Hello Everyone!

Yesterday was a Halloween and you wouldn't have guessed it by looking
outside. Here is a country that doesn't celebrate Halloween. There
were the few Americans and Canadians that decided to throw a couple
parties and light a few fireworks, but that was just about it.
Everyone else carried on with life as normal… which I found odd.

I'm in Wellington these days, the capital of NZ. The city is built
right of the southern coast of the northern island. It's a beautiful
and clean city. The weather is perfect, one day cloudy, the next sunny
and the following a mix of cloudy cool weather with some wind and some
sun. Due to its location, Wellington is supposed to be the windiest
city in NZ, and no one doubts that so to say the least I think I have
yet to see the true meaning of windy…. Oh yeah and the city is built
on a fault line… so someday in the near future they expect the entire
city to collapse… I'm dead serious… till then I enjoy calling it home
:-)

I found a great apartment last week! It's actually a pretty big place
and pretty cheap to. It's located just behind the downtown area, so
it's a close walk to everything, and it has a remote feeling to it.
There is a small school right next to the apartments and plenty of
beautiful places to go for a morning jog. The roommates, or flatmates
as they call them over here, are a couple of girls. One is 19, and the
other is 18… I haven't met the 18yr old, but the 19yr old is a lot of
fun to hang out with. I know you are all thinking to yourselves, "what
the heck is going through his head?!", in all honesty, I went looking
for the younger roommates so I wouldn't be bored and sitting in a flat
all by myself. I came for a good time, and who better to show it to me
then these girls. Oh yeah, the drinking age is 18 over here, which I
will come back to later.

I'm still looking for a job, actually I'm waiting for Starbucks to
call me back, along with another café manager. Hopefully one of the
two will call me this week.

I think I broke the world record… one week after going to Starbucks
and I am now getting free coffee! Oh yeah!... And it didn't come from
the girl that I have been hanging out with. I guess I haven't
mentioned much about her. Well let's see, her name is Jessie and she
is from Canada. You don't see many Canadians or Americans traveling in
NZ, so when we do meet, we tend to have a lot to share and talk about.
Plus she works for Starbucks and also worked for Starbucks in Canada,
which means we could talk about customers and different business
practices for days on end. There are always good stories to talk about
like, those customers who come in looking for espresso brownies
everyday (Dad and Bob), or those who know exactly how their drinks
should taste because they visit Starbucks too often (again Dad and
Bob!), then again… those are the customers that can turn a bad day
into a really good one by just showing up. :-)

Jessie has pretty much turned into my Wellington tour guide. She took
me to the botanical gardens (pics on ringo) on Monday, and shows me a
lot of the great shopping and eating places. And she has become my NZ
linguist. Over here they have a lot of weird words, some of which I am
still picking up, but what's weirder is that they say the most common
words in a manner which I just don't understand. It turns out that
they just like to drop the "r"s out of all the words. So Starbucks
turns into "Stabucks", and Garden turns into "Gaden"… I'd love to know
who decided that would be a good accent to teach kids!

Coming back to the drinking age… over here is it 18 and of course they
are thinking about raising it to 21. mainly because a lot of the kids
are drinking and driving. Just as big of a problem seems to be the
speeding. With NZ being a pretty spaced out country, its easy to get
on a motorway (highway) and in five minutes you are pretty much in the
middle of nowhere. Where it doesn't make sense to have police
patrolling because it is too far from town, and it is too hard to
monitor. So when these kids do get into accidents, it can be awhile
till anyone finds them and normally the collision is so bad that
everyone dies. So what's one of the best ways to make people aware of
this issue? Advertising of course! And in NZ they hold nothing back.
Ads that would be seen as too emotional are played over and over here.
And a lot of the ads that are on TV will be 2parts. During the first
week they will air the first part of the ad, and the second week they
will air the first and second part of the ads.

One of the commercials starts off with a girl coming home with a
terrible hangover, the second commercial she will realize that she
blacked out, doesn't know who she had sex with, but is pretty sure she
didn't use any protection and then she mentally breaks down, while her
roommate asks her why she does this to herself every weekend. They are
pretty emotional and shocking commercials, and there are a lot of
them. Billboards on the highways say things like "Slow Down" and then
the next one will say "We are killing our kids." I was driving in the
southern part of the south island I saw my favorite one, which
actually freaked me out… the first one of course said "Slow Down" and
then next one wasn't a billboard, it was a sign where you would see
facts like "City Name, Population etc" and on the sign it clearly
stated "No Hospital, No Doctor, One Cemetery"… that alone made me want
to drop the speed down to about half of the limit. And I wasn't
speeding!

