Numero Uno
Well, here I am sitting in our condo overlooking part of the hawaiian coastline listening to small children splashing about in the pool downstairs. I guess I should start at the start - as good as any place really!
Thursday 24th July 2008
Got on the plane at Christchurch airport at 7am, destination: Honolulu, Hawaii with a slight stopover in Auckland. Flight was uneventful - I slept for the hour or so it took. Got off in Auckland, caught the inter-terminal shuttle (free and it was pretty much waiting for me when I stepped out of Domestic) and promptly dealt with Customs. Tracked down my Telecom loan phone without too much difficulty - the phone I`d been convinced to buy at the start of the year which is one of these worldmode phones apparently doesn`t roam to Canada. Great.
Sat around for a couple of hours and read a book whilst waiting to board my 8 hour flight. Got on the plane to find myself sandwiched between a rather large Hawaiian woman and a not particularly small guy. Thankfully a flight attendant took pity on me and asked if I would like to move to a spare seat - ended up with a window seat and no-one next to me! Slept/read my way through most of the eight and a half hours of flight. The food was pretty crap with the exception of the desserts, which were quite tasty. Had a pinot noir and a couple of G&T`s at 10,000m.
Wednesday 23rd July 2008 (gotta love that date-line!)
Disembarked into what felt like ridiculous heat and humidity coming from cold and windy NZ. I was not particularly impressed to get to Hawaii and find that it was raining, just like NZ was. Spent an hour at the back of the immigration queue. Got my first experience with Homeland security - didn`t seem any rougher than your average customs lot. I had tried to get my baggage checked right through to my final destination of Kahului airport on Maui. Apparently the dropkick in Chch airport didn`t realize I`d need to collect it at Honolulu and check it in for my inter-island flight. Good thing I checked. Was rather annoyed to find only one of my bags was there. Filled out a "Baggage Irregularity Report" and went to find somewhere to spend the next seven hours I had to kill before my flight to Kahului. Ended up trying to get some sleep whilst lying on a bench outside the airport and right next to a moderately busy road. If I have any advice for travellers, it's that you should always bring earplugs with you wherever you go.
Thursday 24th July 2008
Drifted through sleep till about 3am, when I decided to go try and find the terminal for my next flight. Sat around for another couple of hours (travel seems to involve a heck of a lot of waiting) then went and checked in for this flight. Had BK for breakfast at 5am... briefly considered getting a triple cheeseburger, or a double Whopper (my gods... anyone wonder why Americans are so fat?) decided to try their bastard version of a croissant instead. Does not come recommended. Had a large coffee from Starbucks then read some more whilst waiting. Again. Caught the flight out, which took less than an hour and was met by Shevelle and her dad who took us back to our condo - Sugar Beach Resort. We're on the west side of Maui in an area known as Kihei. Staying with Shevelle, and two young guys - Dylan and Michael. They're Shevelle's little brothers friends, yet he's not here due to being a bit of a shit. They're pretty cool, for a couple of young punks. Got to experience firsthand how shafted we are as Kiwis living on a small island in the middle of nowhere when we went grocery shopping at a bulk discount store called Costco. Things like 1.75L Smirnoff or equivalent for $20 or a 24 pack of Heineken for about $24.
I'm sure I was going to write more, but these two 17yr olds are questioning my ability to drink, so I'm off! Loving Hawaii and missing everyone.
Peace.
I'm not dead yet!
No, I have not been eaten by a rogue moose, I am just struggling to get regular internet access. Which makes keeping this thing updated rather difficult.
Just pretend I'm being all suspenseful and stuff until I can update it more often.
Catch-up Time!
Ok, I'm gonna skip the day-by-day stuff, as it was over two weeks ago, and I can't remember everything that well. So here's the list of stuff I did in Hawaii (in no particular order):
- Shevelle and I checked out the major volcanic crater on Maui - Haleaka. It was pretty cool.
