Life in Wellington

So there is not too much to report on but I figured I would give a short update about what I have been doing.  The job search is a bit more difficult and frustrating than I initially expected and I am still looking for something decent.  Not surprisingly, people are hesitant to hire me since I am only planning on being in New Zealand until mid December, have a partially limited visa, am only qualified to entry level work, and already have certain weeks planned for travel.  I am close to the point of just giving in and doing some data entry or cafe work if I don't find something better soon.

In other news, we have been getting out a bit more and planning some future excursions to get a feel for what Wellington has to offer.  Last weekend the girls and I went on a wine tasting tour up into the Martinborough area north of Wellington.  The area is famous for making high quality red wines, mainly pinot noir and they are quite delicious.  I still don't know really know anything about wine flavors other than red vs white but it was still a nice time.  We met a couple in their early 30's while on the tour and decided to have dinner and a few pints with them that evening which was nice.  The are originally from Nottingham in the U.K. and were down here to escape from their parents or something.  Unfortunately after awhile we realized that they were quite boring and conversation was about as interesting as me talking to a tree so I'm not sure if we will try to meet up with them again or not.  

So there have been a few interesting new observations this past week that surprised me a bit.  The first one is that Fridays here at work are not only casual, wear jeans to work, days but also are start drinking in the office around 3:30p.m. type days.  Apparently many offices allow/encourage employees to help themselves to some beer or wine while in the office on Friday to loosen up for the evening.  I'm sure this leads to many stories and reputations being made about people at work but its kind of cool at the same time I suppose.  We ran into this partially buzzed after work crowd on Friday at a bar down the street and it pretty much looks like tradition for co-workers to get a bit tipsy after a weeks work.  Another interesting coincidence was that when we entered the bar, a waitress immediately asked us if we were with the Obama 08' group.  HHmmm the Obama 08' group I thought?  Damn I look to much like an American.  Anyways, we went upstairs and sure enough there was a group of about 15 people, who were mostly americans, in a corner drinking some beer with Obama 08' shirts and buttons on.  By the way, in my opinion wearing political logos out to a bar is just kind of dorky.  Anyways I went up and talked to them for a minute and asked about what their goal was and they didn't really seem to have one.  I think it was just more of a "You like Obama? ... Oh me too!!! ... Lets hang out" type of thing.  Anyways they asked me what state I was from and then got all excited when I said I was undecided from North Carolina because it is a swing state this year.  The started bugging me with political jargon then I had to tell them to just stop and ended up going downstairs to grab a pitcher with the girls.  I was tempted to start a McCain chant or something just to push some buttons but fortunately decided that was not a good idea.

  

Today (Sept. 13), was the first day in about five where it did not rain thankfully and we took advantage by going to see a movie at a film festival.  The movie was a documentary called "How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" and was a fascinating look at how Cuba adapted to the huge economic shock it experienced after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 and stopped sending supplies to Cuba.  Apparently Cuban GDP dropped by about 38% and their oil supplies dropped by nearly 75%.  The idea was that the rest of the rest of the world could learn about how Cuba adapted to the massive drop in supply and their lessons could help other countries adjust when the world reaches the predicted "Peak Oil Crisis" in the near term future.  It also reminded me how I wanted to visit Cuba sometime soon so if anyone reading this is interested in going down there with me at some point then let me know.

Well thats about it for now.  Hopefully these posts will get a bit more interesting once I either find a job, start traveling more, or both.  I have a random craving for some ice cream so I think I will run out to the store and grab a tub of it.  They have this ice cream called "Hokey Pokey" and it is creamy vanilla style with little chunks of honeycomb mixed in and it is incredible.  The fact that it is only about $4.50 NZD for a large tub does not help limit my intake either.  Then its off to a bar to watch the big rugby match where New Zealand is playing Australia for the Tri-Nation Cup or something like that.  Hopefully I will post another update in the next two to three weeks so stay tuned.  Until then,  Cheers!!!