raves, mindless ramblings, useless information and in general things that I feel like writing about that don't fit into the blog narrative, or that I just plain forgot to put in. Here we go:

• On Kia Ora - you may have noticed that I have signed my first few blog posts with Kia Ora. This is a maori phrase meaning live long and prosper, or something like that. Pretty much every email I received from New Zealand before I left included a Kia Ora salutation. I was very excited about using this phrase, as I thought of it as Italy's version of "Ciao", which I love. It IS NOT Italy's version of Ciao. Not a single person has said Kia Ora to me and it is apparently just a catchy phrase to use in emails, not in conversation. I am not happy about this.
• Auckland is COLD - I thought I was coming over here at the begining of the summer season. Harry keeps telling me that is spring right now. In Louisiana the definition of spring is hot, but not as hot as summer. Apparently in New Zealand the definition of spring is cold, but not as cold as winter.
• Mussels are dirt cheap here and I've enjoyed eating about 4-5 per day on average.
• And last, but certainly not least you know I'm representing Louisiana up in here!!!!

Ciao Bella