- I went snorkelling, saw some sweet coral and fish, and got a blister due to the crappy fins that they had on the boat. This, combined with a snorkel malfunction meant that when we got to the 2nd location - "Turtle Town" - I was unable to kick with one foot, and had a bit of a lame time. Didn't get to see a sea turtle up close, but did see several from the boat.
- Had several different mai tais at different locations - drinkable, but rum is still not my preference.
- Went to a luau. If you're in Hawaii, go to one, because its the done thing, then never go again. Food was all right, drinks were tasty (a Lava Flow being my favourite). The performance was distinctly amateur (in an am-dram level sense), and the sound and lighting was crap. General flooding of semi-randomly coloured 'cans from one position is just bad design. Made me rather angry.
- Body-surfed some incredible waves at Makena Beach, also known as "Big Beach"(or "Breakneck Beach" due to the high number of injures that happen there!) Body-boarded some of them too. I found the board was more useful in stopping the sand from sand-papering my body apart. Loved it, and could easily have gone back there!
- Bought some clothes and various supplies (necessary due to part of my baggage being delayed in Auckland! Thanks Air New Zealand!)
- Went to see a show incredibly similar to "Maui" that was on here in NZ a couple of years ago: Ulalena - a show about Hawaiian history and folklore. Done by some of the Cirque du Soleil guys. This is an absolute must-see for anyone who goes to Maui and appreciates theatre. Very physical, very musical, very cool.
- Got drunk. Often.
- Got driven around in our Pontiac G5, which looked very flash, but had an incredibly impractical leather interior and utterly redundant electric seat-warmers.
- Waited for ridiculous amounts of time at airports (or so it seemed!)
Canadia!
Ok, carrying on with the trend of very sporadic internet access I'm going yo try and summarize what's happened here n Canada. Again, this is in no particular order.
- Got a job working for a landscaping company. I get paid $16/hr to do all sorts of stuff including shovelling, driving a bobcat, cutting tiles with a diamond-tipped saw, more shovelling, planting shrubs, wheelbarrowing, watering shrubs, laying weed barrier, more shovelling, watering shrubs, sitting on my arse (my boss doesn't have the best time management skills) and sometimes even watering rocks (to get the dust off). I'm enjoying it - its different to anything I've done before, pays well and means I'm gonna have a bunch of useful skills.
- Been out to Whyte Ave (collection of bars) on three separate occasions - only fail to remember the end of the night on two of those occasions!
- Moved in to my residence at International House - its very nice, but I'm paying far too much for it.
- Learnt to line dance - I now know: "Cadillac Ranch", "Baby loves to rocket" and "I knew the bride (when she used to rock 'n roll)".
- Been camping twice. First trip was to Sylvan Lake. I climbed trees to put up a tarpaulin. Slept lots and drank a fair bit. It was good. Second trip was to Jasper National Park (I think that's what it was called). Saw an Elk, some Red Deer, some mountain goats, chipmunks and pikas. (Seriously, there's an animal called a pika. Here, look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pika) Hiked a bit, went to some hot springs (not a patch on Hanmer!) and generally had a good time.
- Been out for dinner several times (to steakhouses mostly) and tried Bison. Tasted like really good beef.
- Adjusted to the Canadian diet - lots of cheese and trans-fats which made me pretty queasy for a few days.
- Shevelle bought me tickets to the Fringe Theatre Festival for my birthday. Went to see five shows: a tap show, a musical about Death personified, a show set backstage, a sketch show about videogames and Anime - an awesome show which could very well have been an anime movie.
- Spent far too much time in various Boston Pizza's, and loved it!
- Saw my first squirrel.
- Spent too much time on the bus system (quite a large portion of which I was asleep!)
Rain, rain go away!
I got up at 5.38am. I did this because over the last couple of days, I've been out to a couple of birthday parties, and wanted to have a decent shower before I went to work.
Turns out its raining today, so no work.
This is lame.
On the plus side it's given me incentive to update my blog!
Thanks to Shevelle's dad, I now have a laptop; Ron owns a computer business and is lending me one. I have actually had one for over a week now (as some of you will realize) but haven't quite got around to updating anything until now.
