Life at the Hairy Berry Bunkhouse

I should really update a lot more often. More blogs, but briefer. I'll try to do that. There are so many little things I want to write about, but it's been a long time since the last entry. Sorry if this goes too long. As for pictures, Boaz, I'm sorry! I'm gonna try to get my hands on an SD reader or something. I promise sometime in the future I'll have a blog that's dedicated to pictures. =]

1. There are two cats who live at Hairy Berry Bunkhouse (my hostel/backpacker). Lucky is a proud cat (with different shades of grey/brown and a couple white patches) who prowls around as though she owns the place (which is almost true. She's practically part of the staff). One of her favorite spots is actually on top of this computer's monitor. She's sleeping there right now. The other, who most of the guests don't even know about it, is named UC, which stands for UnderCover. Almost completely white with some black spots, she's really shy, only comes out at night, and even so, will run off as soon as someone approaches her. I want to pet them a lot, but because I'm allergic, I'll only pet them for awhile and then I have to go wash my hands. The only person they really like is one of the staff here who runs everything.

2. Sam started his kiwi tipping/pruning job. He kind of explained it to me, and it basically is just pruning the trees/vines so that they control it's direction of growth, to prevent tangling. Apparently the plants somehow irritates Sam's eyes, so they get all red everyday. But lucky for him, they don't itch, and so he just uses eyedrops and sunglasses, and they've been getting better. He works almost everyday, usually 8-9 hours, because the weather's been getting nicer with summer approaching. I try not to feel bad about it (every time I tell him that I feel bad, he just says "whatever, it's work"). Without the job he'd just sit around watching TV or reading books anyway. The only thing that really sucks is having to wake up early. He's getting used to the long hours.

3. My daily schedule is lot more comfortable than Sam's. I can sleep as late as I want, and I usually wake up sometime between noon and 1pm. Then I eat some "breakfast," watch Grey's Anatomy (right now they just started season 3) and relax until I have to walk to work at 5:30. [Side note: don't tell me what's going on in Grey's Anatomy Season 4 because I don't want anyone ruining it for me before I get to watch it.] Sometimes I'll walk to town and get more groceries and whatnot if needed since Sam can't do it, working during the day. But that's all about to change because my waitressing is almost done. That job was actually temporary because I told them that I was just doing that job until a kiwi job came along that offered more hours. I feel bad for the owners though. They should really try to find a local girl instead of relying on this backpacker for it's waitresses. After 1.5 weeks, I've finally got the hang of their system, only to leave them and have them re-train someone else (and they go through this a lot). I'm gonna miss the free indian food. I didn't get to try a lot of dishes (they're not gonna like whip me up really nice stuff for dinner, just whatever they have). But I really do like the Butter Chicken and garlic naan.

My next job starts Monday. Basically all I'll be doing is working at one of the kiwi packhouses, where my job is simply to check each kiwifruit to make sure it's good. A couple of the girls who live here work there, and it shouldn't be too bad, but we'll see.

4. I love meeting people here. At first I was really shy and hermit-like, but I've been living in this hostel for 3 weeks now, so it's comfortable, and you see the same people everyday for extended periods of time. There are a couple of New Zealanders who live at this hostel, two rugged men, one in his 40s? 50s? named Mikey and the other a little younger (keep forgetting his name) and they like to talk about NZ, especially if any of the other guests have questions. There is a 26-yr-old guy from Israel, Roy, who's been traveling for 2 years (?) in New Zealand and Australia. He looks younger though, so I had no idea he was 26. He's told me about the several times he's run out of money and had tough times while traveling. Some backpackers are nice enough to let you stay so that you can find a job before being able to pay them, but there have been times when he couldn't get a bed. Scary, no? There are a couple of girls from Canada, Blaine and Sarah, who get along with everyone very easily. Lots of German people, like Sebastian who started traveling after finishing his computer engineering courses at university (in NZ they say "university" instead of "college"). There was another German guy named Sylvio (sp?) who spent 2 years in Australia (he absolutely LOVES the land called OZ) and is now spending a year here in NZ, but he left for a different town last week. He said he left home right after high school and hasn't been back since (apparently, in Germany it's normal to go backpacking after high school and before college). There was a guy who's Sam's age named Martin from Estonia (go look it up on a map) who was also very easy to talk to. He's met people from everywhere and so it was interesting to hear his stories. A couple of days ago I also met this Indian woman from Fiji. She's living at this backpacker (but I don't see her often because she's sharing a private room with her husband). She works with Sam, and basically she's been living here with a work permit to save up money so that she can immigrate to here. Right now she's only working to save up money, and eventually she and her husband will get a car, a house, start a business, etc. Pretty impressive lady, and really nice. She thought I was nice too and wanted me to meet and marry her son. I think she was half-serious..

5. I meet people at the restaurant too. There was Don and Tipi, and Christina and Max. Don likes to order the mango lassi (which is like a mango smoothie, it's soo good..). There are other couples I recognize by face (because they're regulars). Most of the customers don't really offer their names, but it's not unusual if they do. And even if they don't offer their names, they usually ask for mine (yesterday someone asked for my korean name too). If anything, they always like to ask where I'm from, where I'm staying, how I like New Zealand, etc. I don't mind them asking at all, I think they're pretty nice. The only thing that annoys me is that sometimes if I say that I'm an American, they then ask where I am from originally, as though I was born somewhere else. It's like they expect all Americans to be white, because I'm pretty sure that if a Caucasian girl said that she was an American, that'd be it, no "where are you from originally?". One couple said, "Let me guess: you were born in China and raised in America." So I like to assert the fact that I was born and raised in the US. Usually I also toss in the fact that I've never even been to the "motherland."

I met Goldie and Manjeet's two kids the other day, a 7-yr-old girl, Mehak (or Mak for short), and a 3-yr-old boy, Amrit (again, sp?). Mak is like any other 7-yr-old girl, likes to color and ask questions and talk about the things she likes. Also was amused/surprised by the fact that I like the colors blue and green ("boy colors??" she exclaimed). But it was pretty cool/interesting to hear her speak with a NZ accent, particularly the "eh?" they like to attach at the end of their sentences. Amrit is also a normal kid, crazy 3-yr-old who likes to run around the restaurant. But he's definitely not shy, and so when I looked at him, he'd look me right in the eye and smile his huge grin - then run off again, haha.

Last person (for now) is a man named Grant who delivers some supplies? food? to Goldie's restaurant and comes about twice a week. He's a very kind, very interesting man who runs a farm? orchard? something like that. He and his wife also open up their home for backpackers, and so he currently has 2 Malaysians living in his home (he had 6 but the other 4 left last week). He also offered me and Sam his place in case I found my current backpacker uncomfortable. A couple days ago he told me about the times that he's gone backpacking (in his younger days) through North America and Europe, and even about the time his own father when traversing through the Amazon. Crazy, right?

Anyway, that's all for now, because it's taken me over an hour to write all this. I hope you all are doing well. =]