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Published: February 10th 2010
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A Day in the Life of Living at Rydges Hotel
1. Wake up (unfortunately).
2. Work (definitely).
3. Eat (maybe).
4. Sleep (optional).
5. Repeat.
If you're wondering where we've been lately, kindly refer to the above five steps. After loading our entire life into a Toyota, we've now lived in Queenstown and have been working day and night for the past ten days. I would love to have great stories of paragliding or rock climbing for you, but alas, I have only a brief description of our new jobs. Perhaps if we ever get a day off again, we might do some more fun stuff. For now: "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go..."
Jeremy and I are "food and beverage attendants" at this fine establishment, which basically means we do anything and everything including serving, bartending, banqueting, room service, minibar stocking, and whatever other goofy things these guys can come up with for us to do. Considering Jeremy has never worked hospitality a day in his life, he's catching on brilliantly, and our supervisors really like him. This stuff is all old hat for me, though I'm the first to admit that I'm clueless
about all the NZ wines and beers that are stocked behind our bar, where I spend most of my time (working, not drinking - ha!). We're on a constantly varying schedule of 5am breakfast shifts, 6pm dining/bar shifts, or anything in between. Sleep is truly a vague concept at this point - we squeeze it in where we can, when we can.
But there are perks, for sure. The first five days in Queenstown, we were able to stay with some friends, though due to our wacky schedules, we didn't actually ever get to see them! We spent what little time we had at their house with the world's cutest and snuggliest cat, who invaded our room and kept us company every night. Finally, on Friday, we were cleared to move into the hotel (not into our permanent room, mind you, but a regular room for now). So our "house" key is in fact a key card for a hotel room. The bar and restaurant is literally (I counted!) 22 steps away from our door. The staff dining hall, where we graciously receive three free meals a day, is a mere four steps from our door. Our co-workers rock,
and they're a huge international blend of fellow Americans, Canadians, Brazilians, Aussies, and Brits. Only our immediate supervisor (a funny guy who's actually a year younger than Jeremy) is from NZ. We're a two-minute walk from town and barely have to touch the car if we don't want to.
While the thought of living in a hotel sounds strange, we're actually rather enjoying it!! Everything is right here at our fingertips - we don't even need to go grocery shopping ha! We laugh every time the steamboat goes by on the lake out front and blows its horn, even late at night. Kind of like living near the railroad tracks, I guess. We've seen sunrises and sunsets from the magnificent windows of the bar and restaurant - even if it's a slow shift, we have a million-dollar view of those incredible mountains!
On a funny note, our third night here was a huge banquet for a convention of 200 mathematicians and professors from a university in Australia. Imagine a room full of the biggest geeks you've ever seen (I mean that in a nice way, by the way), getting hammered on an open bar tab and attempting to
dance to a live rock band hired in for the occasion. It was awesome. I got referred to as "Goddess of the Bar" more times than I can count.
On an even funnier note, you know you're living in a tiny, crime-free county when the front page bold headline of the newspaper reads (and I kid you not):
Caregivers warned after toxic algae blamed for death of two dogs.
Welcome to New Zealand!
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Mom R
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I love the sunsets!
Give me a view of the sunset like that and I would be happy forever! Well, I guess it would take a little more than that, like world peace, but that would be a "must have". So happy you guys are liking it there!