A bit of catching up to do!

I think I'm going to have to just forget about my Tongariro Crossing post for now, which I'm sure just breaks all your hearts. Really. If anyone really wants a play-by-play of the hike just leave a comment and I'll get around to it someday. Otherwise I'm just going to scrap it, because I still haven't written about other things we did over two weeks ago!

So let's take an imaginary trip back in time to when I wrote the post from Hamilton. Remember? It was raining and pouring and Alexa was snoring, and we had just gone to the zoo?

Great.

So the day after that entry we left Hamilton and drove to Waitomo Caves. Waitomo is a town that may as well be sitting on top of swiss cheese for all the hundreds of twisting, winding tunnels and holes underground. It's cave central. Various companies offer all sorts of tours, ranging from full-day caving experiences to casual walks on platforms to check out the stalagtites, stalagmites, and "glow-worms" (read: maggot shit). We opted to go somewhere in between and took the moderately-adventurous route with black-water rafting. It's not quite as intense as it sounds. You ride in an inner-tube, not a raft, and the water moves fairly slowly for the most part. There's two waterfall jumps, but neither was higher than about eight feet. Still, the walking portions were a little bit tricky as the rocks were incredibly slippery and the water tended to be fast moving where it was shallow. The coolest parts were the portions where we switched off our helmet lights and floated along through absolute darkness. The maggot shit overhead made the top of the cave look like a clear night sky, only the "stars" were greenish-blue instead of white.

Here we are after the journey, all dressed up in our wetsuits. I look a bit impatient because I had to pee SO BAD and the guide assured us that peeing in our wetsuits would only end with us smelling like festering piss-pots.

After leaving Waitomo we drove to the town of Taumarunui and prepared for our two-day canoe trip down the Whanganui river. The trip was fantastic. The weather even cooperated for the most part, giving us sunshine for the entirety of the first day and only a few patches of drizzle the second. In total, the trip was somewhere around 71 km long and passed through around 50 or 60 grade 1-3 rapids. We were fortunate (and skilled) enough to not capsize the entire time, even though a few of the rapids were quite challenging and we managed to get stuck on the rocks more than once.

A mild stretch of the Whanganui on our second day of paddling:

After the canoe trip, which brings us to Friday, 12th December, we decided to go ahead and make the drive back to Wellington. Our canoe guide assured us it was only a 4 hour drive. I suppose this might have been true had we stuck to the 100 km/hr speed limit the whole way, but that was pretty much impossible since a large chunk of the drive involved going down narrow roads, around sharp bends, through mountains, and alongside sheer drop-offs--all without guard rails, of course. Plus we had the unique experience of finding ourselves stuck in the midst of a sheep traffic jam. Awesome. I've embedded the video below:

We arrived in Wellington late in the night and crashed at our friends Jason and Tammy's place. The next day we wandered around Wellington one last time, sent some mail, did some shopping, and spent the night hanging out with Jason, Tammy, some Monteith's, and Flight of the Conchords. Yesssssss.

Sunday we boarded the ferry to Picton. It was a nice ride. As promised, it was a scenic journey. There was no boring, "water only" period, since by the time the north island was starting to fade out of sight, the south island had already come into view. I guess they really aren't that far apart. The last hour and a half of the trip took us through the Queen Charlotte Sound, which was absolutely beautiful, with rolling, forested hills and pristine beaches on either side. There were even a few homes along the sound, and I cannot imagine living in a more remote location. I reckon they'd have to take boats into work.

A seaplane taking off from Picton Harbor:

We spent two rainy, miserable nights tenting in Nelson. While there we saw the World of Wearable Art museum, which was pretty interesting, and also had a section of restored cars. Nelson is where we're planning on staying after we wrap things up in Queenstown, and it seems like it will be a suitable home--when it's dry, anyway.

From Nelson we began the 13+ hour journey to Queenstown which took us back through Picton, and down along the Pacific coast through Kaikoura and past Christchurch. After passing Chirstchurch we veered away from the coast and drove southwest through the MacKenzie Basin, a huge glacially-formed area of farmland, rolling hills, mountains, and lakes. It was gorgeous although rainclouds were on our tail the entire time.

On the drive to Kaikoura we spotted a random seal colony. Here's one of the seals chilling out on the rocks:

This is an awesome lake we passed during the drive to Queenstown. The neon blue coloration has something to due with glacial melt, but I don't really understand all that science mumbo-jumbo. It's just pretty. Look:

A little bit past the lake, we came to a turn-off for the Clay Cliffs, a little self-service tourist attraction down a long dirt road. It was a bumpy ride, but worth the view.

Eventually we made our way to Wanaka, our last stop before Queenstown. Wanaka is a little town about forty-five minutes from Queenstown. It's sort of like Queenstown's little brother. Both are primarily tourist towns, both sit on large lakes, and both rest in the shadow of impressive mountains. There's not much to Wanaka, especially compared to Queenstown, but before leaving we decided to check out Puzzling World. We went on a whim, thinking it would just be a silly, touristy sort of place, but it actually ended up being one of the coolest things we've seen so far in New Zealand. Puzzling World is made up of two main halves: a huge outdoor maze, and an indoor "hall of illusions." The hall of illusions is definitely Puzzling World's main selling-point, featuring room after room of crazy optical illusions that really need to be seen in person to be appreciated. It included an "Ames illusion room," which was one of the filming techniques used to make the hobbits look tiny in Lord of the Rings. Alexa already put a picture of that in her blog, so instead I'm going to show off Puzzling World's Roman style toilets:

Nice, yeah? Don't worry. They had real toilets too.

Anyway, from Puzzling World we headed straight to Queenstown. We found an apartment, I got a job, we went paragliding--yeah, we're all caught up now. Fantastic!

Also you may have noticed not one, not two, not three--actually it is three. Three new photo albums on the sidebar to the right! Check them out at your leisure. There's a few good shots in there, I promise.

Lastly, just to avoid falling behind again, I'll fill you in on our Boxing Day exploits. After having a video chat with Christine and family, during which Madison had a great time making faces at the camera and Zach bombarded us with sarcasm, Alexa and I headed into town for our day's adventure activities. First we took an hour-long jetboat ride down the Kawarau and Shotover rivers. It was a lot of fun, but nothing compared to what we did next: white-water rafting on the Shotover river. It was awesome! White-water rafting is one of those things I've wanted to do for the longest time, but never really had the opportunity. We went through several grade 4-5 rapids and finished up going through a 170 meter tunnel. I'd show you, but the maniacs want $39 for a pack of four pictures. Outrageous, eh?

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. Enjoy the pictures and have a great New Year if I don't update before then.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the first country to see the sun each morning! While it's still Christmas Eve in most parts of the world, Christmas is already in full swing here in New Zealand, which means... well, not quite what you'd think, really. It's a much more subdued affair here. Storefronts, streetlamps, and indoor shopping malls have decorations, but most homes don't put on the light displays typical of American suburbia. In some ways it's nice, because you don't have to drive down the street and pass the homes of overzealous rednecks who drove to Wal Mart and bought a dozen three-story-high inflatable snowmen and reindeer to fill the neighborhood with the incessant roar of industrial-strength fans. Not that I have a problem with tasteful decorations, but there's a line that shouldn't be crossed.

I get the impression that Christmas here is more akin to our Thanksgiving in that it's the time for the whole family to get together, consume a boatload of rich food and alcohol, and fall asleep by three in the afternoon. Also, since summer's starting, Christmas barbeques are quite popular. Over the past few days at the grocery store, the Kiwis have been buying immeasurable amounts of charcoal, meat, and alcohol. Oh sweet dancing Jesus, so much alcohol--all I want for Christmas is for one of the customers to randomly invite me to share in this glorious tradition. We're talking shopping carts filled to the brim with Speight's, Mac's, Monteith's, and Tui (the main NZ beers), and whole cases of wine and "bubbly" (champagne). Apart from the odd shopper just in for a few things, I've been ringing up tickets anywhere from $150-$600. Sorry. Forget what I said about Christmas being more subdued here.

My booze-filled fantasies aside, Alexa and I actually have been invited to a Chirstmas barbeque. Our landlady's having one on Saturday. Since we live, oh, about a dozen feet away, we figure we'll probably take up the offer and check it out.

