Cuba Street - all you want and more!

Firstly apologies for missing a post on Saturday night, my excuse follows in a second.

I spent the weekend basically meeting people in and around an area of town called Cuba Street. This is a pedestrian street which runs up from the main shopping areas. It is intersected with a couple of roads, but this merely acts as run off or a flow control for the people traversing along it.

By day Cuba Street is a mix of cafe culture and boutique shopping and has a street busker vibe going on. As day gives way to evening, then the atmosphere turns more party like. It is common place, on a weekend night, to see stag and hen groups wandering along between the restaurants and bars. The occasional drunk singing Kiwi can also be found slowly making their way to some place. Having said that, there are visible street wardens and later in the night the police make it a regular stopping area - not for actual crime you understand, as the vibe of the area makes it feel pretty safe.

I have had previous, shopping, experiences with Cuba Street as it has a couple of 2nd hand bookshops for example. But this Saturday just gone was my first vibey experience with the street. Before I recount what happened, I would like to say hello and thanks to Charlotte!Without her none of this weekend would have happened in quite the same way! ;)

So, this is where I will also start my experience, with the 14:30 coffee date arranged with Charlotte to meet at the 'tipping bucket' centre piece of lower Cuba Street. The 'tipping bucket' is a piece of street art or maybe interactive public sculpture - for it consists of a number of cascading multi coloured buckets, which continually fill with water to eventually tip and throw their contents, mostly, into the buckets below. I say mostly, as any new visitor to Cuba Street will fast discover the splash zones around this sculpture. Personally I had a few minutes waiting for Charlotte, which allowed me initial avoidance and then study into the area and circumstance most likely to result in a wetting.

But some passers by actually seek out the wetting areas, often whilst an anxious "what will your mother say!" Dad looks on at his sons being in a fairly advanced stage of study and welcome reward for the warm afternoon.

Once Charlotte arrived we proceeded along the dry bits of Cuba, heading towards a newly opened Italian coffee house. The newness of this place was obvious, but I still wondered why Wellington thought it needed another cafe, as I think someone once said that in terms of cafe per populace, Wellington beats many cities, including Paris.

However it was during our late lunch (mmm, if brunch is between breakfast and lunch, what is between lunch and dinner...luinner... if you use the same logic I guess?), that the attention to detail of this 'new cafe on the block' became apparent, which even included the fabulously dressed and spoken 'I bet he is a stereotype' character of the Italian owner. No doubt he was called Loui or some such (sorry I forgot to ask), but he insisted, I thought, on re-creating the Disney classic 'Lady and the tramp' scene, when he saw us two drinking and chatting. No guesses for me assuming the tramp leading role and Charlotte the lady, whilst we echoed the film and the sequence when the two characters were given a bowl of spaghetti to eat between them....of course being a date, neither of us was foolhardy enough to order such a 'disaster waiting to hit your shirt' type of dish, instead we 'chose' from the single 'I get ta you something that is very nice' option presented to us, of two rich cakes.

Our conversation was going really well, so well that most, of what turned out to also be expensive as well as rich, cakes were left. Still I guess that type of forced sale is good for business but it was pretty busy so I am not sure he required it. In fact it was so busy as to include one of the other girls I had been chatting to in the online dating site. Of course I did not know this at the time, and only found out since, via a message from her. But this has brought one of my worries about being fairly distinctive in a relatively small town, i.e. there are not that many +6' footers with bald sun burnt heads who look like me (phew you may well say), still I am lucky that she chose not to announce her recognition with a yelled 'Saucysausage. Is that you?'

After leaving the cafe we wandered back to the centre of Cuba, avoiding a soaking from the buckets, and parted ways. However a couple of hours later Charlotte called to ask if I was interested in going to a party down on Cuba Street. She said it would be mainly people in their twenties, but thought if I wore my trendy shoes I should fit in. We agreed to meet up before moving onto the party, as one of the Cuba street party rules is start late, finish early!

Again, we chose the tipping bucket display as our rendezvous, but this time I knew exactly where to stand to avoid the water. It was whilst I stood here waiting for Charlotte, that the evening set of Cuba Street sauntered past me. First came the other 'I'll be waiting' dates, who arrived, looked about, felt uncomfortable and then got out their mobiles to look busy and in some cases loved. Later came the staggering merry man who sang to random passers by and had the effect of clearing the area of the 'I'll be waiting' dates.

After him came a group of young women, who were on an almost collision path with myself. As they passed me they offered one of the deepest philosophical questions I think I have ever encountered on a street - 'Are you the tooth fairy?' - slightly taken aback I could only retort with 'Erm, I can be if you want...', to which they basically ran away laughing and portraying me as some sort of dodgy man!

I did not let this reaction knock my pre-party revision of Bill Bailey comedy and a couple of glasses of wine - and of course by the time Charlotte arrived I was able to recount and laugh about it - of course the girls were possibly in the local police station describing me, but what the hey, I was out to party.

After a couple of drinks in another bar, it was now well past 11pm and time to find the party. This was located in a converted flat above a shop, just off of Cuba itself. Gaining entrance was via an intercom and door buzzer, but it seemed the only password required was your name stated in a sufficient way as to imply 'he/she is ready to party', hence it fell to the non-tooth fairy of Charlotte gain us entry.

