Alpaca and Horses and Emu, Oh my!

I like it here. Kelly, our farm dad, is a great guy. Super funny. Works us long hours, about 4 a day, but it's not so bad. We take lots of breaks. He's probably the closest thing to a real cowboy that I've ever met. He rides horses bare back (everyone rides horses here, esp Maori kids, Jax and I almost got run over by a kid riding a horse ON THE SIDEWALK in Opotiki. I was less than pleased. But yeah Kelly goes on horse riding bushwalks in like groups of 40.. they all meet up and take a ride through the bush and I'm going "I want to play!"), wrangles sheep, builds his own houses, cooks up nachos (and other delicious food. We're learning so many dishes here in NZ. Kiwis just know how to cook. We are well fed). Plus, he's best friends with Lynn, our previous host, who's my new hero, so we know he's good people. Lynn warned us that people get hurt here, though, because Kelly likes riding his horses everywhere... So we were all worried, but it's so not bad. He gave me and Lisa a riding lesson the other night, he's a great teacher. We rode bareback too! Got walking down no problem, but then Kelly did try to get us up to a canter right away, and it was muuuuuch more difficult. Maybe that's what Lynn meant.. anyway, we wanted to actually go on a walk with the horses, but our time has run out here at Upsand Downs Farm. I wish we could have stayed longer, but since we somehow acquired a schedule it hasn't worked out.

When I first called Jackie back in August to see if the invitation was still good for me to meet up with her and Lisa in NZ, I assumed that they had already made a bunch of plans. See, I've only ever really gone abroad with a group (Piedmont Choirs and Glee Club) or my family (Paris/England) or on a program (Argentina), and I've always had an itinerary. Always. So I just figured that J/L had already figured out what they wanted to do. So I ask

Me: I mean, is it still okay for me to come? I don't want to mess up your plans.

Jackie: Um... What plans?

Me: You mean you don't have an itinerary already?

Jackie: Um... What's an itinerary?

And that's how we've been operating. No schedule, just floating on the wind, letting the universe direct us to new opportunities. Being open to staying or leaving whenever we want, taking the time to stop at random wineries or take random walks along the side of the road... it's been very freeing for me, not NEEDING to be in any given place at this certain time in this specific attire and sing this set of songs. None of that. Just... whatever we feel like. And that's what we do.

But NOW we have this ferry ticket next week that was wicked expensive so we can't miss that. And Lisa has friends in Hawkes Bay, which is on the way to Wellington, so we want to stop there, meaning we have to cut our wwoofing gig with Kelly short. Then we have a few girls that we connected with through CouchSurfing, so we have a place to sleep in Wellington. And Justin Laufer just got into NZ from Oz last night and he's meeting us in wellington for Jackie's birthday! Oh, right, that's why we have a ferry ticket- Jackie wanted to celebrate "22" in wellington, and her bday's on the 7th, so we made the ferry ride for the 9th. That was dumb, we should have given us more time in Wellington, but I wanted to be on the south island to meet my uncle (well, my uncle in law's brother..?) and thought that I needed to be there in early December for various reasons which turned out to not be necessary. But whatever, it's actually kind of nice, because I've been in touch with him over email and he's THE MAN and he's set up all these wwoofing and temp work stuff for us through mid january which is much more than we're used to. We can barely plan a day ahead. But yeah, we're going to be able to replenish our bank accounts, which is fantastic, since we all like having beer money. I mean souvenir money.

ANYWAY, the point is that, suddenly, after about a month of not making any concrete plans, suddenly we have the rest of the year planned for us. And that's just so bizarre. I'm not really complaining, but it's interesting. I don't so much like being tied to a schedule, because floating on the wind is so much more poetic.

I'm soooooo excited to meet up with Justin! Eeeeeee.

I'm slowly but surely uploading pictures to my flickr account- my photostream is cmanderson113, please check it out!

Going to attempt to kayak later tonight. We'll be in a sort of marshy area, so hopefully there will be enough water... that always helps...

Don't know when I'll get internet again before Christmas, so don't expect a new post for a few weeks. I'm going to try my hardest to NOT pay for internet for a while. Again, depleting bank account, but soon to be better!

I want to leave you with a list of all the animals on Kelly's farm:

Chooks (Chickens)

Roosters

Geese

Ducks

Sheep

2 Goats

4 Horses

2 Emu

5 Alpaca

I keep saying it's like Old MacDonald's farm. This German wwoofer showed up today (seriously, Germany, wtf!) and said "I feel like I'm in a zoo!" True dat, Tim. True dat. I also keep thinking of a lyric from BNL's "If I had a million dollars"

If I had a million dollars I would buy you an exotic pet

Like a llama. Or an emu.

And that's kind of my life.