We got to Wanaka two weeks ago now, and it's been a whirlwind ever since. It's been a whirlwind of a very different sort to traveling though- we're finally settling down and settling in for a couple of months, before we pick up stakes again. Before I talk about what we've been doing the past two weeks though, I realized that I forgot to tell a pretty hilarious story from before we got to Wanaka.
Then, in Dunedin, we got an e-mail from the woman running it, who here I will call F. She asked us to skype her ASAP, and we totally freaked out and managed to get looking nice and be ready for a skype interview within like five minutes. She was available right then, so we got on, and it would have been AMAZING to have video of our faces falling as she started talking, because it must have been really dramatic.
She told us that she was out of the country and could not come back for legal reasons, and that backpackers had taken over The Ancient Gymnasium. Apparently the people staying there when she left had themselves never left, and had started inviting friends to come stay for free too. She was understandably upset, but we were a bit confused as to why she was telling us about it. So then she asked us to please go there, introduce ourselves as backpackers wanting to stay, and change the locks when everyone left. (!!!!!!!!) She had sent people before to do this and never heard back from them- she assumed that they had also just decided to stay for free. Then she cautioned us that we shouldn't worry about any for sale sign that might be up, she owned the house, and there was some trouble with the mortgage but of course she would be happy to show us legal paperwork saying that everything is hers. And the cops couldn't help her because they weren't interested, so she needed someone mature and responsible to do this for her.
!!!!!!!!!
We told her that we needed to think about it, hung up, and almost DIED LAUGHING. What! WHAT?!? What.
So we emailed her the next day saying, nope, not gonna happen, and she e-mailed us back being very confused as to why this didn't sound like a good plan to us.
A couple of nights ago, I finally got the chance to walk past The Ancient Gymnasium. There was no For Sale sign, but there were about 5 backpacker vans parked outside with some VERY burly men hanging out in the front yard. Yeah, no.
Anyway, we did both find accommodation in Wanaka- I am working at the reception desk for 15 hours a week at Mountain View Backpackers, and Kara is doing a help exchange just out of town, so all worked out very well for us. :)
Wanaka is lovely! It's located about an hour from Queenstown, on Lake Wanaka, which is a gorgeous lake with the mountains of Aspiring National Park in the background. Wanaka is a huge holiday town in New Zealand- it's great for summer relaxation and adventure sports (it rarely rains here, and it usually gets quite warm during the day and quite cool at night), and for winter sports like skiing. A lot of backpackers come here to work, because there's always tourism and so there's always tourism jobs!
As soon we got to Wanaka, we hit the job search like a whoa. We walked around the town and dropped off resumes at promising looking places, but no immediate luck. There is also a classifieds board at the local grocery store New World, which I checked about every fifteen minutes. My receptionist job is at night on weekdays, and I have to stay at the hostel after I get off due to fire code, so most waitressing jobs were out for me. We decided to wait two days, until Wednesday, to when a local publication called The Messenger comes out. The Messenger is basically a magazine of classifieds, and anyone needing work in Wanaka will advertise there. Apparently, we came to town at the mid/beginning of summer but at the end of the busy season, at least for a while- it's busiest in Wanaka over Christmas and New Years, and dies off a bit after then. So when The Messenger came out, it was largely advertising cleaning jobs rather than cafe or waitressing work.
Kara says: There were some barista jobs listed in the last week's Messenger, so I checked some of those out, having made coffee at Red Hen in Chicago (many years ago). Most of the positions had already been filled, but there was one that hadn't. When I went in, the manager wanted me to make her a drink on the spot. I tooooootally crapped it up though, as I turned the knob the wrong way when I finished foaming the milk on the espresso machine, and it overflowed and went all over and burned my hand, and well, that was that. I was so embarrassed, and gave up on looking for barista jobs.
Lizzy says: So I called one of the hotels looking for housekeepers, and got an interview for that afternoon. Right before that, we met back up with our friend Koen from Auckland! He'd been driving from Queenstown to Te Anau on Monday and seen a car that looked very much like ours on the road-- so he texted to see where we were at and if we could meet up. Hilariously, it WAS our car- I swear, New Zealand is the smallest place-- so he came to Wanaka and we got ice cream! He is the best. He is going to go back to The Netherlands soon, to finish his degree in hotel management.
After that it was interview time, and New Zealand is JUST ABSURD. I'm sure some places have regular interviews- they must!- but I was all ready with my resume and I had practiced a few questions, but it wound up being that I walked it and talked a bit with the very nice woman at the front desk, and she hired me to start the next day. I asked if she might be looking for anyone else, and she was, so she hired Kara too, sight unseen. (Kara says: well technically, she hired us for two trial days that way only, and we got to stay on after that from our own merit.) So that was how we found work within two days of coming to Wanaka. PRETTY GOOD.