Well it's about 10am over here and finally the shops are opening up so
I think I am going to do some grocery shopping. I'd love to hear how
everyone is doing. And thank you so much to those who sent me snail
mail, it's really cool to get hand written letters over here… plus it
gives me something to brag about to those in the hostel :-)

The wanna be Kiwi,

Marcus

Yes, I did makeup that word, oddities. :-)

I'm in TeAnau now. I'll have to catch you up on Wanaka and Queenstown
in another letter.

As I mentioned in an earlier letter, I have been picking up new
vocabulary as I travel. Words like "proper" and "mate" are a part of
my daily vocabulary. Some words like "cheers" and "bloke" are still
finding their way into daily use. With each new word i try to write it
down somewhere handy, a place i might come across frequently to
refresh my memory. Lately I have a lot of trouble with the word
"trouser". To me a trouser, might be something you would use if you
were out milking cows, and you wouldn't want to get the jeans/overalls
dirty, or they might be a lot like the Chaps that bikers where....
just a bit less disturbing...

As I travel from hostel to hostel, not only is the weather getting
colder, but I have yet to run into an American!!! some days i think
this is good, other days i feel a wee bit out numbered, especially
when Bush says things like "God told me to go into Iraq while i was
sleeping", I can't tell you how many cracks have been made about that
one!!! thanks Bush. To say the least Americans are a rare breed out
here, and I'm starting to understand why. There are however a lot of
Brits. To the Brits, New Zealand is what Great Britain was 20-30years
ago. So everyone from Britian comes here for the beauty, and the lack
of civilisation. Fair enough, I kind of came for the same reason.

As the cash flow begins to run low, I have an ever burning desire to
spend it at ten times the rate as before. I don't know why this is,
all i know is that God certainly didn't come to me in my sleep and
tell me to do this, i might however end up working as a hostel slave
if i don't slow down. so back to the point, i'm in probably one of the
most beautiful parts of new zealand, and what has probably become my
favorite past time, kayaking (i don't do it much, but it is an amazing
activity), is really popular out here. So i decided i would take a two
day kayaking trip into the Doubtful Sounds. if i'm lucky i'll get
right next to dolphins, penguins, and all sorts of really great
animals.

The really amazing part about New Zealand is its purity. A lot of the
water out here is still very pure, and in fact Doubtful Sounds is the
last part of the world not to have it's water infected by this nasty
little parasite, i won't even both trying to name it, because i won't
do it justice. However i'm sure the little sis will be able to tell
you all about the side effects if you really want to know.

So with this purity comes the world's biggest tree huggers. (just like
my kayaking tour guide)... you know, the ones that are sooo happy
about this toilet that was installed five years ago, and how it
automatically biodegrades all human wastes, but it doesn't like
certain types of waste, so you have to do number one over in the bush,
and number two in the fancy dancy waste biodegrader..... i kid you
not, this lady would have gone on for hours about this device if we
let her, and i have no doubt that we will here more about it on the
trip tomorrow.

So tonight was the orientation, an hour long lecture solely on what to
bring on this kayaking trip! my head was hurting, i doubt i have
everything i need, and i know that i will probably freeze my butt off
tomorrow, (i have been doing a lot of that lately.) So at the end of
the meeting we all pay for the trip, and being the putz that i am, i
find myself the only one paying in cash. so i put myself in the back
of the line to prevent showing the whole world that i have this wad of
cash in my pocket. the last thing i need is rich American jokes
floating around. so i'm the last one at the meeting, and i'm hanging
around waiting for change. I say goodbye to this treehugger, i mean my
guide, and as i walk away she shouts out, "nice trousers!"... of
course in my mind i am trying to figure out what she is saying...
::trousers, trousers, what the hell are trousers???? ohh yeah, those
overall things,.... ahh i got it now, she means my pants!!!:: jackpot
i got it, this one is going down in the book of new words.

so i proudly (this is new for me too) shout back, "Yeah these are my
yoga pants! the most comfortable pants in the world. Back in the
States i was a yoga teacher!"... the second i closed my mouth i new i
was in for it. she gets this big old grin on her face, that grin like
everything just got a whole lot better, and she just met a new best
friend. this is because her logic is 20-30years back dated, she thinks
yoga is sitting crossed legged with the wrists on your knees and
saying "humm" all day long while waiting for some sort of alliance
with the natural elements (dad :-) ). Which now makes me the prime
person to talk "biodegrading toilets" with tomorrow...... if she only
knew about the countless pieces of paper that i waste, just so i can
remember words like, trouser, to keep myself from getting into lengthy
talks about toilets!

the next two days should prove very interesting.

thanks for all of the great e-mails! i love hearing from everyone!

love ya, miss ya, namaste,

Marcus

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for your e-mails, much appreciated!

I am in Wellington today, and tomorrow, and then I plan on heading off
to the south island for about a month until the vineyard season
begins. By november i should be able to find a few jobs in vineyards,
ranging from wrapping the vines, thining the vines, quality
inspection, etc.

