Upon beginning work in exchange for accomodation, I was promptly moved into a staff room at the hostel (called Base Discovery Lodge, or Base, or Disco henceforth). The staff rooms are no different than any of the other 8 person dorm rooms in the hostel, except ours has a TV with 12 channels (although 4 of them are the same channel) and for some reason a bag of costumes that doesn't seem to belong to anyone. These are the people I am living with:
Stevie is from England. He moved out several days after I moved in because after having been living and working in Queenstown for about 3 months he decided to get a flat. Flatting is extremely common, but I'd rather pay $0 a week for accomodation than $120-$220 on a flat, though having at least a little privacy might be worth it. Stevie got me the work for accom. job in the Altitude Bar washing dishes, meaning I work 3 or 4 days a week instead of 6. Ergo Stevie is awesome.
Claiber (sp?) is from Brazil (a substantial portion of the cleaning staff is from Brazil or Argentina). He's been here 10 months I think so I can't believe he's still in the hostel. He works as a chef at Altitude Bar and as a kitchen hand at Vudu Cafe. He speaks broken English but is a laid-back, hardworking guy. Also he got me the job as a kitchen hand at Vudu Cafe which I start tomorrow. Ergo, Claiber is awesome.
Josee is from Canada. She's been here about a year and works at the reception desk. The only female in the room, she gets along with everyone and spends the least amount of time in the room of all of us. Also of about 6-10 Canadians I've met here, she's the only one who speaks anything resembling the stereotypical Canadian accent. In fact none of them have said 'eh', whereas this is an extremely common thing for Kiwis to say.
Ewan moved in a few days after me. A 17 year old from a town called Dunedin not far from Queenstown, he's only here on summer break before going to university in Dunedin. He came here with a job in a vineyard not far, but from what I can tell he's only shown up two or possibly three times in the past week and a half. He also got a temp job working labor, but he's shows up when he feels like it. He spends most of his kitchen cleaning work for accom shift in our room watching tv. He's a good guy and it's nice to be in contact with an actual Kiwi.
Phillip is from Germany. He's easygoing and discovered some bourbon and coke in a can at a nearby store that he drinks constantly now. He told me about a time back in Germany when some guy slashed him across the chest and stabbed him in the upper leg with a knife, but then he had that guy 'taken care of' by one of his coworkers who happened to be a prominent Hell's Angel. Phillip is a badass, and hilarious.
Darren is from England like nearly everyone else in this town. He's a glassy at one of the more popular bars here in town, and spends most of his free time watching movies. He is also a laidback and funny guy.
Mike is from Arkansas but roots for the Nuggets and Broncos cause apparently he lived in Denver for 3 years. He's a bouncer, has a good southern accent, and is a movie buff.
So that's the room. Everyone gets along but I try not to spend too much time there since everyone is on largely different sleep and work schedules (two guys work at bars until about 4am). We've had one team room clean (which basically consisted of me and Darren) and anytime there are two or more people in the room there is probably a movie playing on the TV.
Next time: I'll give an update on the jobs, plus I'll try to start recapping some of the Stray journey that I glossed over a few posts ago. Cheers.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
I need money
This week was mostly uneventful. I did a lot of reading and a lot of sleeping, and not terribly much spending. On Monday I got calls from a little place called the Vudu Cafe offering me a trial as a kitchen hand, and from the Buffalo Club, a bar just around the corner from my hostel, offering me a trial as a glassy (aka barback) on Thursday. Whether or not I would get the job was almost irrelevent, because Thursday night at the Buffalo Club is BuffUgly night, which is their version of Coyote Ugly, which means the highly attractive women who work the bar (of which there are plenty) dance on the bar and tabletops for a few hours. Either way it was going to be a good night.
The Vudu Cafe job translates into dishwasher, which is no big deal since that's what I'd been doing at Altitude Bar in exchange for hostel accomodation. It's pretty painless and the people are helpful and friendly, though supposedly the Kiwi manager Andrew goes on frequent power trips. Anyway the 1.5 hour trial went smoothly (most places here seem to offer a short-shift trial before they actually offer you a position, which means you don't get paid for that shift), and they offered me the job working 9-4 5 days a week.
I should also point out that I didn't really apply for this job. One of my roomates, Claber from Brazil, already worked there as well as in Altitude Bar as a chef, so he offered to help me out. Like nearly every job I've had, I got it through other people rather than my own initiative. Networking, people, networking.
Anyway the trial as a glassy for the Buffalo Club was last night. Shifts typically go from about 10pm til 2am, though I finished early since it was just a trial. Being a glassy just means washing glasses, replacing them at the bar, and going around the place collecting the empties. In a crowded bar this latter portion of the job requires aggression, so, you know, right up my alley.
The washing and replacing part was fine, but I learned I'm pretty shoddy at carrying many glasses at once, and my loudest voice in a bar is barely audible, but for some reason or other they asked if I wanted to come back. I told them I'd have to think about it cause not only did I think I did a pretty poor job, but working 9-4 at the cafe, 10-2 at the bar, and 5:30-9 on weekends for accomodation may not leave much room for sleep. But I've thought about it and I guess I may as well give it a shot. It is likely that I'll have no other job prospects, and what I don't want to happen is to have free time, because with free time comes boredom and with boredom comes spending. Yesterday I calculated that I've spent about $6000 New Zealand dollars since I've gotten here (not counting the plane ticket), so I'm not so inclined to spend any more for the next few months (except for a special birthday present I have planned for myself, plus I'm tossing around the idea of a side trip to Fiji).
So for the next few months, my most likely schedule will be work 9-4 at the cafe Tuesday through Saturday, 10pm-2am at the bar on as yet unknown days, and 5:30-8:30 or 9 at the Altitude Bar for accomodation. The longest break I'll have on most days for sleep and eating will be 7 hours. I can do that. Plus I can't really spend money if I'm working.
Next time: I'll give an update how the jobs are going, plus "Meet the Roomates". Cheers.
The Vudu Cafe job translates into dishwasher, which is no big deal since that's what I'd been doing at Altitude Bar in exchange for hostel accomodation. It's pretty painless and the people are helpful and friendly, though supposedly the Kiwi manager Andrew goes on frequent power trips. Anyway the 1.5 hour trial went smoothly (most places here seem to offer a short-shift trial before they actually offer you a position, which means you don't get paid for that shift), and they offered me the job working 9-4 5 days a week.
I should also point out that I didn't really apply for this job. One of my roomates, Claber from Brazil, already worked there as well as in Altitude Bar as a chef, so he offered to help me out. Like nearly every job I've had, I got it through other people rather than my own initiative. Networking, people, networking.
Anyway the trial as a glassy for the Buffalo Club was last night. Shifts typically go from about 10pm til 2am, though I finished early since it was just a trial. Being a glassy just means washing glasses, replacing them at the bar, and going around the place collecting the empties. In a crowded bar this latter portion of the job requires aggression, so, you know, right up my alley.
The washing and replacing part was fine, but I learned I'm pretty shoddy at carrying many glasses at once, and my loudest voice in a bar is barely audible, but for some reason or other they asked if I wanted to come back. I told them I'd have to think about it cause not only did I think I did a pretty poor job, but working 9-4 at the cafe, 10-2 at the bar, and 5:30-9 on weekends for accomodation may not leave much room for sleep. But I've thought about it and I guess I may as well give it a shot. It is likely that I'll have no other job prospects, and what I don't want to happen is to have free time, because with free time comes boredom and with boredom comes spending. Yesterday I calculated that I've spent about $6000 New Zealand dollars since I've gotten here (not counting the plane ticket), so I'm not so inclined to spend any more for the next few months (except for a special birthday present I have planned for myself, plus I'm tossing around the idea of a side trip to Fiji).
So for the next few months, my most likely schedule will be work 9-4 at the cafe Tuesday through Saturday, 10pm-2am at the bar on as yet unknown days, and 5:30-8:30 or 9 at the Altitude Bar for accomodation. The longest break I'll have on most days for sleep and eating will be 7 hours. I can do that. Plus I can't really spend money if I'm working.
Next time: I'll give an update how the jobs are going, plus "Meet the Roomates". Cheers.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Queenstown: Land of the Brits
After returning to Queenstown post-Stray tour, I checked in at the Base Discovery Lodge hostel. Base is a hostel chain primarily in New Zealand but also a few locations in Australia. One of the most modern hostels around, it always has clean rooms, an internet cafe, 24 hour staff, an associated bar next door, and for some reason terrible showers that only work by pushing a button that gives you water for a few seconds at a time. Also it tends to be slightly more expensive than other hostels but is always popular, plus Stray always stays there so I'm used to it. Anyway it was good timing, because the second day back they had a sign advertising a work for accomodation position, which many hostels offer but rarely seem to have positions available. Accomodation work is typically 3 hours a day, 6 days a week. Last Tuesday was my first day. I was given a brief introduction to bed changing in the morning, then trained on my usual 7-10pm shift that night which involves keeping the kitchen clean. Since there are plenty of people preparing dinner at that time and we're not inclined to get in their way, the first 1-2 hours of the job is boringly easy and involves making our own dinner, sitting in the tv lounge, talking to reception, etc. The last hour or so just involves cleaning up whatever dishes were left by the assholes who can't clean up after themselves and generally keeping things tidy before the night shift guy comes in. It's a pretty easy gig, however that first night I spoke with one of my roomates (I was moved into a staff room with other work-for-renters) who worked in the kitchen in the Altitude Bar (the bar owned by the hostel next door). He only worked 3 or 4 days a week, but was leaving Friday and offered me the spot. So Tuesday I trained in the hostel kitchen, Wednesday was my day off, Thursday my replacement took over, and Saturday I started in the bar kitchen. This entails standing over a sink washing dishes for from 5:30 to 8:30/9:00, but if nobody happens to have eaten at the bar that evening then my job entails sitting at the bar drinking free drinks with the other workers, all of whom seem pretty cool. Score one for Jeff. The first night was dead so I did little work. The second night I arrived at 5:30 and was working over that sink for the next 3.5 hours straight. It's a hit-or-miss job but never difficult and easily worth it to spare paying rent (even though it comes out to about $9/hour whereas minimum wage in NZ is $12.50).
