Wednesday, March 28, 2012

A Glamourous Life

So glamourous, I get to wear a plastic apron and a hair net for 9 hours a day.

I work in a factory. I've had 1 and a half days of work and I'm already sick of it, but hey, I didn't expect anything different.

I had the opportunity to choose between working in the fields or working in the packhouse and although it did pain me a bit, I chose the factory work. Simply because it means that I'll be working more, ergo, earning more money, and that's my whole reason for being in Kerikeri anyway. Both jobs would've sucked, but this one is much more stable.

And honestly, it's a very interesting experience, I mean... I never would have imagined that my first job would be working in a factory! I keep thinking about all the horrible stories of people working in sweatshops and I feel a strange connection to them. Though, of course, not any justified connection as I am treated well. There's even free tea, coffee, hot cocoa, and cookies! When you're a backpacker that's a big deal!

Yesterday was my first full day of work and I ended up doing an hour of overtime, so my day was: wake up at 6, start work at 7, and get off work at 5:30. It was a long laborous day, but I earned about 100 dollars that day, which almost pays for my weeks rent.

I guess I'm pretty settled now. I've got my home, my family/friends, my job. Life is pretty steady and I often still have to remind myself that I'm in New Zealand. I'd much rather be out and about exploring the country, but I'll feel much better actually starting my travels with a legit budget.

I did get really overwhelmed by constantly being around people for 2 weeks and decided to head out on my own to explore the surrounding areas of Kerikeri. I left around 2 and went to the library until 4:30 and was walking around various forresty areas until about 7:30. When I arrived home everyone flipped out. Apparantly they didn't know where I had gone and were worried sick about me. They tried calling me but I wasn't answering and they told me that they were going to wait another 1/2 hour and if I didn't turn up they were sending out a search party to find me.

heh heh... I guess I can't escape that kind of thing anywhere I go. ;) Even if I'm in NZ.

Reminds me of the buffalo wild wings incident.

Anyways, there isn't all that much to report. Just day to day things. Packing kiwis, making dinner, everyone openly wondering how the hell I eat as much as I do and stay as small as I am.

I'm honestly too tired to write much more. I apologize for the less than enthusiastic post, I've just not gotten decent sleep recently what with Doug's b-day party and a 6am wake up call the next morning.

But my love is sent. I'm quite well and I am enjoying my time.

Ciao!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Best Comments

A couple nights ago we all went to a pickers and packers party at a bar in Kerikeri, and most of us just went for the free food, but there was a DJ and a dance floor. Much to even my disbelief I went out and just started dancing! Similarly to how I did back at home with all my friends in my living room. It was heaps of fun. I even taught Tyron, a kiwi with a 'fro, some of our American gangsta dance moves. I had everyone doin' em!

Anyways, that night there was a lot of talk revolving around me (the girls stole me and dressed me up and put makeup all over my face) and everyone was oohing and ahhing over how if I was a bit taller I could easily be a model.

That was nice and all, but my two favorite comments of the night were from Rob:

"No matter what anybody tell you, you are fucking cool! You are so fucking cool!"

(Mind you, Rob has tattoos all up his arms and spent 12 years in the British army)

Rob to Joey:

"This girl, she's got balls that are THIS BIG!" (holds hands far apart)


So, I guess they've figured me out. I'm a petite feisty gorgeous hard-ass.

hahaha. It felt good.

:)

Friday, March 23, 2012

Alive and Well

Sorry I haven't been able to update recentlI've been too busy livin!

At this point I can no longer update you on all of my adventures, for there are far too many. I can say that I've seen two oceans collide, made lots of friends, and seen a dead cow rolling down the river.

