My Almost Perfect Day

I don’t know if I should admit this, but I’ve been watching The Bachelor NZ. Religiously. It’s sad, I know. But it’s not like I’m super into. I’m not. I just find it equal parts cruciatingly cringe-worthy and disturbingly entertaining. It’s actually a kind of beautiful thing; all the girls in my family (including my mother) sit down in our respective homes and text each other our unfiltered commentary throughout each episode.

Anyway, the girls obviously go on dates with The Bachelor and come home with all these grandiose statements like, ‘I had the perfect day,’ ‘It was just magical,’ ‘It’s true love.’ This is relevant because I spent my weekend in the Church of Christ visiting some of my awesome friends who I hardly ever seen anymore because they live in Christchurch and I live in Dunedin (which I discovered is further from Dunedin than I thought, especially on a bus; but I digress).

Christchurch markets

My friends took me on the most romantic day I have ever been on. It really was spectacular:

The slightly grey weather did not dampen our spirits as we set off on bicycles to the market for breakfast. After eating our way around the market, my friends took me on a bike tour of the city, which was super romantic because, like I said, we were on bikes. We biked through the parks. We biked through the red zone. We had a personalised tour of Christchurch Street Art. We saw the old cathedral. We saw the new cathedral. We went to the container mall. It was all very European. It was all very ‘magical.’ Unfortunately, however, in New Zealand it’s illegal to bike helmetless which kind of kills the romantic air. ‘Safety first,’ we all say as we fasten our super geeky helmet straps under our chins. I wonder, ‘safety… but at what cost?’ but I digress.

Bike tour of Christchurch

Container mall

Christchurch Cathedral

It also turns out that I’m a bit of a loose unit on a bike. I don’t know the road rules. I nearly fell off my bike once, which is impressive when biking on a dead flat, tar-sealed bike path. I nearly made my friend fall off her bike too, when I biked into her and our handle bars locked for a second too long. This is also impressive because the bike track was completely straight. Obviously, I’m a girl of many talents (but, again, I digress).

The day just got better and better. After our very romantic city bike tour, we walked from Christchurch to Lyttelton. With beautiful views and fresh air, the company of my friends was all the sweeter.

Lyttelton

But the best part of the day was yet to come. After dinner (where I nearly burnt the house down, but again, again I digress), we went to a Horror Maze. Best. Idea. Ever.

Horror

I would like to think that I don’t seem like the kind of girl, that when I get a fright, would squeal and run away. Unfortunately, it turns out, that is exactly what I do. I make the same noise as a petrified pig and I gap it out of there as fast as piggely possible. Equally as entertaining as getting frights yourself was watching my friends’ reactions to the maze. One of them jumped sky high and screamed air-splittingly. Another would run up behind me and instruct the zombies rather forcefully to “Take Steph! Take Steph!” (Thanks). And then the other friend (whose reaction was least entertaining at the time, but the most entertaining in hindsight), didn’t bat an eyelid and would come out with a super sarcastic, ‘Great acting!’

Political street art

Had my day stopped there, it would have been a perfect day. But it didn’t. I don’t know if you have the friend who has all these ‘great ideas,’ but I have one of them.  We were around at my friend’s parents house and just to clarify, the ‘rents were out.

Profound street art

So my friend had this great idea; ‘Hey Steph, let’s eat a chilli!’ (with the implied, ‘I dare you; I double dare you motherf***er’ not needing to be spoken). And we didn’t just swallow a chilli. We really committed to it. We chewed it. We swashed it around. We got the seeds stuck in our teeth. We got all the juice out.

Outdoor dance party

Then my eyes started streaming. My nose started running. My mouth turned into a furnace. I suspect that my face turned the same colour as the chilli (which was crimson). And this continued on for a solid 20 minutes after the fateful event.

Something a bit more chilled

In order to try to rectify the situation, we raided the parent's pantry. We drank all the milk. We ate all the ice cream. We gobbled down the gourmet bread. Just doing our moral duty, eating my friend’s parents out of house and home.

Sorry.

But actually, not really at all.

Had I not eaten their food, I probably would have needed hospitilization.

Aren’t friends wonderful?

And that was my almost perfect day.