As for today, we're probably going to head downtown and see what Queenstown is up to for Christmas. A touristy, hoppin' town like this is bound to have something going on. Sadly, after three nine-hour days at work staring longingly through the windows at glorious sunlight, it's cloudy, raining, and miserable on my day off. Figures, right? Still, we'll find something to do. At least it's not snow! Later on we're going to have pretty much the fanciest Christmas dinner ever--we bought a whole chicken!

We already exchanged presents this morning. I gave Alexa roughly $5000 worth of lavish jewelry, clothing, lotions, and a week-long vacation to the world's most famous spa in Switzerland. All she gave me was a dirty, used sponge to do the dishes and a sock. It's true. Don't believe whatever she writes in her blog. Seriously.

Anyway, we're going to head downtown. I have the next three days off, so we're probably going to go white-water rafting or river-surfing tomorrow or Saturday, depending on the weather and what's open on Boxing Day (whatever the hell that is). I'll keep you posted!

Merry Christmas or Happy Chonnnjnucka' (Alexa says there's so many ways to spell it, I can spell it however I want, so I thought I'd use four n's and a silent j).

Oh, and happy Kwanzaa, Chad.

That's two shout-outs. You have to pay for the next one.

New Zealand's largest Christmas tree. It's up in Hamilton.

We're in Queenstown! And I am cracked out on caffeine!

Well, we made it to Queenstown, and it is awesome!

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update, so the next few posts are going to be a bit disjointed. Here's the plan, so you can keep it all straight: I'm going to write this post just to talk about our move to Queenstown a bit and what we've been doing the past couple days. The next post is going to be the Tongariro Crossing-dedicated post I promised a couple weeks ago. Finally, there will be a third post (which I will probably not get around to today) that will pick up from Hamilton and take you through the rest of our trip to Queenstown. From then on, my posts will be less postmodernly-nonlinear and more normal.

Here we go:

Two days ago we arrived in beautiful, stunningly-scenic Queenstown. Queenstown is a smallish city near the bottom of the south island. Despite its size, it's quite a bustling place. It's one of the top tourist towns and the adventure capital of New Zealand. Here you can skydive, bungy jump, parasail, white water raft, jet boat, river surf, street-luge down the side of the mountain, paraglide, ski (in the winter), go mountain biking, and pretty much any other insane activity the Kiwis can dream up. It's also a good base for exploring the many national parks that are only two hours' drive, or less, from city center.

Geographically, Queenstown sits on the edge of the massive Lake Wakatipu and is surrounded by the Remarkables, a large mountain range. Yesterday we rode the gondola (a ski-lift but without the skis), up to the Skyline. The Skyline features an impressive (and expensive--$60 for lunch!) buffet restaurant, a large observation deck and viewing center, and also serves as a base for street luging, bungy jumping, and paragliding.

Here's the view of Queenstown from the observation deck. The little orange blip towards the right is a paraglider.


We originally took the gondola up to do some luging. There are two 800 meter tracks, which wind halfway down the mountain through tunnels, over bridges, and around bends. We did each track once, and it was pretty awesome! Here's some other people coming down the track so you get an idea of what it's like:



While we were at the Skyline, we noticed the paragliders. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I managed to convince Alexa to "think about" doing paragliding at some point during our stay in Queenstown. If convincing her to think about it seemed impossible, then what happened next was nothing short of a miracle. We went to the kiosk just to enquire about the price and what the experience was like in case we wanted to come back at some point, but the skilled salesman convinced us to do it that day! That's right, we pretty much jumped off a mountain! Paragliding is basically skydiving, minus the free-fall and from a much lower height. I told Alexa the next natural step is skydiving, but she's not having it, and there probably isn't any convincing her of it.

Here's photographic proof of our paragliding, though:

It was tandem, in case you're wondering who the two insanely-enthusiastic guys are. Apparently they just can't let you jump off a mountain on your own.

Aside from pulling insane stunts like riding luges down the side of and jumping off of mountains, we've been doing the mundane tasks of apartment and job-hunting. Incredibly enough, we've already had some success!

I'm writing this from the comfort of our new studio flat. Our very OWN flat. It's not shared. There is no Ornery and there is no Silly. It's clean and it's comfortable, and we can see the Remarkables from our living room window! We have our OWN kitchen and our OWN bathroom and our OWN everything! The only other person around is the quiet, friendly landlady who lives upstairs. It may not seem like a big deal, but after three months at the Pickled Parrot it's pretty amazing to have our own space. What's even better is that we're not paying much more rent than we were in Wellington, so it's quite a bargain. It also came fully-furnished and included a bunch of sweet kitchen gadgets.

Check it:

On the job front, I applied for a job the day we arrived, interviewed for it yesterday, and I start on Monday. Not too shabby, eh? What's more, the job has 100% less toilet-cleaning than my job at the hotel. What, oh what, could this glamorous job be, you ask? Am I a copy-writer for the local newspaper? Am I an assitant at one of the many extreme-sport kiosks in town? Am I a taxi driver? Did I open my own business? Am I the CEO of a brand new, up-and-coming multinational business?!

I'm afraid not. I'm also afraid I don't know why I included taxi driver in the list of glamorous jobs. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

As of Monday, I'll be a cashier at Fresh Choice, the only grocery store in town. Woooooooooooo!!!

On the upside, I'll have between 40-45 hours a week right from the start, unlike in Wellington where I was barely scraping together 20 hours for the first month and a half, and I'm making a bit more per hour than I was making in Wellington. Plus I get a 5% discount on groceries. Yeah, I know, big whoop. 5% is sales tax in Maryland. Still, I'll be hauling in a lot more money than I was in Wellington so we can live a bit more extravagantly. Last night, for instance, I cooked actual food--chicken parmesean--instead of some combination of gross meat, pasta, and frozen vegetables. We even bought wine and beer. Oooh. Ahhh. Having our own fridge where we don't have to worry about Orneries and Sillies stealing our food is a plus too.

Alexa's prospects are looking good as well, as she's landed an interview at a nannying agency on Monday.

Anyway, Alexa is growing bored with my blog-writing and wants to go out and find the Remarkables Shopping Center, so I'd best be on my way. For now, enjoy all the sweet pictures. I was quite generous with pictures for this post, eh? It probably has something to do with the metric shit ton of coffee I drank this morning. Enthralled by the shiny new coffee press in our flat, I filled it to the brim and consumed enough caffeine for about ten people. Weeeeeeeee!

Greetings from Hamilton!

It's raining, it's pouring, Alexa is snoring... well, not really, but she is taking a nap, and it really is raining here in Hamilton. We're in Hamilton, New Zealand's largest inland city (Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch are all on the coast). It wasn't a part of our planned travel itinerary, but we changed our plans around quite a bit and saw some pretty interesting things.

On Friday we left Wellington as planned and drove to Turangi, a small town bordering Tongariro National Park. The drive was absolutely beautiful. It's the same drive we made before when we first came down to Wellington from Rotorua, except this time it wasn't rainy, cloudy, and miserable. Oh, what a difference the weather can make. Last time it had been so foggy we didn't even realize that Mount Ruapehu was in sight.

We spent the night at a holiday park. The next morning we woke at 5:20 to be on a shuttle by 6:30 and we were at the beginning of the Tongariro Crossing a little after 7. For the next 9 hours we hiked the 18.5 km trail (with a few necessary breaks). It started with a scenic jaunt through a barren desert littered with massive chunks of volcanic debris, followed by a grueling series of climbs up Mt. Tongariro: the Devil's Staircase, a 45-minute hike up to the brim of an ancient crater; the climb up red crater, a hazardous journey up a path of scree (loose rock and volcanic ash that slips away under your feet) with a plummeting death only 2-3 meters away on either side; and lastly the optional side-track (an extra 3 km added to the 18.5) up to the snow-capped summit of Mt. Tongariro. Alexa opted out of the final ascent, but I hiked up through the snow to the very top. By that time some low clouds had settled over the area. It was completely surreal. I could only see the rocky outcroppings and patches of snow 4-5 meters around me. Beyond that, I was inside a cloud and cut off from the world. Completely still and completely silent.

After the summit we began our descent. At some point along the way Alexa mysteriously injured her ankle. She can't pinpoint the exact moment it started hurting, but the last two hours of the hike were pretty miserable for her, unfortunately.

