Eleventh Week

Monday to Wednesday: I started to jot down all the ideas of places I want to visit when travelling after my twelve weeks of school. I wanted to go to the travel office, to get some help with ideas and to book the essential things, but I didn’t manage to get there as I spent the whole time after school each day talking to people or looking for further ideas on the internet. But I was finally able to change my flight back to Switzerland to a later date. Well I have to say that Miles changed it, after he heard how helpless I was on the phone. It was the fourth time I called the Emirates to change my flight and I decided it should be the last time, because I was just sick and tired of their usual response that they had to contact Zurich to find out whether I could change my ticket to a higher class and how much it would cost. It was the same torture for the fourth time, but Miles told me that I was simply to nice on the phone and that he probably could get the change made. I told him my preferred date for a flight back and within five minutes I had my flight changed. It’s not changed to the date I intended first, but I’ll have one week more to travel now, and it doesn’t cost me a cent, fair enough. That change means I arrive in Zurich on 20 August.
Thursday: This morning I packed everything I’d need on my trip to Christchurch and naturally things for school. During the day, that means in the break times and at lunchtime, I went shopping for some other things I’d probably need on my trip. Hanna accompanied me on my shopping tour and helped me decide which beanie I should buy. I left school a bit early, shortly after three o’clock, because my bus was due to leave at twenty past three at the information centre. Unfortunately the bus was late and I even thought I was probably at the wrong place or something and that the bus left without me, but it was just late. The journey was pretty rough, not only because of the bumpy road but also because the bus was pretty old. In Blenheim I had to wait about one hour for people coming from Picton heading to Christchurch and I ate my dinner. The second part of the bus trip was a bit smoother, and this time I sat in the front row where I had enough space for my legs to make myself comfortable. I was listening to one of my favourite Bands, the “Toten Hosen”, for the first time in ages and after a short stop for toilets and refreshments the bus finally arrived in Christchurch at half past ten. That was twenty minutes early, but although I had sent Patrick a text he wasn’t there. Patrick is my friend from Christchurch who played Euphonium with the Nelson band at the West Coast competition. He is a professional musician playing for the New Zealand Army Band and he also plays for one of the top A-Grade bands in New Zealand, Woolston Brass from Christchurch. It was freezing and after three unsuccessful attempts at calling him I was starting to think he might never turn up. Eventually he phoned back and asked me where I was. I probably mispronounced Worcester street, and he didn’t come for quite a while so I called him again. Finally he picked me up just before midnight. It was a bit hard for me to understand why he was so late but I didn’t think about that too much, I just accepted it and was happy that he came in the end. At his home I met Graham, the house-owner and conductor of the Woolston Band, and his girlfriend and after having a beer and talking with Patrick I went to bed.
Friday: I got up at about nine o’clock and Patrick took me to the city centre where I listened to the competitions. He himself had a band rehearsal, but I wasn’t alone: I met some people I knew from the West Coast contest or from Nelson and enjoyed listening and discussing the B-grade bands with them. In the afternoon there was the street marching competition and in the evening the A-grade bands had to play their sacred item and test piece. After the seventh band out of ten, or, in other words, seven times the same test-piece, I went to the hotel of a friend from the Marlborough District Band and we agreed to have dinner together. Because it was already nine o’clock, the Thai restaurant we were heading to offered takeaways only. So we ate back at the town hall. Now the competitions were over for today so I headed to the pub to catch up with Patrick. Graham and a lot of other people from different bands where there as well. I met Zac from Wellington who played timpani for Woolston, who was also staying at Graham’s house during the contest. Curiously I hadn’t seen him in the morning.
Saturday: In the morning, Patrick took me to Lyttelton, a part of Christchurch, where he goes to the market every Saturday. After a hot chocolate and a special bacon-sandwich we went back home. On the way there he had driven through a tunnel connecting the city and Lyttelton, but on the way back he went over the hills, to show me the beautiful view and to give his two dogs a bit of a run around. After that we first went to the supermarket and then Patrick had a rehearsal again, and I went to listen to the competitions, which were B-Grade own choice, D-Grade hymn, own choice and stage march and in the evening A-Grade own choice. In contrast to yesterday, I had a bit more variety today and I especially liked the A-Grade own choice competition. That was just one great brass band oeuvre after the other, like a top concert. And the contest feeling was just like what I’m used to from Switzerland, so it wasn’t a strange world for me. This was the last competition event of the “2008 Festival of Brass” and after hearing the results there was a party in the AMI Stadium. Patrick played there with a big-band-like formation of the army band. At one o’clock, this party was over, but not the festival in general. I first wanted to go home and sleep now, because my train would leave at quarter past eight in the morning, but then I decided to go on partying because it was a very special occasion which I would probably never experience again. After a stopover in a bar in the centre of Christchurch, we went to the Casino where I finally ate seafood and chips for dinner at about four o’clock in the morning. I had some good conversations here, one with an Australian lady who had recorded the contest and done the live internet-streaming, and another one with Martin Britt, the soprano cornet from the Desford Colliery Band from the UK. He came to New Zealand just for one week to play at the competition with one of the A-Grade bands. He didn’t get a wage for that, but they paid him accommodation for one week and the flight. That’s a pretty cool way to spend your holiday. At half past five we finally decided to put an end to partying and go home. It was six o’clock when I was finally able to lie down on my long desired bed.
Sunday: That was a pretty short night, because it was only half past seven, when my clock rang. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear it, or I just fell asleep again after turning it off, I can’t remember, but somehow I managed to get up. The problem was only that it was already ten to eight and Patrick, who had offered to drive me to the train station, was still asleep as well. I was to have been at the train station at least twenty minutes before departure, in other words five to eight. But fortunately it wasn’t too late to catch the train; I eventually got on the train about three minutes before departure. I had decided to go back to Nelson by taking the transalpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth and then on with the bus back, because I had heard that it’s a beautiful trip and you can see a lot of the mountains. That was true and I was very lucky with the weather as well. Until Arthur’s Pass there were almost no clouds in the sky and visibility was excellent, so I took a lot of pictures and I wasn’t even feeling too tired at this stage. However, as the train was going through a pretty long tunnel, I fell asleep. I woke up after the tunnel but then slept again, because it was cloudy now and I wasn’t able to see much of the scenery; though in Greymouth the weather was better and I enjoyed my trip up the rough West Coast. The bus even stopped for forty-five minutes at the Pancake Rocks, a tourist attraction, and I naturally took the chance to take a look at them. Later I slept again and only took an occasional glance at the rather monotonous scenery. The bus stopped again in Murchison, where we had about fifty minutes to go to the café. That was too long for me; I was neither hungry nor thirsty and I would have preferred to be fifty minutes earlier in Nelson. But I still had a drink and a snack, just because I couldn’t imagine what else to do. The result of drinking without being thirsty and being in a pretty cold bus was that I nearly burst on the final leg of the journey, so badly did I need to go to the loo! But I had to hold on until seven thirty, after we arrived in Nelson. After that I went straight to the party at Hanna’s home-stay. She cooked Korean food and intended to play card games after dinner. I obviously was late for dinner, but she had kept the food warm and prepared a lovely plate for me. After that, we enjoyed playing UNO and were fascinated by the apple peeling machine of Hanna’s home-stay parents. It takes off the skin, takes out the core and cuts the apple into slices all at once. Back home at quarter past ten, I went to bed without making any detours.