No time. CIAo

Monday, March 19, 2012

Fate, St. Patty's Day, & The Wise Old Man

Remember how in my last post I was complaining about having a bad day because of my room switch? Well, I entered my room thinking "ok, this is really not that bad of a situation, I'm going to welcome it with open arms."
And guess what? Fate took care of the rest. Turns out they overbooked the room, so I ended up being switched again to room 206 which was basically empty except for this very talkative 76 year old man from Australia. We introduced ourselves and shortly realized they we were going to be on the same bus the next day, so we decided to make a day of it. I got up at 6 am and went down to the kitchen and he made me a bowl of porridge (oatmeal) and tea and chatted a lot about farms he'd worked on and how much he liked milk..
It was a four and a half our ride with him, since he got off at Paihia and my stop, Kerikeri, was 25 minutes north of there. It was quite pleasant, he did a lot more chatting, going on about Australia and the NZ landscape. I learned a lot from him. And all the while I stared out the window at some of them most incredible landscape I've ever seen. I really didn't know that these types of places existed outside of jurrassic park movies. TONS and TONS of rolling hills, some filled with jungle landscape, others totally rural, for the sheep to graze.

At our parting he told me that I was an amazing girl, very nice and that traveling at 18 was such a brave thing to do but I'd be fine, he could tell that I'd do well.

I made it to the hostel and met my new family! A bunch of folks all between the ages of 20-33 (as usual, I'm the baby). We all put in some money for a BBQ that night and during the day the girls painted their nails (me included) green, except for the thumb, which we each put our flag. Everyone was quite impressed with my flag, though it doesn't quite have 50 stars...

Once dinner was ready, the beer was already flowing quite heavily, the music was bumpin, and the people were socializin! It was heaps of fun!! All in our nice little Hone Heke Hostel Lodge, which has a nice covered outdoor pavillion with big long tables, a pool table, a ping pong table, x-mas lights hung up on the ceiling, and a pretty nifty sound system.

It's been a lot of fun getting to know everyone, and even though it's just been pouring rain for 3 days straight, it has been nice to just sit around the tables playing cards, inserting myself into these peoples' lives. :p We really are like a big funky family. Oh and I'm getting much better at pool and table tennis!

I'm enjoying my time in Kerikeri so far. They even have a nice lil farmers market on Sundays that i can go to and get the best hotcakes ever. Still just waiting for work... but I've applied and should be hearing back in about a week or so.I hope you all know that it is not glamourous work by any means, most likely working in a packhouse doing really shitty work for really shitty pay. But hey, it's a lot of money really quickly. The sooner I rack up 2000 bucks, the sooner I can head out to more adventures to Hamilton, Blenhiem, Franz Joseph Glacier, Dunedin, Milford Sound... it's such a big world. Taking 4 years out of my time to explore hurts me, but I know university will be a good investment. I just have to grit my teeth and get through it so that I can get back out on the road.

New Zealand, you lovely place, you've shown me how strong I can be. And I no longer fear the unknown, nor do I fear being alone.

P.S. My last day in Auckland I was feeing lonely and went to the park and just laid down, hoping maybe someone would come talk to me, but knowing that even if no one did (most probably), life was still good. Optimism, open to the fates and all that. And what happened? A guy came up and started chatting with me! He's from India and could tell I wasn't from around here and wanted to learn about my country. Very cool.

Ok, times running out.

My love is sent!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Just a few photos

I'm having a down day (as I mentioned before, not a lot of sleep) and I'm sore from the hike yesterday so walking around is painful and I had to switch rooms and my new dormroom is... kind of dasterdly. It's just one night. I can sleep through it... I hope. But because of all that, I'm spending a lot of time in the IEP office today, which is why I am able to give so many updates!

They're currently playing Flight of the Conchord songs. Makes me miss home!






"I'll buy you a kebab!"


kebab on Queen st. where I met a couple other lovely travelling Americans





NZ paper money








Some performers outside the data center on Queen St.







One of the parks in Auckland that I went to during my day tour.













Rangitoto Pics!



lava caves



On the hike up






There's the summit!





not all totally volcanic rock.




I reached the top!




Rangitoto Island





Goodbye, Auckland! (taken from red light district)






Hint: may wanna check my previous posts for some newly added pics!

Just a P.S.