So now I'm not spending much money, just on groceries and other meals since I don't know how to cook anything, but I'm not making money either. At first I was a little picky with my job search. I tried a few places I thought might be interesting to work at like the movie theater, video store, a local pizza diner/bar where I dropped off an application but wasn't called back despite the Now Hiring sign in front. I quickly discovered that most places either were no longer hiring (I think I just barely missed the big summer hiring surge) or were looking for someone more long-term than a few months, and I didn't have the balls to lie about my length of stay.
Over the next few days I rapidly broadened my list of workable places. I walked into souvenir shops, restaurants, bars, a bookstore, retail stores, minigolf park, and a physiotherapy clinic. Most places either weren't hiring or took my CV just in case something opened up. Of the few places that were hiring (a barback at a nearby bar, sales clerk at a souvenir clothing store) nothing has panned out yet, but supposedly I'll hear back in the next week or so, meaning if I decide not to travel anywhere else (e.g. Fiji, haha, rhymes) and stay in Queenstown about as long as I stay in New Zealand, I'll only have about 10 weeks to work. I guess I can't blame businesses for not looking too fondly on that.
My most recent prospect came from another roomate who works as a kitchen hand at the Vudu Cafe. He said he'd put in a good word for me and that I should stop by. This I did yesterday, and the apparently uninterested manager said he'd call me this morning. It's 1:40pm and no call, so I don't know what's up wit dat.
However my attempts to earn money haven't been a total loss. I stumbled upon a backdoor temp agency that specializes in hospitality, labor, and administration. No sooner had I walked in and applied then I was offered a spot in labor on a nearby house being renovated. Labor is a classy way of saying I was hunched over scraping paint and glue off of floors all day Thursday, then sanding, scraping, brushing, mopping, and vacuuming all day Friday. With only minor cuts, dirty clothes, and hydrochloric acid on my fingers, I decided labor would be plan B from now on.
The good news is there's still a chance I'll get a job at the clothing store or one of the bars and that more temp work will become available. Plus I have plenty of free time to read, watch free movies in the hostel, sit on the nearby "beach", and eat fish and chips, and to reflect on all the decisions I wish I'd made over the years and to figure out how I can travel more (Europe summer 2012 anyone?). Plus I finally have time to upload the hundreds of photos I've taken.
So that's the current situation. In other news: I've eaten fish and chips at least a dozen times, lamb probably about 2 dozen times, and I've done karaoke 5 times (3 bars, twice on the bus).
Also there's a ton of British people here in Queenstown. Seriously, aside from general tourists pretty much everyone working here is from England. Come on America, get traveling.
So now I'm not spending much money, just on groceries and other meals since I don't know how to cook anything, but I'm not making money either. At first I was a little picky with my job search. I tried a few places I thought might be interesting to work at like the movie theater, video store, a local pizza diner/bar where I dropped off an application but wasn't called back despite the Now Hiring sign in front. I quickly discovered that most places either were no longer hiring (I think I just barely missed the big summer hiring surge) or were looking for someone more long-term than a few months, and I didn't have the balls to lie about my length of stay.
Over the next few days I rapidly broadened my list of workable places. I walked into souvenir shops, restaurants, bars, a bookstore, retail stores, minigolf park, and a physiotherapy clinic. Most places either weren't hiring or took my CV just in case something opened up. Of the few places that were hiring (a barback at a nearby bar, sales clerk at a souvenir clothing store) nothing has panned out yet, but supposedly I'll hear back in the next week or so, meaning if I decide not to travel anywhere else (e.g. Fiji, haha, rhymes) and stay in Queenstown about as long as I stay in New Zealand, I'll only have about 10 weeks to work. I guess I can't blame businesses for not looking too fondly on that.
My most recent prospect came from another roomate who works as a kitchen hand at the Vudu Cafe. He said he'd put in a good word for me and that I should stop by. This I did yesterday, and the apparently uninterested manager said he'd call me this morning. It's 1:40pm and no call, so I don't know what's up wit dat.
However my attempts to earn money haven't been a total loss. I stumbled upon a backdoor temp agency that specializes in hospitality, labor, and administration. No sooner had I walked in and applied then I was offered a spot in labor on a nearby house being renovated. Labor is a classy way of saying I was hunched over scraping paint and glue off of floors all day Thursday, then sanding, scraping, brushing, mopping, and vacuuming all day Friday. With only minor cuts, dirty clothes, and hydrochloric acid on my fingers, I decided labor would be plan B from now on.
The good news is there's still a chance I'll get a job at the clothing store or one of the bars and that more temp work will become available. Plus I have plenty of free time to read, watch free movies in the hostel, sit on the nearby "beach", and eat fish and chips, and to reflect on all the decisions I wish I'd made over the years and to figure out how I can travel more (Europe summer 2012 anyone?). Plus I finally have time to upload the hundreds of photos I've taken.
So that's the current situation. In other news: I've eaten fish and chips at least a dozen times, lamb probably about 2 dozen times, and I've done karaoke 5 times (3 bars, twice on the bus).
Also there's a ton of British people here in Queenstown. Seriously, aside from general tourists pretty much everyone working here is from England. Come on America, get traveling.
Getting Up to Speed
I need to speed this up because I'm still about a month behind in this blog. I'll try to quickly cover everything to get up to the present, then go back later and elaborate.
Taupo: planned on only staying one night before leaving for the Tongariro Crossing, but saw a sign posted that the crossing was canceled due to too much snow (I happened to pick the same hostel that the Stray bus was staying at, hence the sign). So I booked a few more nights and lounged around the smallish town of Taupo for a few days doing nearly nothing. Apparently Taupo is one of the best places in NZ to skydive, so I'm definitely going to try to get that in on my way back up to Auckland in a few months. My roomates the first 2 nights were two British guys Andy and Chris traveling on their own by car, who I happened to see again in Queenstown and Christchurch and who are awesome.
Tongariro: did the Tongariro Crossing, a 18 and change kilometer hike along some volcanos, including a couple that are collectively known as Mt. Doom (I've heard each referred to Mt. Doom separately, so I'm not completely sure which is which). I took several hundred pictures, and the hike took me 6 hours and 50 minutes.
Wellington: Stray bussed from Tongariro to Wellington where I stayed for about 3 days. Highlights included climbing Mt. Victoria (only abuot 30 minutes round trip), riding in the cable car (one of the biggest attractions and TOTALLY not worth it, Te Papa Museum with some interactive photo/video thingy, and seeing Jackie (friend from WashU). While here I ran into Kenny (Scottish roomate from Auckland), and Tommy (Dutch roomate from Auckland). I saw Tommy again in Franz Josef and Queenstown and completely forgot to get his facebook info.
Abel Tasman: Took the ferry from Wellington to Picton (in the South Island) and hopped back on Stray to stay at Abel Tasman National Park. Hopping on the new Stray bus was a little bizarre and lonely (for reasons I'll explain in a future blog update), and the Abel Tasman accomodation was pretty crappy. I did the Golden Bay tour, which was definitely not worth the money.
Barrytown: Our next stop was Barrytown, population 42. We stayed at a pub with some shacks in back converted to dorm rooms. The highlight of Barrytown is that the pub has several big boxes of assorted clothing to be combined into costumes. Needless to say after some drinking and dressing in drag everyone opened up a little more. The next morning we did bone carving, which is pretty self-explanatory and made me really want to take a wood shop class.
Franz Josef: The only attraction in Franz Josef is the Franz Josef glacier (and the nearby Fox Glacier). It is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world at a rate of something like a meter a year. I opted for the full day glacier hike (about 6 hours glacier time). Other options included a half-day hike, an ice climb, and a heli-hike in which you fly by helicopter to the top of the glacier then just hike down. The climb was surprisingly warm and only moderately tiring, probably because I was an idiot and ended up in the 3rd of 4 groups based on pace and effort of climb.
Makarora: Went to middle-of-nowhere Makarora where I went on the most scenically beautiful run I've ever done. Tonight's attraction was karaoke at the hostel bar. Needless to say this was the best night of the Stray trip, at least up to that point. Even the people who knew they weren't going to sing gave it a shot, probably because everyone else was singing louder to every song anyway.
Queenstown: Queenstown is the adrenaline capital of New Zealand. It is known for having the first bungy jump site in the world, plus 2 other bungy jumps, a canyon swing, some jetboats, riverboarding, luge rides, and probably a few more weird New Zealand "sports". Because Dave Della Chiesa told me I had to, and because I had gotten it in my head from the start of this trip that I would, I signed up for, and completed, the Nevis bungy jump. The Nevis bungy jump is the 2nd highest bungy jump in the world, and some of the guides I had had earlier in the trip admitted to having done it but never wanting to do it again. It was amazing. More on that later.
Tuatepere: First we went to Milford Sound, which is supposed to be a very beautiful ferry ride through a fjord (not a sound), but it was raining and overcast all day, so we saw no seals or penguins and it really felt like a waste of time, but shit happens. We stayed on a farm where we took a tour that involved watching some sheepdogs herd some sheep, and then anyone who wanted to got to try sheep shearing. I sheared a sheep. Only a small portion, and I did a horrible job, but I sheared a freakin' sheep. Wtf am I doing here?
