Woke up this morning and the room felt empty, I could sense Nikky’s absence. I turned over and saw the empty bed and the space where her bags had been. She’d gone. By this time she would probably be on the plane to Sydney. An overwhelming sense of isolation hit me in the face like a big lump of corrugated metal (I’m sure they use it for that too, here in the land of corrugated metal, volcanoes, sheep and cows!). I think it was the fact that Nikky and JJ were both now gone and I really felt like I was on my own, on the other side of the planet from everyone I love.
I felt so sad I couldn’t really inspire myself to do anything, so just fiddled around on the internet, aimlessly. Eventually, shortly before 10am, I dragged myself out of bed and went to the reception desk. As Nikky had left, I was in a private twin room by myself, so needed to move. The guy said he’d put me in a female dorm (there are only 8 rooms in total, so I don’t know how many of each sort there are!) and asked if I was ready to move. I said I wasn’t (the room actually looked like the stupid Icelandic volcano had gone off in it!) and I think he could tell I wasn’t feeling great so said I could have an hour or so to get ready.
Back in the room, I didn’t get straight onto the mission of packing up my mess, I went back on the internet, then after half an hour, threw everything in the bag and dragged it two doors down to room 7. It was a four bed dorm and looked like only one other person was there so far. I plonked my stuff down and sat on the bed with my computer, taking solace in my friend, the internet.
After a long while, including an online chat with JJ, I decided I needed to try and get out of the hostel, so collected myself together and walked into town, reluctantly. The weather was as grey as I felt. I looked in the same, dreary shops, plus a couple of new ones I found tucked down some side streets, but they turned out to be as lifeless as the others. I popped into Stray and chatted to the people in there and sorted out my pick-ups. I felt a little bit more upbeat once that was done, I guess it helped having actually spoken to someone and having a focus.
On my way back to the hostel, I decided a Wendy’s might cheer me up. It did not work. Epic fail, in fact; I was devastated to discover that their Frosty was vanilla flavoured?! What?! Vanilla?! That’s atrocious! Sums up NZ though, truly vanilla (and not even the good, exciting, sort of vanilla with bits in!). Honestly, why choose vanilla when you can have chocolate – don’t these people know anything?! Grrrr. So I left Wendy’s rather disheartened. Then it started raining and everyone in their coats and hats looked at me strangely as I walked along in a skirt and vest top – my response to them; scowl. Hmmmm.
When I got to my room, I went in and saw the strangest looking female I have ever seen, in that it was in fact a guy, not a girl – the man on reception had put me in the wrong room! I didn’t mind and it actually made me laugh! We chatted for a bit; he was from Northampton and had been there a couple of weeks – he started work today at the council in IT Services. We then both plugged ourselves into our laptops for the rest of the night. I Skyped home and spoke to my olds, but then spoke to the parrot too which cheered me up no end (sorry parents!). After a lot more internetting, I decided it was time to switch off and go to sleep.
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