Our train journey north began with some young females skulling (chugging) large water bottles filled with alcohol and orange drink which convinced and encouraged them to sing top pop songs at the top of their lungs in-between consumption of overnight-vodka-soaked gummy worms (at approximately 10am). One girl's rendition of some crappy song-in-her-mind reminded me of the scene from "Dumb and Dumber" linked here. She was far more annoying than those clever actors.
We tasted several wines from several vineyards. Each vineyard had its own band and wine selection. There was a palpable differentiation between the vineyards attracting the 19-year olds with a DJ, and the vineyards repelling them with numerous alto-saxophone solos-featuring-bands. We brought snacks and sandwiches with us so we didn't splurge too much on the delicious delectables surrounding us and took a refreshing nap on the blanket we brought with us (near a reggae band). The young wastoids mocked us for sleeping near the relaxing band when we could have been moshing hard-core, wine-country-style. We're old.
The evening nearly concluded when wine stopped being poured, but fortunately, we ran into Jackie. Perin and I were hanging out waiting for our bus to the train station when Jackie stumbled up to and sat down at our people-watching perch. She was too intoxicated to purchase her own liquor (Toast rules stipulate that one must exchange their cash for non-refundable Monopoly money) and asked us to purchase some for her with her grip of Toast-money. After what one could perceive as negotiation, Perin tried to help her out.
While Perin was gone, Jackie asked if I had any cigarettes. I replied in the negative and mentioned my present distaste for them. Jackie slurringly replied, "Don't worry. I'll get us both some fags."
Jackie wandered over, introduced herself to some Kiwis sitting on the grass, then came back and literally pulled me over to the group. "Come on! They want to meet the Americans!" was the line she used to show off her new-found novelties.
Re-assuring the group that we had only met Jackie minutes earlier, we learned that Jackie had been drinking since 8am (it was at that time, nearly 6pm), had lost her friends around noon, had lost her mobile phone during the day, and that she wasn't sure how she would get home.
One of the Kiwi-group opened a spare bottle of wine to share with everyone, and Jackie informed him that he was a "good cunt," in the most positive interpretation of the word. "You're a good cunt! Too many people think 'cunt' is a bad word. But it's not. You're a good cunt! That's what I tell my mum."
Concern for Jackie between Perin, myself, and group of Kiwis in the circle, rapidly decentigraded once Jackie tried to roll her own cigarette and spilled an entire pouch of loose tobacco in her lap, revealed her lack of coordination due to [possible] ingestion of XTC, and then used my mobile phone to call her boyfriend giving us insight into a one-sided conversation that went as such, "Hey... No... Hey, fuck you!... No, fuck you! Fuck you!" and then handing the phone to Perin to arrange amicable pick-up times and locations. No one was on the phone once Perin received it.
Jackie was sure she could buy some food, but she had been walking around with her purse upside-down with the zipper undone. Jackie had lost her ATM card as well and couldn't buy any food. We shared some granola bars with her so she had something to eat, but when Perin went to check on our bus departure time, Jackie freaked out saying, "Where's your wife? She's the only one who's nice to me!" then smashed her wine bottles into each other, shattering them into the grass and ran away.
We didn't see Jackie again but made our own way home safely.
However, my highlight from this week is the overheard stories of the Kiwis returned from Auckland's U2 concert featuring Jay-Z. The actual dialog I overheard today goes as follows:
"U2 was great --"
"--Yeah, Jay-Z sucked. His songs were worthless to me. I spent his entire set checking crickinfo.com for play-by-play cricket updates. His last three songs were cool though: that New York one--"
"Empire State of Mind?"
"--Maybe. Whatever! Then 'Forever Young,' then that Linkin Park song he raps over. He didn't play the Linkin Park part - he just rapped the gay Jay-Z part."
"Did you notice all those people with hair and no wrinkles bouncing a hand in the air like Nazis?"
"Yes! I had no idea what that was about. And then they held their hand together in front of them to make triangles!"
"I think they're diamonds. Like when Jay-Z shouted 'show your diamonds to me!' That's when they were doing the diamond thing."
"No, I'm pretty sure it was a triangle. ALL rappers do the triangle thing. It has something to do with rap."
Instead of correcting any of them, I decided a blog post was more appropriate.
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