Stewart Island: Some people hopped off at Invercargill (the southernmost city on the South Island) but a few of us ferried down to Stewart Island. The main Stray attraction here is fishing where supposedly everyone catches like 30 fish, but the boat was in for maintenance, so a few of us rode around on mopeds instead. I really want to get a moped for grad school, also I was the only one who didn't crash, which I found highly surprising. Tied for first in the pub quiz and called it a night.
Dunedin: Back to the mainland and headed northwest to Dunedin, commonly known as a college town though it was a Monday night and the college presence was definitely not felt. We did a pub crawl consisting of a whopping two bars, both of which had karaoke, making this the 2nd most fun night of the South Island Stray tour. Also we took a tour of the Speight's Brewery. The tour sucked, but since no one asked any questions we had more time than usual to spend drinking free beer at the end of the tour. Each participant was given a small glass (~3 shots worth) and told to pour as we pleased from 6 taps. Since we had arrived in Dunedin just in time to make the tour no one had eaten dinner, meaning everyone got drunk pretty fast and had a damn good time.
Queenstown 2: Back to Queenstown. This time did took the gondola up to the luge rides. I was the only one who fell off on all 6 of the luge rides. With nothing left to do and a handful of free drinking vouchers and some money found on the ground, about 6 of us headed to the bars around 5pm and proceeded to get drunk. As the only American in the bunch I lasted the shortest amount of time. More on that later, but here's a teaser: teapots.
Christchurch: The last stop on my tour, meaning the last time I would get to see the remaining members of the 'family', a group of Strays who had been on the same bus pretty much since Auckland and who took me under their wing for reasons I'll never understand. We ate Indian food on Thanksgiving and drank for the 4th night in a row, which is really nothing on the bus tours.
Having finished the tour and selected Queenstown as my choice of workplace, I bussed back there and very slowly started looking for jobs. Fortunately a few days in I was able to secure a position working at the hostel in exchange for accomodation. So for the past week I have not been making money nor spending any (for the most part).
So that's roughly where I am right now. Next time I'll give a more thorough description of my post-tour situation in Queenstown, and over the course of the next month I'll try to go more in depth on the tour activities described above. Cheers.
Taupo: planned on only staying one night before leaving for the Tongariro Crossing, but saw a sign posted that the crossing was canceled due to too much snow (I happened to pick the same hostel that the Stray bus was staying at, hence the sign). So I booked a few more nights and lounged around the smallish town of Taupo for a few days doing nearly nothing. Apparently Taupo is one of the best places in NZ to skydive, so I'm definitely going to try to get that in on my way back up to Auckland in a few months. My roomates the first 2 nights were two British guys Andy and Chris traveling on their own by car, who I happened to see again in Queenstown and Christchurch and who are awesome.
Tongariro: did the Tongariro Crossing, a 18 and change kilometer hike along some volcanos, including a couple that are collectively known as Mt. Doom (I've heard each referred to Mt. Doom separately, so I'm not completely sure which is which). I took several hundred pictures, and the hike took me 6 hours and 50 minutes.
Wellington: Stray bussed from Tongariro to Wellington where I stayed for about 3 days. Highlights included climbing Mt. Victoria (only abuot 30 minutes round trip), riding in the cable car (one of the biggest attractions and TOTALLY not worth it, Te Papa Museum with some interactive photo/video thingy, and seeing Jackie (friend from WashU). While here I ran into Kenny (Scottish roomate from Auckland), and Tommy (Dutch roomate from Auckland). I saw Tommy again in Franz Josef and Queenstown and completely forgot to get his facebook info.
Abel Tasman: Took the ferry from Wellington to Picton (in the South Island) and hopped back on Stray to stay at Abel Tasman National Park. Hopping on the new Stray bus was a little bizarre and lonely (for reasons I'll explain in a future blog update), and the Abel Tasman accomodation was pretty crappy. I did the Golden Bay tour, which was definitely not worth the money.
Barrytown: Our next stop was Barrytown, population 42. We stayed at a pub with some shacks in back converted to dorm rooms. The highlight of Barrytown is that the pub has several big boxes of assorted clothing to be combined into costumes. Needless to say after some drinking and dressing in drag everyone opened up a little more. The next morning we did bone carving, which is pretty self-explanatory and made me really want to take a wood shop class.
Franz Josef: The only attraction in Franz Josef is the Franz Josef glacier (and the nearby Fox Glacier). It is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world at a rate of something like a meter a year. I opted for the full day glacier hike (about 6 hours glacier time). Other options included a half-day hike, an ice climb, and a heli-hike in which you fly by helicopter to the top of the glacier then just hike down. The climb was surprisingly warm and only moderately tiring, probably because I was an idiot and ended up in the 3rd of 4 groups based on pace and effort of climb.
Makarora: Went to middle-of-nowhere Makarora where I went on the most scenically beautiful run I've ever done. Tonight's attraction was karaoke at the hostel bar. Needless to say this was the best night of the Stray trip, at least up to that point. Even the people who knew they weren't going to sing gave it a shot, probably because everyone else was singing louder to every song anyway.
Queenstown: Queenstown is the adrenaline capital of New Zealand. It is known for having the first bungy jump site in the world, plus 2 other bungy jumps, a canyon swing, some jetboats, riverboarding, luge rides, and probably a few more weird New Zealand "sports". Because Dave Della Chiesa told me I had to, and because I had gotten it in my head from the start of this trip that I would, I signed up for, and completed, the Nevis bungy jump. The Nevis bungy jump is the 2nd highest bungy jump in the world, and some of the guides I had had earlier in the trip admitted to having done it but never wanting to do it again. It was amazing. More on that later.
Tuatepere: First we went to Milford Sound, which is supposed to be a very beautiful ferry ride through a fjord (not a sound), but it was raining and overcast all day, so we saw no seals or penguins and it really felt like a waste of time, but shit happens. We stayed on a farm where we took a tour that involved watching some sheepdogs herd some sheep, and then anyone who wanted to got to try sheep shearing. I sheared a sheep. Only a small portion, and I did a horrible job, but I sheared a freakin' sheep. Wtf am I doing here?
Stewart Island: Some people hopped off at Invercargill (the southernmost city on the South Island) but a few of us ferried down to Stewart Island. The main Stray attraction here is fishing where supposedly everyone catches like 30 fish, but the boat was in for maintenance, so a few of us rode around on mopeds instead. I really want to get a moped for grad school, also I was the only one who didn't crash, which I found highly surprising. Tied for first in the pub quiz and called it a night.
Dunedin: Back to the mainland and headed northwest to Dunedin, commonly known as a college town though it was a Monday night and the college presence was definitely not felt. We did a pub crawl consisting of a whopping two bars, both of which had karaoke, making this the 2nd most fun night of the South Island Stray tour. Also we took a tour of the Speight's Brewery. The tour sucked, but since no one asked any questions we had more time than usual to spend drinking free beer at the end of the tour. Each participant was given a small glass (~3 shots worth) and told to pour as we pleased from 6 taps. Since we had arrived in Dunedin just in time to make the tour no one had eaten dinner, meaning everyone got drunk pretty fast and had a damn good time.
Queenstown 2: Back to Queenstown. This time did took the gondola up to the luge rides. I was the only one who fell off on all 6 of the luge rides. With nothing left to do and a handful of free drinking vouchers and some money found on the ground, about 6 of us headed to the bars around 5pm and proceeded to get drunk. As the only American in the bunch I lasted the shortest amount of time. More on that later, but here's a teaser: teapots.
Christchurch: The last stop on my tour, meaning the last time I would get to see the remaining members of the 'family', a group of Strays who had been on the same bus pretty much since Auckland and who took me under their wing for reasons I'll never understand. We ate Indian food on Thanksgiving and drank for the 4th night in a row, which is really nothing on the bus tours.
Having finished the tour and selected Queenstown as my choice of workplace, I bussed back there and very slowly started looking for jobs. Fortunately a few days in I was able to secure a position working at the hostel in exchange for accomodation. So for the past week I have not been making money nor spending any (for the most part).
So that's roughly where I am right now. Next time I'll give a more thorough description of my post-tour situation in Queenstown, and over the course of the next month I'll try to go more in depth on the tour activities described above. Cheers.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
East Cape
On Wednesday, November 5 I hopped on the next Stray "bus" to travel the East Cape of the North Island. The 'bus' was a van with a driver (Jason) and only two other passengers: Denny and Phillip both from Germany. First day headed out to Gisborne. Gisborne is the first mainland region in the world to see the sun rise, and as such holds the first official New Year's Party in the world, manifested as a three day festival where people pitch tents and drink and party for 3 days. It helps that Gisborne consists mostly of vineyards. Anyway we got to the most rustic hostel I'd see up to that point. It was a building-in-progress in the middle of a farm and about 200m walk from the beach. A Brazilian Stray guide Leo took over for the day, driving us out along nearly deserted roads and through farmland until we got to a point in a river where it angles downward slightly for about 30 meters, creating what is called a rock slide. To go rock sliding, one dons a wetsuit, lays on a boogey board (or stands if you're crazy, or Leo) and just slides down the rockface colliding with the pool of water below. Basically it's typical for the strange sports concocted by New Zealanders. Afterwards stopped off the Champagne Pools (a couple nature-made little hot tubs in the middle of a river) and then a sweet waterfall you can walk behind and slide under.
Had fish and chips for the 2nd time in New Zealand.
Then it was time to feed the stingrays. A sting ray is the animal that struck Steve Irwin, killing him instantly. Wearing some thick water-resistant overalls, we waded out about 50 meters into the sea holding bags of chopped up fish. When a couple sting rays about the size of my torso came up, each person would hold a piece of fish under the water, wait for the ray to swim over your hand, and just let go when you feel a nibble. Got some good close-up photos. Also sting rays are very slippery, and one could eat their wing flaps, if one were so inclined.
