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Published: October 27th 2008
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Well folks. I'll start with Sydney - really we didn't have enough time there but what we did see was great. We were able to walk from our hostel through a lovely park full of people running, cycling, lazing about, to the opera house. Very impressive and great views of the city. We wandered round a bit and enjoyed ourselves.
We arrived in Christchurch on the 16th and booked ourselves into a hostel in the city centre. We thought Christchurch was lovely - very English town feel from it - we got pretty nice days and it's a very walkable place. They have a cool tram too which was a treat to see each time! Real life started to creep up though with us both buying jackets and Paul even going so far as to sheer his head in sympathy with the Spring lambs here in New Zealand.
We travelled up to Picton then which is the ferry port between the islands. We stayed a night there and the next day before our ferry we saw dolphins, ducks and what we think were cranes at the jetty. The boat journey was about 3 hours and we spent most of
the time on deck looking at the amazing scenery. We landed in Wellington and met a man at the bus stop who helped us get the right bus, then helped us into a waking coma on the bus by talking incessently about distances between places and brickwork on the buildings in Wellington. A Roy Cropper type we suspect. We picked a hostel out of the book called Beethoven House. We arrived there and the eccentric, to say the least, Singaporean man who owns the gaff (Allen) told us the following story:
He owns the hostel but had recently gone to the UK for some months leaving it in a Brazilian guys hands. He basically let the place go, letting people stay there without charging them, not cleaning up ever, etc etc. Apparantley he was drinking the whole time and is now in prison. He had a trial last week and Allen was prepared to have him bailed to the hostel but we think he got sent down for about 4 months. When we asked why he had been arrested Allen said 'because he was drinking all the time' but I am willing to bet that along with turning the
hostel into a squat it was also a good place from which to sell narcotics.
Anyway - Allen said we could look at the room and he completely understood if we didn't want to stay there - the room is fine and the price is finer so that is where we are staying! Every time we come across Allen in the kitchen/corridoor we get another installment of the Brazilian man's story or a life lesson on work/education/love.
Wellington is cool -our favourite street, Cuba Street - is a really long pedestrian street full of cool little shops and coffee places that stay open till all hours selling every type of coffee, tea, juice, cakes, sandwiches. Nearly everywhere is just that right amount of scruffy if that makes any sense! There are a plethora of Veggie/Vegan places and a good few bars - most of them with Irish names and a lot selling Murphy's as opposed to Guinness. God damn Corkonians! The people are very very relaxed and to rob a phrase from Lonely Planet, everybody here looks like they're in a band. There will be a couple of festivals on here while we're here too (comedy & arts) so
I'd say that will be great fun. We haven't done any touristy things cos we feel we should concentrate on jobs/gaff first. We did manage a couple of nights out for my birthday though. Yes, the 20's are slipping slowly but surely away.....
We have been feverishly handing out CVs around town and looking at flats/houseshares etc up some VERY VERY steep hills. It's proving more difficult than we thought (that's finding a gaff, not the hills) but a couple of houses we looked at are to get back to us this week - we hope. I have had one gruelling registration with a temp agency and am booked in for another on Wednesday. I have been told that I should expect it to take at least 3 hours. Good grief. The first one involved typing test, ms word test , excel test, call centre scenario tests (hilarious), data entry test and psychometric test. (really I'm happy to answer phones and make coffee but if they need all of that, so be it.)
The call centre scenario tests were like this:
Voice: I've just received my bill in the post and there are items on there that I
don't recognise
Should you answer:
a) It's not really my problem
b) I would be happy to help you. Can you give me your account number
c) Are you sure - sometimes people forget what they buy
d) Can you call back later - I don't know how to help you.
Obviously I picked A. Nah I didn't, but I've encountered a few receptionists who would.....
Anyway, hopefully next update will be from 2 employed Wellington residents. Love to all xxx
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David Lynch
non-member comment
real life
ahhhh all that job looking and flat hunting sounds wayyyyyyyyyyyy tooooooooo much like real life after the few cool months you have just experienced :( still it's nice to be doing all that in New Z rather than in damp and economically depressed Ireland :( best of luck with jobs and flats and stuff guys.....