If you don’t understand french, read this!

I’m really sorry, we hadn’t time (to be honest, we didn’t find the motivation...) to translate in english all the events that occured since we arrived in Christchurch!
But some people (Char, Hin... good to know that there’s at least two people who read the english version of this blog!) requested us to write in english... so, let’s go, I’ll try to sum up quickly what we wrote in our previous posts!
During our first few days here, we stayed at Manu’s place. Manu is one of my cousin Fred’s best friends. Although Guillaume & I have known him for a long time now, we hadn’t expect him to be that nice with us! He even gave us his car during a week-end, a car that we gave him back with a tyre missing after Pecanio fucked up a u-turn...
After four nights or so spent at Manu’s, we moved in a house on Gloucester street. It’s well located, just a few blocks from the city center... We used to share the house with a Japanese girl & a German girl called Madlen. Madlen’s friend, Cat, stayed here as well, although the landlord didn’t know. Anyway, it was very nice to live with those two German girls, we had a great time with them, especially on the day we went to Kaikoura, and on that evening we did some cocktails with the 42 Below, but they left on Sunday.
The house is also well located because it’s near the houses of some other friends of us: at the corner lives the “argentinian community”, led by Toto & Pilar, the couple of great Argentinians we had met in Grafton three months ago... There are so nice! The two of them are lucky as well because they work at the Jade Stadium every time there’s a game; they serve beers & wine in the VIP room and can see all the games this way!
On the other side of the street, there’s a house where Sophia & Caro live. Sophia is a french girl we met thanks to Manu (they know each other since they both play handball), while Caro is another very friendly french girl we met because she was sharing Sophia's flat. Thanks to those two girls, we met other friendly people living in Christchurch, such as Michel, the Dutch guy who has become a Crusaders die-hard fan since he's here (although he knew nothing about rugby before coming in New Zealand...), Guillaume (a French guy from Savoy, friend of Sophia) and Mia, an amazingly lively Canadian girl.

Sophia is in love with Richie McCaw, really, she’s totally crazy everytime she sees him! She managed to take a picture with him a few weeks ago, and talked a bit to him at the Holy Grail on Saturday, after the Super 14 final...
Let’s talk a bit about the Super 14 final: it was played under a massive fog, so we saw nothing... We were in the stadium, we could just hear the referee’s whistle & the Hurricanes’ fans cheering (where were the Canterbrians?)...
OK... Pecanio now... on the posts he wrote, he talked a bit of the fantastic “army lady” from Wellington, he said that we drank way too much on the day we did that wine tour in the Marlborough, and he thanked Manu for all the things he did for us...
Most of all, Pecanio wrote that he had no more money, and that he was thinking seriously about leaving this country... He wrote that he wouldn’t have the motivation to work hard here in order to make some money & keep travelling... He said he didn’t want to have habits in New Zealand, he didn’t want to find a place here where he could feel like home... He also said that the 1000$ we lost because of the van did nothing good for us (that’s totally true!), and that the months we spent in Auckland were so intense that he felt this trip has been enough for him so far...
So, Pecanio left on Sunday. By now, he must be back in Nice. Back home, with his family & our friends... I miss them as well, but couldn’t imagine to come back in France that early!
Pecanio had his reasons; I guess he will write a post very soon to tell you the reasons why he left... He will explain that better than me! I simply hope he took the right decision. I mean, I hope he won't regret! He can still return to New Zealand, his visa is valid until mid-february 2007, but it's quite a long way & the plane ticket is expansive! Anyway, I enjoyed a lot all travelling with Pecanio, we had some unforgettable moments; it's been an awesome experience! We knew each other very well before leaving France, but now we know each other even better! I didn't expect him to leave after just three months or so, but that's life, "c'est la vie" comme on dit en français ;).
Now, I’m waiting for Armand... That crazy guy is expected to be in Christchurch on Wednesday... If everything’s ok, he should take over Pecanio’s room in the house (Pecanio before leaving found an agreement with the landlord, so that Armand could stay in the room for the 2 weeks & a half remaining he had already paid for...).
Armand can’t wait to leave Auckland; lots of bad things happened to him in that big city... Last trouble: he was kicked out of the house where he was living since he had been kicked out of Grafton... A Malaysian girl was expected to host him until the day he could leave Auckland, I don’t know how he knew her, but when he arrived, she told him “act like you were home”. So he didn’t hesitate to open a bottle of red wine that he found somewhere in the house, but it turned out that it was a 200$ bottle! Armand has no money, he can’t pay back the Malaysian girl; he was kicked out, one more time...
Well, he’ll be here tomorrow, I hope he could quickly find a job! Oh, by the way, I still haven’t found a job... I have to find one soon because I’m getting bored of eating disgusting noodles & drinking awful cheap beers!
See you soon,
Jey