That night I got about 2 hours of sleep, probably because the tornado-strength winds apparently pounding on our building, but also probably because I was a little excited to wake up to be the first person in the world to see the sun rise on November 6th, 2008. When our guide woke us up, it was already light out, and I was pissed. We hurrie to the beach to see the sun wholly over the horizon, though just barely. I still got a lot of sweet pictures, but I have to say I was pretty disappointed that I missed the sunrise.
Next day pretty much sucked. The highlight of this day is the beautiful scenery along the highway, which means we were driving all day, which means I felt nauseous nearly the entire day sitting in the rundown van while Jason careened around constantly winding roads. To be fair it was pretty gosh darn beautiful most of the time. A few photo stops and hikes here and there, including the longest wharf in New Zealand and another fish and chip lunch. Ended at Marehako Bay (sp?) another so-so hostel with no blankets and we ate something that looked like seaweed for dinner. We sat around a logfire for a few hours just enjoying the peacefulness and company which was nice, but I lost my BBH card, which means I can no longer get $3 off at certain hostels. Inevitable.
Last day of East Cape started with about an hour hike to see a secluded waterfall, then back to Rotorua after a few more hikes and photo stops. Now because the Stray website kinda sucks sometimes, and my online itinerary had stated that I had already traveled to Taupo (the next stop after Rotorua) and already traveled stops can not be altered, I had to find my own transportation to Taupo instead of picking up the next Stray bus to pass through Rotorua. Hopped on a bus to Taupo and had to try 2 hostels to find one that wasn't booked, but the one I got included the cheapest bar in town with a sweet chili and nachos meal each night. The rest of Taupo and my completion of the North Island: to be continued...
Some more words people here say:
Had fish and chips for the 2nd time in New Zealand.
Then it was time to feed the stingrays. A sting ray is the animal that struck Steve Irwin, killing him instantly. Wearing some thick water-resistant overalls, we waded out about 50 meters into the sea holding bags of chopped up fish. When a couple sting rays about the size of my torso came up, each person would hold a piece of fish under the water, wait for the ray to swim over your hand, and just let go when you feel a nibble. Got some good close-up photos. Also sting rays are very slippery, and one could eat their wing flaps, if one were so inclined.
That night I got about 2 hours of sleep, probably because the tornado-strength winds apparently pounding on our building, but also probably because I was a little excited to wake up to be the first person in the world to see the sun rise on November 6th, 2008. When our guide woke us up, it was already light out, and I was pissed. We hurrie to the beach to see the sun wholly over the horizon, though just barely. I still got a lot of sweet pictures, but I have to say I was pretty disappointed that I missed the sunrise.
Next day pretty much sucked. The highlight of this day is the beautiful scenery along the highway, which means we were driving all day, which means I felt nauseous nearly the entire day sitting in the rundown van while Jason careened around constantly winding roads. To be fair it was pretty gosh darn beautiful most of the time. A few photo stops and hikes here and there, including the longest wharf in New Zealand and another fish and chip lunch. Ended at Marehako Bay (sp?) another so-so hostel with no blankets and we ate something that looked like seaweed for dinner. We sat around a logfire for a few hours just enjoying the peacefulness and company which was nice, but I lost my BBH card, which means I can no longer get $3 off at certain hostels. Inevitable.
Last day of East Cape started with about an hour hike to see a secluded waterfall, then back to Rotorua after a few more hikes and photo stops. Now because the Stray website kinda sucks sometimes, and my online itinerary had stated that I had already traveled to Taupo (the next stop after Rotorua) and already traveled stops can not be altered, I had to find my own transportation to Taupo instead of picking up the next Stray bus to pass through Rotorua. Hopped on a bus to Taupo and had to try 2 hostels to find one that wasn't booked, but the one I got included the cheapest bar in town with a sweet chili and nachos meal each night. The rest of Taupo and my completion of the North Island: to be continued...
Some more words people here say:
- primo
- choice
- heaps
- keen
Saturday, November 29, 2008
I'm Still Alive
Yeaaaaaahhhh, so it's been awhile since I've written anything, which means it's gonna suck trying to recap everything from over the past few weeks. I've been riding on Stray buses bouncing from town to town a lot, and most hostels either have really slow or really expensive internet. Plus sitting on the internet whilst traveling a beautiful country isn't too appealing. However I finished my tour in a town called Christchurch this past Thursday, and on Saturday bussed my way back to Queenstown where I've decided to settle down and work for awhile. But I'll get to that later. Here is more of what I have been doing since my last post:
Stray Day 3: Raglan to Waitomo to Maketu
We stopped at a place called Waitomo, known throughout the country for nothing other than its caves and glowworms. I opted for the 4 hour caving expedition billed as the most action-packed of all the caving options (and the 8 hour option was too expensive). I don't know what Kevin Gale did on the St. Louis caving trip he's always talking about, but it couldn't have been as good as this. We started with several abseils down rockfaces and through waterfalls to get about 70 meters underground. Some of the passages were narrow enough that even I had to struggle to wiggle my way through. After a couple hours of squirming past rocks, crawling in water and through tiny holes, and a brief lesson about glowworms, we finished with a few short rock climbs. Sadly I saw no trace of manbearpig, but I did successfully play what the two guides referred to as a 'rockeridoo', the NZ predecessor to the Australian didjeridoo. It was interesting how informal the whole trip was: I filled out the smallest waiver ever and the guides are pretty nonchalant the whole time, but they're clearly very capable. The organizers wouldn't last a week in the US before somebody sued them.
Finished up the day in Maketu at a Maori marae, or meeting house. Hosted by Uncle Boy, an elderly Maori man, we were treated to a buffet and brief song and dance before the men were taken aside to learn the haka and the women to learn the poi dance. A 'haka' is a Maori war dance performed by the NZ rugby team prior to the start of every match, and I highly recommend watching one on youtube. The whole experience was clearly slightly commercialized, though supposedly only available to Stray travelers.
Stray Day 4: Maketu to Rotorua
Boring travel day, but I decided to hop off in Rotorua because a separate Stray pass I had bought which didn't begin until 3 days later leaves from Rotorua. Spent the next few days doing very little, because although Rotorua is a well-known tourist town it was still a little early for tourist season. Rotorua is known for its geothermal hotpools, zorbing, and its strong raw egg smell. I did go zorbing the third day I was there. Zorbing is the sport of rolling down a hill inside of a large inflatable ball, either with water or being strapped inside. I chose the water option but sadly didn't discover until later that there is a separate, unadvertised water and soap option. Damn. Anyway it was fun but only lasts like 30 seconds, so the 'worth-it'-ness is debatable. When I wasn't zorbing I watched a lot of free movies and did a lot of walking. Not spending money feels good.
I had only been on the first Stray bus for 3 days but it still sucked to leave all the people behind. I miss people.
Stray Day 3: Raglan to Waitomo to Maketu
We stopped at a place called Waitomo, known throughout the country for nothing other than its caves and glowworms. I opted for the 4 hour caving expedition billed as the most action-packed of all the caving options (and the 8 hour option was too expensive). I don't know what Kevin Gale did on the St. Louis caving trip he's always talking about, but it couldn't have been as good as this. We started with several abseils down rockfaces and through waterfalls to get about 70 meters underground. Some of the passages were narrow enough that even I had to struggle to wiggle my way through. After a couple hours of squirming past rocks, crawling in water and through tiny holes, and a brief lesson about glowworms, we finished with a few short rock climbs. Sadly I saw no trace of manbearpig, but I did successfully play what the two guides referred to as a 'rockeridoo', the NZ predecessor to the Australian didjeridoo. It was interesting how informal the whole trip was: I filled out the smallest waiver ever and the guides are pretty nonchalant the whole time, but they're clearly very capable. The organizers wouldn't last a week in the US before somebody sued them.
Finished up the day in Maketu at a Maori marae, or meeting house. Hosted by Uncle Boy, an elderly Maori man, we were treated to a buffet and brief song and dance before the men were taken aside to learn the haka and the women to learn the poi dance. A 'haka' is a Maori war dance performed by the NZ rugby team prior to the start of every match, and I highly recommend watching one on youtube. The whole experience was clearly slightly commercialized, though supposedly only available to Stray travelers.
Stray Day 4: Maketu to Rotorua
Boring travel day, but I decided to hop off in Rotorua because a separate Stray pass I had bought which didn't begin until 3 days later leaves from Rotorua. Spent the next few days doing very little, because although Rotorua is a well-known tourist town it was still a little early for tourist season. Rotorua is known for its geothermal hotpools, zorbing, and its strong raw egg smell. I did go zorbing the third day I was there. Zorbing is the sport of rolling down a hill inside of a large inflatable ball, either with water or being strapped inside. I chose the water option but sadly didn't discover until later that there is a separate, unadvertised water and soap option. Damn. Anyway it was fun but only lasts like 30 seconds, so the 'worth-it'-ness is debatable. When I wasn't zorbing I watched a lot of free movies and did a lot of walking. Not spending money feels good.
I had only been on the first Stray bus for 3 days but it still sucked to leave all the people behind. I miss people.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Stray Cat Strut
Wow, a lot to catch up on.
Also "Stray Cat Strut" = good song by the band Stray Cats, lead singer Brian Setzer of the "Jump, Jive, and Wail" Brian Setzer Orchestra. But enough about that.
