Suzi's Travels

Hmmm it appears it’s been two months since I updated this blog so I better get going huh?

Back in August one of the local theatre production companies was putting Cabaret on at the Memorial Hall and one of the people I work with was in charge of the front of house crew. I said to Kat and Sam “so, do you fancy helping out with front of house work for Cabaret?”. Sam and Kat said yes. I said “what days can you do?”. Sam said any nights and Kat said the second week – her family was coming down for the first week. Boy did Sam regret it cos I took him at his word. We ended up getting dressed up in 1930s gear for a week and a half, putting on quasi-german accents to show people to their seats and sell programmes and other stuff. And it was great fun! They converted the Memorial Hall into the Kit Kat Club complete with tables instead of rows of seats and they put on a hell of a show. And we had a blast.

Here’s Kat, Sam and me all dressed up– and that's Nikki between his legs – and then Kat, me and Kat (and Nikki's hands) with Alex (another guy I work with!) - we were trying to recreate one of the pieces from the show. The last pic is Phena (the head of the front of house crew, aka Fraulein Schist) and her fiancé Photographer Dan. Phena was very scary.

On the middle Sunday, Kat’s family came into town and we went bowling – and almost got thrashed by Kat’s 9 and 11 year old little brothers!

I was there for each night, apart from one when Sam’s brother David arrived in town. We took the night off – primarily so we could go night skiing, but the weather turned crappy so we went out for dinner instead. We went to Surreal which does a mean steak for just $15 – a bargain in Queenstown! We then headed on to Brazz for drinks and shots. Suffice to say a good night was had!

The next day, Saturday 19 August, was the final night of Cabaret (when the above photos were taken). Afterwards everyone headed to Sky City to celebrate (and lose money at the blackjack tables if your name is Sue)…

The next weekend (26 August), I took advantage of the great snow conditions up the Remarkables and headed up for a ski lesson. I had a one-on-one lesson with an instructor whose name I forget now but got me to try a few new things and gain some confidence. It was a really good day but pretty exhausting.

In the evening it was my firm’s mid-winter Christmas party. Yes, Christmas is technically in summer over here but I for one appreciated the sentiment. It actually felt quite Christmassy over the winter – they decorated the shopping centre with snow and pine trees – which I tend to associate with Christmas anyway to that was good.

My firm hired a small restaurant/bar for the night and plied us all with free alcohol and food… what a fantastic combination. They also themed it as Cowboys and Indians. The Thursday before, I headed out to Arrowtown with Ros and Clark from the office to the fancy dress shop to hire something awesome. I ended up as a saloon girl. I took Kat with me as my date (thank god) and we partied the night away in 19^th Restaurant on Steamer Wharf. We had a great night, I managed to dance the night away and generally had a fab time. Here’s a few pics… and yes, there’s that Alex again, partying away…

On Thursday 31 August I once again took the day off work and Kat, Sam and I headed up Cardrona once again. It was a little more difficult this time – the conditions were rather icy and windy on the Sue-friendly side of the mountain (on the left on the map below) so we took the plunge and headed over to the other side which was more sheltered. To get there, we had to ski along cat tracks which, given the strength of the wind, was slightly scary – I was paranoid I was going to get blown over the side – Kat almost did on her board. Sam had sold me on the other side saying “well, it’s a little bit steep here but then it opens up into a bowl and will be ok”. I guess I need to reconcile my definition of “steep” with Sam’s… OMG. I had to stop practically every other turn to check my way down. How I got down I have no idea but it scared the hell out of me! I did feel quite chuffed that I had managed it though. We all headed up the lift back to the top and I headed back to the other side of the mountain for a few runs – again along cat tracks! The only way back to the “nicer” bits was by going down blue or black runs (not gonna happen!) or by using the cat tracks. Anyways, I got my confidence back up and went back to join Kat and Sam for lunch on the steeper side. All the way down I had to keep telling myself “you’ve done this before, Sue, you can do it again…” and I got down in one piece. After lunch I headed back to the other side for a couple more runs before heading to the bar for a diet coke and a wild berry crumble which was yummy.

Unfortunately that was the last skiing I’ve done for this season. There just hasn’t been enough snow at weekends to make it worthwhile going up. Concrete Peak closed last weekend and the Remarks closes this weekend. Not fair!

Heading into September, we obviously hadn’t learned our lessons from Cabaret, and had put our names down to get involved with the local production of Rent. Sam got a sweet gig doing the sound for the production (he also turned out to be the sound man for Kat’s mate Simon’s band when they did gigs in town…) while Kat and I got involved in front of house work again. In the week beginning Monday 4^th September we all found ourselves in our worst clothes painting the interior of the Memorial Hall to look like a New York warehouse. Two weeks later we found ourselves ready to go on opening night, Kat dressed up like a hooker to sell programmes and me all in black to show people to their seats. The upside is that we once again got to see the show for free each night, the downside sometimes was that we got to see the show… This was truly an amateur production which didn’t really seem to hit it’s stride until the final night when we had a really great energetic audience which the cast seemed to play off of. After the show, they had an award ceremony followed by a skit put on by the crew. I haven’t laughed that hard in ages – I was in tears.

Here’s Kat and Sanna dressed as hookers selling programmes…

Rent ended on Sunday – and we’ve all been pretty exhausted since then. Although I did get up the energy to go to the White Tiger on Monday. I’ve wanted a tattoo for absolutely ages and I figured now was as good a time as any so I booked myself an appointment for a consultation to pick a design and colours. When I got there a dude was getting a tattoo of a spiders web on his elbow – which must’ve been bl**dy painful… I picked a butterfly shape and colours and handed over half the dosh - $50. I then went back yesterday and got it done. OMG it was painful. When he started doing the outline, it felt like I was being cut with a scalpel without anaesthetic… and well you know what I’m like with needles… after about 5 mins I felt really faint, and had to lie down. Another guy came into the shop with a question so that was good timing! Once I felt better, we started again but after about another 5 mins I felt faint again. This time the recovery was better though as he had finished doing the outline so we finished it off – this time he was filling in the colour which just felt like a momentary stab which was much better. I was only in there for about 50 minutes and now I have a beautiful butterfly on the back of my right shoulder!

I’ve just got to get used to it now. It’s freaking me out a little bit, especially now I can see the places where the needle went in! But I really love it. My original plan was to get a little tiger cub alongside it, batting his claws at it… I’m still considering it but need to get up the guts for it… the butterfly is about twice the size I originally thought it was gonna be, which means the tiger would have to be bigger too… we’ll see!

And here’s a few other random pics from the last couple months…

Well, that's about all for now, gotta go and have more adventures...

Love and hugs to everyone
Sue xxxxxxxx
Sweet as