Work is good - my boss is off on a quadding trip this week, leaving me to work completely unsupervised. So either he's got a financial death-wish, or I'm actually reasonably competent at this landscaping thing. I'm going to be spending the week building a flight of stairs running alongside a house. It's not hard work per se, but very fiddly trying to get the bricks level. Definitely a good skill to have.
Played my first game of soccer for the I-House team last Tuesday. Apparently the only things remaining from my 7 or so years of soccer are an old ankle injury (need to look into getting some decent cross-trainers to replace the old ones I'm currently using) and my ability to bellow "Man-on!" for games on end. Skills are very rusty, and I'm definitely lacking the fitness I used to have. Playing again has made me consider signing up to a club when I get back (yeah, like I can fit a sport into my already far too hectic lifestyle!) or at the very least making more regular appearances at the KAOS Saturday soccer games.
My weight seems to have settled at a comfortable 75kg, which considering I was just under 70 when I left I'm happy with. Initially, I think most of the weight gain was from all the cheese and fats I was eating (and booze!) but I'm fairly certain its muscle mass now. Doing manual labour all day 5 days a week is a good work out!
Autumn (Fall? What the hell's that?) officially started today, which definitely explains the rain. It's getting colder, and darker every day now. I really have no idea what I'm going to be in for when Winter rolls around, but I'm sure I'll cope. Or die trying.
Went to a birthday thing at a bar on Saturday. The bar had karaoke. Sadly, my go-to song ("Time Warp") wasn't on the list, so I made do with "Love Shack" instead. From memory it went down quite well! I feel like there is going to have to be a trip to Treehouse when I get back. So everyone get your vocal chords ready to rock!
While away, I've been elected as a committee member for the NCMS. This means I get to have my own, democratic say in what shows we do etc! Fun! I'm not sure if its been released to the public yet (and I have no idea what I'm allowed to say! I claim ignorance!) but it looks like we're going to be doing two shows next year. The first is going to be smaller, and is very much Kiwi. The second is based around a game. That should be enough of a teaser for some people!
I've been looking into the possibility of getting permanent residency here, I quite like the idea of somehow being able to chase Summers around the globe, and with the seasonal nature of the landscaping here, that could be a viable option. It's only a very nebulous idea at best, but it seems like a possibility.
Housing here is ridiculous. I keep getting spam in my mailbox (as in, actual physical mail, not e-mail) with things like "Own your own place for just $1000 a month!" Considering I'm more or less paying that already, I'm kind of wondering why I don't just buy a property here instead! Gyah.
Curt's moved out of the Harewood flat back home, and I'm probably moving out when I get back to NZ as well. Curt, Chris Blackmore, Jenna Guest and I are all going to look at getting a flat together (maybe one of Jenna's friends too). We're all over the whole studentville scene, so with a bit of luck may end up getting something actually quite nice!
Finally looked into what I have to do to apply for TCol next year. Looks like it is going to be a bitch to do from another country. Oh well, shit happens.
That's all for now. I hate all you back home who are able to look forward to Summer rolling on round!
Peace.
All things must end...
So, it appears that even though I now have regular access to a laptop, I'm still incredibly slack at updating my blog.
Let's see, what've we got this time?
My time as a landscaper in Canada is over (at least, for now...) as its getting too cold to work outside, and my boss doesn't want to start any projects that he won't be able to finish this season. Which means I've been job-hunting again. I have an interview tomorrow for a job at RONA (comparable to Mitre 10 back home) which I'll take, but will want to get out of asap. Its only going to be paying $12-13/hr, which really isn't enough for me with my current accommodation. I've also applied for a job at the mall as an event set-up person, so I may actually be able to put my sound/lighting skills to some use after all! Plus that pays $16.25/hr which is definitely more my style. Finally, sent off an e-mail to Shevelle's neighbours who run a Tiling company... who knows, may end up doing that!
