December 8th brought some of its own sagas to bear. Gratefully, none of them were on the order of those of the previous day.
We woke up and headed into town. Chase called a few repair places to see if anybody could do the repairs, but nobody could. One said that they might be able to get the parts the next day, but I think that turned out to be a fool’s hope, as most everyone we talked to said it would be weeks before they could get the part in.
Being completely without a phone, I was getting to the point where I just needed to have a phone of whatever kind and quality, so I jumped on Facebook marketplace, and looked for an unlocked phone that I could slap my SIM card in and be on my way.
Unfortunately, unlike with the car that we bought, people didn’t reply back in any kind of a timely manner with the cell phones that they had for sale, and none of the cell phones that I could find for sale in the nearby area were attractive options really anyway.
Trying to be as productive as we could, we went to the grocery store and did some grocery shopping. Meanwhile, I kept looking around to see if I could find anything.
Nothing.
Finally, and gratefully, I talked to a cell phone provider that said that all of the phones that they carried were unlocked. They were brand new, so I wasn’t going to be able to just buy a used phone and be on my way. I would have to buy a brand new one, but at least they were unlocked, and I could slap my SIM card in and be on my way.
So we headed over to the mall where the cell phone provider was, I looked around at the phones they had for sale, and I picked a sort of mid-range phone that looked like it might at least have a decent camera, since that’s the whole reason I bought the nice Google pixel 7 pro in the first place.
In the end, I ended up choosing a Samsung Galaxy a73. So that’s what I’m using as I write this, but with my other camera smashed, I have none of the pictures or videos or anything that I’ve taken during the trip thus far, hence no pictures at all in the last gazillion posts. I was already behind, and now as I’m catching up, I don’t have access to any of the pictures or videos to attach them to these posts.
Since I wasn’t able to power up my other phone and interact with it, I wasn’t able to just copy everything from one phone to the other. Thus, I had to redownload everything all together, and I lost all of my text message history, apps, and everything.
That wasn’t so nice.
Not only that, but the cell phone was giving me all sorts of issues just getting it registered to me under my Google account. It looked like it was going to lock me out for hours before I was able to find a way to get it resolved.
Finally armed with a new phone and able to communicate with the outside world, so to speak, I was back on my way. It was a rather expensive mistake, smashing an $800 phone, and then spending nearly that much on another phone case and screen protector.
And the camera that I got with this phone, which I thought was actually going to be a really great camera, is actually pretty crappy, unfortunately. I would have thought that a phone of this price would have a much better camera, but alas, no.
The Chase had been quite helpful with all of the issues I was having with the cell phone saga, he was still having a pretty hard time himself. I tried to help, chatting with him and everything, and I think it was a bit helpful, but it was still rough. Nothing really that you can do in a situation like that when you miss someone.
Speaking of missing someone, having gone all the way back up to Hamilton, we were back by Cambridge again unexpectedly, so I sent a message to our Bay of Islands friend inviting her to dinner once again. 🙃
Chase wasn’t really in the mood, given everything that was going on, but he wanted to be supportive of me, and I wanted to see her again, even if my heart isn’t really capable of pursuing a relationship with someone right now, I don’t think. We had a super great conversation last time, and I looked forward, hopefully, to another one again this time.
I wasn’t disappointed.
By his request, I left Chase in a park on the other side of town. He had gotten in touch with the one of the girls he had grown close to, and coincidentally, the girls just so happened to be in Cambridge. 🙃
So after thinking we had split up with them yet again, here we were back in the same town neither expecting to be in that town at all but both oddly showing up there, we because of my smashed phone, and they… I don’t know why. 🙃
I don’t think it was coincidence. 🙃 It was pretty cool.
This time, my visit with our BOI (Bay of islands friend was sans Chase, but it was still a super cool visit. She and I walked to a nearby park and chatted about some super deep and very personal things for… hours.
Part of me is definitely interested in her. But I don’t seem to be capable. There’s still too much of my heart somewhere else.
Still, I’ve enjoyed the conversation so much, that I would love to just keep on going and going and going.
And that’s exactly what we ended up doing that night. 🙃
We talked for I think something like nearly 5 hours before it dawned on both of us just how late it was. She again was going to need to get up early for work, so spending all night talking to me was once again going to leave her exhausted the next day.
She said it was totally worth it and looked forward to our next chat together, which… might never happen. 😕 Chase and I are heading south, and she won’t head south until December 26th. That said, there’s a decent chance that I’ll see her when she comes south. That’s the crappy thing about work visas, I guess. You have to work because you didn’t have enough money to just travel straight through. 🙃
Anyway, I said goodbye to our BOI friend, and then I went back over to the park where Chase had been, finding out that he had been able to meet up with the girl he’d grown close to and enjoy some time together.
Though it was super late, Chase, feeling a lot better, drove us all the way from Cambridge down to I think it was called Arenui Caves, where we would spend the night.
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 