Once we've settled in some place where I'll have more internet time I'm going to devote an entire blog post to the crossing, complete with beautiful pictures and a play-by-play (rock-by-rock, maybe?) account of the hike. For now, just know that it was awesome.

Back at the holiday park we soaked our feet in the spa--I had a blister thicker than Angelina Jolie's lower lip!--and changed our plans for the next few days. Originally Sunday would've been the day I went skydiving, but we decided to head up to the Coromandel Peninsula instead. There are many scenic beaches and parks on the peninsula that are best seen during the summer, and as we're headed to the south island for the next six months, this is our only chance. Skydiving I can do pretty much anywhere, and I'll probably end up doing so in Nelson with Abel Tasman National Park as my in-flight scenary.

So on Sunday we drove to a holiday park near Hahei, a small coastal town on the peninsula. Along the way we went Zorbing in Rotorua. Basically you climb into a human-sized hamster ball filled with water and roll down a massive hill. It's as insane as it sounds, but it's great fun.

The drive to Hahei was also beautiful although a bit hairy at times. Several sections of the road were marked by signs with squiggly lines for "Next 7 km." They might as well have just put one sign that said "The whole damn highway is like this" and saved themselves the trouble. Crazy turns around sharp bends past steep valleys with no guard rails, and of course the local Kiwis are zipping by at 80-100 kph without care. It makes the roads in Ireland look tame.

Still, we made it up to Hahei without incident. Overnight rain came, and on Tuesday we found that the beautiful, sunny weather we'd been expecting had turned to clouds. Despite this we went to a couple beaches. First we went to Hot Water Beach, a beach famous for its natural subterranean geothermal springs. Supposedly you can dig into the sand at a certain section of the beach and hot water will come bubbling up from the ground. Maybe the springs were broken Monday, because out of the thirty or so eager tourists with shovels, not a single one of us dug up any hot water. I hit some that might've qualified as lukewarm compared to the stuff rolling in on the surf, but certainly no hot water. Hot Water Beach was also home to some tremendous jelly fish. I'm not sure if they were man-of-wars, but they were varying shades of maroon, pink, and purple, and some were larger than dinner plates. Needless to say we didn't go for a swim at Hot Water Beach.

Disappointed but not discouraged, we then headed to Cathedral Cove, a beach known for its enormous limestone formations. I really need more synonyms for beautiful, or maybe the ability to upload photos. I don't want to keep repeating myself.

Here's something different: beech wuz very pwetty lol :)

I swam for a while, even though the water was pretty damn cold. I wasn't alone in my craziness, though. A handful of high schoolers were standing, shivering, in waist-deep water and shrieking with great surprise each and every time a wave crashed against them every five seconds.

It was only a little past noon when we left Cathedral Cove. We had planned on spending our whole day at the beaches, but the weather didn't agree with that. Instead of spending another night near Hahei, we headed down off the peninsula to Hamilton. It's another rainy day, but we were able to do a bit of exploring. Hamilton has a few points of interest. Not only is it New Zealand's largest inland city, but it also has New Zealand's largest (fake) Christmas tree!!! Oooh. Ahhh. It also has an indoor mall that could fit in perfectly in just about any mid-sized US city, complete with a seasonal calendar shop and a mall Santa. Weird. The only differences are the store chains and the food court selections (sushi, curry, and kebabs instead of Cholesterol King and McObese). The rain let up for a couple hours today and we headed to Hamilton Zoo. Tonight we might check out the indoor waterpark just outside of town.

Tomorrow morning we're headed south to Waitomo Caves for our black water rafting adventure, and then we're headed further south still to Taumaranui where we'll leave for our two-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River before returning to Wellington for the weekend. On Sunday we catch the ferry to the south island.

Anyway, I guess that's enough about all the awesome things we've been doing for now. You'd better quit reading this and get back to your jobs. Hahahahahaha!

It's okay. I'll be picking fruit, cleaning rooms, or doing whatever other menial tasks I can for money in a few weeks. Just let me get my cheap shots in while I can.

Pictures will come as soon as I get a chance!

This is a very long entry

Happy Thanksgiving! Well, not so much for you, my readers, since you are not fortunate enough to live in the future like Alexa and I do.

They don't actually celebrate Thanksgiving here, though. I suppose the Kiwis are an ungrateful bunch, huh? Kind of like you guys. Yeah, that's right. I spend hours meticuously slaving over each post on this beautiful blog, and yet weeks and weeks go by without any appreciative comments from my readers. It kills me.

So, what am I thankful for this Thanksgiving, you ask? I'm thankful to be sitting in our new room. Yep. We moved! ...about three buildings over, to another unit in the same lodge. Ha ha. It may seem like a pointless move since we're leaving Wellington in eight days anyway, but it had to be done. An already bad situation boiled over and reached crisis point, and we realized we needed out of the building we'd been in.

For some background information, allow me to introduce Ornery (all names have been changed to protect the innocent… or something). Ornery, along with his wife Silly, was one of the other inhabitants of our building. Ornery and Silly are pretty much the most worthless people on earth--including dead people interred in the earth, because at least they're fertilizing grass in cemeteries.

Ornery is twenty six, Silly's a little younger, and they have three kids, no jobs, and a passionate affection for drugs and alcohol. The kids live with their grandparents during the week and only visit on the weekends. This is actually a good thing, though, since Ornery and Silly aren't fit to raise a bowl of sea monkeys, let alone three young children. But because they aren't burdened by the daily tasks most often associated with child rearing, a typical day in the life of this magnificent couple involves: waking up in the afternoon, getting high and/or drunk multiple times, playing loud music, making the kitchen filthy, and having at least one (but probably more) dramatic shouting matches. But Eoin, you ask, how do these lovely fellows afford rent, food, drugs, and alcohol if they don't have jobs? The answer is simple: welfare! Every week a neat little slice of the taxpayers' money gets sectioned off and sent to the dynamic duo.

Being the terrible people we are, Alexa and I would often call the landlord to complain about, well... take your pick: loud screaming, loud music at absurd hours, pot smoke, living in filth. Now, our landlord is a good guy. He tends to get things done. He just recently acquired these buildings, and he's been doing a number of renovations to improve their condition. He works quickly, too. One day the TV in our unit stopped working, and it was replaced in a matter of hours. Yet, for some reason, we have heard the phrase "This is Ornery's last chance" at least seven point three million times. That's an awful lot of "last" chances.

Recently we found out the happy couple enjoy reduced rent in exchange for cleaning the common areas in the unit: lounge, kitchen, and bathroom. This would be fine, except--wait for it--they don't clean anything! Shocker, right? Two weeks ago we heard another "This is Ornery's last chance," in the form of the landlord telling us he was going to have a friend who runs a professional cleaning business come in to handle the common areas from now on. If you're a smart reader, as I'm sure you are, I don't think I need to tell you what happened next. But just in case Chad's reading this, I'll go ahead and tell you anyway: nothing happened. Ornery was still in charge of cleaning and nothing got cleaned.

Occasionally, and I mean occasionally, they vacuumed and took out the rubbish. Ornery would piss and moan about people leaving empty toilet paper rolls in the bathroom because he had to pick them up. At some point he left a passive-aggressive note saying "Throw out toilet paper rolls when finished using!" Later on, in his renewed frustration (Alexa and I complained again and he had to pick up more toilet paper rolls, gasp!), he added, "stop being lazy!" to the note.

This was too much. Perhaps he was being ironic, but it's more likely that Ornery was just unaware of his own laziness. So I thought I'd help him out. After coming home from the bar where I'd had my first drop of beer in two months(saving money is a bitch), I peed, saw the sign, thought "ha ha I am going to write on this," and wrote: You stop being lazy and start cleaning the toilets properly since you get reduced rent to do so.

Whoops!

The next morning a shit storm rolled through the unit. Shortly after I'd gotten out of the shower and was preparing for work--so this was around seven in the morning mind you--Ornery was out of bed and raging around the building. The first thing I heard him say was "fucking Americans," after coming out of the bathroom, and then he started pounding on doors and demanding to know who wrote the note. At first he seemed set on the idea that Happy (another inhabitant, who, quickly summed up is a mildly-retarded-due-to-braincell-loss, but otherwise perfectly nice, alcoholic woman who got me the hotel job) had written it and proceeded to call her virtually every obscenity imaginable and threatened to smash her face in. He pounded on our door too, but I didn't answer. When I left for work he was off sulking somewhere else.