I meant to mention on my last post, since I've recieved a good number of inquiries about it, that Piers is a 20 year old dude from England. He's only been in the country for a week and we hit it off because of our culture shock... though mine has gone away and he's still pretty pessimistic about everything. And no, there's 0 romantic connection between us. In fact he's my first 100% totally platonic male friend, which is really neat! But yeah... nothing juicy to report, sorry. :p

P.S. number 2. I already have a wicked tan! Just spent one day outside and I am a nice brownish shade. I'm super anal about my sun protection though, so don't worry. I'm avoiding being burnt at all costs.

I feel as though there's still something else I wanted to mention, however, I cannot recall what it is (didn't get a lot of sleep last night.) BTW, idk what time it is there but just to keep things in perspective is's 11:53 on Mar. 16 here. I guess that means it is 17:53 Mar 15 in BG.

If anyone asks about me, please just send em the link to this blog. I keep it up for all those loved ones I left back home and if those loved ones don't read it, well then, I'm wasting a lot of time on the internet! So yeah. I'm trying to up my followers.

Please and thank you.

Sweet as! (NZ phrase meaning, it's all good!)

Onto the north!

Now, before I say anything let me address the fact that I'm alive! Let me also mention that prostitution is legal here, and therefor is much different and much safer than it is in America. And lastly, New Zealand is probably one of the (if not the) safest countries on the planet.

So now that that's all squared away, last night I found myself walking home alone in the red light district!

Hah, ok ok, so that's a BIT of an exaggeration-only the begining of my walk home was amongst the ladies on the corners, the majority of my journey was just down K st which, as far as I could tell, was free of prostitiutes.

Sounds eventful, but really, I felt much safer walking around Auckland at night than I ever did walking the streets of NYC. The rest of my night (which all happened before my lone walk back to the hostel) was spent with Ky. After he got off work we went to his apartment where he made some dinner HOMECOOKED pasta with tomato sauce, spinach, and chickpees. It was delicious. We then headed off to Ponsoby's social club where they played some reggae funk music and I bought my first legal drink! Then didn't even card me, heh. We just chatted over a few beers until we were both about ready to pass out from exhaustion and decided to head home. However, on the way, one of his friends spotted him from a dif. resteraunt and we went and met a bunch of people and Ky got us some chamomile teas which was really just the perfect thing. One of his mates asked where I was from and when I answered KY he went into a huge story about how he travelled across America and while he was in NYC was aressted for smoking marijuana, which of course, then got everyone talking about America's legal system and particularly the cops in America and how ridiculous they often are.

NZ cops don't carry weapons. They're much more polite and generally good to be around. I feel a lot safer with them than I do with the cops in Am. who all seem to have an inferiority complex.

The big news though is that tomorrow I'm heading out of Auckland. I'll be going up to Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands to stay at the hone heke backpackers lodge and work picking kiwifruit for a couple of months. Hopefully to earn enough $$ to fund some of my travel. I'm extremely aware of how much money I'm spending and feel guilty pretty much anytime I make a purchase.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about leaving Auckland. I've always heard "get out of Auckland asap!!" But I haven't even been here a week and it's become my home. It has everything I could possibly need, including the IEP office, and leaving is bittersweet.
I hope to come back for Easter if I can, since there's a jazz festival on Waheike Island that day that I would love to attend! Plus Tiare is going to be in Auckland around Easter and it would be nice to meet up with her.

We'll see. But since I'm moving locations I have no idea when the next time I'll be able to post or check anything.

Sianara for now. I'll try to send out a notice when I get to Kerikeri saying I got there safely.

Cheers, mates!

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Quick Quick update!

The office closes in 5 minutes but I'm so excited because of my Rangitoto excursion today!

Also, I wanted to let you know I'm heading to Kerikeri this weekend, which is in the Bay of Islands to work picking kiwifruit (i'm in the middle of the lag between grape picking and pruning in the vineyards. :( oh well).

But, Rangitoto-

I hiked 1.5 hours up a volcano to it's summit and even went through some of its lava caves all on my own! I compare this to walking up Bartoleme which was with a tour guide and I feel that took away a bit of the experience for me. Now I feel like i can conquer so much more, am capable of so much more, and holt shit, the views from the summit were out of this world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangitoto_Island

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

A suicide?

