Alanz Eyes

Time for a holiday

October 10th, 2002 - Posted by Alan Howard

I was supposed to go see Nic this weekend. We'd planned for me to go up last night, and stay there until Monday night, as it's a Labour Day long weekend here, and I took today off work. Obviously that's changed… so I'm on the ferry right now to Picton instead, to visit a friend over there. I figured that I may as well do something interesting with my 4 days off, instead of sitting around home. It'll be the first time I'll see Picton of a day, and I hope to be able to take some good photos of the Marlborough Sounds (I think that's what they're called…).

The ferry is an interesting experience. It's like a bus, but only much bigger, which means there's more strange people on it… There's lots of American tourists… and I mean LOTS. Quite a few dozen. And then there's lots of Samoans, and their hundreds of screaming and wailing kids. And the swell of the ocean is pretty wild, which means the ferry (like a ship in size) is going up and crashing down, repeatedly. And so the screaming and wailing of the excited and vomiting kids seems to rise and fall in time with the ferry. And the kids are on every deck. I can't get away from them. And the ferry ride is 3 hours long, and it's much longer than any normal person should ever have to put up with.

I'm sure you get the picture.

However, there's a couple of amusing moments… one of the kids in front of me was being a little shit, so the 6 or so kids around him (they're all no older than about 5 or 6) decided to push him over. So he's on the floor wailing away, and because he's on the floor, this little 3 or 4 yr old girl decides to kick him in the ribs. And so the rest of them think that'll be a good idea too, so there's half a dozen kids lightly kicking this wailing kid, who's wailing even more. It's almost like, the more he wails, the more they kick him.

I think it's a reflection of society, really. These kids are acting out exactly how they will be when they grow up.

I forgot to bring some headphone earpieces, so I'm unable to lose myself in a movie on the laptop, or music. But at least I found a power point, so I can amuse myself on here without needing to worry about the battery running out. It's moments like these that point out to me the reasons I got this laptop. I just have to remember the earpiece in future…

Entry Filed under: Pre-2006