As I headed for the bus stop, however, Alexa called me and said that Ornery had just tried to break into our room. Apparently he knocked. When that didn't work, he tried the door knob. Quite rudely I had locked the door since Alexa was still sleeping and he found that it wouldn't open. So, like any reasonable person would do, Ornery slammed his massive 250+ pounds of lard into the door--twice!--in an attempt to break in.

Alexa called the landlord and by the time I was home from work, a new room was ready for us to move into. I suppose our landlord must've felt this particular outburst demanded an explanation about all the supposed "last chances," because he told us the following: he can't just kick Ornery out because of the kids, and because Ornery is losing his welfare. Apparently WINZ (welfare people) check into who actually needs welfare so it doesn't get abused, and unfortunately "being a fat, lazy fuckwit" isn't on the list of qualifiers. This still doesn't make sense to me, since the kids live with the grandparents and are much better off for it--when the kids are around, Ornery constantly screams obscenities at them. I've heard him call the one-year-old a mother fucker several times. Lovely, that. Rumor has it he's been in jail for beating Silly. He does, at least, have a parole officer. All I know is that if I was in our landlord's shoes, Ornery would've been on the curb a long, long time ago.

The funniest thing about Ornery and Silly is something Silly said to me a couple days after we first met. We were discussing our backgrounds, and Ornery mentioned that they were half-Maori. Silly said, "It's embarrassing to be Maori, though, because other Maori are on welfare and don't have jobs and get arrested all the time." Come on, Silly. That just had to be tongue-in-cheek. If anything, the other Maori are embarrassed of those two.

Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with them being Maori, and I'm making no racial assertions. In writing this, I don't mean offense to anyone--except Ornery and Silly, and I'd be surprised if even they knew how to use a computer. Also, they can get bent.

So that's that. It's for the best, I suppose. This unit is much, much nicer. It's a bit more crowded as its a two-story building, but the people are all nice, polite, tidy, and--best of all--quiet. It's a shame we didn't move sooner. About four weeks ago we were offered this room, but we said no because we thought it'd be silly to move to a new room so close to leaving Wellington. And yet here we are only eight days away from leaving the city. Ha ha, oh well. It didn't take much time to move our meager possessions.

Whew!

In other news, I recently reconnected with my cousin (on my dad's side) Megan. She lives here in Wellington with boyfriend Jeremy, and we met up with them at a bar for quiz night. It was fun, despite us coming in 4th place out of 5. They were also gracious enough to invite us for Thanksgiving dinner at their place this Sunday, and we'll be heading over for that as well. Even a kajillion miles from home, I'll still be having Thanksgiving dinner with family, so that ought to be nice.

And you might want to congratulate me... because I finished my NaNoWriMo novel today! But Still We Carry On is 51,976 words (or 186 pages) long, written by yours truly, and those are all the details you're getting because it's a huge, steaming literary turd. I'm actually embarrassed to publicly display even the title. Yuck. Maybe someday I'll try to edit it, or maybe not. But either way it's there, and I managed to write over 50,000 semi-coherent words in a month.

As you know from Alexa's last blog, or the one before it maybe, we went and checked out the Weta studios, home to all of Peter Jackson's special effects/make up/costumer/everything gurus. The studios aren't open for touring, but they did have a little room with a few props and other odds and ends, as well as a brief behind-the-scenes film to watch. It was little more than a glorified gift shop, but worth a visit nonetheless. We managed to take these pictures to satiate my mom's constant demand for more pictures of us. Check it:

UGH! Just kidding, the internet is being really slow right now. I'll upload the pictures when I get a chance.


This past weekend we finally made it to the Embassy Theater, the cinema where Return of the Kind premiered. It was my first time in a premiere-worthy theater, and it was insane. Basically it was a huge, fancy opera-house type theater, complete with curtains! But instead of actors on a stage when the curtains opened, it was an enormous screen. The chairs were also quite plushy (although this seems to be a standard in New Zealand), and the chairs had the names of different actors on them. Some old guy in front of us had Liv Tyler's seats! The names on our seats weren't any that we recognized, unfortunately. In New Zealand seats are assigned in a movie theater, like when you go to a play or a sporting event. Your minds are blown, I know.

That's all for now, as I'm off to one of my last nights at Domino's. Seven more to go! I'll try to update again before we hit the road, and I'm not sure about roving updates. I may be out of touch until we arrive in Queenstown.

Good-bye Welly, it's been nice. Hope you find your paradise.

I wish I didn't have to wear pants to work.

...or, to phrase that in a way that doesn't make me sound like a pervert, I wish I could wear shorts to work instead of pants. The weather's been very nice and warm lately. Then again, maybe pants are best for the hotel job--less exposed skin means less exposed skin being splashed with poop water.

Speaking of the hotel, an odd thing happened the other day. As part of my job cleaning the bathrooms, I have to fold the end of each toilet paper roll into an intricate triangle. Obviously the reason for this is to make the guests think, "Oh! This must be a nice hotel. They can afford to pay someone to make toilet paper origami!"

In the morning when I first went into the ladies room by the conference areas, all the toilet paper rolls were still folded from the day before. Mysteriously enough, there was also toilet paper in the toilets. So either A) the guests are bringing their own toilet paper or B) the guests are making their own toilet paper origami. I'm not sure which would be stranger.

Moving on to more exciting news, Alexa and I are planning on leaving Wellington in less than three weeks! It's a little bit sad, because I think Wellington is a really great city. But soon three months will be up, we'll be 1/4 of the way through our time in this lovely country, and there's still so much to see! Our next stop is Queenstown, a town near the bottom of the south island. Our trip won't be a direct one, however. We're going to spend close to two weeks getting there. The trip will take us on a loop up and around the north island before returning to Wellington to catch a ferry south.

As we've tenatively planned it, our action-packed trip is going to include: The Tongariro Crossing, one of the best day-hikes in the world; skydiving in Taupo (this one's just for me. Apparently Alexa has enough sense to not throw herself out of a plane); Orakei Korako Thermal Park; pretending to be human-sized hamsters and Zorbing in Rotorua; going black-water rafting with the glow worms in Waitomo Caves; and taking a two-day paddle down the famous Whanganui River! Just look at all those links! You're going to be busy for hours.

The ferry ride itself is supposed to be one of the most scenic ferry rides in the world, providing it's a fair day. Really, a lot of what we have planned could easily be wrecked by bad weather. Knock on wood.

Once we're off the ferry we'll break up the 11-hour drive to Queenstown into three chunks: Picton to Christchurch, Christchurch to Dunedin, and Dunedin to Queenstown. Once we're there, we'll restart the wild and wacky job hunting game. I'm already corresponding with two possible jobs in Queenstown: one at Subway, because apparently it is my desinty to travel the country working at American fast food places. The other is a resort hotel that would take both Alexa and myself, and would pay us in free accomodation and food for 4 hours work per day. Any work in excess of that would be paid in cash. They need kitchen, waiting, and bar staff in addition to housekeeping, so if we end up going with the hotel, I will do everything my power to not be a housekeeper again. Bartending sounds more up my alley. Hell, even reliving my high school dishwasher days in the kitchen would be preferable.

So that's that. Sometime this week we're going to put in our two weeks' notices at our jobs, the following week we'll give notice to our landlord, and with any luck we'll be on the road December 4th.

Not too much else has happened since my last post. As you may have read in Alexa's blog, last Sunday we went to Somes Island, an island in the harbor. We took a longer ferry ride that made a number of stops in different parts of Wellington, but it was a nice day for the ride. Somes is known for its population of little blue penguins and tuatara. Unfortunately it was nesting season for the penguins, so they were nowhere to be seen. And, as always, the tuatara remained elusive. I'm starting to think they don't exist. We did get to see a ton of skinks, though, as well as a few red-headed parakeets. There were also a pair of insane ducks that made the most terrible honking noise, and the male kept charging at the female and biting her neck, then running away. Crazy. We also got a look at a few old prison buildings, because the island was originally used to intern Italians, Germans, and Japanese during the World Wars.

