Epic Weekend

This weekend was ridiculous on so many levels. I got sick around Wednesday/Thursday, stuffy nose, coughing, etc, but that did not hold me back from going to classes and having a good time this weekend.
Friday I only had one class and it was pretty gloomy outside so I didn't do too much. Chris and I did homework together and also cooked some pasta together as per usual. We then met up with Stephen and Brian are the 4 of us bowled at this alley called "The Lanes." I'm used to really tacky and cheap looking bowling alleys with embarrassing shoes and gimmicky lights and such, but this bowling alley was classy stuff. It had a really nice fancy looking bar in the front area, and then the actual lanes were set up with leather chairs and dim lighting. The shoes they had weren't the typical neon colors or off white and red tacky looking shoes, but plain black shoes with white lace-ups. It was more of a lounge than a bowling alley. Aside from the bumping pop music blaring throughout the entire place, you wouldn't expect the place to be anywhere close to a bowling alley.
We played one game. I lost miserably because I am naturally a bad bowler. Everyone tried to give me pointer, but no matter what I did I constantly was throwing gutter balls or hitting only one or two pins. It was a fun night, but it would have been better if I wasn't so bad at bowling.

Saturday Stephen, Chris, Brian and I all went to the Wellington Zoo. The zoo isn't actually in Wellington, but in an outskirt town called Newton, it takes about 30 minutes on bus to get there. We went around 2 and spent the whole day there. We saw some kiwis (the birds), lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! Kiwis are the most ridiculous looking birds. They look so ungainly and silly. They move very strangely and just look absurd. We also got to see a serval in training. A zoo keeper was leading a young male serval around on a leash and teaching it sit commands. It was really cool, we got to get pretty close to it. Also, the giraffes were being fed and were in this caged enclosure that you could get closer than an arms lenght from their giant heads. It was so cool. We also got to get extremely close to this huge Australian pelican that was warming itself up at the edge of a pond. It was enormous. Stephen left about 3:30 in order to pick up with this girl named Amy from the airport who was visiting from Auckland. We were joined around that same time by Jon and his friend Selma (I think that's her name). My favorite encounter throughout the day was when I was looking at an ostrich and some kiwi kids came running over and started poking their fingers through the fence. The ostrich looked outraged and like it was about to strike which caused me to have an outburst at the kids, telling them to back away and not put their fingers through the fence. They all looked at me in wonderment and said, "Are you american???" and I told them yes. They immediately asked, "Do you have an american husband?" (hahaha) I was sort of taken aback and said, "Um, no..." and so instead the inquired, "Do you have an american boyfriend?" Which I further answered, "no" and slowly walked away as they stared at me. Haha. I don't know why they wanted to know if I had an american husband or boyfriend. Chris joked that maybe they thought I had a famous actor husband and that I should have said I was married to Brad Pitt.
After we finished with the whole zoo (it's not very large), Brian, Chris and I hung out at the local playground waiting for the next bus to come. When we got back into town we wandered around the pier where there was an enormous musical festival going on called "Homegrown." We didn't have tickets or anything but we spent time lying in the sun listening to the music on the outside of the tents. We also made out way into this free event which was a bikini contest which later turned into a breakdancing contest. It was pretty hilarious and random. We had a good time sitting there joking about how horribly sexist everyone was being about the bikini girls and also we were amazed at how good some of the break dancing was.
Around 7, Brian, Chris and I went back to Stafford to get into warmer clothing and made plans to meet Morgan and get some indian food (which Brian had never had). While we were waiting for Morgan outside we ran into a bunch of pro-skaters that Chris knew. It was pretty crazy. These guys are serious pro-skaters, like professionally paid, sponsored and had been paid to come to NZ to film a documentary. Chris knew them because a friend of his also does pro-skating and was friends with one of the guys, along with the fact that these pro-skate boarders are in a bunch of skateboarding magazines and dvds. We chatted with them (all of them were from the states). They had been travelling and filming across the northern island via road bikes, which was pretty cool. Brian, being the huge tourist, had us take a picture together, and we parted ways. Morgan, Brian, Chris and I then ate some delicious indian food at Chris's house. We eventually made out way over to Stephens to meet his friend Amy and then we decided to go check out Cuba/Courtenay St, which are the typical hot spots on a Saturday night.
Wellington, Saturday night, was literally (in all sense of the phrase) GOING CRAZY. Everyone had been drinking all day because of the Homegrown concert, and it just came to a head at night. EVERYONE was falling all over the place, running, screaming, dancing, falling, and just being absolute messes, EVERYWHERE. It was insane. Everyone I was with were entirely sober, so the night was way more enteraining for us because we just got to see something that, I personally think, could not be witnessed in any other city. Wellington is set up in a way that it's small enough that the center of town and the main social hubs are easily accessible by walking and are all located in one spot. So instead of having smaller gatherings in flats or other areas of town, everyone flocks to Cuba and Courtenay. And usually it's just a rather active scene with lots of college age people moving from bar to bar, but last night was an entirely different story. I don't think words can describe the chaos that was surrounding us. We saw some people so drunk they could barely stand or even talk. We heard and saw a girl getting shoved into a police car while she screamed bloody murder. We saw girls falling in the street, falling into fountains, boys falling into trees, running face first into bushes, etc. Chris, Stephen, Amy, Morgan and I ended up sitting at this outdoor table just people watching. It was pretty hilarious the things we saw. The night ended with us running into a man from Bloomfield, NJ and then walking home.
Sunday was really beautiful and a great day of relaxation. I had pizza with Chris and we did homework together in Borders. Now I'm back in my room trying to do homework, but failing at it because it's really depressing stuff about traumatic events.

I'll post pictures soon of this weekend!

I forgot to post one of the best parts of the weekend! Today when I was walking with Chris to Borders I saw Jermaine from Flight of the Conchords! He was walking down the street looking straight ahead. At first it was hard to tell it was him because he had a hat and a beard, but I stared at him for quite a while as he approached. I didn't want to make a scene about it, so I didn't stop him or anything, but I told Chris who was extremely sad he missed out on the sighting.