I am slowly refining my backpacking skills. I think i am going to do
away with the suitcase, which i brought since i didn't exactly have a
plan before i came over here, beside to just live and enjoy the
culture. I quickly find myself spending a small fortune on little
things that make backpacking much easier, and more compact, it is very
interesting what kind of toys they have made for backpackers... i
almost feel like a little kid shopping for legos again. :)

Once again i scored with the hostel that i am staying at. Great
people, wonderful chats, and great advice! The little tips and pointer
you pick up from fellow backpackers here are priceless, and have a way
of saving you a ton of money. right now i am rooming with one guy who
has been staying in the hostel for the last three weeks while looking
for a place to stay in wellington. he landed a job a few weeks back,
and now is staying at the hostel until he can find a flat to rent out.
Another gal, shelly is from england, a PE teacher, and a load of fun.
She spent four months in australia with a friend working to save up
money for her year long venture. and then we have the guy that is very
nice but very hard to understand. enrique, as we think he name is,
comes from switerland, and i can't say i recall much of what is game
plan is... like i said, hard to understand, but a great lad.

I have yet to pick up an accent, but wierd "proper" english vocabulary
seems to be intergrating into my speech. things, like "proper",
"mate", "lad", etc, are all becoming common phrases.

there is a world mountaineering race going on tomorrow. people from
all over the world have come to run in this race. at first i thought
about entering for the fun of it.. but quickly realized that would be
a disasterous idea. the trail goes almost completly vertically up a
mountain, and the same slope on the way down the mountain. A handful
of germans that are running in the race are staying at the hostel, and
all i have to say is "wow". the amount of food that these guys eat,
the amazing shape they are in, and how goofy they can be is pretty
awesome.

good time in new zealand!

keep me updated on what's going on with you guys!

Marcus

P.S. i hope e-mail files are not too big with all of the pics!

September 21st, 2005:

It has been a long two weeks since i have arrived in New Zealand. The
sights out here have been amazing, and the days seem to slowly go by.
Life seems to be slowing down, and I am finding myself enjoying what
feels like an additional 6hours each day.

Today I am on a train headed to Wellington. The capital of New
Zealand, and the second largest city next to Auckland. Which I found
to be overwhelming, ugly, and just not the New Zealand that I came
for. The locals all agree with me, and suggested I travel south,
because the further south you go, the more relaxed the people are.
With any luck i might find some yoga studios down here, i really
would love to pick up a mat.

I just left the Chateau, one of the oldest and most historic hotels in
New Zealand. Built a mere 75 years ago, and on a world national park,
it holds a lot of memories, and possess a lot of character. The job
being offered sounded wonderful. 50 bucks a week covered rent, three
meals a day, seven days a week. endless opportunity to learn and grow
in the hospitality industry, and unlimited potential to save money
since it is located in the middle of freakin nowhere... well it is
right up against Mt. Doom (Lord of the Rings)... But i decided to turn
down the job after seeing how terrible the customer service was, how
old and aged the hotel rooms were, and finally after seeing the total
dump that they wanted me to stay in! Absolutely appalling.

On the way from the Chateau to the train station, an employee drove me
in his cousins car. I learned about how a large number of his family
members worked there, along with his girlfriend of 23 years, and their
18yr old son. As the american that i am, i blurted out something
about being married for so long, and he quickly corrected me. For 23
years these two have been dating passionately, they have an 18yr old
son, and never once became engaged. Trying to understand i tried to
figure out if perhaps this person not being religious didn't want to
bother with the marriage ritual. But to him, the only thing that comes
after marriage is the divorce papers. He feared getting in an argument
and the threat of divorce arising, then push come to shove and they
are divorced, more out of a show of ego than reason. Instead he
prefers to go for a walk, or fishing for a day or two to let
everything calm down and then coming back to his girlfriend, instead
of a wife.... .... then I was informed that on their 23rd anniversary
they discussed getting married on their 25th anniversary... it was
rather cute and romantic how he described their talk, and how he
brought it up... almost as if setting her right... .... i continually
wonder, if one is not religious, then what is the point of getting
married, this gentleman made it very clear that you don't need
marriage to stay together and that he has never thought about another
woman in the past 23yrs....

as i go from hospitality job offer to hospitality job offer, i think i
am starting to realize that if i want to enjoy the new Zealand
culture, hospitality is the last place i should be working. it is full
of transient workers, and visitors from around the world. Thus far, i
feel that i have seen very little of the culture that i came to see.
... its a good thing i've become mr. spontaneous ; - )

will send pics soon

Welcome to my Blog, here i will post the random thoughts and events that occur in my life, along with quotes that i cherish or create from my daily experiences.