Around the World and Back: The adventure continues

Bad blogger alert! I'm so sorry to anyone who's been trying to keep up with me and patiently waiting for a blog update... Honestly life has just been sort of sailing along with nothing too out-of-the-ordinary to report. But! There are some major changes coming up so I thought I'd fill you in.

We're moving to Australia! It's official; we've booked our flights and been approved for working holiday visas. The visa gives us a year to live and work there, but we don't have firm plans on how long we're going to stay. Our first stop is Melbourne, and we've decided to spend this working holiday a little bit backwards from the way we spent our NZ year. Instead of traveling around, WWOOFing, and living the backpacker's life upon arrival, we're going to hunker down and try to be like real Melbourne-ians. Here's hoping our prospective Airbnb hosts in Melbourne will be as helpful as the ones we had here in Wellington!

Life in Wellington has continued to be a good time. I signed on with a temp agency as recommended by my friend Caitlin, who has been using said agency to find work since her and her boyfriend, Sean, moved here from San Diego a few months ago. I was lucky enough to be placed in a reception job right away with the Ministry of Health, in a very official building down by the Beehive (Parliament building). I've been working at the reception desk on and off for a few weeks now, and it makes me feel so important and so weird being around all the corporate/government-types all day! Dressing in business attire (hopefully no one will notice I've been rotating the same 3 outfits over and over again! (and by "outfits" I mean the same pair of pants, 2 sweaters and a shirt)), carrying a swipe card, rushing around during lunch hour, and seeing everyone always being in a hurry for a meeting... Corporate life. The street where my building is located is called "The Terrace"; does it get any more official sounding than that? My job is just to wait for people to come in for meetings, then I call the person they're meeting to let them know their guest has arrived. People are always in a hurry, always look so frantic to get to their meeting, and are always mad when someone is 1 minute late- basically it's the anti-Kiwi mentality. Sometimes when I'm there I just feel so weird and out of place, because what is going on? Where are these people in such a hurry to go? What is their meeting about? I have no idea. No one tells me anything, and I don't have access to the internet at work (or any of the internal systems at all, really), so I spend the majority of my day staring off into space, using Microsoft Paint, and reading (a new development I've just boldly started). This must be what it means to have a "real" job: meetings and suits! Can you tell I'm a waitress at heart? It's a little ridiculous how out of touch I am with the 9-5 lifestyle... Ah well, I'm just soooo happy to have some extra work, whatever it may be!

I'm also still working 16 hours a week at Medi Foods, which continues to be the easiest job in the world. The only pain about that place is when I have to work there after working at the Ministry of Health (like I have for the past week and a half) and I get a little overloaded by customer service. The owners have started doing the thing restaurant owners often do, where they don't know how to do anything/know how anything works and have to display their power over you by bossing you around and making you do things which are totally irrelevant/impractical to how the place successfully runs... but it's not like I'm not used to that. :) Overall, I'm excited to finish up that job (3 more shifts!!!) and finally have my weekends back.

Brian has been working at the Recovery Room cafe, which gets its name from its location (across the street from the hospital). He started working there as a "casual worker", meaning they'd just text him whenever they needed help to see if he could come in, and because he always said yes (and because he's awesome), he has climbed his way to the top of the list and is clearly a favorite around there. This week he's nearly clocking 40 hours, which has been unheard of for either of us beyond our time at The Store. I'm really glad Brian's getting the time and experience in the cafe because he's getting lots of practice on coffee-making and serving. This experience will open lots of doors in "hospo" (that's what they call the hospitality sector here) for him when we get to Australia. There's also the added perk of working with/meeting all kinds of crazy characters and bringing home plenty of stories after work.

The other endeavor that's been taking up a bit of my time lately is my stationary "business", Chickpea. Yes folks, I'm back in the card game, after all these years. Yesterday I found myself having major flashbacks to the CVB creation days (for anyone who doesn't know, my mom, aunt, and grandma had a business in the '90s making puffy-paint-iron-on-decal sweatshirts, and were quite hot on the craft-fair circuit), as I set up my table display at the Miramar Kindergarten Spring Market. My friend Caitlin came along to keep me company and we were later joined by my flatmate, Mark. It was a good experience; I didn't make much money or sell many cards, but I really loved getting set up and having a chance to show what I've been working on. I tried to resist replenishing my craft supplies when I got to Wellington (as my mini-craft set I'd brought with me to NZ was lost in the car theft) because I didn't want to acquire too many things to haul around after we leave here, but I just couldn't help myself. I'm proud of the cards and notepads I've made and it was fun to get to display them! I'm not sure where this will go or if I'll pursue trying to sell them somewhere when we get to Melbourne but it's a fun hobby to have. :)

After my 60-hour work week last week I'm looking forward to having some time off to enjoy my last few weeks here. The weather has turned... spring is here, and with it has come the famous Wellington wind. I have to admit, I found it slightly amusing how big of a reputation wind has here because of how mild (generally speaking) the winter was. No one told me that the real "Windy Welly" nickname comes from spring! Who would have thought the spring would feel colder and more blustery than winter? The last week or so has been filled with ruined hairdos, difficult wardrobe-choice days (hot and cold, simultaneously...), and house-shaking windy nights. I should have known I was jinxing it by going around blabbing to everyone I meet about how great the winter weather has been. On Sunday we went to the weekend market on the waterfront and there was trash and veggie scraps flying around all over the place. "Get used to it," they say, "Welcome to Wellington in the Spring." Trying to embrace it! We are (hopefully!!!) planning a weekend road trip to New Plymouth in a couple of weeks, with hikes on Mt. Taranaki, and I am beside myself with excitement! Today we flipped through some old pics on Brian's camera from the last year here and they made me itch to get back out into the wilderness a little. I love city life, no denying that, but being out on the road is equally amazing. It will be great to squeeze a tiny bit more of that in before we say goodbye to this place.

That being said, boy am I sad. It just seems so surreal that our time here is already almost over... it has been such a grand adventure. I am so happy and proud that despite all of the mishaps and hard times we've gone through, we have so much love for New Zealand and our year here. Looking through pictures and talking with Mark about his potential upcoming travels throughout the country brings me so much excitement (and sadness that we can't stay and go back to visit some of our favorite places!) and I find myself thinking about what places to prioritize when we inevitably come back to visit NZ. If only we had more time! I can only hope that our next ________ months in Australia (and wherever else we may end up) will bring as much fun, beautiful scenery, and good friends as we've had/seen/met here.

pics from the last few months, in no particular order: