last weeks in paihia and trip to sydney (mardi gras!!)

i just realized that it has been forever since my last post...i'm chilling out with clare, mau and giles after a very very awesome week in sydney.
i finally found a job in paihia the last two weeks of my stay there, but unfortunately they only needed me a couple of hours, so i didn't really make a lot of cash. the money i still had is all gone and circulating somewhere in the gay bars on oxford street ;) (oxford street is sydney's gay area)
paihia was so much fun, i miss the place itself, the people i've met, the mousetrap, my fellow housekeepers and of course having the beach a two minute walk away. because i was trying to spend the least money as possible so i'd have more for sydney, i've missed out on the incredible trips you can do in paihia. maybe i'll go back in the future and do them all when i'm a millionaire, because that will definitely happen :S

anyway, let me show you what i mean:

some views

that's kemper, we hung out most of the time, met him while housekeeping in auckland

while chilling out on the beach


gorgeous clouds and bugs (if you click on the middle one you'll see that's it actually looking at me, freaky!)


kings road, where most hostels and bars are located, norwegian dude cooking bbq (healthiest meal i've had during my entire stay haha), some of the people i've met

hayley kemper and luke walking to waitangi. luke came to paihia with kemper and i've also met him in auckland, we spent everyday checking out girls on the beach and just chilling out. they were housekeeping in a hostel across the road and hayley came in a couple of weeks later, also as a housekeeper. had so much fun with them!!
so waitangi day is a national holiday in new zealand. on february 6th, 1840 the treaty of waitangi was signed at waitangi, making new zealand a part of the british empire and guaranteeing maori rights to their land and the rights of british citizens (maori are the indigenous polynesian people of new zealand). waitangi day has been celebrated since 1960. the other two pictures show a 'waka taua', a maori word for war canoe.


above a haka (genre of traditional maori dance) performance and the waitangi beach

concerts the day before waitangi day

below are some pictures of the second annual golden jandal race in paihia (jandal is the new zealand word for flip flop). it's a three legged race where a beer has to be sculled in 7 bars on a special route in the town. the theme this year was noah's ark, so everyone had to come dressed as a pair of animals. the money was donated to the spca. let me quote a few rules as stated on the entry form:

'one vessel must be consumed in its entirely by each competitor at the designated 'watering holes' on the prescribed route'


'participating in this event may result in bestiality and/or pregnancy'

'at least one jandal must be worn per competitor'
'competitors must remain bound at the ankle at all times, and until the last drink of the event has been consumed'

'teams are required to carry two discharge bags, into which all oral emissions must be deposited and disposed of as soon as possible in the nearest bin provided. should oral emissions occur anywhere on course without the use of such bag, or bag is not properly disposed of, automatic disqualification will occur'

some people gave up halfway, jake the owner of the mousetrap who unfortunately didn't win this year and bridget who works at the reception and was one of my roomies, beers at the finish line

i hitchhiked back to auckland (which only took me three rides and really was not scary at all) and stayed with clare mau and giles. flew to sydney two days later, where i stayed with sareh, an girl from iran, her mum and sister. i found them on couchsurfing.com which is a website where you can find couches all over the world to crash on. i created a profile a while back when i first heard about it and decided to minimilize my expenses in sydney by staying with some local people. they were so incredibly sweet and hospitable, i felt at home immediately when i arrived. we spent my first day barbequiing in the park where some guys were playing cricket (how australian can it get). i've spent a lot of time talking to sareh's mum and she's just such an amazing and inspiring woman. she's done a lot of good things for the iranian community in sydney, like organizing projects for people who've just moved to australia and need to adjust to life there. but also teaching farsi to kids and creative writing to iranian women, so they can finally express themselves trough writing and hopefully let go of all the shit they've experienced in iran. sareh is also a pretty inspiring person. she's lived in tokyo for a couple of years and travelled a lot. all her stories about japan really made me want to go there and check it out for myself, especially tokyo, which seems like the craziest place on earth. we hung out a lot, but she wasn't in sydney during my last few days, because she moved to iran. i didn't spend a lot of time with her sister, because she works a lot, but we had a lot of laughs and i even gave her relationship advice haha, like i know anything about boy-girl stuff. all in all, great people and i'm happy to have met them, they definitely made my trip even better than it was.

sareh and her mom, josh a friends of sarehs making a face with sticks, sunset

cricket in the park, sareh, her friend mel and her mom, me at the bbq

i checked out all the touristy stuff the rest of the week during the day and of course partied hardcore almost every night (see right). boy, i've never seen so many lesbians in one place, it was heaven, gheghe. the party after the parade kinda sucked though. it was 90% gay men and 10% their straight girlfriends, pff. we found out that there was a party just for us girls, but i'd already payed for my ticket in advance and couldn't sell it anymore! better luck next time...the parade itself was incredible and made me so happy and i felt so proud and i think i'm even happier about the fact that i'm gay than i was before, didn't know that was even possible! first some touristy sydney stuff:

bondi beach:

circular quay (with the famous harbour bridge and opera house):

chinatown:

this year's mardi gras theme was 'nations united'. i'd like to quote david imrie on this, as written in the mardi gras official season guide, frankly because i couldn't explain it to you as well as he does:

'this year's theme recognises sydney's unique position as one of the global centres of the queer world and mardi gras' place as the annual highlight where glbt peoples, from wherever they hail, can strut their stuff right here in our beautiful harbour city. but nations united is about more than just recognising the world on our doorstep. it's also about dragging our gaze from the distractions of the strip to those far-flung lands where peple like us simply aren't tolerated. and, while civil unions and gay marriages are quite the fashion in some parts of the west, in countries such as the u.s. bigots are busy shoring up the barricades against any form of official recognition for our relationships. even here, we still lack scores of rights many overseas visitors to mardi gras now take in their stride. nations united is about our victories, those that awaite us, and uniting as one global community while indulging in just a little of what we fancy...'

the fun and crazyness started many hours before the parade:

and grew exponentially as the dykes on bikes drove up and down the route, starting of the parade:

so that's what i've been doing since my last post. i found a job as a kitchenhand here in takapuna and i'll stay here until i have some money saved up to go to a new place again. we all have jobs at the moment, so we might move to a bigger appartment in a couple of weeks. it's nice to have a break from hostels and enjoy some luxury. also having people around that you know from back home is great. i'd actually like to go back to australia, but i might do that when my visa in new zealand runs out. you can only apply for a working holiday once in your life, so it would be kind of a waste to not stay until the end.