That night I helped stop a guy from killing himself at the hostel, so that was interesting too. He was drunk and kind of suicidal and had a knife, which fortunately I didn't have to get away from him because I told him he needed to give it to me or I had to call the police, and after a bit he did. (There were other people right by him kind of holding on to him, so it wasn't too dangerous. But still. My second night.)
So that was a very eventful few days.
The cleaning job is very interesting, and quite difficult. We're cleaning at the nicest hotel in town, which is a five star complex of vacation rentals called The Lakeside Apartments. Because it's five stars, the cleaning must be VERY thorough and complete (though obviously it should be anywhere-- but at Lakeside Apartments, the details are what matter). And, of course, you have to move extremely fast since there's a deadline of the guests coming. To be honest, I'm not great at it- I get frazzled and make silly mistakes when I'm going so fast, which then frazzles me more. I thought for a bit that I might get fired, which I found really hilarious and would have made a great story! I think things (hopeeeefully) are a bit better now, though-- I am getting the hang of it, finally, though I'm still not quick enough. Kara, on the other hand, is doing really well! It is hard physical labor, and we end up tired and sweaty every day.
The Lakeside Apartments are (as the name implies) all apartments, which will have one, two, or three bedrooms open depending on the guest. A group of six or seven cleaners will all be working in the apartment at the same time. One person will be on the kitchen, one on each bathroom, two doing beds, one dusting and doing glass, and then as things start to get finished someone will do the outside glass, mopping, and cleaning of bird poop, and someone else will do the vacuuming. The last thing is indoor mopping. It's intense!!!!
The hostel (where I do reception) is great. Other than that one incident, it's very low key- I check people in and take their payment, and do a really tiny bit of tidying at night. I only have one roommate, a really friendly British woman named Hannah. She and I get along really well, so it's worked out perfectly. I'm really enjoying meeting all the guests, too! It's such an amazing opportunity, to talk to people from all over the world and get so many different points of view. I'm having discussions about politics a lot, and I had a really fascinating economic discussion with a very smart French Canadian man named Jacob David, about maximum wage caps. And just yesterday, when I was on the reception desk, a woman came up to me very distraught because we don't have an oven at the hostel (which I'll admit is really weird). She had prepared a beautiful dough and didn't know what to do. She we put our heads together and I figured out that we could turn a large pot into an oven by sticking a bowl in in, and a plate on the bowl so that the the bread would be raised, and covering it, and cooking it on high. And it worked!!! And she gave me DELICIOUS bread to say thank you. So I am having an awesome time meeting all sorts of people- I was wary of staying at a hostel for such a long time at first, since it can be really stressful with so many people, but it's worked out great.
My days are quite full. Kara and I work for around 4 hours cleaning in the morning, and then I have the afternoons free until it's time to be at reception (on weekdays) or just completely free (on weekends). Mostly I've been wandering around town and eating amazing ice cream (BLACK PEAK GELATO! APRICOT TIP TOP!), going down to the lake, checking out the happy hour specials at some bars, and reading a lot during each activity. I've gone for a few runs already and even found a yoga class! I don't want to settle for too long, since there's so much to see, but I'm really enjoying being in one place for a while.
Kara says: I'm finding the situation here somewhat less enthralling and amazing than what Lizzy is professing on here. The work is very hard, but pays well, so that is good. At my homestay I do three hours every day, mostly cleaning and gardening/weeding. I am very tired every day, and I am also covered in bruises. After we got the housekeeping job, we worked for 11 days in a row, with our first day off today, and I don't ever get a day off from my homestay work (unless I do double work on another day). Lizzy does have weekend evenings off, but every day is pretty much the same to me. At my homestay, I do have my own bedroom, which is nice, but I may have to stay in a tent for a while. I've enjoyed homestays in the past, but it is difficult to balance with a part time job. Part of the problem is that you're always "on" for work. We are working in fun things as we are able (see below), and the town itself is very nice, but the days are mostly work, eat, sleep for me. We need to stay here and work to make money for the next leg of the trip, but I'm counting down the days until we leave.
We are finding time for some fun activities sprinkled in with our work. Our first weekend, we bought a Book Me deal (pretty similar to Groupon) for an amazing (AMAZING!!!!!) cocktail at a place called Gin & Raspberry (also the name of the cocktail), and we went to see Birdman at the local theater, which is SO COOL. All of the seats are couches, except for one old car that is inexplicably there and has been outfitted with comfortable bus seats. We sat in the car, of course. The theater (Cinema Paradiso) is known for it's cookies and ice cream, so of course we did that, and it was basically the perfect movie-going experience. This Sunday, we went to the beach at Lake Wanaka. It was freezing but very refreshing, and the view was to die for. I think that I'll have to do a separate post of Wanaka pictures, as I haven't actually taken that many pictures yet. (I'll get ones of the hostel, my bedroom, Lakeside Apartments, and THE ICE CREAM!!! for sure.)
But, of course, I do have a few photos!