I watched a person jump from a bridge today.

But don't worry, the line didn't snap!

I witnessed my first bungy jump during my STRAY day trip and boy was it strange... they just fall right off a ledge! But I wasn't down at the bottom watching, I climbed up with em! I was miles above the water, walking alone the underhangings of a large bridge over the pacific ocean.
That's a good way to spend an afternoon, eh?

I met lot's of different travellers, from Dublin, Germany, Scotland, France, NYC, the Netherlands, England, Poland, etc etc. Had lunch with a woman from Germany and a man from Dublin, both are probably in their 40s or over, and gave me some good traveling tips. Dublin man also assured me that not all hostels are like Base, the one I'm staying in now. Most, he said, are much better. Which is awesome! Because, I already feel totally at home at base, and if they can only get better than I'm really set. Thank you easy adaptability.

Before lunch I was able to taste a free 1/2 pint beer, and then with lunch I was given a free pint with lunch. If you know me at all, you know I can't drink all of that, so I ended up leaving almost the entire pint! I felt bad, but hey.. if I feel myself succumbing at all to the alc, I stop. Just not in a totally comfortable place yet, otherwise I'd feel more comfortable drinking a bit.

Last night I ended up going down to the pier with piers (haha, I made fun of him a lot for that) and we just chatted and watched the sunset over the water. It was very pleasant. I then got some REALLY FUCKING AMAZING gelato. Damn people. Come to NZ and get their gelato...it's worth the 1400 dollar ticket.

Sorry I haven't been responding to emails recently, there are just so many and I'm using most of my internet time for updating this for everyone and then doing job search related things. I hope I can get back to all the emails before I leave Auckland (hopefully Sat at the latest), but if I can't know that I really appreciate all of them and if there's anything you NEED from me put URGENT in the subject line.

By the way, I can easily recieve mail. So send me some parcels!
PO box 1786 Shortland st. Auckland, New Zealand, 1140

PS. I'm not back on facebook. Def. don't have time for that, I just needed to message Nathan a question I had about NZ since he was here for 5 months last year and that's my only way of contacting him. Sorry to disappoint!

My love is sent.

Monday, March 12, 2012

About the commenting...

I've been told by many that my blog isn't allowing comments. That sucks. :( I live for the comments on this thing! So idk why that's happening. If I ever have a large expanse of time, I'll try to look into it, but unfortunately that probably won't happen till I get back to the states.

So, until then, if you try commenting on this and it doesn't work, please please just email me your comments.

My email is kzenn.johnson@gmail.com

Love hearing from you all! And I'm still doing amazingly. Can't imagine leaving in 4.5 months, there's just so much to do here and I'm madly in love now (with traveling, ahem). Damn you, university. Why can't you start in Winter?

I just had lunch with Ky and he is a wonderful contact! We're going to go try to find some music bar Thurs evening. And I think next week I may go to Hamilton to stay with his parents, and since they go up to Raglan about every weekend, I may do a jaunt up there with them.

So many options. So many contacts. So many lovely people.

I also, instead of coming back here right after my bank stuff, I got a blueberry custurd danish and went to one of the various parks in the city. It was a steep climb to get to but once I got to th top it was beautiful! Giant magnolia trees intermingling with a bunch of palms, a fountain, a view of the bay, lot's of gorgeous flowers...kinda reminded me of Mexico, actually. Well, I hung out there for awhile and watch the seagulls since, instead of pigeons attacking you, they've got bunches of seagulls! And they're so cute!






Aah, happiness is not a warm gun, it is NZ! And I'm only in the heart of the biggest city. I ain't seen nothin' yet.

Again, still so much more I'd like to post about, however, I need to do some job searching before Piers and I go and chat with the job asisst people. And for dinner I might go with IEP to the Blue Room Pub or there are a bunch of readings at the library starting at 17:30 with a free glass of wine.

Keep reading, and start replying! I gotta know it's worth my time writing these things up! :p

My love is sent!

There are no squirrels in New Zealand!

