However, I have heard that Twiggley is going really well which is so good to hear. That horse is amazing.
Luckily, the same group of guys that took me to the cabin have also taken me into their house, fed me, gave me drinks and generally tried to cheer me up. Will has a Jeep and thinks it will be 'fun' to drive to Spokane, which is only a 67 mile drive but at the moment the roads are chaos because of the snow and ice.Uni is closed so they decided a road trip would be cool. In the mean time I hung out at their house and met Hunter's impressive collection of tropical fish, sea snakes, reptiles including a snake, and the rainbow parakeet. I even heard the 'Stranded Kiwi Blues' song produced by Rob and his guitar.
They told me how easy it is for anyone to buy a gun here, you can literally buy them from the pawn shop downtown, carry them around wherever you want and buy as much ammunition as you want all without a firearms licence. We talked about the difference between our justice systems and police force. I was quite alarmed to hear that any girl can accuse a guy of rape and they are guilty until proven innocent, and if they cant provide sufficient evidence they go to jail. They also go on a national sex offender database, which shows where they live. For example, the creepy old guy who comes into Nathanaels' work and buys childrens' toys is a registered pedophile and you can go on this website, see what he was convicted of and find out where he lives. Unsurprisingly, a lot get murdered. So pretty unfortunate if you break up with the wrong girl and she accuses you of rape. I guess there will always be more crime here though because there are soo many more people than New Zealand.
So that afternoon me, Will and Rob piled into the Jeep and started our mission. The highway was really icy, cars were sliding all over the place and a lot of people were going off the road or getting stuck. At times it was almost complete whiteout because it kept snowing. I tried not to watch... A 67 mile drive took us just over 2.5 hours and we arrived to traffic jams and unploughed streets in the relatively big city of Spokane, Washington.
We decided to stay at the Best Western hotel right by the airport. If you ever need to stay here, do. It's really nice, when we checked in the lady told us stories about the ridiculous damage people have done eg. a chunk missing from the sink. Unfortunately I couldnt get into the bar but luckily we had vodka, and after a trip to the gas station, beer and wine. Oh yeah, they sell beer and wine at gas stations and corner stores here, and most coffee shops. So we drank and talked, and again I was treated to intelligent and thought-provoking conversation on women, children, how history is taught here, relationships and socialised health care. In America it's often really expensive to be on the Pill or have an implant, and abortions are not commonly legal or accpetable. I guess it's easy to take things like that for granted, and I realised how good our healthcare in New Zealand really is. However even though contraception is basically free at home and good advice is plentiful, teen pregnancy rates are worse than here. Irresponsible people really frustrate me.
Hours on planes with screaming children certainly has not helped my anti-children (for now) stance. I just cannot handle them. Will put it well when he said his epitome of a successful woman was 35 and unmarried, no kids, a good career and financial stability and time to travel and have other experiences - rather than the 'must be married and have kids by 30' idea which still seems prevalent in some societies. I have friends who are engaged or plan to be soon, can't wait to settle down and reproduce, and that's great. If that is what you want to do then awesome, but I think choosing to put your career first shouldn't be seen as any less important than that.
So then we went down to the spa, where we met an older couple who just happened to be the most awesome people. The guy was a Vietnam War veteran, and the lady was a pro-change feminist and has horses at home which she trains to herd cattle and pull sleighs in the mountains. What are the chances?
We shared drinks and conversation with them for ages. Again, I was struck by how genuine and intelligent most of the people I've met are. They agreed with the sentiment that the image of America seen by the rest of the world is not representative of them or many other citizens.
We ran outside into -8C ish temperatures and rolled in the snow, which was two feet deep in places and soft and powdery. So, so much fun to just let go and be silly, and then we jumped back into the heated pool and spa.
After a few more drinks we noticed that the Denny's restaurant across the road was open 24/7, and had a bar. So we ran across there in our togs and towels, bare feet and grins. I did put my new furry hat on for warmth, of course.
So Denny's is a bit of a cultural phenomenon. It's kind of the stereotypical American place, burgers and chips and ranch sauce but in a sit-down setting. However they include appetizers, starters, salads and, inexplicably, cocktails on their menu. We walked in at 1am, giggling and shivering, and the young blonde waitress gave us one strange look then seated us. Most bizarre experience ever. The bar had closed and we were refused our request of a Russian hot chocolate, so we somehow ordered calamari rings. They came with about 5 different dipping sauces and were incidentally not too bad. Then we had this:
What is it? I'm not really too sure, but it was called the yee-ha sizzler. It wasn't really that nice, but we didn't care. The waitress seemed concerned about us and kept asking if we wanted more water.
They had mini pancakes on the menu which were bizarrely called 'puppies'. I wanted some but they never came, although I think that may have been due to some fairly inappropriate dinner table conversation while we were ordering. We tipped generously and graciously left, probably never to return again.
When we went to defrost our feet in the pool, there were 4 guys of various ethnicity sitting in the pool playing rap from a ghetto blaster. I don't think they knew what was going on either.
Goodnight!
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