On Thursday, October 30 at 8am I hopped onto the Stray bus. Stray is a company that sponsors "off the beaten path" tours around New Zealand, taking you directly to a variety of activities, often that most tourists aren't even allowed to do, and typically for a modest discount. The tour is set up so that you buy a pass designated a particular route around the country, and you have 12 months to complete the route as many times as you want, hopping off the bus anywhere you want, including literally telling the driver to stop the bus while on a random highway, and hopping back on the next bus coming through whenever you're ready. A similar company called Kiwi Experience does the same thing with larger busses and is known as more of a party bus, whereas Stray does more outdoorsy cool activity stuff, which is what I wanted. I'll summarize each of my Stray days thus far.
Stray Day 1:
Hopped on ~25-30 seater bus containing 2 Brits, 2 Danish girls, 2 French girls, 2 Americans (+ me), and about 15 Germans. Germans are everywhere. Headed to Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula, which is a beach where you dig a hole only a couple feet deep (at the most) that fills up with the steamy hot water just beneath the ground, and you have your very own hot tub. After laying in their for awhile, burning my back on the occasionally scalding water and briefly diving in the cold ocean, we headed to Hahei. I opted for a sea kayaking trip with 5 others. The weather was beautiful and the tide was low, which meant we could stick closer to shore getting better beach views, seeing a few caves, and spotting a few sting rays including one large one that swim directly beneath my kayak. A brief stop at Cathedral Cove for coffee and cookies made by our very knowledgeable, very fun and friendly guide, before heading back. At this point I had been on the tour for half a day and in New Zealand for one week, so naturally I dropped my camera in the water and broke it. Fortunately the battery and memory card remained intact. That night we had a group BBQ at the small, not-very-good hostel followed by a beach bonfire.
Stray Day 2: Oct. 31, 2008
Began heading towards Raglan. Stopped on the way in Paeroa, famous for the L&P (Lemon & Paeroa) soft drink, with the slogan 'world famous in New Zealand', and a decent but not great taste. Found a Coin Save, which is basically a cross between a Dollar Store, costume shop, and Salvation Army. Being Halloween, about 6 of us bought some cheap costumes. I opted for an afro clown wig and 6 stick on mustaches, making this the single greatest purchase of my entire life. One girl bought a set of mini-Digimon characters and distributed them to all costume wearers so that anytime someone yells 'Digimon!' you must present your character, the idea being that whoever is last must chug a pint or something, a rule which at no point was enforced. Raglan is known for surfing, but after a hefty sum the previous day I decided to pass. Went for my first NZ run on the unforgiving hills near our hostel. The hostel included the Flying Fox, a short semi-fun zipline, sauna, pool table, ping-pong table, foosball table, bigscreen TV, and a ropes course I didn't get to see. We all had fish and chips for dinner, the first of what I'm sure will be many times while I'm here, and then donned our costumes and downed a few beers back at the hostel. The night was actually pretty tame, but good for bonding I suppose. I also watched my first rugby game while Ed from Hull, England tried to explain the rules to me. I wish it were more easily viewed in the US.
Since my half hour of internet here in Taupo is about over, I'll have to end here. But with a pretty empty schedule tomorrow I'll try to catch up on the rest of my trip. So long Americans.
Also "Stray Cat Strut" = good song by the band Stray Cats, lead singer Brian Setzer of the "Jump, Jive, and Wail" Brian Setzer Orchestra. But enough about that.
On Thursday, October 30 at 8am I hopped onto the Stray bus. Stray is a company that sponsors "off the beaten path" tours around New Zealand, taking you directly to a variety of activities, often that most tourists aren't even allowed to do, and typically for a modest discount. The tour is set up so that you buy a pass designated a particular route around the country, and you have 12 months to complete the route as many times as you want, hopping off the bus anywhere you want, including literally telling the driver to stop the bus while on a random highway, and hopping back on the next bus coming through whenever you're ready. A similar company called Kiwi Experience does the same thing with larger busses and is known as more of a party bus, whereas Stray does more outdoorsy cool activity stuff, which is what I wanted. I'll summarize each of my Stray days thus far.
Stray Day 1:
Hopped on ~25-30 seater bus containing 2 Brits, 2 Danish girls, 2 French girls, 2 Americans (+ me), and about 15 Germans. Germans are everywhere. Headed to Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula, which is a beach where you dig a hole only a couple feet deep (at the most) that fills up with the steamy hot water just beneath the ground, and you have your very own hot tub. After laying in their for awhile, burning my back on the occasionally scalding water and briefly diving in the cold ocean, we headed to Hahei. I opted for a sea kayaking trip with 5 others. The weather was beautiful and the tide was low, which meant we could stick closer to shore getting better beach views, seeing a few caves, and spotting a few sting rays including one large one that swim directly beneath my kayak. A brief stop at Cathedral Cove for coffee and cookies made by our very knowledgeable, very fun and friendly guide, before heading back. At this point I had been on the tour for half a day and in New Zealand for one week, so naturally I dropped my camera in the water and broke it. Fortunately the battery and memory card remained intact. That night we had a group BBQ at the small, not-very-good hostel followed by a beach bonfire.
Stray Day 2: Oct. 31, 2008
Began heading towards Raglan. Stopped on the way in Paeroa, famous for the L&P (Lemon & Paeroa) soft drink, with the slogan 'world famous in New Zealand', and a decent but not great taste. Found a Coin Save, which is basically a cross between a Dollar Store, costume shop, and Salvation Army. Being Halloween, about 6 of us bought some cheap costumes. I opted for an afro clown wig and 6 stick on mustaches, making this the single greatest purchase of my entire life. One girl bought a set of mini-Digimon characters and distributed them to all costume wearers so that anytime someone yells 'Digimon!' you must present your character, the idea being that whoever is last must chug a pint or something, a rule which at no point was enforced. Raglan is known for surfing, but after a hefty sum the previous day I decided to pass. Went for my first NZ run on the unforgiving hills near our hostel. The hostel included the Flying Fox, a short semi-fun zipline, sauna, pool table, ping-pong table, foosball table, bigscreen TV, and a ropes course I didn't get to see. We all had fish and chips for dinner, the first of what I'm sure will be many times while I'm here, and then donned our costumes and downed a few beers back at the hostel. The night was actually pretty tame, but good for bonding I suppose. I also watched my first rugby game while Ed from Hull, England tried to explain the rules to me. I wish it were more easily viewed in the US.
Since my half hour of internet here in Taupo is about over, I'll have to end here. But with a pretty empty schedule tomorrow I'll try to catch up on the rest of my trip. So long Americans.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Everyone here talks funny
Well, almost everyone. I have met a few Americans and obviously we speak normally. But as I stated in my previous post, I love accents. And there are plenty of different accents here. I've roomed with Scottish, Danish, Dutch, and 3 different kinds of British people. It seems like the only people I haven't really met are Kiwis. There's the Maori guy who works for the hostel and coordinates the speedpool tournament in the bar next to the hostel every night and who knows my name. And any shop I go into will almost certainly have a sometimes difficult to understand Kiwi accented individual behind the counter. But I haven't really met any Kiwis. But that's to be expected. At my orientation last Friday we were told that roughly 2000 people are landing in Auckland every day. Most of them are probably tourists, and most of them probably won't get far beyond Auckland.
However I expect that to change tomorrow. Tomorrow morning cloudy and early I leave on my Stray bus tour. It will wind its way around both islands before finishing in Christchurch, where I will most likely stop to work for awhile. That is unless I fall in love with Wellington and just never get back on the bus, which is not only possible but expected given the nature of this "hop-on, hop-off" bus tour. But before that, we tour the North Island. Some of the expected highlights include being the first in the world to see the sun rise on the East Cape, spending the night in a national park, probably some cave-exploring and sand sliding. Listen to me. I'm getting all giddy.
The past few days have been nothing really to speak of. A lot of walking and strolling through a few beautiful parks, but mostly planning, organizing, pretending to fit in while trying to cook in the kitchen. I can't wait to travel and see some scenery. I also can't wait to meet more people. I probably can wait to get up at 7:30 am tomorrow.
Some of my favorite words when said by foreigners (primarily British):
However I expect that to change tomorrow. Tomorrow morning cloudy and early I leave on my Stray bus tour. It will wind its way around both islands before finishing in Christchurch, where I will most likely stop to work for awhile. That is unless I fall in love with Wellington and just never get back on the bus, which is not only possible but expected given the nature of this "hop-on, hop-off" bus tour. But before that, we tour the North Island. Some of the expected highlights include being the first in the world to see the sun rise on the East Cape, spending the night in a national park, probably some cave-exploring and sand sliding. Listen to me. I'm getting all giddy.
The past few days have been nothing really to speak of. A lot of walking and strolling through a few beautiful parks, but mostly planning, organizing, pretending to fit in while trying to cook in the kitchen. I can't wait to travel and see some scenery. I also can't wait to meet more people. I probably can wait to get up at 7:30 am tomorrow.
Some of my favorite words when said by foreigners (primarily British):
- shite
- brilliant
- bollocks
- bloody hell
- sweet as
In New Zealand 'sweet as' is a common phrase basically meaning 'sounds good' or 'cool' or just plain 'sweet'. The word 'as' is added to a lot of things basically like an adverb. For example, an hour after I eat I may be hungry, but 10 hours after I eat I'll probably be hungry as. It also contributed nicely to this very Kiwi conversation I had in a store:
Clerk: How ya goin', mate?
Me: I'm just browsing.
Clerk: Just browsin'? Sweet as, bro.
