had a very late start today. not sure why other than i think twiddle thumbs and i were silently playing the game of "no, you get up and shower first." eventually we got our butts up and got ready for the day. while we were eating, the dogs of the hostel appeared. what fuckers! they were begging for food and we wouldn't budge because i don't think it's right to give food from the table like that. eventually twiddle thumbs gave in and gave them some food. one tried to bite us and growled at me. that really pissed me off. dogs don't bite me and they certainly don't growl at me. they especially don't pretend to be friendly and cute and they turn evil when you approach them. i call it the evil dog. i started singing body count's "evil dick" song but changed it to "evil dog" and all about the evil ways of this damn dog.

we walked to the railway station to book a train ride for tomorrow on the picturesque taieri gorge railway. then we went to cadbury world to book a tour for tomorrow before the train ride. then we went across the street for a little grocery shopping. the new world here is fantastic! i rate cities according to the stock of vegetarian and ethnic items in the supermarkets. dunedin is tops! they have an amazing selection. i spent most of my time in the organic and ethnic sections. then i saw that they carry soy cheese, a true mark of civility. i didn't need to see any more. this place rocks! i bought some macrobiotic rice candy. dunedin is awesome!

charming dunedin

we managed our way to the arc cafe because they actually serve vegan food. we decided to treat ourselves by buying dinner instead of cooking. we got there at 5pm and they don't start serving food until 6pm. they wouldn't even let us see a menu so we could decided on eating there after all. sometimes when i read that a place is vegan friendly, they only have 1 vegan item on the menu. if nothing is vegan on the menu, why even bother coming back? we wandered around the octagon area, taking photos of churches and stuff. we looked at the cinema there and were amazed they show some films past 11pm. i don't think even auckland does that. dunedin is truly modern. across the street at the art house cinema place, the film festival that was in wellington reaches dunedin tomorrow. we want to see "mal educaion" but it shows the day we leave dunedin and i'm not sticking around just to see a film. that film showed before we arrived in wellington. we just don't seem to be in the big cities at the right time.

we made our way back to the arc cafe at 6pm. i got a bland veggie samosa and a vegan hot dog because i had been craving mustard. it was smothered with mustard and onions, perhaps too much! but i enjoyed every bite. i had a soy banana smoothie to drink. there's free internet at the cafe and so we used our share of it. macs with panther! woohoo! this place is so pc heavy it was nice to be on a mac. it also felt nice to treat ourselves to dinner but now i'm really starting to worry about money. my banks' debit card is often rejected when i use it as a visa card. apparently this only happens with american banks. twiddle thumbs has had no problem but now she is low on funds. for the first time, today my card was rejected at an atm. i was hoping to get out a lot of cash while in dunedin to live off of for a few weeks. the hostel we're staying at only takes cash so it wiped us out. my kiwi bank account is getting low so i don't want to touch it any more either. i hope the atm rejection was a one time thing. if not, we might have to start making some phone calls to beg for money and live off of 99 cent noodles and rice. i do not want to make any desperate phone calls.

there's just something about dunedin, much like san francisco, that i love

our long trip is starting to wind up. hell, we've been on the road since the end of february. the sooner we get to christchurch the better because christchurch = work. i just hope i can get a job there right away and that wherever i stay does not require a large deposit up front.

my video camera has been acting up today. it constantly displays the following error messages: "unit in safeguard mode" & "remove and reattach battery". it started to do this yesterday. you remove the battery, turn it off and on, over and over but the message remains. it only does this in video mode, not memory mode. memory would be to take digital photos and my camera does a much better job. i want video damn it! i tried recharging the battery last night to see if it would help but no. if it wasn't going to be working then why bring it on the bottom bus? i hope i'm not carrying around dead weight. and i really want to film my entire trip. this sucks.