And no white or black squirrels in Scotland... but there are grey and red squirrels!

But don't worry, the birds make up for it by sitting in the middle of the road until you get as close as possible to them with the car before flying away.

Wait, I was in a car?

Yes, yes I was.

And how do you know these things about Scotland?

Why, I met a Scottish woman yesterday and we had a nice chat while she took me to and from a potential place of work.

Mhm... I have WAY too many approach approach conflicts.

And with that, I'm pretty much over my homesickness and now Jul 20 seems to be coming too fast! :p haha

I told you fate always seems to take care of things as long as you put a little effort into it. Well, yesterday afternoon I got a call from Michael, one of my potential employers who gave me an idea of what the job would be and essentially I'd be an Au Pair! I would be a nanny! They have three kids, 4, 6, and 10. And the wife is fighting with lung cancer, so that's why they need the extra work. I would basically have all evenings and weekends off, I'd get to use their car (which is a little weird for me with the whole left side of the rd thing) anytime I was off, so in the evening and weekends... I could take day trips all over the south Island, they'd give me my own room and all meals, and I'd get paid $200 a week. And they have a piano.

And they're all really nice! The kids are wonderful and even their current Au Pair, Rebecca (the scottish woman), is super sweet. And they're native Kiwis. So why the hell would I turn this down? Well... lot's of reasons. There are so many options for me here, and I guess I feel like taking on a full 3 month job with them would be somewhat restricting and honestly, 200 dollars a week wouldn't fund the travel I'd want to do, so I'm still leaning towards a couple months on a vineyard with Piers (that's my English friends name!) working like a MACHINE. $13 and hour for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Doing the same repetetive thing over and over. It would be kind of terrible, but an incredible way to earn money.

But it is really hard to turn down the Au Pair job, since it would be perfect in its own way. And they had me over to their house for dinner last night. They live in the Suburban part of Auckland, about 3 mins walk away from one of the many mnay bays here, and you can easily see rangitoto from that bay. It was such a nice night, being able to go and enjoy some Kiwi hospitality and the dinner was quite simple, rice, a fish soup thing, some mac and cheese...but it was homecooked so it was delicious! Fish here tastes better too... go figure.

Unfortunately, I have to head out. Need to go back to the bank to confirm my bank account stuff. And then I'm having lunch with Ky, and after that Piers and I are heading to the job services help in our hostel to ask about seasonal work and see if it really might be a good fit.

Before I go though, I have to say that as soon as I got off of Queens st, the majesty of NZ began to hit me. Once you're no longer surrounded by the tall city buildings, you get a much better feel for the enviornment.

Hopefully I'll get more of that tomorrow when I have my free day tour with stray bus around Auckland where I'll also be given a free beer! I'll be buying my first drink tonight, I'm quite excited. I was also served wine on the plan with dinner, that was a weird thing.

ok, really gotta go now. Though there's so much else to talk about. So very much!

Hope all is well with everyone else!
I may be able to get back on here sometime later today.

My love is sent

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Excitment! And plans!

I just had orientation, and they alleviated most all of my fears. I'm still going through a good bit of culture shock and homesickness, but now there's a lot of excitement added into that.

SO my sincere plan and hope is to work on a vineyard for 3 months, save as much as possible so that for the last month I can really go out and do things without braking the bank. I'll probably do a guided bus thing of the south island (so I can get to Franz Joseph Glacier) and then take a short jaunt over to Fiji before heading home. So, I'm quite excited.

I also have to go to Rotorua before I leave so I can stay in a Maori hut.

But yeah. I know these updates are weird and there a re a lot of them, but i never know when I'll be able to post, so this super plenty post thing probably won't last once I leave Auckland.

But I need to go get my IRD number and set up my bank account (look at me, I'm an adult!)

My love is sent.

Ciao!

Day 2

I told you it'd get better!

I'm still not having THE TIME OF MY LIFE, but I'm much less curl up into a ball and wonder why the hell I did this...

