Queenstown

Here I am in Queenstown, which quite possibly could be the adventure capital of the world. Any storefront that isn't a restaurant or clothes shop is a company which will throw you off of or out of something (at great expense-- not to mention risk-- to you). There is a gorgeous lake here and it is surrounded by mountains, but other than looking, shopping, and adrenaline rushes, I'm not sure there's much to do here. Okay, there are about a zillion walks I could do, but as I'm about to head off tomorrow to do four days of hiking on the Milford Track, I decided I don't need to go for any punishing walks today.

While here, I am staying with (I finally figured it out exactly) the nephew of the sister of a girl (woman now) my aunt taught when she was here (probably about 40 years ago). I had sent out a bunch of emails in October to the contacts my aunt had given me, and they all wrote back saying of course I was welcome to stay, and some even suggested that they had relatives elsewhere in NZ. I just filed them away without thinking too much about them. After a few months I decided to check into where all these people were on a map, and WHO they were (according to my aunt's annotated contact list). One of them, the one who actually had sent me the most emails-- including one saying she had family in the south island-- wasn't actually on the list. I checked the name, checked the email address, and said (out loud of course) to the computer, "Who ARE you??" I did some digging and discovered that one of my initial contacts had suggested various relatives, and cc:ed them on her message, and one had picked up on it. Once I figured out who this "Karen" was, I decided it was okay to ask about her contact in Queenstown. So here I am with her nephew (by marriage, of course). (I think I actually have fewer degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon.)

So Marshall came to collect me from the bus stop yesterday. All I knew about him was that he was a builder, liked to play the drums, and was willing to have me stay. Things looked good (to me) when he pulled up in a Subaru Legacy. (I have an Outback myself.) Things looked iffy when he didn't get out of the car to greet me. (He did have the window rolled down though, so he could ask, "Lucie?".) Things looked iffier when I saw an open bottle of beer in his drink holder! (I didn't see him drink from it, though.) He took me back to his house, where his mum was just packing up to head home after a weekend at the lake. (She asked how I was connected, and when I told her, her response was "tenuous"... same as mine and my father's!) After I handed over a bottle of red wine we had a nice chat, and I decided all would be well.

Marshall seems very nice (he is housing a total stranger after all), but although he is probably my age, I definitely have just slipped back about 15 years in time (and I'm not just referring to all the 80's music that is playing in the shops). He is a builder, but he said that really he lives for music. As he had a captive audience, he played a couple of drum tunes for me. That meant that he put in a hip-hop CD, cranked the stereo up to 11, and bashed away. I wasn't quite sure how to respond. Does one leap up and shout "Bravo!" in instances such as this? I went with "That was nice." (Luckily that went on for only about 10 minutes, so my ears didn't start to bleed.)

Dinner was another trip back to post-college days. For appetizers he served me a cheese roll. This was a piece of white bread, rolled up with cheese spread (dear god!) inside, and grilled. (He bought a whole packet of these pre-rolled things at the grocery store... along with potato chips, candy bars, ice cream popsicles, those toaster tart things, and all sorts of other junk food.) The second appetizer was cheese-infused baby sausages. (At least they didn't come out of a can.) For the main, he did cook fish, but with that we had hash browns. He handed me some newspaper to use to cover my lap (no napkins or paper towels in sight), and we ate while watching The Simpsons. I am pretty sure I had that exact experience with a guy friend in 1995....

But, as I said, he is hosting me, and for that I am appreciative. (And it was nice to watch The Simpsons again.)