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Published: March 6th 2009
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hello people,
congratulations to liz and donal on the birth of their first tiny human 'rosa' (i think ye should have left that name for dave parkes to use) born this morning in nz and yesterday evening in ireland.
we had a very eventful day on wednesday. i woke up at half 8 with my phone ringing. it was triona, she had just fainted at the bus stop on her way to work. a passer by was about to bring her to the hospital in their car so i got out of bed and ran down to meet them. when i saw triona she was sitting in the passenger seat with a bloody towel against her head and blood all over her hoody. i jumped into the car we took off for the hospital. wellington regional was only about 3 mins (at top speed) and the man bringing us was listening to pulp on his stereo which made the journey less traumatic. we were seen to right away and given a bed in the emergency room. they did a blood test, urine test and gave her an x-ray, they seemed happy enough to patch her up and let her
go. i nearly got my finger glued to triona's head though, she had a big cut under her chin, i had to hold it shut while the nurse applied surgical glue to the wound. triona is still very sore but less sore than a few days ago. i blame farmers for her fainting, alot of people have left recently and they haven't hired new staff. i've heard this is happening everywhere in nz at the moment.
our time in wellington is quickly drawing to a close. we're really looking forward to getting on the road again. the scenery around wellington is great, can't wait to see what the rest of new zealand looks like. wellington isn't a pretty city but it has a great atmosphere. as triona said in the last blog, it's full of wierd eccentric people here. lot's of people get around by scateboard and those metallic scooters that became a fad in european cities a few years ago. i even saw someone going down the street on a unicyle the other day. another thing that you notice about wellington compared with dublin is the lack of junkies wandering the streets. cuba st carnival was on a
few saturdays ago, most of the streets in the city were closed off and everyone had a party. myself and triona were working that day but it went on well into the morning so we got to see a good bit of it. the international rugby sevens were on last month. everyone going to it went in fancy dress, it was great fun seeing smurfs, where's wally, and supermen running drunk around the city. the best one triona saw was a load of fellas as the pamplona runners dressed up in red and white and another guy dressed up as a bull chasing them up and down the streets.
john key was elected as the new prime minister in november. he's an ex-wall street banker, great choice. you wouldn't have know there was an election going on though, campaign posters aren't allowed in wellington city and the american election was what most people were interested in at the time. i'm not sure why the labour government was voted out . nobody seemed that angry with them, maybe they were subliminally picking up on obama's call for change
the weather here has been good here during the summer, usually
in the low 20's, it gets quite cold at night though (bring some warm jumpers brendan and kathleen). the weather went a bit mad a few weeks ago, it started off with the tail-end of the heatwave that hit australia, then we had a day of heavy fog, then it got really windy, then they got a months worth of rain in one day, now it's back to normal. triona caught a bit of a cold but is recovering nicely now.
i've been doing a bit of busking, the best place for it is outside triona's work on cuba st. i can make more money per hour playing guitar than i would at work, unfortunately my voice starts to get sore after singing for 2 hours. also work gets in the way. the other week i got a cream doughnut off an old lady when i was playing, i was very pleased. i have paddy's day off so i'm gonna learn alot of irish songs to play that day. there's loads of irish people here at the moment. a few have come into the shop since christmas saying they haven't been able to find any work. i think if
we had arrived in wellington a few months later than we did we would have been fecked.
wellington trawling sea market won best fish and chips in wellington in a vote on a local radio station. they take their fish and chips very seriously here. myself and john explain to people we work with that yes, we do have fish and chips shops in ireland but we normally go to them at 2.00 in the morning after a pint or ten. the latest that i have to work is 10 on a friday, fish and chips day. i quite enjoy working in the kitchen. i never thought that i would have the same job as spongebob squarepants. i'd enjoy it more if i didn't have to work with the angriest person i've ever met, my boss lily. she's as mad as a bag of cats. i started off hating her but now i just feel very sorry for her. after several heated arguments over the past few months we're getting along well now. she's a tiny round chinese woman and probably the strongest 61 year old i know. she dropped a heavy steel tray on her foot the other
week and i think she's been working on a broken foot since then, she showed me her toe, it was purple and bent in the wrong direction, not a pretty sight. i have so many stories to tell about her, most quite libelous so i think i'll wait till i get home to tell them.
i handed in my notice two weeks ago. everyone in work said we're nuts for leaving new zealand and going back to ireland. i just kept telling them that i think the world markets are about to collapse very soon and that it's best to be at home when this type of thing happens. talking to people here over the last few months alot of them know that the rest of the world is in trouble but they seem to think that new zealand won't be too badly affected. the past week there has been alot of bad news with the nz economy, alot of job losses, even talk of reducing the working forthnight to 9 days. our main reason for going home though is that we miss home too much. we miss our family and friends too much. wellington is a great place
but dublin is just way cooler.
other reasons for leaving:
the standard of crisps is appalling.
the guinness tastes weird here
i'm sick of listening to music through my crappy headphones.
in new zealand weetabix is called weet-bix. and for www. they say "dub dub dub dot". these are the main differences between ireland and new zealand.
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Shane Guevara
non-member comment
Good to see your back on the blogging and quiet a restrained blog seeing that civilization as we knew it has collapsed! I am surprised you just dont have 'i told you so' in different fonts and sizes ala The Shining. Saw Daves book reviewed in the sunday times recently.Pretty impressive. Talk soon