I have a travel companion now! We're planning on buying a campervan and making our way down to Franz Joseph for some skydiving. Unfortunately I can't spell his name. But he's from England and is not too keen on traveling alone either. We went out to dinner last night and split some NY pizza. I told him it didn't compare.

We walked around Auckland for a bit just looking around, and that was kinda nice. It'ds been cloudy and rainy since I got here but the temp is nice. We're planning on going to Rangito (?) Island in Thurs when it's supposed to be sunny.

My other roomates are from Germany, Sweden, and one other place... though I'm not sure where yet since I haven't formally met Pete.

I also have two potential jobs lined up, both dealing more with housecare than farming... but hey, they have accomodation.

By the way, there are a TON of asains here. I see more Asains than I do New Zealanders, I think. Also, a weird thing, is I am def. a minority. There any other Americans that I've met, and Jessica, my German roomate, has been traveling for over a year and said I was the first American she'd met.

I'm also going to meet up with Ky at some point today since he called me to set something up. Hopefully he'll have some good advice since he's been backpacking for awhile now.

My pack is SO HEAVY. If I was doing any real trekking with that thing... I would probably pass out. Luckily, I can handle the small jaunts I've had to do with it. Note to self-travel when it's summer to fall or spring to summer. none of this winter stuff... it makes my pack waay too heavy.

My english friend and I are also planning on going to a music store that's down on Queen St. so we can play Piano, so that'll be a fun activity.

Now to all my friends reading, I gotta tell you, don't travel alone. It's not so much that it's scary... it's just too lonely. There are some people that can do it and love it, but I am not one of them, and I know you guys aren't either, eve if you say you're antisocial, take someone with you!! I'm just lucky I met someone who is in a similar situation as me that I get along with.

gtg orientation!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

ALSO

Idk if my phone is being charged when it's not on airplane mode. I'd love it if there was a way for someone to figure that out and tell me. So far I've just been leaving it on airplane mode just in case. I turned off the cellular data and 3G but it still searches for networks and won't let me not have service of some sort. So idk what to do with it-I can't use wifi with it if it's on airplane mode. And again, I really have no idea what time it is here. The comp says 14:16, but my phone says 1:16. My watch says 7:20, and my new phone says 3:18 am. so GAH.

Anyways, I'd love to know about the phone thing.

My love is sent again.

P.S. I feel like I'm in a flight of the conchords episode. Everyone talks like them it's crazy!

NZ

I'm in New Zealand!

Kia Ora!

A lot, yet not a lot to say yet. I'm paying $1 for 20 mins of internet right now and I have to research the phone I got. I don't understand anything here really. So far it's been pretty uneventful. Still very lonely, hopefully I can make friends with my dormmates? If not thre's that IEP orientation tomorrow morning where I will force myself to meet folks. And then I hope to be out of Auckland and into a job ASAP. I've got a job lined up in the West Coast of the South Island, I just need to make sure there aren't any better options before I commit to it and head down there.

I wish I could say WOWOWOWOW I'm in NZ and I LOVE it. But mostly I'm disoriented and alone. Still wishing I had a travel companion, but that'll change once I get more settled. Don't worry about me-people here are nice.

Next update will be less sad. Promise. Just not used to anything yet. Like when is 14:03?? 2:03. yup. conversions.

OK

My love is sent. Ciao.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Mad World Cover

Well, here goes-



It's not the greatest, believe me, I'm aware of that. However, posting this is the wrecking ball to the wall that I put up around me so that no one could ever see/hear me perform anything. And just to note, I learned the piano piece in a day, and I hadn't really played piano for years before I picked up this sheet music and taught myself. So hey, at least I'm proud of my piano skillz!

CHACHA!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Videos (read in spanish accent)

Here are my videos. The first two are pretty mediocre, in that, unless you were in them, they're not actually that interesting. But feel free to watch them anyway! I always love feedback. And in the first one you actually get to see me act (and what mighty fine acting it is ;p) !

Pyramus and Thisbe
school project based on Shakespeare's Pyramus and Thisbe

Ode to Alison
video I made for one of my best friends while she was in Germany

Ferdinand and Miranda in Milan
another school project, based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. My gem.