Invercargill

I have been in New Zealand for a little over a week and a half at this point, and so far I've had my car not start twice, either because I'd left the headlights on (last night) or because the battery was actually a cardboard box with an exhausted gerbil in it (a couple of weeks ago). Both times I was amazed by the friendliness/ jumper cable having-ness of Kiwis. I've also potentially lost a cell phone, been hit on by a little person, flirted with a number of women over the age of 60, prefaced a series of stupid questions with "do you mind if I ask a series of stupid questions?" at least a hundred times, showered in a campground that had a "please don't shit down the shower drains" sign on the bathroom door, and eaten somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 meat pies, each one more delicious than the next. I've had over four liters of espresso, and interrupted exactly one lebanese family reunion, which for budget reasons was ocurring in every room in a hostel I stayed in in Owaka except mine. I photographed myself with a penguin. With a sheep. With some wallabies. I was almost mauled by a sea lion. It looked at me.

I am now in Invercargill, which according to the current Let's Go description, is up and coming. If this is the case, Invercargill resembles the prom date from hell, as it is always up and coming but never seems to come. The burgeoning cafe scene? Still not quite there. Nightlife? More like night dead, if you know what I'm saying.

And I think that you do.

I asked a girl at a counter in a coffee shop, one of the two restaurants in town open for breakfast, what I could do; she suggested I leave town. Awesome.

Alright. I'm going to go research a museum on sheep shearing. If it's humanly possible for this place not to be the best place in the world, let's hope they don't pull it off, as pretty much all my hopes and fears reside on it being unbelievable.