My brothers: You try growing up as the only girl (for 9 years) with 2 older brothers who are 9 and 10 years older than you... who dress up as leprechauns on your birthday every year just to make your birthday being on St. Patrick's Day that much cooler, who make you feel like the prettiest girl in the world, who let you win every game, watch any movie, and continue to play up every special holidays icon (coded just in case there are small readers) even though you're the only one in the house it's for anymore. Then tell me that you wouldn't naturally gravitate towards primarily guy friends at all times. Don't get me wrong, my girlfriends are truly priceless to me, and the level to which we can connect is greater, but they fall into the miracle my Dad started telling me about sometime around those rough middle school years... "Mary, you'll learn someday that you are a VERY fortunate human being if you can count your good friends on one hand." And if you know my Dad, then you know what "good" means. But, I digress.
Back to New Zealand, I ended up staying in Auckland, the San Francisco of the north island, because I met some guys when I was doing a little research on my trip up to the Bay of Islands. We decided to see what this city has to offer by way of night life. So, we got a room (2 sets of bunk beds, which only reminded me that I'm too old for bunk beds, but me falling is really best saved for another post) at a hostel in the city center. (I'd like to make a side note here to mention that I'm certain my Mom just let out a great gasp and then reassured herself (out loud) that if I wrote this post, I must have survived the night... Maddie can you please confirm?) We went out to a few bars, all within a block of where we were staying. So, there we were: me, the ONLY American for days, Andy (from England, taking the next 11 months to live in New Zealand and finish the book he's been writing for a while), Atilla (from Amsterdam, taking 6 months to do a similar thing to us but with stops in Tokyo, NZ, Fiji, and then LA... I told him he'd probably be disappointed with his final stop) and Mark (from Holland as well, and doing most of the same trip as Atillia) just out seeing a new city.
Don't think that I didn't have ALL of you chirping in my ear though... I stuck to my two drinks and kept a good head about me. The guilt of all your worry was weighing on me. I like to "worst case scenario" every situation; makes me feel more in control if I have a game plan in place for any situation. I do that everywhere though, not just in other countries. Andy doesn't drink at all which made my 20/20-obsessed-self even more skeptical... 'Do you not drink so that you can be more alert/aware of my inebriated-self? Hello, red flag!' Yeah, I know, I've gone mad. But, I knew you'd appreciate the following 2 moves I made... At one point, Atilla said that he wasn't going to be able to finish his drink, so without notice, poured some of his into my glass. That was the end of that drink. I took a pic of it and then placed it on the bar to be tossed.
But, I couldn't leave it at that... Like I said, too many warnings from all of you, in addition to the YEARS of Datelines, 20/20's, CSI's and the like, so after Andy went home, I told the boys to put their wrists out so I could "take a picture of all our stamps", when in reality, I wanted a picture of Atilla's tattoo. I knew if something happened to me, my camera would be found and you guys would be able to get to the bottom of things with this identifying mark. Hello, paranoia, I'm Mary.
We ended the night around 1am after walking into an Irish pub, saw 4 separate fights, decided the Irish are too violent and it was time to sleep. Which brings me to self discovery observation number 2: I'm part Irish, therefore like to fight. But, again, probably something for another post...
Happy Saturday from New Zealand! Only 13 more days until Murphy joins me!
Hey Mary ... sounds like you are having a blast. Please review goal #3 and then explain that pink top.
ReplyDeletemdm (the original mdm)