On the bright side, I finally got the view of Wellington that I've been trying to get since we first moved here. Remember my first blog post about Wellington, when I said I would try to get a picture of the entirety of Wellington's city center, complete with the harbor in the foreground and mountains in the background? Here it is:

Also, the island claimed to be mammal-free, but we found sheep. This picture was pretty hard to get. That lamb was not as camera-friendly as he looks in this picture.

Here's a lighthouse on the island. In the background is greater Wellington.

Lastly, my mom is always complaining about how there aren't enough pictures of me and Alexa on our blogs. This isn't quite a picture of us, but it's the next best thing: a picture of me holding a dead weta!

That's all for now, but there's a bunch of other pictures from Somes Island in the new link to the right, Album 3: Even More Wellington. Enjoy!

A Real Update

I have a confession to make to you, my faithful readers. It is with a heavy heart that I must admit to an act of simple deception. Remember the carnival and fireworks from the last post? They weren't in celebration of Obama's victory. They were for Guy Fawkes Day, an incredibly insane holiday where people shoot fireworks off and party. It's kinda' like the Fourth of July, except we know why we celebrate the Fourth of July--it's the day our forefathers declared independence from England and set off down the path to becoming a great nation.

Guy Fawkes Day, on the other hand, is the day a man by the name of Guy Fawkes tried (and failed) to blow up parliament in London. It's also celebrated in the UK, and I think they have it in Australia and Canada as well. But why do they celebrate the day some dude tried to symbolically destroy the English government? No one's been able to give me a solid answer, but I suspect it's just an excuse to get drunk and blow shit up.

That works for me, I guess.

Anyway, even though the celebration wasn't in Obama's honor, the Kiwis are quite happy about his election. Literally every person I talk to who recognizes my American accent asks me if I'm happy about Obama winning, and then proceeds to tell me how happy about it they are too.

And that works for me as well.

Life has been fairly quiet since my last real update. Last Sunday, Alexa and I did see a street performer who combined silly tricks with fire juggling, sword swallowing, and escape artistry with strange and crude jokes to create a pretty amazing show. We had seen part of his act on Labour Monday, but had to leave early on because we were meeting people for lunch.

Also, as I mentioned last time, I worked a few FIFA games at the stadium, and I discovered that FIFA stands for the "Federation of International Football ANAL RETENTIVES!"

Seriously, they were nuts. Coke is one of their sponsors, so they had all these crazy rules about how nothing could be advertised if it wasn't owned by Coke. Changes ranged from the small, such as having to pour beers into cups since we couldn't give the fans labeled bottles, to the large, such as blanketing the gigantic WestPac (bank that sponsors the stadium) sign on the outside of the stadium, to the utterly ridiculous, such as covering up the manufacturer names on our cash registers, the walk-in freezer door, and the various machines that keep food hot. Because, you know, McAllister's Refrigeration INC is a direct competitor to Coca-Cola, and if our fans were to see the teeny label in the back of our kitchen, they would immediately think, "Shit! I was thirsty for some Coke, but now I'm going to leave the game and go buy a giant walk-in fridge for my home instead!"

Thank god for business people.

Also, I've been doing some writing, using the word "writing" very loosely. November is National Novel Writing Month. It's just an online thing where participants try their hardest to write 50,000 words (roughly 200 pages double spaced) in a month. You "win" if you make it to 50,000 by November 30th, but there really aren't any prizes involved in winning. I'm not sure if there's a real point to it, other than to encourage people to produce 50,000-word-long heaps of doo doo. What else can you expect when you're writing so quickly and not editing? It's the method the big bad Woolfe used when writing Mrs. Dalloway, after all, and look how that turned out (oooh, sick burn). At any rate, my heap of doo doo is currently 11,130 words long. Last time I tried, in 2006, I only made it to about 7,000 before I quit. So my doo doo making skills have improved!

When not busy making doo doo, I've been working a lot more. For the past four weeks, I've had over thirty hours every week, which means I've been saving more money for fun things, like...

Whoops! Speaking of work, I had really better be getting ready to go to Domino's. There are hungry Wellingtonians who want pizza to go with their Friday night raging, and I'm the only one who can help them!

Here, McCain. What's this? It's Your Ass Being Handed to You, Sir.

YES! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! YES!YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

YES!


Okay, I'm finished.

But seriously. What an awesome day. I spent about four hours fervently watching the AOLnews and MSNBC websites (a life, what's that?). Mostly waiting and growing increasingly hopeful as Obama gobbled up electoral votes and McCain stagnated.

At some point, I think about ten minutes before the west coast closed their polling centers, my buddy Amos said to me, "Some website says they're going to call in it ten minutes. Obama won."

I thought, "Bullshit. The west coast hasn't even finished polling yet! How could they call something so soon after what happened in 2000?" I was getting anxious because I had to go to work soon, and I wanted to see how Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida were going to end up, since they were so incredibly close (by the way, how awesome is it that Obama got Florida and Virginia?).

But, low and behold, ten minutes later, CNN declared it: Obama wins. MSNBC followed up a few minutes later with, "Obama Wins! First African American President!" accompanied by a really cheesy photograph of a black family with American flags.

I had to go to work right after that, but I remained cautiously optimistic. It's not like the networks hadn't dropped the ball before--uh, didn't Gore win that election in 2000? Wait, what? After I was at work two hours, though, Alexa texted me with the final news "O won. m concedes!"

Even the Kiwis were super excited. I was texting Alexa during my website monitoring, and she informed all her coworkers of how Obama was doing. And tonight they even threw a festival in his honor to celebrate! There was a band, a carnival, and some sweet fireworks down at the waterfront. Check it out:

Pretty sweet, eh?

Reading about different states' ballot initiatives was interesting too. I haven't had a chance to see the final results, but it looked like Massachusettes legalized pot (sort of), Maryland legalized video slots (right???), and a handful of states managed to continue keeping the gays from getting married. Congratulations, guys. It warms my heart to see that even in the face of war, our troubled environment, and economic disaster, there are still people bigoted enough to care about whether two dudes get married. Also, nice job putting a stop to stem cell research. Grow new organs, cure cancer, who wants any of that shit? Phew!

Anyway, to those of you who supported Obama: High five! To those of you who didn't, I'm sorry. If you were just mildly opposed to Obama and, really, were just voting along with your party for the sake of it, don't worry. Just be open-minded, sit back, and wait. Things will get better soon, and you will be bewildered when you realize just how appalling the past eight years have been.

On the other hand, if you were truly, passionately opposed to Obama... well, that's too bad for you, I guess. But I know how tough it is. When Kerry conceded to Bush I was inconsolably pissed off. I couldn't believe that Bush had, somehow, made it into the White House again. It's not a good feeling, thinking that your country is heading in a direction opposite your values. But just try to keep an open mind, and support Obama as your new president. The country needs unity, not more division, yeah?

Some brief other news (I'll post a proper update soon): as of yesterday it's been two months since we arrived in New Zealand. Crazy! No regrets yet, except that I brought Alexa with me (ha ha)!

Also, uh... I worked a couple FIFA World Cup games. The Women's Under-17 division. Why didn't I see you on the field, Zach?

This post has four pictures. Can you handle it?!

In a little over a week from today, we'll know whether or not I'm going to spend the next four years in the United States. That's right. I've decided that if the McCain/Palin comedy duo are elected, I'm moving to a country where the leader knows how to pronounce "nuclear."

It's nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. If Ron Paul had come out on top for the Republicans, I might've voted for him over Obama. I just can't even think about living in a country run by McCain and Palin, because doing so would mean that a majority of my fellow Americans are certifiably insane. Seriously. The only thing more insane than McCain picking Palin as his running mate is the fact that there are people who are actually going to wake up, crawl out of bed, go to their local election center, and tick the box for McCain/Palin--without even being drunk!

So make the right choice on November 4th. Not that I'm too worried: most of my readers live in Maryland and New York, so even if some temporary lapse of judgment allows you to vote incorrectly, it won't matter because Obama already owns those states--as well as all the battleground states, for that matter, and some traditionally-red states too, ha hee ha! Gee, anyone think that somewhere in his feeble, cobweb-ridden old head, McCain is finally entertaining the thought, "Hmmm.... maybe picking the crazy chick from Alaska wasn't what my campaign needed?"

