Similar to when I spent several big city nights in Auckland, Wellington has turned into a bit of a shitshow...
Immediately after check-in at the Wellington Base Hostel, the Great Danes, the Dutch Girlz and I decide to get all prettied up for a night out. As we walk into the Hostel Pub, we discover that it's called The Basement for a reason - picture the scummiest Port Alberni bar ever, only set in your creepy uncle's basement. We survey the scene for a familiar face and find the Kiwi bus driver Briggsy and some of his other bus driver mates - ah, there's the creepy uncle. Within minutes a pub crawl enters and the bar is filled with two dozen smurfs. You heard me, blue smurfs. I recognize several of these blue bastards from horrific nights out in Auckland and Paihia and get down to business shortly.
Fast forward to 1am - after many many "I can't believe it's your last night, Jagerbomb NOW!!" moments, I am officially refused service at the bar. Yesssss. The ladies decide to crawl back to our room in Sanctuary (girls only dorm) and bring the Scottish lads with us.
At this point I think it's important to illustrate how fucking old this hostel is. I'm no architect, but the historian in me places this dorm at around 1920: single pane windows, gorgeous stairway spiraling up all 8 floors, a high-ceiling reception area with original hardwood floors.Water pipes that hang from the ceiling and occasionally make noise like you're getting pissed on. And then there's the elevator, that old clunky elevator...
4 girls, two of them bootylicious Danes + 4 Scottish Rugby players = 8 people, the max capacity for the elevator. In hindsight perhaps cramming all of us in to get back to the room probably wasn't smart but as my favourite saying goes, it seemed like a great idea at the time. Sure enough the lift stops and we're trapped. And drunk.
I really felt for the people on the other end of the conversation when we pushed the emergency contact button - they ask if we're ok and receive a mixed response of Scottish brogue, Danish squealing peppered with cursing in a slurry Canadian accent. :-D After about 30 minutes the Scottish boys decide to take matters into their own hands and pry the doors open. Surprise - we're in between floors and can see a 3x3ft square of the 4th floor. Before I know it, the lads are squeezing out through the gap and pulling us girls through. I ignore the urban legends about people getting squished in half doing this kind of thing and allow myself to be shoved through.
Just as I was getting up from the floor, I look up to see the elevator repairman and he's PISSED. Liability, etc. etc. We look back into the elevator to see Dirty Dad, the most lecherous of the Scottish boys and Danish Camilla who has now burst into tears. Hey, if I was too drunk to stand and found myself trapped in an elevator alone with Dad I may have done the same.
Eventually Camilla and Dad are rescued and we call kind of stand there in a swaying group hug petting each other's heads and thanking the stars. Some of the group may have paired off and headed to handicapped washrooms at this point to express their gratitude in further depth. :-P
The next morning I say my goodbyes to the girls with hugs, some of us carefully avoiding the linoleum burn and bruises from the shenanigans of the night before. We make tentative plans to do New Years in Sydney... god help me. ><
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