The Staff Room

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.