I don't do well with moving vehicles...

The sphere sculpture outside of City Gallery in Wellington

So, after several days in the awesome and artsy city of Wellington--which everyone should visit for at least a few days, I knew I needed to get going. I had put my car up for sale on a website called TradeMe, which is sort of like a combo of Craigslist and eBay of New Zealand. I got my first call on the car about 20 minutes after putting the listing up, and had seven or eight people up in Auckland keen to check it out. So, I knew I had to go to or near Auckland to be able to meet up with these people. That's about an eight-hour drive.

Typically, I procrastinated. I started the day with breakfast in this tiny cafe in an alleyway along the famous Cuba Street (which I never really saw, but it is supposed to be really cool. Looked a little Haight-Ashbury combined with some Marina chic, so it probably is pretty awesome). The owner of the cafe was in a bad mood and it seemed like he was angry we were there rather than happy to serve. It's hard to really describe adequately in writing, but let's just leave it at him being very annoyed his employee used the wrong glass for my Sprite -- which was poured from the dregs of a tired-looking old two-liter bottle. The french toast I had was good, though.

Anyway, the owner seemed to be pretty buddy-buddy with the only other diners, the "band" playing in the poorly-trafficked alleyway. The "band" consisted of a tall, very thin heroin-addict looking guy and his scruffy drummer on the back of a classic truck that had couple of sad balloons tacked onto it. The heroin dude played the piano, and the drummer played the drums. I don't think they practiced much, because it seemed to me they never played the same song at the same time. At the end of each, uh, "performance," a mechanical toy monkey bank with cymbals would move and play, trying to encourage tips. Somehow, I resisted the temptation to do so...

After lunch and wandering around looking at shops and things, I decided to finally go to the city art gallery, which was really cool. It was an exhibition from an Asian modern artist who was, according to the info provided, a contemporary with Andy Warhol in the New York art world. It included displays like giant yellow-and-black spotted balloons shaped like bowling pins in a room full of yellow-and-black polka dots, and a dark room with mirrored walls, water floor and lots of little hanging colored lights, so it's just like a little reflected lights infinity. Way cooler in real life, I promise,

Then I grabbed a bite to eat then tried to figure out where to go and what to do... which took forever, because I am indecisive and like to research things before deciding. So I didn't end up leaving Wellington until like 4 pm, which was rather late. Which meant that I'd be doing half the drive in the dark, late at night (mistake #1). Yay, planning!

I pretty much just kept driving, not really even stopping to rest or eat or anything. So, given that I was very tired to begin with (I had gone to see a great kiwi band, The Black Seeds, the night before, so I was a bit worn out), my mind started to wander and my attention span started to shorten. It got dark, the roads were winding and I didn't really pay attention to the warning signs about fatigued drivers.

Eyes Heavy? STOP Driving

At about 10 o'clock at night, somewhere about 15-20 minutes outside of whatever random town I'd just passed through, and about 40 minutes from the Waitomo Caves ahead of me (for locals reading), I absentmindedly (mistake #2) rounded a curve and was faced with one of the frequent patches of roadwork they're doing. I am not sure how much warning there was -- maybe there were signs hundreds of meters up the road, maybe there weren't. I can't remember. I think, though, that they are doing some resurfacing, because the sealed/paved roads become rock roads. Not hard-packed small gravel-type rocks, either, but big, loose rocks that your wheels can skid over like a ski slope. Having driven over one of these patches earlier, and sort of skidding a bit, I knew that if you go too fast, your car will start drifting and fish-tailing. I found that a bit too nerve-wracking. Wanting to prevent that, I hit the brakes. Hard. Mistake #3.

New lesson! Slamming on the brakes on a rock road at 65mph/110 kph does not prevent loss of control, but in fact facilitates an even greater loss of control. I started skidding to the left and instinctively steered against the skid (mistake #4). That, of course, made the situation worse and I began to spin out to the right, when I finally remembered you have to steer INTO the skid. Not sure if I spun all the way around or not (I was definitely perpendicular to the roadway at one point because I remember my headlights illuminating the embankment along the shoulder), but I was able to recover enough control to at least be facing the right direction, though now on the wrong (i.e., right) side of the road. I was still skidding around a little, but at least I'd slowed down quite a bit.

I then realized that I was headed toward the ditch on the right-hand side of the road. And there was pretty much no way to prevent it because I hadn't really regained full control. I was almost stopped, though, so I was pinning my hopes on the small chance my car my come to a rest just before sliding over. Alternatively, I was hoping I was slowed down enough that I didn't slam into the embankment and seriously damage the car and/or myself (to be honest, I was worried more about the car).

I was lucky. My car stopped a few inches short of hitting the embankment, though the front driver's side was completely in the ditch. The rear wheels were teetering on the edge, but still mostly clung to the roadway. Well, rockway.

I evaluated the situation ("F*@&!!" --pause-- "F*@&!!!") and thought I'd try to see if I could reverse out of there (mistake #5, I guess). That only got me more deeply entrenched into the rocks. I checked my phone -- no service. The last town I could remember, or even house, was at least 10-15 minutes up the road, and my GPS unit didn't seem to indicate anything of note coming up ahead of me. I hadn't seen another car in a long time, either. I was alone, in the dark, for about 10 minutes (which I mostly spent digging through my mountain of crap to find my one, small flashlight/torch to try to figure out where my hazard light controls were because I couldn't find them in my shaken-up state).

After that, a trio of about 20- or 21-year-old deer hunter boys (and one 11-year-old little brother named Max) came by, complete with two dead bucks strapped to their roof. They stopped (slowly and safely, I might add -- novel concept) and asked, "Hey there! How ya going?" "Uh, not particularly well at the moment, aye? Nice deer."

Awesome skid marks, not so awesome resting place for a car

Not too exciting from this point on -- after they jokingly asked if I'd been drinking/"on the piss" (for the record, not a drop!!), they reckoned they could drag my car out from the back, but didn't have a tow rope. Just then a big van full of drunken and stoned brit-punk backpackers came by. They rolled up, beer-laden, leather-clad and cigarette-smoking, and piled out of the van to see how they could help. They were awesome, if for no other reason than their entertainment value. "Hey, did you guys see that car in the ditch?" "Woah, how'd you do that? You aren't even on the right side of the road!" "OH MY GOD, THOSE GUYS KILLED BAMBI, LOOK!!"

Eventually the Bambi-killers ("Yep, we did, and Bambi's gonna be delicious.") organized the rag-tag lot (I admit, I was totally useless) and the 10-12 of us tried to lift the car out of the ditch. Well, after the one backpacker dude with the leather jacket and cigarette hanging out of his mouth sorted out the beer he decided to stash in his coat pocket while lifting the front end of a 1991 Nissan Sentra. Neither his plan to preserve his beer nor the overall plan of carrying the car worked particularly well, especially after they accidentally ripped off the bumper (it's okay, it popped back in). The barefooted girl in the dusty rose-colored silky slip dress and wooly beret-cap over her short, bleach-blonde hair kept insisting she and one friend lifted her car once, but her attempts to rally the car-carry crew failed.

More cars started coming along at this point and one of them, a middle-aged couple with three kids smooshed in their back seat, had a tow rope. The backpackers drifted off in a haze of attempted glory (seriously, though, thanks to whoever you all are) and the husband guy sorted out the mechanics of towing me out while his wife reassured me that everyone makes the braking-too-hard-on-gravel mistake. Then the deer hunters dragged me out, assessed my car and pronounced it "she'll be right," which is the kiwi way of saying it's fine.

We all went on our separate ways, until I saw the hunters on the side of the road a while later and I asked if they needed help. Gladly, they were just taking a break (they asked if I'd like a beer, but I passed on that one. I was doing poorly enough totally sober). I was able to get a picture of them, though, to go along with the one I took at the scene.

Max, one dude, Sam, the other dude (and their dead Bambis)... THANKS!

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. I got into Auckland around 1 am, found myself a cheapish Holiday Inn and took a nice long rest. In the morning, I washed the car to make it as pretty as possible, then sold it to the first firm offer/the guy who showed up with cash and the change of ownership papers. I guess if you're going to sell a car, you might as well have an exciting last day with it.

Wine Eliteism Continues to Annoy Me

I think one of my first posts on here was a rant about wine industry members or critics lambasting the wine choices of a majority of American consumers. I believe I was spurred on by a posting on a blog called Vinography. And they are at it again, I think about the same topic as last time: the top wines sold on-premise (i.e., in restaurants).

Here's the blog: http://www.vinography.com/archives/2009/09/who_is_the_average_wine_consum.html

I tried to comment there but I kept getting an error message. So this is what I would have said, were I able to say it:

Isn't this almost the exact same thing you said the last time this list came out? And I have the exact same reaction: I wholeheartedly reject the attitude that the popularity of these wines is "sobering" and that "serious wine lovers... wouldn't be caught dead" drinking these brands.

Maybe it's that sort of elitist element that intimidates these enthusiastic wine consumers from pursuing other brands/varietals or increasing consumption. They are afraid of making mistakes and having "serious wine fans" tell them they are wrong and making hideous choices that they "wouldn't be caught dead" drinking. Or they just don't want to be associated with people who snidely give them backhanded compliments.

It constantly mystifies me how the wine industry wants to grow their base while undercutting the opinion and tastes of the consumers they need to attract. It's like a condescending pat on a child's head, sending them off to bed and then laughing at them after they leave the room.

"Aww, how cute. They like Ecco Domani! Ha ha ha ha ha. Maybe someday they'll learn!"

The wine-intimidated American consumers are never going to embrace a product whose most ardent fanatics are insulting and laughing at them. And until these fanatics and critics and writers can admit that any wine consumption is good wine consumption, regardless of the "status" of that wine, AMerican consumers will be intimidated.

This reminds me of a literature class I took in college. Modern Literature, specifically. One day the discussion centered around whether people reading pop-fiction written at around a fifth-grade level (such as Stephen King) is good or bad for "serious" writers and "acclaimed" novels. I had the same position there as I do now: any consumption is good. There's only so much of one thing a person can find, if they're truly interested, and eventually they will want to try something new. And when they do, there's a whole world for them to explore. And if they happen to find something else they like, their tastes will expand.

It's important to note that their tastes EXPAND, not follow someone else's notion of what's "better." If someone can't stand a wine or a novel, it doesn't matter if it's the most highly regarded wine or novel ever created. They can't stand it and will likely come away from the experience thinking that the critics are jerks who dictate from on high about something ridiculously bad.

I encourage people to enjoy what they like, and to keep on enjoying it regardless of what some "more educated" or "more discerning" critics might sneer at them. And with that, I am off to a third-rate rugby match, which I will likely enjoy as much as I would have if it were a full International squad.

The Rest of Golden Bay

When I wasn't busy being highly creeped out by sheep (see below), I did have a fun-filled day of Golden Bay adventure. Well, not so much adventure as sightseeing, but I wouldn't want to make it sound boring.

I started off by going to a place called Pupu Springs, or Waikoropupu, if you want to get technical. It's the largest spring in Australasia! Enthralling, I know. But, it also has some of the clearest, cleanest water you will see in the world. According to the sign at the place, the only place with clearer water is under an ice shelf on Antarctica or something. I haven't uploaded my pictures, but here's a good idea of what it looks like:

Pretty, isn't it? Apparently people used to be able to snorkel and/or dive at the springs, but there's a really invasive algae that can be transported by not-perfectly-cleaned anything and they've banned it. You can't even put your hand in the water now.

After Pupu Springs, I just sort of drove around. I considered picking up a likely stinky, skinny hippie chick hitchhiker and her groceries, but drove right on past. Then I turned around because she was a skinny hippie chick with groceries standing on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere on a hot day. She was harmless. I took her a few miles to her bike hidden in the bushes up the road. She was, for the record, stinky.

Then I took a wrong turn trying to get to Farewell Spit and ended up near the "Historic Salisbury Swing Bridge." I thought I'd check it out. It was certainly historic. It was built during the gold rush era (1880s), fell into disrepair, fixed, fell into disrepair again, fixed, used after a flood washed out the car bridge in the 80s, fell into disrepair again and supposedly restored in 2004.

(note, not my feet, nor my pictures. Thanks, Flickr!)

Yeah, that didn't seem so "restored" to me. It seemed like two aging planks of wood on a very swingy swing bridge.

I was a bit daunted by the multiple "WARNING: 2 PERSON LOAD LIMIT" signs posted before you got onto the bridge, but I thought it couldn't be that bad. I mean, I was well under the weight limit for skydiving, so surely I wouldn't break a bridge, right? Then I stepped on to the bridge. I've been on swing bridges here in New Zealand before. They are constructed of modern materials, like metal. And they don't swing as much as slightly sway if you move around a lot. This thing started rolling and rocking like that horrible 1940s-era video of that bridge breaking apart in the wind.

I actually got scared. Like, my heart started pounding and and my adrenaline kicked in. Trying to walk over that thing (I would not be defeated by a swing bridge!) was scarier than anything else I've done in New Zealand.