For those of you who haven't heard, or who have heard, but haven't yet made the connection my younger step-brother was killed in a car accident on Friday night.
Here's the link to Stuff:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4731828a11.html (I tried to make this into a hyperlink, but as surprising as it may seem, my html-fu is not up to scratch. Possibly because I've never learned html.)
I'm pretty much trying not to think about it... the circumstances, while completely different, are still a little too close to another car crash which claimed the life of a 17-year old friend of mine and changed a whole heap of us forever. Mostly its working, probably because I'm so far removed from it (by being on the other side of the world) that I can mentally shoebox it if I try. Conversely this has the equally crappy effect that I can't support my family in any way what-so-ever.
I'm also a little appalled at how... capable... I am, when it comes to dealing with death. I haven't had that many people who were close to me die that I should be so unaffected by it. Maybe its just the specific circumstances surrounding Antz' death (distance) and the fact that I've already got plenty enough turmoil going on in my life which I'm having to deal with (while I wholeheartedly reccommend travel as a way to enrichen the soul... it can do some awful things to the mind/body), which're letting me be so detached. Maybe its gonna kick me in the face in a couple of days' time when I'm starting work at a new job (that'd be great!) or maybe it won't hit till I see my family again. I just don't know.
One of my friends here in I-House organized a fundraiser at a local bar for a community in Central America where he spent the summer. There were various things up for auction, which now sees me out of pocket ~$120 and up a set of arty photographs and 1.5l of JD. At least I've got a nice warm glow from helping people in need. (And am sure to get a nice, warm glow from the JD...)
List of things I have learned/re-learned here in Canada:
- Squirrels are small. Much smaller than you imagine them to be.
- Crows are not. The very idea of a murder of crows actually puts the shits up me. I'm serious.
- Despite all our pre-conceptions Moose are not abundant in Canada. I have not seen one yet, and am sadly unsure whether I will before I go. I haven't seen any bears either.
- Canadians are taught that Auckland is the capital of New Zealand. Someone please confirm for me that I am not bat-shit crazy and that Wellington is our capital, correct?
- Everything is bigger in North America. The food, the vehicles, the houses, the cities, and yes, even the people. There are a lot of fatties here. Although, that may also have something to do with there just being more people, so statistically there should be more fatties, but I'm pretty sure there're more per capita.
- Being in another country does not seem to impede my ability to throw a kick-ass party, as long as I've had enough time to network a bit and meet people. Oh, and Facebook helps as always.
- No matter how many jobs there are available, nor how good they may be, job hunting is never fun. NEVER.
- We, as a small, island nation get shafted on pretty much everything involving money. Except for beer. We win out by having cheaper beer than the Canadians do. Oh, and cheaper chicken breast.
- Where we may have a fish and chip shop (or two) on every block, Canadians have pizzerias. Or Steakhouses. They also seem to lack chinese take-out.
- Drinking in an unconventional setting (ie camping) or doing something slightly unconventional (playing boardgames/trivia games) is damn fun. You can even do both simultaneously.
Finally, for anyone who reads this and wants to wish me comfort over Antz, if you know Alison or Ian, please take the time to visit them instead. I'm a tough bastard all the way over on the other side of the world. They need your love more than I do.
Peace.
-PJ
All endings are a new beginning...
So, I'm sitting here with a gin and coke in hand, dog tired, and encouraging myself to go out and be sociable tonight, even in spite of having to get up at 5am for work tomorrow.
So first bit of news, I've found myself a new job - working as Hiring Manager for an international, Fortune 500 Company - American Income Life. The most exciting prospect from this is probably that they have offices in New Zealand, so if I choose to pursue this as a career back home, I possibly can. I may even be able to develop a career with the company and experience a lot of international travel if I am successful. Becoming an Insurance Sales Agent is something which will bear no small amount of thought, but if successful (which I am pretty sure I would be) the rewards available to reap are quite incredible. We'll see.