Anyway, I know my compelling and intellectually-stimulating political commentary isn't what makes you check this site every ten minutes. You come here to read about me cleaning toilets and getting rained on. So, without further ado, let's move on to the main event.

Today I cleaned a record number of toilets. After finishing public areas, I helped do rooms at the hotel, and the other housekeepers decided that my skills would be best put to use in the bathrooms. Oh my sweet, joyous life. Taking the "glass is half full" point of view, I have at least been working close to thirty hours every week, so now I'm able to actually start saving some money. That's a plus.

In other exciting news, yesterday was Labour Monday here in New Zealand (the equivilent of Labor Day in the states). I had off from the hotel, but had to work at Domino's. According to the law, I am legally entitled to time and a half for my Labour Monday shift at Domino's, as well as pay for my day off from the hotel! Domino's is really sketchy, though, so we'll see if I actually get it, and the hotel flat out told me I wouldn't be paid for the two hour shift I would've worked that day. I'm disregarding that and putting it on my timesheet anyway. Sure, it's only two hours' pay, but I hate the very core of the hotel's being and don't care if they fire me.

Also, this Friday is Halloween! According to someone Alexa works with, Halloween only came to New Zealand about ten years ago, and it's really just for kids here. It's also not as commercialized as it is in the States. You have to actively go out and try to find Halloween-themed items, such as costumes or candy, and there don't seem to be any decorations anywhere. Not a single Jack-O-Lantern. :( I work Friday anyway, so I'll find out whether or not Halloween really is just for kids here, because if there are any drunk, costumed twenty-somethings, they most certainly will find their way to Domino's.

On the touristy, fun side of things, Alexa and I went to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. It's a good-sized wildlife sanctuary on the outskirts of Wellington City. It's special because it's the first urban wildlife sanctuary in the whole world. It might also be the largest. Or maybe just the first. I can't remember exactly what the sign said. Largest, first, best, most super duper--who gives a shit? If you want to know that badly, the real answer is only a quick visit to Wikipedia away.

The sanctuary is surrounded by a special type of fence designed by New Zealand environmentalists. It has different features to keep out different types of invasive pests--basically any animal not native to New Zealand. This is especially important, because prior to human arrival, the only land mammals in New Zealand were bats. New Zealand is one of the most recently-inhabited land mass in the entire world. Researchers estimate that the Maori only arrived between 800-1200 years ago. Indigenous peoples have been on the North American continent for at least 12,000 years, to put that in perspective. So, without any natural predators, some odd creatures evolved in New Zealand, such as many, many species of flightless birsd. Settlers, Maori and European alike, introduced rats, dogs, cats, possums, deer, etc. Most of the flightless birds became extinct. A few, like the kiwi and weka--a little duck-like bird--survived, though, and are on the endangered/protected list. The Karori sanctuary is about fifty years old, and is part of a five hundred year project to restore the area to the way it was before humans, and their non-indigenous plants and animals, arrived.

So, getting back to the point (because there is a point to all this animal blah blah blah), the environmentalists designed special fences. They are tall to keep out jumping animals, go underground to block burrowing animals, have overhangs to block climbing animals, and the gaps in the fence are narrow, to keep out little animals that might try to squeeze through. See:

We didn't actually see any kiwis or wekas. Kiwis are nocturnal and very adept at locating and avoiding humans, so the pair we saw at the Zoo will probably be the only we see in New Zealand. We did, however, get a really good look at a bunch of kakas and tui. Kakas are a species of parrot native to New Zealand, and are not to be confused with caca, which is Spanish for poop. Tui are very prevalent in New Zealand, and they have a very distinctive call. When I get around to it, I'll upload a video to YouTube so you can all hear them in action.

Karori Wildlife Sanctuary was also the site of several gold mines during the gold rush, an artificial lake, and a dam that was quickly put out of use once scientists realized it was built almost directly over the Wellington fault line. Whoops! We went inside of an old gold mine, where we saw a cave weta (a creepy bug native to New Zealand and dating back to dinosaur times). We also hiked up to the dam, which was pretty scenic.

Our next adventure will be Somme's Island, a nature reserve in the form of an island in the harbor, which is home to tuatara (the really, really old lizards that lived side-by-side with dinosaurs) and penguins! We're planning on going next weekend, weather permitting.

In the meantime, here are some pictures:

Here's a picture of a kaka on a bird feeder. If you want a picture of caca on a bird feeder, you'll have to find that on your own.

The dam:

Just a pretty view:

You can check out more pictures from the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary by clicking on Album Two on the sidebar to the right.

Mission Accomplished!

On my third attempt, I finally did it! Did I get a job that will give me more than 20 hours a week? Nope! Did I find a flat where the other tenants aren't pigs? Nope! Did I cure AIDS? Certainly not!

But I did, after somewhere over an hour of not-quite-aimless but not-quite-purposeful wanderings through the forests of Mt. Victoria, manage to find one of the Lord of the Rings filming locations!

After getting a rough idea of where I was heading from good old Google Earth (including a few pictures of what the area was supposed to look like), I set off on my journey. After about fifteen minutes of walking, I came to this map and used it to figure out which way I should walk:

Keep that image in mind. There's something incredibly ironic about it, but we'll get to that later. I spent the next three quarters of an hour wandering through the forest. Eventually I came to an area Alexa and I had been to earlier, on the day we hiked up to the Mt. Vic overlook. I decided to head in the opposite direction from our last hike, and it eventually lead me to a little signpost that said "Lord of the Rings Filming Location" and had an arrow pointing in a vague direction. Sure enough, it lead to the right spot.

Are you guys ready for this little piece of Hollywood history? It's pretty exciting and intense. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here it is:

Ooooh. Ahhhh. ....yeah, I know. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Elijah Wood didn't even spraypaint "Frodo wuz heer!" or anything. What a jerk.

Anyway, hard to tell from this picture, but the area in the center (where the sunlight is most concentrated) is a shallow alcove. It's the place where the four hobbits jumped off the road and crouched in the shelter of a massive tree's roots to hide from the Nazghul in Fellowship of the Ring. Apparently the tree was an artificial set piece/computer generated, so it's not there.

Once I was sure that was the right spot, I continued along the trail and shortly came upon the very first map (from the picture above) where I'd started. This time I noticed something I hadn't the first time. Scroll up to the picture. See the little, two-foot-tall signpost in the foreground? Guess what it says. Yep. "Lord of the Rings Filming Location." So I probably could've saved myself a good deal of wandering if I'd noticed the sign. Maybe that's where Alexa would've come in handy?

Now that I've wasted all that time talking about an over-rated patch of dirt, I'll give you a few general updates:

The weather has been uncannily fantastic for the past week. It only rained once! Alexa and I took advantage of this and checked out the Botanic Gardens. Yes, for a third time. I'm pretty sure we've seen just about everything there, though, so we probably won't go back for a while. We also took one of the free tours of the parliament buildings. I know that doesn't sound like a very exciting thing to do, but it was actually pretty interesting. We learned a bit about how New Zealand's government works. Unlike the corrupt, broken-beyond-a-grain-of-hope pile of shit we have in the US, the New Zealand government still cares enough to take their citizens' opinions into account (what a novel idea). Whenever a new bill is being discussed, the bill is advertised in the newspaper. The general public are allowed to write in a request to attend a council meeting about the proposed bill. Each and every Kiwi that sends in a request is allowed to attend, and they're all given a turn to voice their opinion to the government officials involved (house members, cabinet ministers, the prime minister; so it'd be like the average US citizen being able to talk to Bush, his cabinet, and the senators) without fear of intimidation, or being interrupted, or any other sort of rudeness. The only requirement is that they return the courtesy shown to them--anyone who interrupts or speaks out of turn will be removed from the premises and banned for six months. Of course, New Zealand's small population (four million) gives them an advantage, but I still think it's pretty cool.

In other news, I'm in the process of finding a way to quit my job at the hotel. I signed a contract saying I wouldn't write about my job at the hotel, so we're going to play a game. The game is called Pretend Eoin Works At an Imaginary Hotel. Here's how you play. I'm going to talk about imaginary, hypothetical things that might take place at an imaginary, hypothetical hotel. Your part of the game is simple: just think about how horribly gross it would be if these imaginary things were true (because, who knows, somewhere in the world they might be. Wink wink.)

