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: