Living on Our Own and More Work

We moved into our new house with our new flatmates Lucy, Claire, Philippa and Matt.

Here are John, Matt ant Philipa:


Here’s Claire:


Here is Matt again with Lucy hiding from the camera:


We are living in the Mt. Cook area, which is close to Newtown. The day after we moved in the Newtown Street Fair was going on. There we saw a few street performers, visited a few shops and got some food. Here is one of the street performers. This sexy man swallows swords and also walks and lies on broken glass bottles. Here he is:





Like most performers, he is a lot of talk and little show. We also ran into the Adams Family at the fair as well with Becky. Here is Henry trying to be a hamster in a pool.



The rest of the week John worked and I got a few more trial jobs. One at a café across the street from the local hospital and the other is at the beginning of Newtown called Velox. I enjoyed feel of the Velox Café and the owner John who is a musician that came back from New York a few years ago from his band Bailter Space. I also got a few more trial shifts at the second café.



Recovering from the another bad job, and getting the heck outta town

Things have now more or less finally settled in, but I had a bad feeling about the café across from the hospital. There were probably 6 or 7 people, who, when they heard I was trialing there said, “I heard that owner is a (not cool guy.)” Hmmm….that is not a good sign. Plus some people training me had long fingernails.



Which I always associate with drug use = not good. There was no hand soap next to my sink at the espresso bar, and the rag used to wash off tables was just dry and sitting on a shelf – no cleaning solution. After two days of trialing, I realized no one enjoyed working there, and decided that that was enough signs and that I ought to resign before I got in too deep. I went in to speak to the manager, but called on their work phone as he was out. I was told that me resigning was like a “kick in the nuts” and that I should “just go” before a dead line told me I had just been served….i.e. hung up on.

Guess what!? I don’t regret leaving that place either.

On the pleasant side, my job at Velox and Two Souls and John’s job at the White House (which will look quite impressive on his resume when we return “White House: February 2010 – “,) were exponentially increasing in job satisfaction and happiness. We were finding our chis in Windy Welly! John from Velox is a rad guy, who is fun to talk about music with and genuinely just a nice person that wants to employee me, perhaps more than he should, and serve good coffee. We always have a fun time working together and the work environment is negative stress. The White House actually has decent tips considering the country, and John occasionally gets to drink leftover $170 bottles of wine! Nutso.

I also put up some flyers in local schools for Spanish tutoring and help, and have yet to hear back other than one interested party, but we will see.

That Monday, we headed out to Rivendell Kaitoke Regional Park. This is where a lot of scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed for Rivendell. We saw a lot of Pukekos as we drove in. They are these amazingly colorful and beautiful birds. Here is a pic:



Although we tried, we actually ended up hiking around a different part of the park than where they filmed Rivendell, so we will have to go back another day. Here are some pictures from the hiking and the Great River Anduin (different than filming locations):