Suck. That being said, we have met some nice people on our trip. There was the British couple in Taupo that we saw a couple of days in a row, who were doing a similar trip to ours. There was our hitchhiking buddy in Owaka. And there have been some short conversations with people that seem like good people.
Then there are the idiots and the assholes. Most of these have been either American or German. There was the German couple in Oamaru who left their dirty pots and food crumbs all over the kitchen. They also apparently took the large towels that were shared hand towels from the bathroom for their own personal use. They later claimed ignorance. On the penguin viewing tour in Oamaru, there was an American sounding couple who kept moving into our way when we were trying to see the tour guide. And there was another American sounding woman who started asking the tour guide questions about this ozone layer thing. It’s some kind of problem, right? And it’s worse down here? Why? What caused it? How do you people protect yourselves from it? Well, it’s going to fix itself, right? I mean these were questions she was really asking! And she wasn’t young, so I wonder where she’s been hiding that she had to ask a penguin guide questions about the ozone.
On our trip to Doubtful Sound, we were sitting next to a woman who was sitting with her husband and talking to an Australian couple. The woman was from California, and was complaining about her rental car. Apparently, she was used to driving stick, and the rental car was automatic, which combined with driving on the wrong side of the road, I mean other side, was throwing her off. Then she went on to extoll the virtues of American theme parks, especialy those in Florida, while we were boating past some of the most striking landscapes in the world.
It’s a good thing we’re Canadian.