On our way in and as I climbed the stairs, past the requisite scooter, I began to feel more relaxed and ready to embrace the atmosphere of a twenty something house party. I cannot remember the last time I was in one of these things, but much like riding a bike, it all came back to me pretty fast. There was the welcome and brief tour from the party hostess. This included details such as (a) the temporary construction of some areas, which were basically sellotaped paper walls, (b) the lack of suitable drink ware, and realisation we needed to bring our own (I had bought a wine bottle), (c) the fact that the epicentre of the party was not the dance floor area (where 4 people normally slept), not the lounge area (where 3 people resided during non-party nights...in fact they may have been the same people now, but just with a beer glass in place of the TV remote), it was not even the pool table area (not sure how many slept here, but it must have been a few), no - the place to be at a party was still the kitchen.

So it was here, the Kitchen, which I pretty much made my base camp for 'Kev Meets the Twenty Something Party Kiwi' or Operation K.M.T.S.P.K. for short.

My meeting of people started with the very welcome guidance of Charlotte, who it turns out knew the key person (the hostess) to ensure an instant 'Oh, you must know such 'such, hey?' response. Things continued well as we progressed through the immediate people...

First there was 'River' and his knitted jumper with a Blades of Glory film logo on (not official merchandise, I believe, and in fact only recently linked to the film by me), and it was after I pointed out that 'he must have a stream of name ideas for his future children, maybe ending in Estuary?', that we quickly moved on to...

A guy, Chris I think, sporting a ginger 'mou-vember', which you would know as a 10 day old moustache. For you see the fun loving, yet caring, nature of Kiwi's comes out in many ways - including the November tradition of growing a moustache, getting sponsored to do so, and giving the money to prostate cancer charities. A great idea which, a brief look around the room, confirmed as very popular. Unfortunately not only do I only have about half the time left, I also grow a tabby coloured moustache, so I think I will just give some money instead.

Then we came to '35', whose actual name escapes me but this was the number on his football shirt, however, I for ever more I referred to as 'that guy from Blackburn', as he announced this as his where he had originally called home. I asked him which words or accent he had picked up, as he made it clear he had been here from an early age. But his answer and they way he said it, clearly identified that once a Yorkshire man, always a Yorkshire man. Personally, I think my vocabulary has already started to change, with the first replacement being the occasional 'Yip' in place of 'Yes' or shortened 'Yes', the same but basically without the 'e'. I will let you know when and if others develop.

Now you may be thinking that the party was full of blokes, and with me and Blackburn, could have been 50% Pommy blokes. I must redress this belief of yours by pointing out that not only were there plenty of women there, but as I later found out, the Wellington ratio of 3 single women to every single man, was alive and well (I&S lads, remember cheap flights here are available ;)

But notable women at the party were, Charlotte of course, and also the wig wearing hostess, Colleen, and other wig wearing girls who called this place home - these girls were always good to locate as they knew the whereabouts of important things like glasses (no, sorry we have none - here try this vase), salt for Tequila (see the headless goose) and drinks (everywhere)

As the party continued I met many more friendly Kiwi's, including Aaron and Devin (a popular Kiwi name which in the noisy atmosphere did result in a yelled conversation of 'Kevin?', 'Yes, Devin', 'Kevin? Like me?', 'No Devin, with a D') and a new phenomena for me of two Scandinavians who were starring at the fridge. One of them was a girl from Norway, the other a lad from Sweden, and they had decided that the 'word magnets' on the fridge door, needed rearranging. But in typical Scandinavian style (I say that on no basis you understand), they twisted the arrangement to only include English words which also had a, often hilarious (at least to them), difference when spoken in either Norwegian or Swedish.

Now, I do not know how similar the two languages are, but I do know their disagreements over such things as 'dog' meaning 'spade' or 'rabbit', were quite amusing to over hear. I also tried to help by simply arranging the words into rude English phrases...a classic party move from my old days (yes I know how to p-a-r-t-y), but this was hampered by the 'pre-rudeness' built into the, presumably Kiwi, word set. For example it is rare for me to see or even say the phrase 'Monkey bush' or 'steaming swallow', yet alone have them remind me of something to do or buy on my fridge door!

So there you have it, a party which continued well into the night, or at least I think it did as Charlotte and I left after 3 or 4 more hours and the successful completion of operation K.M.T.S.P.K., which if you are following, put us at 2 or 3 am. Luckily my Jet lag had left me the day before, otherwise from about 11pm I would have needed to find an area of floor to lay down in - a task made harder for (a) the beer bottles and temporary ash trays bein made in any container with a lip (sleeping guests included!) and (b) the fact that the vast number* of Kiwi's living here may have already claimed the area and be paying rent on it.

*I would like to point out for those of you who know about the London based Kiwi living habits - the term 'vast numbers' is different there as it is here - here it amounts to about 10, whereas in London it would easily be 100 per same space.

Well my first and lets hope, not my last, Cuba Street party. Needless to say I did not see or do much today, Sunday, other than recover and type this thing.

Tomorrow I shall be taking back some sandals (not jandals...more on that to follow) and enquiring about a bank account...mmm a bit of a contrast, but after all I am not just here on holiday! Oh, hang on, my visa says I am still ;)