When I was a kid, we used to go to J's Amusements in Guerneville, California every summer. It had a great go-kart track, sometimes had bumper cars, always had a Scrambler and a Tilt-a-Whirl. And they had a roller coaster. The Devil's Coach. The Devil's Coach was a wooden-frame roller coaster that I am almost certain was built in 1923 and left to rot on the grounds of J's Amusements. One of the problems with J's was that it frequently flooded in winter. It seems to me that wood submerged for weeks at a time under water might lose some structural integrity. Yet, every winter, the Devil's Coach sat.

Of course, the owners of J's couldn't just let a big revenue-earning coaster go quiet, so they sold tickets to unsuspecting (and suspecting) children for decades. It wasn't the Devil's Coach, it was the Defying Death Coach. Here's a picture from the top of the sub-par replacement coaster, Mad Mouse (taken years after J's had closed down), which had more or less the same layout:

Each turn at the top of the Devil's Coach shifted the entire structure. The little car felt like it was going to tip over and throw us all to our deaths. It was terrifying, yet thrilling. And dozens of times per summer, I paid $2.50 - $3 for the privilege of possibly hurtling to my death. Maybe this was a snapshot of things to come. The prices got higher and the hurtling to my death options more varied. Like, I guess, jumping out of a plane. I think I've figured out the source of my adventure seeking.

Anyway, the bridge was scary. I moved on quickly. Not so quickly as to test the limits of the rotting, aging planks of wood, but quickly enough. Seriously, though, I don't want to go to that swing bridge again. Maybe I have wood structure-related fears. I'd rather jump out of a plane at 15,000 feet.

After that I went to Wharariki Beach, which was gorgeous and windy. I'll post my own photos of that on facebook in a few days, I guess. Nothing particularly eventful happened that day until I started wandering through paddocks of creepy, terrified sheep.

The Sheepening

Sheep are creepy. Really, they are.

I realize that sounds ridiculous to anyone who has spent longer than three minutes on a farm, or anyone who has seen a sheep, but they are. Especially if you are walking, at dusk, through paddock after paddock after paddock filled with hundreds and thousands of sheep and lambs, all baa-ing at you like crazed, uh... sheep.

I didn't realize sheep had different voices. Some sheep are deep-baa'ed. Some are squeaky baa'ed. Some stare you down like they are contemplating revenge for all the dastardly things done to them by a lonely farmer or lost, drunken tourist. Some run away, stop, stare at you, then run back to where they started, baa'ing like maniacs the whole way through. Some huff and puff like they are making an obscene phone baa'll. (I need pun-aholoics anonymous).

So, I'm in Golden Bay. It's the northwest part of the South Island. It's known for a unique feature called Farewell Spit, which is a really long strip of sand dunes between the bay and the Tasman Sea. It kind of looks like the beak of a kiwi bird sticking out from the land. I had been wandering/driving around Golden Bay all morning, seeing all sorts of things, none of which were Farewell Spit. So, I set off for that location.

It was getting cold and sunset was about an hour away, but I know you can only get about 2.5 kilometers onto the spit before people are no longer allowed to walk on it (it's a marine/bird sanctuary or something). I am not good with kilometers-to-miles conversions, but I think that's about 1.5 miles. An easy walk along the sand and back, I thought. I should have known it wouldn't be easy when I passed the dead shark on the beach.

I can't say it was difficult, but anyone who knows me knows I can get lost going in a straight line. And it may seem nonsensical (equally so to that whole "sheep are creepy" thing) that I could get lost walking on a narrow strip of sand that starts on land and finishes in water, but I managed it.

I saw a sign (and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign! okay, ending bad 80s tunes interlude). The sign said "Fossil Point" and had an arrow. I read a little about this -- it's a bunch of fossils stuck in rocks or something. It sounded more interesting than the bit I was walking along, which was a bunch of broken shells and occasional pools of water, dead sharks or a live bird or two.

I realized that I was walking from Inner Spit (bay side) to Outer Spit (sea side). Cool. I'd see more ocean, fossils and go home. I got to Outer Spit and it was equally uninteresting to inner spit (there weren't even birds on this side, just dunes. I like waves, but there are better beaches just over the rocky outcrop). I walked along the beach, sunset quickly approaching, hoping to see some sort of indication of where the path back to the carpark (or parking lot, in American) would be. There wasn't any. After about 45 minutes I noticed a tiny little red circle sign. Surely that was marking something. It was -- "BEWARE: THERE IS QUICKSAND ALONG THE ROCKS AT FOSSIL POINT."