I had a fairly average time on Halloween here, dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West. Jared (Tin Man), Cenkner (Scarecrow), Shevelle (Dorothy) and I were all dressed as characters from the Wizard of Oz. Sadly, Jared had a bit too much to drink, and Cenkner had to take him home, leaving just me and Shevelle for when we went out to a bar on Whyte. Also, I somehow managed to get separated from the group of people I was with and spent about an hour in the bar next door to our intended destination wondering where anyone was and generally having a fairly crap time. Combined with nearly losing my Canadian mobile, it all added up to a night, which while not bad per se, just wasn't as good as we had hoped it would be.
I spent last weekend in Banff, another national park (like Jasper) with Shevelle, her mum; Dove, and her step-dad; Shawn. We stayed in a Fairmont hotel (Banff Springs) which was based in an old castle, and was stupidly expensive. I was very lucky that Shawn and Dove paid for more or less the whole weekend. On Sunday we went caving, which was quite a good experience - comes highly recommended for any vague adventure junkies out there, or for any one with an interest in biology/geology. It was nowhere near as physical as I had expected, and was very safe. Had a 60ft rappel to do, which, even with my fairly minimal abseiling/rock climbing experience was very basic. Our tour guide, Eli, was very knowledgeable about the cave and very interesting.
I'm off again to Banff this weekend for Shevelle's birthday. There's about 15 of us going (I think) and we're staying in a couple of condos, so that should be good fun.
Finally, my NZ phone is having a bad couple of weeks - I found out today that Canada is one of the few countries in the world that Telecom cannot guarantee text service for. That's right, one of the largest, most developed countries in the world, and one of our two service providers fucks it up somehow. I can still send texts, but have not received any from October 31st or so. This makes e-mail/Facebook the best way to get a hold of me.
Anyway, that's just a quick update, hope all is well wherever those reading this may be.
All in all, a much more upbeat and positive week than the couple previous.
Peace,
-PJ
It's been emotional...
I've tobogganned, snow-shoed, ate far too much, moved out, helped Shevelle, Dom & Cenkner move in, got drunk, booked plane tickets, karaoke'd (again), finished up with my job and been to see an NHL game.
And that's all just off the top of my head.
I'm going to miss Canada and all of my Canadian (and International!) friends. I've had a great time here, and definitely plan on visiting, and quite probably working here again in the future. Hopefully some of them come visit me in NZ - I've always got couches/mattresses/floor space available for a friend.
I've definitely been a little lax on keeping this bad boy updated - I'd like to say that this was due to my incredibly busy nature (which is in part true), I have been rather busy, but nothing compared to what its gonna be like when I hit home again.
I'm heading out for one last party night with all my Canadian friends on Whyte Ave tonight, which should be good fun, then I've only got two more sleeps till I'm leaving Canada's winter wonderland behind for the sweltering summer of Canterbury. Thankfully its warmed up here to zero degrees or so. If it had stayed around negative thirty, a seventy degree swing in temperatures probably would have killed me. To be honest, I'm not sure how I'll cope with the temperature anyway, but it will make a change from having to wear my winter coat whenever I step outside.
My flight schedule runs something like this:
Leave Edmonton at 2.
Fly to San Francisco (3 hours).
Sit on my arse for 6 hours.
Fly to Sydney (14 hours).
Twiddle thumbs for an hour.
Fly to Christchurch (3 hours).
Get fish & chips and at least a six-pack of Tui.
Pass out in Aotearoa.
I've never done a 14-hour flight before. I'm not feeling too worried, because I'm usually pretty good with flying, but everyone's told me that this flight is a bitch.
Friday night, I'm planning on having a few drinks then making it in to town (assuming I've recovered enough). Either way, I should be at Harewood all day on Friday. Feel free to drop in and say hi.
On Monday, I start my new career as an Enrolment Officer for AIL-NZ (read: I'm becoming an Insurance Salesman). This should be interesting.
Bring. It. On.
One last ridiculous wait...
So, I've been sitting in San Fran airport for a good 4 hours already. My plane starts boarding in 2 more. Bring it on so's I can sleep!
