Return to Wellington!!!! November 12, 2009

Today was our final Stray bus ride and the time was well enjoyed thanks to two games. One: kissing the lollipop man. Basically, whenever the bus saw a lollipop man, they'd stop and the first person who ran out of the bus and kissed him on the cheek without any explanation would win an ice cream or a beer. When we first heard this being announced, my first thought was this kindly old man was on the side of the road selling suckers. Turns out, flag crew on road construction are called lollipop men/women... One lollipop guy in particular was less than pleased when a girl from our bus kissed him... We got quite the stink-eye... The second game was no-one was allowed to say "mine" for any reason. If you did, and you were caught, the punishment was 10 push-ups... It's harder than it sounds but on the bright-side, all of us, except Jodie, got in some exercise while on the bus...

We arrived back in Wellington and when we saw the coastline for the first time again, we couldn't contain our excitement. When we wheeled our luggage up the stairs to 85 Moxham Ave, it felt like coming home but it was bittersweet. We were so excited to be back at Jamie's and Matt's we knew that we would have to say good-bye to our Stray friends. It's amazing how 2 weeks earlier, we had no idea who Grant, Mark, Andrew, Danny or Tom were and now we were all choked to say good-bye and know that they would be continuing on down to the South Island and we would stay in Wellington. Our flip camera continues to cement it's value to us by allowing us to capture memories of the people and places we meet and go to.... Sometimes, in the case of Grant and Mark, our memories were captured against someone's will... Sorry boys, but it was worth it.

Jamie and Matt set us up in the Attic this time as the living room was needed to prepare for the amazing White Lightning Entertainment sponsored party saturday night. These guys are flirting with danger by being so fantastic to us, we have half a mind to ditch the rest of our travels and just set up permanent shop here in their attic. Especially, when they introduced us to Supremo Burgers; the best hamburgers with the biggest buns we have ever eaten. We were hooked; not gonna lie, we ate there 3 out of the 4 days we were there.. The burger guy was quite amused when we kept showing up. I think he partly thought/wished we were there for him. Another friend of Jamie's we met, Ged, was kind enough to take us out to Eastborne in Wellington on his day off and show us around. He had a great plan of taking us on a ferry across but unfortunately due to a delay, so Dan could get stop by a drop in clinic, and the weather turning we stuck with a tour from inside the car. But we had a blast making pointless videos and house gazing. Man, there are some wealthy people out there in the hills of Wellington on the coast. Case in point; Some houses are so high in the hills, surrounded by trees that the only way to get up into the house is to build a over-priced cable car system to get you from the street to the house. We tried sneaking on one but we were no match for their security unfortunately...

We are really lucky to have hospitality like Jamie and his friends have shown us. Our tickets to Sydney are on sunday. We'll see if we're on the plane...

Luv V