So, I'd been walking for like 1.5 hours to see impressions of old dead things in rocks and I'd have to brave quicksand to do it? No thanks. I've seen old dead things in rocks before. And, for that matter, birds on sand. On a positive note, I guess, the gale-force winds blowing sand into my face did provide me with a really cheap exfoliation treatment? This was definitely not the highlight of Golden Bay.

So, after tramping a while through dunes and forest, I finally reached the "carpark -- 25 minutes" sign. Through the sheep farm. This is where sheep get creepy. At first it was cute, all the little lambs frolicking in the meadows. I took some pictures, thinking, "this is so stereotypical New Zealand!" Then the sheep started looking a little ragged, like they'd been handled by deranged sheep shearers (pictures available soon, when I can upload them). Patches of bald sheep, wool hanging off their haunches. Then they started baa'ing. I think they were warning each other, or forming an attack plan.

A few sheep baa'ing isn't scary, I know. But it starts getting weird when there are a dozen sheep baa'ing. Then really weird when it's like 50. When there are hundreds of sheep baa'ing at you from near and far, the sun has set and you're miles away from anyone, walking through acre upon acre of sheep paddock -- it's creepy.

I am not talking deathly, mortifying fear here, like if someone were holding a gun to my head or the Dodgers winning the World Series, but it wasn't comfortable. I felt like I'd stumbled upon the beginnings of a really bad kiwi horror movie (I later found out there is a NZ horror movie called "Black Sheep" about evil, human-attacking sheep).

The thing is, too, you're just sort of wandering through the paddock. There's not a trail or anything, just a guess as to where the next gate will be across the way. And the sheep don't really seem to like people randomly wandering through their home. Some of them were chill, but most of them were baa'ing like I was taking my pet wolf pack for a walk. Add in the weird bird noises and the hundreds of geese and ducks calling each other, it was just all a bit off.

I can't really say anything eventful happened. Mostly just walking through being creeped out and keeping my eye out for the heavy breathing sheep moms (they seemed a bit dicey). The only time I was in actual fear was when I got to the cattle paddock. There were about a dozen cows and calves. Unlike the sheep, who baa'ed manically and ran around randomly, the cow babies grouped themselves and seemed to be running toward me. I was afraid of a full-on calf stampede. They just sort of swarmed around me while I walked through, at this point in sight of the car. I reached the car, finally feeling safe, when I rounded a corner and nearly hit an escaped cow. It grunted and moved away.

I realize this is an anti-climatic ending, but I was talking about creepy sheep. What did you expect would happen?

A View from the Top (of the South)

Hello again, long ignored blog. I am so sorry to have abandoned you for so long. But I'm back now, and I promise this time will be different. Really. Give me another chance!



Actually, I have been somewhat busy. Well, you'd hope so, given that I haven't written in almost six months. Hopefully I'll be able to update everything in the near future. I have tons of ideas, it's just a matter of sitting down and typing it out.

But this will be a short-and-sweet post. I'm back to blogging.

So, to update since December: I worked in the vineyards in a town called Blenheim and I hated every moment of it. The last day of work was pure bliss. I threw my gloves in the trunk of my car and triumphantly declared that as God as my witness, I would never work in the vineyards again! Then I got a kidney stone and went to the beach. Seriously. Kaikoura, on the east coast. After that, Hanmer Springs, a delightful little mountain town. Christchurch followed, then Lake Tekapo, Mt. Cook and a town with a giant fruit sculpture called Cromwell. The Irish historians among you might find the name interesting given that there is a divide within the town itself between the Northern Ireland-named sections and the Republic of Ireland-named sections.

Somewhere between Mt. Cook and Cromwell (specifically, as I stood on a platform overlooking a glacier in the Mt. Cook township), I got a phone call from Blenheim. Libby, a New Zealander who had spent the summer working in the wine industry in Sonoma and living with a mutual friend, had recently gotten a job at a local winery and wanted to rent a house in Blenheim. She was calling me because she knew I was interested in working in the wine industry and, more specific to her needs, was looking for a flatmate. Despite my earlier hatred of the town, I'd seen the house before I left and loved it despite its over-reliance on a blue color scheme. I agreed to move in.