At this imaginary hotel, which is not by any means a dump--they have nice rooms, nice beds, and charge a good deal--they may or may not lack standards when it comes to cleaning the rooms. Most of the imaginary rooms come with an electric kettle, tea, coffee, and mugs. Some more expensive rooms also have imaginary plates, knives, and glasses. Most people would think it makes sense to properly clean these dishes after they've been used--you know, with water and soap and all that--but not in imaginary land! In imaginary land, the dishes are "cleaned" by running them under water for a few minutes until there's no longer any visible dirt, and then put back for the next guests to use. Hopefully there's no bacteria in this imaginary world.

In the imaginary hotel, sheets are washed after each guest. You might think it would make sense to wash the comforter, or at the very least the smaller blanket, but you'd be wrong. In the imaginary hotel, the blankets and comforters are never laundered. I could go on, but I'm sure you can imagine it for yourselves.

At any rate, I have an interview tomorrow morning at Cafe Maranui. It's a popular cafe right on the beach in Lyall Bay (another suburb of Wellington, where cast members of Lord of the Rings surfed/learned how to surf during their down time--what the hell is with this entry and Lord of the Rings?). I also put in an application at a New World (grocery chain in New Zealand), plus I received a phone call from The Warehouse, another New Zealand chain I applied to back in September. One way or another I should be able to quit the job at the hotel in the immediate future, two weeks' notice be damned.

I think that's about everything for now. You may have already noticed, but I added links to my online photo albums to the right. Right above the link to Alexa's blog. The first album contains Auckland, Rotorua, and a little bit of Wellington, including the Zoo. The second album is all new, though. It includes the Botanic Gardens, parliament, and many pictures of the city in general. Go check it out!

I'll leave you with this parting advice from an old friend of mine: Confucious say, "Man who stay in imaginary hotel wake up with real herpes."

Amen.

All About New Zealand, Part 1

This post is going to be part of a new, on-going feature of my blog called All About New Zealand. As the title implies, these posts are going to focus on all the different aspects of life here in New Zealand, rather than focusing on me and the things I do. As I learn more, more will be added, and by the end of the year we'll all be New Zealand experts... or something.

Before I get into that, though, I feel I should at least touch on my job at the hotel. Right now it involves a little over two hours of work a day, cleaning the public areas and doing "spring cleaning." Public areas include five bathrooms (two male, two female, and one staff), the mirrors in the elevators, vacuuming the lobby, and emptying a few trash bins. Spring cleaning varies. Yesterday I learned all about the joy of "wall skirtings," which are little ledges at the bottom of walls. From what I can tell, they were engineered for the sole purpose of gathering dust, and they do their job quite well. Today I had the pleasure of polishing the elevator. The cleaner I used was some foul-smelling stuff in an aerosol can that said, "USE ONLY IN WELL VENTILATED AREAS." I don't know about you guys, but I can't think of any area more ventilated than a cramped elevator, so that's great!

Fortunately, I haven't encountered any poop-smeared walls or hooker bodies. Phew. But I was treated to a rather gross look at hotel sanitation. The same sponges and towels are used for the following: toilet rims, toilet lids, toilet handles, sinks, faucets, and door handles. Yeeeepppp. If that's not horrifyingly disgusting, I don't know what is. I also went out and bought my own latex gloves today, since my supervisor was kind enough to inform me that they don't have any.

Anyway, on to the feature presentation:

All About New Zealand, Part 1

The Kiwi Accent: At a first listen, the New Zealand accent is similar to a British or Australian accent. As it was once described to be, "It's a cross between British and Australian, but more awesome than both." According to the Kiwis I work with at my various jobs, the main difference is in the way they say their vowels. Bed sounds like bid, when sounds like win, what sounds like wot, etcetera. What's even better are the words that sound the same. Hair, hear, and here all sound the same, as do bear, bare, and beer, and sore and saw. The last thing I've noticed is they say some of their numbers and letters differently than we do, and some of them sound the same. The number eight, and the letters A and E sound incredibly similar, which is awesome when I'm trying to take Domino's orders over the phone. Here's an example:

Phone Person: So that's thirty-ay Wairapapa Street.
Me: Thirty eight?
Phone Person: No, Thirty-ay.
Me: Oh. Thirty A, like the letter A.
Phone Person: No, not the letter ay. The letter ay.
Me: E?
Phone Person: No, ay!

Because whether they're saying E or A, it sounds like "ay." Once that's sorted, I have to tackle the spellings of crazy Maori street names.

Food: Ah, food. Maybe it's because I've never really lived in a city before, but to me the variety of food available is incredible. By my estimation, there's approximately 87 million Asian takeaway restaurants in Wellington alone. Thai, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these... um, yeah. They've got it all is what I'm trying to say. Fish and chips takeaways are also fairly popular. And, of course, American fastfood restaurants are everywhere. Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's are by far the most widespread, but there's a smattering of KFCs and Burger Kings as well. Their menus don't vary too much from what we see stateside. Subway offers a range of "Kiwi favorites," such as lamb and pork riblet, and McDonald's has family-sized meal deals, something I've never seen in the states, and "The Big Kiwi Breakfast." Also, the McDonald's here are almost always accompanied by a McCafe, a seperate counter featuring upscale hot beverages and baked goods. That's a feature I saw a lot in Europe, but--oh damn, I just wasted four sentences on McDonald's. Moving on.

New Zealand-exclusive chains include Burger Fuel (they make the best fastfood burgers I've ever tasted, with crazy toppings such as avocado, beet root, and mango), Wholly Bagel (opened by a New Yorker disappointed in Wellington's lack of a good bagel shop), and Mr. Bun (a bakery with a twist--they also serve country fried chicken. Actually, the combination of baked goods/coffee and country fried chicken is fairly common at other cafes as well. No idea why).

As a former British colony, New Zealand is fortunate to have the same healthy snacks as Ireland and the UK. And by "healthy snacks," I mean more sugary, delicious types of Cadbury bars than any reasonable person could possibly ask for. Crunchie, Caramello, Picnic, Pinkies, and THREE VARIETIES OF MORO BARS!!! Yes, it's awesome. While we're on the topic of things that rot your teeth and make you fat, let's talk about soda. Coke is easily 75-80% more prevalant than Pepsi. In fact, I haven't even seen a Pepsi product, apart from a Mountain Dew commercial at the movie theater. There's also the New Zealand-exclusive Lemon and Paeroa, more commonly called L&P. It started off in a town called Paeroa. They took water from a natural spring, carbonated it, and added sweetened lemon juice. Now, however, it's owned and distrubuted by Coca Cola. It's still delicious, though, and New Zealand is the only place in the world to buy it (apart from a few Kiwi groceries in Australia).

There are two types of cereal I've gotten into: Weet-Bix (same thing as Ireland's Weet-A-Bix) and muesli. Muesli is composed of rolled oats, raisins, delicious dried fruits, and sometimes weird stick things that look like rabbit food. Weet-Bix is made out of the papery stuff wasps use to make their nests and gets stuck between your teeth worse than you can possibly imagine. If you don't believe me, check out this stunning x-ray image of a wasp nest and some Weet-Bix side by side. Can you tell which is which?

I could probably go on a lot longer about food, but I'll end it here for now. And don't worry, beer is not food and will get its own category later.

Let's see, uh...

Transportation:

Wellington apparently has the best public transportation in New Zealand thanks to an elaborate system of buses and trams. Most of the buses/trams are powered by overhead electric lines, and the buses that run on gas are hybrids! New Zealand's great care for the natural environment will also have its own category later on.

The buses are great, apart from two things: they're expensive. A monthly pass is $99, and without the pass an average rider would probably spend over $150 a month. The other problem is the frequent striking. In the month we've been here, bus services have been disrupted five or six times due to union meetings or strikes. I guess it's a complicated issue. I understand the bus drivers wanting fair wages (currently the starting rate is only a little over minimum wage) and benefits, but going on strike is an asshole way to go about it. They're hurting the customer, the thousands of Wellingtonians that rely on the bus service to commute to and from work each day. What they should do is drive around giving out free bus rides. That'd get the message across to their employer without inconveniencing the passengers. See? I'm a genius!