For more on New Zealand-speak, consult this video which I'm told Kiwis find humorous, and quite frankly I do too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHZwI8pcA
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Auckland
Well the first day was a little rough. After the 14 hour flight and 9 hour layover in LA, it was hard to tell where one day had ended and another began. I spent about 6 hours laying around the hostel lounge waiting to checkin and struggling to stay awake. The rooms are decent enough: 6 bunk beds (some have more or less), a mini-fridge and a chair with storage lockers. After checking in I just hung out in my room reading/napping/hoping my bag still existed. That's when I met my first roomate: Phil from Newcastle, England. He's a cool guy who is taking a year to see the world. He began backpacking in SE Asia, then Australia, then NZ, and just last night he flew off to Chile to backpack around South America. To summarize, Phil is my hero. Since it was still midday and I had nothing to do I decided to take a stroll around Auckland, or rather Queen St, which is the main tourist and center of hubbub, akin to Delmar near WashU, State St in Madison, or Michigan Ave in Chicago. There's been extensive Southeast Asian immigration here over the past umpteen decades, and the influence of those asian contingents is massive, with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai restaurants everywhere. Most stores have things written in one or another Asian language, and at least half the people around are clearly Asian. Anyway Auckland is nice enough, but it's a big city (the largest in NZ), and people generally don't visit NZ to see big cities, so it really isn't that appealing, and virtually every other traveler I've spoken to feels the same way. So I can't wait to get out of here.
We had an intense NZ orientation the next day which covered just about everything you could possible want to know about traveling here. So I need to take the next few days to just regroup and get a hold on all of this information to plan my trip. Right now I'm strongly considering settling down for awhile in either Wellington (the capital) or Christchurch, the 2nd largest city in NZ and largest on the South Island, which is known to be more beautiful than the North Island. But on the way I'm considering taking a 'hop-on hop-off' adventure bus. It's designed to take travelers off the beaten path, showing things that aren't necessarily advertised in all the guidebooks and which aren't major tourist stops. Some places are only accessible via these buses, and you can get off the bus in any city you want and stay as long as you want, hopping back on another bus whenever you want to leave (within a year). Expensive but I have no doubt that it will be worth it.
Beneath the hostel is the Globe Bar, which offers some sort of free or discounted attraction to travelers every single night, though usually at 8pm, meaning you sit around for 4 hours drinking waiting for the party to show up, but it's a nice place to unwind.
I've mostly been spending time with my roomates. Besides Phil, there is Kenny from Glasgow Scotland and Christi from Minneapolis (the dorms are co-ed) on the first night. Then Ian from England moved in for the second night. After that came Hiro from Japan, Basil from Switzerland, and Anastasia from Essex England (apparently known for having slutty girls, just saying). They're all great, and it's a huge luxury that everyone speaks English, kinda makes me feel guilty that I speak nothing else. Even Hiro communicates pretty well with broken English.
Aside from my roomates, I've met a variety of people. Apparently a group of 15 students from Germany all came here together, unfortunately they haven't really split apart from each other yet so it's hard to get to know any of them. During a speedpool tourney at the Globe Bar I got to meet folks from Denmark, another from Japan, England, Germany, Canada, and a couple girls from the US.
Some things I've noticed:
We had an intense NZ orientation the next day which covered just about everything you could possible want to know about traveling here. So I need to take the next few days to just regroup and get a hold on all of this information to plan my trip. Right now I'm strongly considering settling down for awhile in either Wellington (the capital) or Christchurch, the 2nd largest city in NZ and largest on the South Island, which is known to be more beautiful than the North Island. But on the way I'm considering taking a 'hop-on hop-off' adventure bus. It's designed to take travelers off the beaten path, showing things that aren't necessarily advertised in all the guidebooks and which aren't major tourist stops. Some places are only accessible via these buses, and you can get off the bus in any city you want and stay as long as you want, hopping back on another bus whenever you want to leave (within a year). Expensive but I have no doubt that it will be worth it.
Beneath the hostel is the Globe Bar, which offers some sort of free or discounted attraction to travelers every single night, though usually at 8pm, meaning you sit around for 4 hours drinking waiting for the party to show up, but it's a nice place to unwind.
I've mostly been spending time with my roomates. Besides Phil, there is Kenny from Glasgow Scotland and Christi from Minneapolis (the dorms are co-ed) on the first night. Then Ian from England moved in for the second night. After that came Hiro from Japan, Basil from Switzerland, and Anastasia from Essex England (apparently known for having slutty girls, just saying). They're all great, and it's a huge luxury that everyone speaks English, kinda makes me feel guilty that I speak nothing else. Even Hiro communicates pretty well with broken English.
Aside from my roomates, I've met a variety of people. Apparently a group of 15 students from Germany all came here together, unfortunately they haven't really split apart from each other yet so it's hard to get to know any of them. During a speedpool tourney at the Globe Bar I got to meet folks from Denmark, another from Japan, England, Germany, Canada, and a couple girls from the US.
Some things I've noticed:
- virtually all the music I've heard is American, or dance remixes of American music.
- NZlanders don't just drive on the left, they customarily walk on the left side of escalators and stairs. I learned this through the experience of near collisions on a couple staircases.
- showering is not necessarily expected of any of the backpackers, nor is changing clothes from day-to-day.
- I love accents.
- If you don't make your own food in the kitchen, you'll lose money pretty quickly.
Until next time blogfans, cheers mate!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Operation Kiwi Begins
I'm sitting in the Auckland Central Backpackers hostel, recently arrived in the hilly and rainy Auckland. It seems like a lot has happened since I left, but really it's been pretty boring (not NZ, everything else).
The flight from Chicago to LA was nicely uneventful. Naturally the plane arrived early, extending my 8.5 hour layover to an even 9. I read several Runner's Worlds to pass the time, went on a 3 hour walk outside the airport and the nearby area, and ate Burger King twice, and it was gross. I only lost my boarding pass once, but the folks at security (where I left it) were quick to act and 5 minutes later I had it back in my hands, nervous sweat on my brow. The 13 or so hour flight from LA to Auckland was also pretty tame. I hit up a few more Runner's Worlds, watched Get Smart (pretty terrible movie) and got a surprisingly good amount of sleep. Also, though I couldn't get up the nerve to ask him, I'm about 95% sure that Ernie Hudson was on my flight. For those of you who are lame, Ernie Hudson is an actor who made unforgettable roles in Congo, Miss Congeniality, and most famously as the black Ghostbuster. Part of the reason I didn't confirm his identity is because I couldn't remember his last name (I'm pretty sure it's Hudson) and I figured just asking him if his name is Ernie was too awkward, even for me.
Oh also the airport lost my bag.
Or at least they sent it to Melbourne for some reason. First I was told it would arrive tomorrow, then Saturday, and finally assured it would be in by tonight. That means that for most of today I have to continue wearing the same clothes I've been wearing for the past over 24 hours (with the time changes I don't feel like figuring out the actual time). Plus I was kinda hoping to go for a run once I got to the hostel so I could kill time until check-in and explore the area for awhile, but my only running attire is in my "lost" bag, naturally.
The hostel is pretty sweet. An internet cafe, TVs, massage chairs ($2 to use), kitchen, laundry room, lounge chairs, and plenty of people just hanging out. Hopefully they're not all as hard to understand as the guy and girl who work here.
On the bus ride here, I started asking myself all sorts of questions. What the hell am I doing here? Why did I think this was a good idea? etc. But I knew all along what the answer was. I'm here for a life experience. And something like that doesn't come without challenge. If I may take a note from the WashU XC team, I'm ready to rub my life experience in adversity's face. BRING IT NEW ZEALAND!
First New Zealand Purchase: an internet card ($5 NZ)
The flight from Chicago to LA was nicely uneventful. Naturally the plane arrived early, extending my 8.5 hour layover to an even 9. I read several Runner's Worlds to pass the time, went on a 3 hour walk outside the airport and the nearby area, and ate Burger King twice, and it was gross. I only lost my boarding pass once, but the folks at security (where I left it) were quick to act and 5 minutes later I had it back in my hands, nervous sweat on my brow. The 13 or so hour flight from LA to Auckland was also pretty tame. I hit up a few more Runner's Worlds, watched Get Smart (pretty terrible movie) and got a surprisingly good amount of sleep. Also, though I couldn't get up the nerve to ask him, I'm about 95% sure that Ernie Hudson was on my flight. For those of you who are lame, Ernie Hudson is an actor who made unforgettable roles in Congo, Miss Congeniality, and most famously as the black Ghostbuster. Part of the reason I didn't confirm his identity is because I couldn't remember his last name (I'm pretty sure it's Hudson) and I figured just asking him if his name is Ernie was too awkward, even for me.
Oh also the airport lost my bag.
Or at least they sent it to Melbourne for some reason. First I was told it would arrive tomorrow, then Saturday, and finally assured it would be in by tonight. That means that for most of today I have to continue wearing the same clothes I've been wearing for the past over 24 hours (with the time changes I don't feel like figuring out the actual time). Plus I was kinda hoping to go for a run once I got to the hostel so I could kill time until check-in and explore the area for awhile, but my only running attire is in my "lost" bag, naturally.
The hostel is pretty sweet. An internet cafe, TVs, massage chairs ($2 to use), kitchen, laundry room, lounge chairs, and plenty of people just hanging out. Hopefully they're not all as hard to understand as the guy and girl who work here.
On the bus ride here, I started asking myself all sorts of questions. What the hell am I doing here? Why did I think this was a good idea? etc. But I knew all along what the answer was. I'm here for a life experience. And something like that doesn't come without challenge. If I may take a note from the WashU XC team, I'm ready to rub my life experience in adversity's face. BRING IT NEW ZEALAND!
First New Zealand Purchase: an internet card ($5 NZ)
Saturday, October 18, 2008
60 Hours to Go
I leave in just under 60 hours. Here's what I still have to do:
This list is almost exactly the same as it was when I first was accepted into the program to go to New Zealand. All I've done is get my visa, though that's the most important part, so I get a pat on the back for that.