So, I headed back to Blenheim, stopping for a short visit to Nelson, the city about 90 minutes from Blenheim. Libby had suggested I call a friend of hers who was looking for an employee. Specifically, a vineyard employee for Cloudy Bay winery. Even more specifically, a tractor driver. I may have vowed never to work in a vineyard again, nor had I ever driven a tractor or anything even closely resembling farm equipment (I am not sure I've even driven a pickup truck), but I gave her friend a call. And in the midst of the second quarter of the Super Bowl, I got a call back: I got the job.

Over the next few months I happily worked in the vineyards (seriously -- it was mostly fun!). I singled out the strongest and straightest shoots on baby vines, I dropped rot-infested bunches ahead of harvest and, most fun of all, I drove tractors around in big, giant circles, usually collecting grapes that will become some high-priced Marlborough wines.

Tractor driving, though, is a transient position, and I lost that job at the end of April. Since then, I've been doing a little traveling, starting off in Christchurch, then to Queenstown, Milford Sound, Te Anau, Doubtful Sound, Franz Josef (glacier and township), Hokitika and back to Blenheim a few days ago. Now I'm doing a little writing, a lot of reading and occasionally some listening to Giants games. There's pruning work to be done in the vineyards, and I think in the very near future I will be back, again, for my third stint as a migrant farm worker. New Zealand farm workers, however, get totally gipped. We don't have any taco trucks rolling up for a delightful mid-afternoon snack. That sucks.

That's my life in a nutshell. Hopefully as the weeks go on, you'll read all about things like canyon swinging, glacier hiking and unfortunate drunken Scottish tourist girls stripping in decidedly non-stripping locations. Until then, goodnight.

Interesting Instructions

Hello again everyone.

So, Eileen asked what exactly I was doing in my vineyard work. It's a newly-planted vineyard, so we had to put up boxes to train the vines into growing up toward the trellis wires, not spread out on the ground like a bush. The vines are in rows of 200, and each worker worked alone on one row. We needed to do three things: "single" the vine, which meant to pluck off all but one shoot, the one that was growing the straightest upward; we had to assemble the training boxes, which were thick plastic sheets with little tabs that you folded over in an interlocking pattern; then we had to put the boxes on the vines and staple the top around the trellis wire. At first it wasn't too difficult, because there was no wind. You could assemble a bunch of boxes, lay them out at the foot of the vines and go from each one, singling and stapling. Then the wind picked up, which blows the boxes all over the vineyard and you have to chase them. So work slowed considerably as I went from vine to vine, assembling, singling, stapling at each one.

An assembly line, where some workers went down the rows and singled the vines, other workers assembled boxes and other workers placed and stapled the boxes would have been far quicker. At least I think it would be, anyway. Assembly lines seem to be designed to be efficient.

Also, they had a safety overview before we started working. It was a lot to take in all at once. They told us things I never would have thought about if they hadn't warned us to be careful about it. Like, for example, "always wear shoes in the vineyard" and "wash your hands before eating." Are these really things they have to tell people? WTF?!?

Today I'm going to rent some movies and get a pedicure. Excitement abounds in New Zealand, doesn't it?

Cheers,
Mare :)

Surrounded

Last night the town I'm currently staying in, Blenheim, held their annual Christmas festival. It involved brass band renditions of "La Vida Loca" (yes, the Ricky Martin song), people dancing with scarves in a circle and fireworks. The fireworks were nice. Not a huge display (it's a tiny town, so I wasn't expecting a New Yorkish display), but a nice little show. The weird part was that I was standing in a fairly large crowd of people (like 100 or so) and it was stony silence the entire show. A little kid was asking his mother what makes them catch on fire or something, but there was no oohing or awwwing. It was kind of weird.

There's an ad on television for a show on later tonight: Rick and Steve are the happiest gay couple around. What is THAT about? Is it a sitcom? A documentary?

Right now it's elf. I love elf. I'm watching it with a room full of foreigners. This is typical everywhere I go. They are all so different. There are some Asians talking, someone who sounds vaguely Russian/Czech or something and some Germans. Supposedly there's a Scottish person here. Not much in the way of conversational opportunities. :(

Today I got my first real NZ job (one that required a tax ID number and everything). I am not sure why they needed the tax information. It's hard to tax nothing. It was a speed-based pay scale, which is never a good prospect for me. The only thing I do quickly is being slow. So... after eight hours of work, without stopping for lunch because I was already so slow, I earned a whopping $70 or so. That's around $40 US. Before the 20 percent tax cut. :( I'm only going to do this for a few days. Nobody else is hiring so close to Christmas.

Anyway, I've gotta go. I just got the two-minute warning beep!

Cheers everyone!

Mare :)