That's a wrap for this edition of All About New Zealand. If I didn't answer your questions (because so many of you responded to my last post, har har), I'll get to them later.

Quack quack quack.

Well, it's raining again.

After being lucky enough to have a handful of exceptionally bright and sunny days, this morning I woke up to what sounded like someone throwing handfuls of pebbles against the window. My first thought was, "Oh great. Hail," but it was only rain. The wind was just blowing so insanely hard it made the rain sound like hail. Wonders never cease.

I did manage to do a handful of fun things during the brief bit of nice weather we had. Last Wednesday we checked out the second museum in Wellington, The Museum of City and Sea. Friday was Alexa's first full day of work, so I was left to my own devices and spent the afternoon walking through Wellington's waterfront area. Over the weekend Alexa was sick so we didn't really do much of anything, but Monday we revisited the Botanic Gardens. They had lots of flowers. Yay flowers. Not the most exciting thing we've done, but there was a cool garden filled with surreal, Dr. Seuss-esque plants. And a bunch of ducks and ducklings. I've decided ducks are either incredibly stupid or have incredibly bad short-term memory. I watched a deranged little Kiwi girl run towards a duck. The duck quickly swam away in panic, but when the girl threw bread into the water he just as quickly stopped and turned around to eat. Did he forget he was in danger? Was he really that hungry? What the hell were you thinking, Duck? At any rate, the survival of the duck species will be a great risk as soon as their natural predators discover they're easily swayed by sliced bread.

Moving along to boring serious things, like work (ugh), I was not hired by The Organic Grocer. Boo. I did, however, get a housekeeping job at a hotel (as of about an hour ago). It only has 2/5 stars on Google's review thingy. I hope that doesn't mean I'll have to clean poop off the walls and remove dead hookers' bodies. But money is money, and the job was easily acquired since one of our fellow lodgers here at the Pickled Parrot Lodge (that's what our apartment complex is called, have I mentioned that before?) works there. It'll be nice to start making some real money, since the measly 16-20 hours/week Domino's gives me only nets me about $10 once I pay for rent and groceries. I start tomorrow, so I'll update re: poop/hooker bodies in my next post.

Some more exciting news: the CEO of all the Domino's Pizzas in Australia/New Zealand is coming by our branch today. Since the manager wants everything to look up to standard, I finally got a name tag yesterday. My life is complete.

That's about it for now. My mom just IMed me an idea for my next post: "ok. i was thinking - how about a blog entry on the mundane stuff - what's on tv, the weather, tourists, where you'll get a haircut, what the drug stores are like, what does the mcdonalds serve that's different?
stuff like that , that people want to know but are afraid to ask."

So what do you guys want to know about New Zealand? Don't be afraid to ask. Ask anything; just leave a comment. My next post will aim to answer all of you questions about the day-to-day bits and pieces of the Kiwi life.

Picture time. Did you know you can click on the pictures to see them in full size? Well, you can:

A view of Mt. Victoria from the waterfront. The treeless patch at the top is the site of the Mt. Vic overlook (see my last post):

Ducklings!

The crazy garden that I think looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book:

Thanks for reminding me to get my absentee ballot...

So apparently there are still people in other countries who not only love America, but are also under the misguided notion that president Bush is doing a good job. No, that isn't the punchline to some sick joke; it's true. Last night at Domino's there was a customer from Sri Lanka, wherever the hell that is, who recognized my accent and asked if I was from the USA. After I confirmed this, he went on to say he had lived in four countries (Sri Lanka, the US, Scotland, Japan, and New Zealand--I guess he couldn't count) and our beloved America was the greatest of them all. And then he said "I support your President Bush," and gave me the dopiest grin in the history of all simple-as-shit dopey grins. Unfortunately, I was not as gratified as he expected me to be, so I just shrugged and said, "Well, I don't."

Wrong answer, I guess. He suddenly became all serious and went off on a tirade about how great Bush is, and how he is a bright ray of hope for the world, and how all the presidents, prime ministers, kings, and princes of all the countries of the world wished Bush would stay in power for at least ten more years (BARF!) since they had such a great relationship with him. Ummmm.... what?

I guess Sri Lanka gets a different slant on the world news. Maybe Fox News on Steriods or something. At any rate, he concluded his speech by telling me, "Just have faith in your president. You are very lucky to have him," and grinning stupidly again. It's not my place to argue with customers, so I just smiled, chuckled, and said, "Yeah, I guess. He's not going to be around much longer anyway." Zing.

Anyway, things have been going along pretty well. As you may have read on Alexa's blog, we went for a couple hikes last week. One was in our neighborhood and it took us through some pretty wooded areas and around the back of the zoo. We hiked for a kilometer or so along the zoo's fence and were able to see inside a bit. We got to see the top of an ostrich's head, for free! Take that, zoo. The other hike was up the side of Mount Victoria, one of the highest points in Wellington with a great view of the city from its lookout point. It was also the location of the outskirts of the Shire in The Fellowship of the Ring. We weren't able to find the filming sites, but eventually we should be able to find the place where Frodo yells "Get off the road!" when the Nazghul first appear, as well as the forest the hobbits run through to get to the ferry and escape the Nazghul. Nerd alert.

Also, things are going okay at Domino's, but I'm still on the lookout for a day job so I can actually start earning a decent income. Today I had an interview at The Organic Grocer, a little Trader Joe's-esque store, and I think it went well. Besides that, about a week ago I sent an email to the zoo asking if they needed any staff for the gift shop, and when I got back from my interview today, I had an email from them saying they had job openings for gift shop/admissions. I'd prefer to work at the zoo, but I guess I'll have to wait and see what the hours are like and how soon they get back to me.

On a sad note, we are now 17 hours apart instead of 16. Sunday marked the beginning of Daylight Savings Time for New Zealand, and once you all in the US head back to standard time in November, we'll be 18 hours apart.

But I think I've rambled on for long enough. In a bit I'm going to meet Alexa in town and we're going to see Eagle Eye. It's the same as the US version, except some guy with a Kiwi accent dubbed over Shia Lebeouf. Seriously.

I was going to post some pictures, but the internet is being a jerk, so that will have to wait until later. Que triste.

In the meantime, you should all go check out this article. It's a very insightful and well-written look at white privilege and the upcoming election, using a lot of examples from the farce that is the McCain/Palin duo (or as I like to call them, Dumb and Dumber--zing!): http://www.redroom.com/blog/tim-wise/this-your-nation-white-privilege-updated

EDIT: Here's the pictures.

This is Alexa being very happy/enjoying the weather at the botannical gardens:

A scary sign along the zoo's back fence:

Wellington, as seen from Mount Victoria:

Happy Thursday!

Greetings from wet, windy Wellington.

Not much exciting has happened since my last post, but I figured I could scrounge something together to keep you all entertained. Besides that, I can't sleep. That's what happens when you stay in bed until noon. Having a night job really throws things off. The whole day is spent thinking, "God damnit, I've got to work tonight," and then I go to work, come home and watch a movie or TV for far too long and end up sleeping in the next day to start the whole process over again.

I actually didn't work tonight, though, since I needed the night off for the training at WestPac Stadium. It seems similar to my job at Domino's in that I'll spend most of my time standing behind a counter, taking people's orders and money in exchange for food. Unlike Domino's, however, this job actually requires a bit of skill. You see, we are legally bound to not serve alcohol to visibly intoxicated persons, as per the Major Buzzkill Act of 1989--at risk of a $2000 fine--so I'll have to carefully discern which customers are intoxicated. Finally, my college education will be put to use!

At any rate, I start this weekend, working a rugby game on Saturday and a football game on Sunday. While on the subject of jobs, I've also put in applications at an organic grocery store and The Warehouse (New Zealand's version of Wal-Mart, minus the unethical business practices and dirty stores) so hopefully I'll have something productive to do during the daytime.

I guess that's about it for this update. More of a "I'm still alive, whoopie!" update than anything, I suppose. I don't really have any pictures for you, except for this one of some odd-looking fellows I saw waiting for the bus at Courtenay Place. They seem strangely familiar...

Whoever they were, they looked pretty serious about catching the bus.