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