Hello Everyone!

I've found an apartment in Wellington with two great girls. They have
parties about twice a week, but are very conscientious about not
waking me up. I've been looking for a bed for the apartment, but 10yr
old beds that have been heavily used run for about 300bucks, and
that's just out of my budget. Then I start thinking about what it
would be like to be a 10yr old bed… I think about the things people do
on new beds, and I begin to feel bad for the bed, wondering how
insulted it must have been because the owners didn't put a mattress
protector over it. Ok, so I gave the idea too much thought, but never
the less it grosses me out! So what do I do instead? ... I sleep on
the floor. I bought a comforter and some bed padding on sale, and
that's my new bed… which actually isn't too bad if it's not a cold
night.

So I don't know if this is happening in the states, but I've been
noticing some seriously pimped out DHL vans. I'm assuming that each
driver owns their own van over here and as a result they get to do
whatever they want to, after all its only mail delivery. The two
things that remain constant are the vehicle make and model, and the
yellow color, everything else is game for retrofitting. Yesterday the
mail man pulled up in a lifted bright yellow DHL van, he was blaring
Eminem while his thousand dollar rims where spinning backwards.
Another one pulled up with some D12 rap music, pimped out tail lights,
and a guard dog in the back. I wonder if DHL realizes their delivery
vans are the new mobilized gangster vehicles.

Work is going smoothly. Just last week I opened a new store in the
ghetto part of Wellington, fortunately it is right across the street
from a new shopping mall so its not too ghetto. To my surprise we
opened the store with a brand new La Marzocco. But it doesn't have
timers on it at all! The team of employees is pretty good, however
they are rather quiet like most kiwis around here, and it's really
hard to get them to communicate with the customers who are just as
quiet. It almost seems like a really bad combination.

The customers are really shy about walking into a Starbucks. Everyone
likes "American" things, and therefore Starbucks is trendy, but the
excessive drink selection is really confusing to them, and before you
know it they give up and get typical New Zealand coffee drinks, which
are rather disgusting and boring drinks. So whenever I am bored, I
torture a poor kiwi and make them decide on a flavor of syrup to put
in their coffee… you should see the amount of agony they go through to
decide to put vanilla in a latte!

That's about all that's new with me, how are things going for everyone
else? I must admit I am getting a bit home sick, I'd do just about
anything to go out to dinner and get some good American food! Send me
some e-mail!

Missing everyone!

Marcus