I have all day Sunday and all day Monday to get everything together. However the Bears game is on at noon tomorrow (Sunday) which effectively wipes out a time block from noon to 3. Yesterday I discovered that TNT is showing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy tomorrow, naturally beginning at 3. As a sentient being who is (probably) capable of rational thought, obviously I must watch this trilogy.
Monday is going to be a busy day........
- pack everything
- decide where I want to go first
- find a job
This list is almost exactly the same as it was when I first was accepted into the program to go to New Zealand. All I've done is get my visa, though that's the most important part, so I get a pat on the back for that.
I have all day Sunday and all day Monday to get everything together. However the Bears game is on at noon tomorrow (Sunday) which effectively wipes out a time block from noon to 3. Yesterday I discovered that TNT is showing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy tomorrow, naturally beginning at 3. As a sentient being who is (probably) capable of rational thought, obviously I must watch this trilogy.
Monday is going to be a busy day........
Friday, October 17, 2008
Planning the Tour: Part Get It Over With
Ok so this is getting too long and nobody cares about this part anyway, so I'll try to wrap it up in this post and keep it brief.
The issue with China always revolved around when I would finish it. If I went to any school except Madison, WI for grad school, which begins early June, then I would have no problem staying in China for its full semester which ends in June. However seeing as how my number one grad school choice is currently Madison, I decided to bank on the chance that I'll be accepted. The extremely accomodating and courteous representative from International Teaching Advantage (the China program) finally called me and told me what he had said in email several weeks earlier, that he had found a potential spot for me at the University of Nanjing, that their semester ends in late June, and that he had a few favors stored away that he'd be willing to use on my behalf as long as I was completely committed to doing the program (at this point there had been no money deposit or anything except guilt prohibiting me from backing out). So after a final day of deliberation I told him to keep those favors intact and withdraw my application. I sincerely hope that I can do the program sometime after grad school is over, provided my interests have not changed, plus since China was more incidental rather than intentional I'll probably do more searching for TEFL programs in other countries too, though admittedly the idea of living in China for awhile sounds pretty sweet and I had myself pretty psyched up about it.
So: this coming Tuesday I depart for New Zealand. My return ticket is dated about 3.5 months from now. However as I have absolutely no followup plans it's entirely possible that I'll extend my stay for several more months. This depends on several factors: how much I love New Zealand; how much I miss home; whether or not I can comfortably do/visit all the activities/places I want in 3.5 months; whether or not I secure any other post-NZ travel plans; and whether or not I want to stay and work for awhile to regain some of the money I'll surely lose when I'm gone (if I simply came home in February I'd probably just try to get a job, but why work here when I can work there, right?) So this trip will largely be a lesson in improvisation, as far as what I do when I'm there as well as what I do when I leave.
That's enough "planning" talk for now. I'm sure I could go on much longer about the various ideas I've had for other travel plans I really want to do (working on a cruise ship is my latest flavor of the week idea), but I'm assuming anybody who bother to reads this doesn't do so to hear about what I wish I could do. My readers want DIRT. I'll give you dirt. Starting in roughly 84 hours when my flight leaves Chicago.
The issue with China always revolved around when I would finish it. If I went to any school except Madison, WI for grad school, which begins early June, then I would have no problem staying in China for its full semester which ends in June. However seeing as how my number one grad school choice is currently Madison, I decided to bank on the chance that I'll be accepted. The extremely accomodating and courteous representative from International Teaching Advantage (the China program) finally called me and told me what he had said in email several weeks earlier, that he had found a potential spot for me at the University of Nanjing, that their semester ends in late June, and that he had a few favors stored away that he'd be willing to use on my behalf as long as I was completely committed to doing the program (at this point there had been no money deposit or anything except guilt prohibiting me from backing out). So after a final day of deliberation I told him to keep those favors intact and withdraw my application. I sincerely hope that I can do the program sometime after grad school is over, provided my interests have not changed, plus since China was more incidental rather than intentional I'll probably do more searching for TEFL programs in other countries too, though admittedly the idea of living in China for awhile sounds pretty sweet and I had myself pretty psyched up about it.
So: this coming Tuesday I depart for New Zealand. My return ticket is dated about 3.5 months from now. However as I have absolutely no followup plans it's entirely possible that I'll extend my stay for several more months. This depends on several factors: how much I love New Zealand; how much I miss home; whether or not I can comfortably do/visit all the activities/places I want in 3.5 months; whether or not I secure any other post-NZ travel plans; and whether or not I want to stay and work for awhile to regain some of the money I'll surely lose when I'm gone (if I simply came home in February I'd probably just try to get a job, but why work here when I can work there, right?) So this trip will largely be a lesson in improvisation, as far as what I do when I'm there as well as what I do when I leave.
That's enough "planning" talk for now. I'm sure I could go on much longer about the various ideas I've had for other travel plans I really want to do (working on a cruise ship is my latest flavor of the week idea), but I'm assuming anybody who bother to reads this doesn't do so to hear about what I wish I could do. My readers want DIRT. I'll give you dirt. Starting in roughly 84 hours when my flight leaves Chicago.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Planning the Tour: Part II
Continuing from the previous post, I was forced to dismiss the idea of a holy trinity tour, incorporating all 3 exciting travel ideas. It was about this time (end of August) that I received an email from an organization called International Teaching Advantage. They had found my resume/profile on erecruiting.com. Finally something good from the WashU Career Center! This organization sponsors a program to bring in native English speakers to teach English in China. The idea of teaching English abroad had been suggested to me before, but I never seriously considered it, mostly because I don't comfortably speak any other languages. Also past experience has strongly indicated that I am a terrible teacher. Yet for some reason the idea really intrigued me and I looked into it further. Like most TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) programs, the classes are only conversational English, which I had failed to realize in the past. The website for this organization explicitly stated that they prefer you actually don't speak Chinese in the classroom, as it will be a distraction for the students who will almost certainly laugh at your horrendous accent and pronunciation.
So this program, which had a sparse website and returned nothing else in a Google search, actually seemed very promising. They pay for an apartment with plenty of furnishings including cable TV, internet, and furniture. Plus they emphasize that living in China is extremely cheap. So by using this program, I would be able to make money while spending very little. Plus I would only be teaching about 16 hours/week! I would have the opportunity to travel and live abroad and return home with more money! I sent in an application and exchanged several emails with a friendly, always quick to respond, English-speaking representative.
The China program offers full year or one semester stints. I would realistically only be able to do the second semester, which begins in mid-February and typically ends in mid to late June. Problem. The foremost physical therapy school I applied to, UW-Madison, begins June 8. I decided that before giving up like I usually do, I should do some negotiating. I explained my situation to the China rep, who promised to look into it further. In mid-September he sent a response, stating he had found a position at the University of Nanjing, and he was in the process of requesting a favor from a friend there to allow me to leave at the end of May.
So now I have the following options on my list: Work New Zealand, Work Britain, Noah's Ark Namibia, and Teach in China.
All along people had been recommending New Zealand. It's a beautiful location, plus it would be summer there during winter here, so going during our fall/winter would be perfect. Having glanced around the BUNAC Britain brochure, I had read that it only takes about 3 weeks to process an application and visa. Perfect, I'll get to New Zealand by mid to late September! Wrong. After rechecking my steps, I discovered a NZ app and visa take 6-8 weeks. Ugh. Not sure if I mentioned it yet but I had the same problem earlier with the Namibia program, which required a 2-3 month wait between application and departure. If I had been more careful about reading, I could have been outta here by September. Instead I skimmed and procrastinated and won't leave until late October. But hey at least I'll get to go, so all I can do is learn from my mistakes and look forward to an exciting year.
So now I had decided that New Zealand was definitely my first step. I did the application and visa request form (which BUNAC basically did for me which helped a lot).
But what was next? I could do Britain, China, Namibia, or a host of other programs I had discovered online.
The next big issue came with BUNAC Work Britain. Apparently the Blue Card Visa that has been used for foreigners working in Britain for some time is now being replaced, yet for some reason the last day to apply for one is September 30, while the last day to enter Britain with such a visa was December 31, 2008. Ok, so instead of staying in NZ for 3 months, I'll do 2, return home for a few days to a week in late December, and head to Britain just in time. No such luck. I didn't conceive of this plan until mid September, but that didn't leave enough time to process all the necessary documents by September 30. And for some reason, the United States has not yet subscribed to the new work visa, Tier 5, that is replacing the Blue Card. I looked around briefly to make sure this wasn't just BUNAC being fickle, but it seems universal. There is no way currently for U.S. citizens to get a temporary work visa in Britain. Bizarre. Surely that will change soon, but I can't sit and wait and let other opportunities pass me by. I returned to BUNAC's website to investigate similar opportunities in Europe, but the only other European programs are in France, where a participant must be able to communicate effectively in French, which I can't, and in Ireland. Now, this program is geared towards students. The only way post-grads can participate is if they begin within a semester of their graduation, meaning I would be required to start by December 31, 2008. But apparently December and January are the worst possible times to find work in Ireland. So it looks like my chances to earn some money in Europe before traveling around are swept out the window.
These first two posts bring me up to where I was about a week ago.
To be continued in a third post...........
So this program, which had a sparse website and returned nothing else in a Google search, actually seemed very promising. They pay for an apartment with plenty of furnishings including cable TV, internet, and furniture. Plus they emphasize that living in China is extremely cheap. So by using this program, I would be able to make money while spending very little. Plus I would only be teaching about 16 hours/week! I would have the opportunity to travel and live abroad and return home with more money! I sent in an application and exchanged several emails with a friendly, always quick to respond, English-speaking representative.
The China program offers full year or one semester stints. I would realistically only be able to do the second semester, which begins in mid-February and typically ends in mid to late June. Problem. The foremost physical therapy school I applied to, UW-Madison, begins June 8. I decided that before giving up like I usually do, I should do some negotiating. I explained my situation to the China rep, who promised to look into it further. In mid-September he sent a response, stating he had found a position at the University of Nanjing, and he was in the process of requesting a favor from a friend there to allow me to leave at the end of May.
