Preschool, kindergarten, twelve years of grade school, and four years at a private university (from which I graduated cum laude). So what is my glorious job here in Wellington, you ask?
Wait for it...
Wait for it...
I work at Domino's! Yes, that would be Domino's Pizza, the same one from the States. Awesome, no? On the bright side, minimum wage is $12.00/hr here in New Zealand. Also, my job isn't that difficult. I stand at the front counter and take orders from customers, either in person or on the phone. The only difficult part is how absolutely boring it is when there's no customers. Oh well. Alexa and I also have part time jobs lined up at WestPac Stadium, the local stadium for rugby, soccer, and other events. They'll text us when they need us for an event, so it will just be a few times a month.
Other than that, things have been going well. Saturday we went for our first hike. We went to Te Kopahau (don't worry, I can't pronounce it either) reserve and hiked 5-6 km along the Coastal Track. It should've been 8 km, but Alexa was whining about all the walking so we headed back early. Psh. It was really scenic, like everything else in this country, but the real highlight of the walk was seeing wild fur seals. Not in cages, not part of a zoo exhibit, but just wild fur seals hanging out on the rocks. They weren't what I was expecting, though. For starters, they weren't jumping through hoops or balancing rubber balls on their nose. What the hell, fur seals? Where's the entertainment? Actually, if it weren't for the fact that the seals occasionally rolled over to get more sun, I wouldn't have even believed they were alive. Lazy, lazy animals.
Seeing the fur seals just wasn't enough, so on Monday we went to the Wellington Zoo to check out even more animals. It was a typical zoo, but a nice one. The animals all had plenty of leg room and most of them were in "natural," habitat-like exhibits rather than cages. The coolest part was the twilight exhibit, an indoor exhibit featuring a walk through a foresty area lit only by a few red lights. In there we got to see two Kiwis (they're nocturnal), which are the most ridiculous-looking animals I've ever seen. I wish I could've taken a clear shot of one, but it was too dark. They also had a few Tuatara, a species of lizard that has the longest longevity in the animal kingdom. Scientists think it might live to be two hundred years old, but can't be sure since no one has studied them for long enough to find out. Plus they haven't evolved or changed since dinosaur times, so they're pretty much modern-day dinosaurs.
Anyway, I think that's about it for now. We're about to head out to walk around the city and see what we can see. Picture time!
This is Alexa crossing a "river" at Te Kopahua and thinking that she's going to fall in. Oh no! Don't worry, she made across the roaring, six-inch-deep and two-feet-wide river unharmed.
A wild fur seal, wildly scratching his face before going back to wildly sunbathing on the rocks and being wildly lazy:
There were a lot of these funny signs at the zoo with silly cartoons warning visitors not to do certain things. This one is my favorite, but you can see all the rest in my online album:
And here's a link to my facebook album again. I've added pictures from Te Kopahua and Wellington Zoo, so go check them out: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021490&l=499de&id=49800204
3 comments:
Where did Alexa get that stick? I would like one for Christmas. Thank you.
Great pics and congrats on the job. I knew that education would pay off. And Eoin, please make sure that Alexa pays attention to all those signs. Thanks!!
Fun things to do while waiting for a customer: change the prices to US dollars; make up new pizza combinations (Kiwi bacon & pineapple comes to mind); become fluent in Maori; make up a language and tell us it's Maori... we'll never know! Glad to see Alexa didn't pull an "Aragorn" while crossing that raging river. We all saw LOTR. We know how dangerous that New Zealand/Middle Earth countryside can be.
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