So now I have the following options on my list: Work New Zealand, Work Britain, Noah's Ark Namibia, and Teach in China.
All along people had been recommending New Zealand. It's a beautiful location, plus it would be summer there during winter here, so going during our fall/winter would be perfect. Having glanced around the BUNAC Britain brochure, I had read that it only takes about 3 weeks to process an application and visa. Perfect, I'll get to New Zealand by mid to late September! Wrong. After rechecking my steps, I discovered a NZ app and visa take 6-8 weeks. Ugh. Not sure if I mentioned it yet but I had the same problem earlier with the Namibia program, which required a 2-3 month wait between application and departure. If I had been more careful about reading, I could have been outta here by September. Instead I skimmed and procrastinated and won't leave until late October. But hey at least I'll get to go, so all I can do is learn from my mistakes and look forward to an exciting year.
So now I had decided that New Zealand was definitely my first step. I did the application and visa request form (which BUNAC basically did for me which helped a lot).
But what was next? I could do Britain, China, Namibia, or a host of other programs I had discovered online.
The next big issue came with BUNAC Work Britain. Apparently the Blue Card Visa that has been used for foreigners working in Britain for some time is now being replaced, yet for some reason the last day to apply for one is September 30, while the last day to enter Britain with such a visa was December 31, 2008. Ok, so instead of staying in NZ for 3 months, I'll do 2, return home for a few days to a week in late December, and head to Britain just in time. No such luck. I didn't conceive of this plan until mid September, but that didn't leave enough time to process all the necessary documents by September 30. And for some reason, the United States has not yet subscribed to the new work visa, Tier 5, that is replacing the Blue Card. I looked around briefly to make sure this wasn't just BUNAC being fickle, but it seems universal. There is no way currently for U.S. citizens to get a temporary work visa in Britain. Bizarre. Surely that will change soon, but I can't sit and wait and let other opportunities pass me by. I returned to BUNAC's website to investigate similar opportunities in Europe, but the only other European programs are in France, where a participant must be able to communicate effectively in French, which I can't, and in Ireland. Now, this program is geared towards students. The only way post-grads can participate is if they begin within a semester of their graduation, meaning I would be required to start by December 31, 2008. But apparently December and January are the worst possible times to find work in Ireland. So it looks like my chances to earn some money in Europe before traveling around are swept out the window.
These first two posts bring me up to where I was about a week ago.
To be continued in a third post...........
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Planning The Tour: Part I
Welcome to my World Tour! For the reader's sake I will divide this update into at least 2 parts. I don't know about anyone else, but when I see a lengthy article online, almost regardless of the topic I decline to read it. But then I again there's a good chance I have ADD, which isn't even a real disorder anymore.
In these first few installments, I'm going to summarize everything travel-related that got me to the point I'm at now. I really wish I had been doing this all along, since I've essentially been "planning", more or less, since June. I've had many changes of heart and mind along the way, and documenting them probably would have saved me from repeating some mistakes. There were multiple times where I ruled out a country or program for some reason or other, only to forget several days or weeks later why I made this decision, causing me to go through the whole stressful process of reevaluating my options.
So what were some of these options? Back in January (I think) I discovered for myself the site www.bunac.com. BUNAC helps sponsor work abroad visas for current or recent students in several countries, including New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, and Canada, plus a few volunteer opportunities in South Africa, Cambodia, and Peru. But I'll get back to BUNAC later.
After a surprisingly helpful visit to the waste of space known as the WashU Career Center, I was given a stack of papers offering websites and organizations that contain various travel abroad or gap year ideas. I very slowly spent all of June and some of July tediously looking through these sites, making note of the ones which seemed to have promising options but not really delving deeper until I had narrowed down the list somewhat. That was my first mistake. Like always, I was afraid of missing the 'best' opportunity, so I didn't want to focus on any one program knowing I still had others at my disposal to look over. My reasoning, though not this explicit, was 'What if I fall in love with the first program I read about, when in reality it is the most expensive, least efficient, least worthwhile option?' So I narrowed down. Erroneously thinking I had made a significant dent in the process, I stopped paying attention for a little while after that.
When I got back into it, I had a few promising, intriguing options. That was a huge step on its own, because one of the biggest problems I faced in this whole process is that I wanted to go pretty much everywhere. The first question people will ask you when you say you want to travel, obviously, is 'where do you want to go?' Answering 'anywhere' does not help your cause.
Anyway, probably the most exciting option for me was a program titled Noah's Ark. It is offered through www.interexchange.org, a site with multiple work, volunteer, and internship opportunities abroad. Noah's Ark is one of several wildlife conservation programs listed on that site. It is held in Namibia, a small country neighboring South Africa. Basically you live in an animal shelter for a predetermined number of weeks, feeding and otherwise taking care of animals such as baboons and lions. The reason this program first caught my eye was the picture accompanying it, which shows a few smiling students sitting on a fallen tree petting several female lions. Holy schnikes. For a long time this program was my number one choice. Unfortunately, as with all of the programs I looked into, I did not read the details closely enough. After deciding that I wanted to do this, I discovered that the time between applying and departure was 2 months. I didn't want to sit around for that long (the irony being, of course, that had I signed up right then I would have departed in October sometime, which is when I'm leaving for New Zealand anyway). Later on I discovered that the cost of this program is discouragingly high, $1675 for 2 weeks, $2895 for 4 weeks, and forgetaboutit for 6 weeks. Before reading that, I figured I'd be there for several months.
The other options I strongly considered were the BUNAC programs in New Zealand and Britain. For awhile it did not occur to me that I could do both (because at that time I figured I would do one of those for several months and the Namibia stint for several more months). Many people may remember me asking them where I should go, Britain or New Zealand. This decision took up a lot of time, even though virtually everyone recommended New Zealand. Finally I thought, why not do all three!?!? It was perfect, I would go to New Zealand in the fall for several months during their spring/summer, go directly to Namibia for 2 weeks in January/February, then go directly to Britain for the next 3 months for their spring/summer. Program costs aside, the flight itinerary for this plan would have been an absolute nightmare, from both a financial and scheduling standpoint.
To be continued.......
In these first few installments, I'm going to summarize everything travel-related that got me to the point I'm at now. I really wish I had been doing this all along, since I've essentially been "planning", more or less, since June. I've had many changes of heart and mind along the way, and documenting them probably would have saved me from repeating some mistakes. There were multiple times where I ruled out a country or program for some reason or other, only to forget several days or weeks later why I made this decision, causing me to go through the whole stressful process of reevaluating my options.
So what were some of these options? Back in January (I think) I discovered for myself the site www.bunac.com. BUNAC helps sponsor work abroad visas for current or recent students in several countries, including New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, and Canada, plus a few volunteer opportunities in South Africa, Cambodia, and Peru. But I'll get back to BUNAC later.
After a surprisingly helpful visit to the waste of space known as the WashU Career Center, I was given a stack of papers offering websites and organizations that contain various travel abroad or gap year ideas. I very slowly spent all of June and some of July tediously looking through these sites, making note of the ones which seemed to have promising options but not really delving deeper until I had narrowed down the list somewhat. That was my first mistake. Like always, I was afraid of missing the 'best' opportunity, so I didn't want to focus on any one program knowing I still had others at my disposal to look over. My reasoning, though not this explicit, was 'What if I fall in love with the first program I read about, when in reality it is the most expensive, least efficient, least worthwhile option?' So I narrowed down. Erroneously thinking I had made a significant dent in the process, I stopped paying attention for a little while after that.
When I got back into it, I had a few promising, intriguing options. That was a huge step on its own, because one of the biggest problems I faced in this whole process is that I wanted to go pretty much everywhere. The first question people will ask you when you say you want to travel, obviously, is 'where do you want to go?' Answering 'anywhere' does not help your cause.
Anyway, probably the most exciting option for me was a program titled Noah's Ark. It is offered through www.interexchange.org, a site with multiple work, volunteer, and internship opportunities abroad. Noah's Ark is one of several wildlife conservation programs listed on that site. It is held in Namibia, a small country neighboring South Africa. Basically you live in an animal shelter for a predetermined number of weeks, feeding and otherwise taking care of animals such as baboons and lions. The reason this program first caught my eye was the picture accompanying it, which shows a few smiling students sitting on a fallen tree petting several female lions. Holy schnikes. For a long time this program was my number one choice. Unfortunately, as with all of the programs I looked into, I did not read the details closely enough. After deciding that I wanted to do this, I discovered that the time between applying and departure was 2 months. I didn't want to sit around for that long (the irony being, of course, that had I signed up right then I would have departed in October sometime, which is when I'm leaving for New Zealand anyway). Later on I discovered that the cost of this program is discouragingly high, $1675 for 2 weeks, $2895 for 4 weeks, and forgetaboutit for 6 weeks. Before reading that, I figured I'd be there for several months.
The other options I strongly considered were the BUNAC programs in New Zealand and Britain. For awhile it did not occur to me that I could do both (because at that time I figured I would do one of those for several months and the Namibia stint for several more months). Many people may remember me asking them where I should go, Britain or New Zealand. This decision took up a lot of time, even though virtually everyone recommended New Zealand. Finally I thought, why not do all three!?!? It was perfect, I would go to New Zealand in the fall for several months during their spring/summer, go directly to Namibia for 2 weeks in January/February, then go directly to Britain for the next 3 months for their spring/summer. Program costs aside, the flight itinerary for this plan would have been an absolute nightmare, from both a financial and scheduling standpoint.
To be continued.......
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