Oh, my friends. What a happy few days this has been!
Wellington wasn’t feeling so right. It’s a perfectly nice town. I COULD live there. It’s very green, with lots of cute, old, brightly painted Victorian houses lining the hilly streets. And there’s plenty to do. It has all of the things a city has to offer – movies, restaurants, bars, shopping, with the bonus of easy access to outdoor activities.
But, well, we just weren’t getting anywhere in Wellington. Jobs weren’t popping out at us, and the more we thought things over, the more we admitted to each other that living in a city wasn’t exactly what we wanted to get out of this trip.
On top of this, it is insanely windy in Wellington. And my bangs do not like windy. Did I just write that?
Anyway, we widened our search. We started poring over online job listings for all of New Zealand, and we found that a vast majority of the seasonal jobs for people like us were down in the South Island. We found one posting that was particularly interesting – a farm hostel in Akaroa, a small town just south of Christchurch, was looking to hire two people to work for accommodation, one to work the reception desk and one to do light cleaning. Work for accommodation sounds good, we said! Think of all the money we will save!
We spoke with the guy at this hostel, and he encouraged us to come down and check out the place. See if it suited us. He did advise us that these jobs left us enough time to get second jobs, so we could actually MAKE some money, too. And so we kept looking, and we found yet another posting for this very same tiny town, this one for wait staff at a little restaurant. We called this guy up, too, and he also encouraged us to come on down.
And so we did. Akaroa or bust! Well, we decided that we’d just go have a look, and if it didn’t work, no big deal. There was plenty of work in Christchurch, too.
We pulled into Akaroa around 11 AM on Tuesday morning, and as we drove through the hills around the town, you could just feel the tension building in the car. Oh dear Lord, I thought. This is the most incredibly beautiful place I have ever seen. I MUST live here. This MUST work out. PLEASE let this work out. We were both immediately in love with the town, and the prospect of not getting to stay was, well, not happy.
Akaroa is about 85 kilometers southeast of Christchurch, on the eastern coast of the South Island. It is one of several itty bitty towns across the Banks Peninsula, and sits on the edge of a gorgeous turquoise bay, closed in on three sides by tall, green hills. Historically, it is the first French settlement in New Zealand, and they’ve tried to preserve the “frenchness” of the place – all of the streets are named Rue this and Rue that.
It is a small town, but a tourist town. Its population swells from 600 in the winter to 10,000 in the summer. Isn’t that incredible? There’s one main street that wraps around the bay, with cute little cafes and restaurants and B&Bs, and then the town sprawls up into the hills behind. The town is complete with sailboats in the bay, a lighthouse, a cemetery for the original French settlers, a vineyard – need I go on?
It is perhaps the most charming place I have ever visited. And guess what? I don’t have to be just a visitor! I get to LIVE here for three months!
Es correcto. I have a job. So does Bjorn.
About fifteen minutes after arriving in Akaroa, we decided to go ahead and call Steve Bradley, the owner of the restaurant. We had had some second thoughts about the hostel jobs, given that they wanted to the reception person to work 9AM to 9 PM three days in a row, in exchange for accommodation. It wasn’t the hours that sounded bad, but it just didn’t financially make much sense. The hostel guy was definitely getting more out of the situation than we would be.
Steve Bradley said he was at home (an apartment over the restaurant), so why don’t we just stop on by for a chat?
Steve is about the nicest guy on the planet. He’s probably in his early thirties, born and raised in Akaroa. After university, he went traveling around for about six years, then returned to Akaroa, to find that his parents were trying to decide what to do with this little piece of property they owned in town. We should put a shop in there, they said. I’ll open a restaurant there, Steve said.
And so Vangioni’s popped up two years ago.
Steve walked us around the restaurant, told us he could definitely start one of us waiting tables full-time as soon as the next day, and asked if we needed a place to live. Yep, we sure do. So he walked us over to a little house right next to the restaurant and said we could stay here if we liked, for just $440/month. (That’s about $290/month in American dollars, and split between two people that’s…$145.)
Steve asked us if we were interested, and we just stood there with our mouths open like, uhhhh, YES PLEASE!
Bjorn sweetly and graciously let me take this first job we found, as we had previously agreed (since, well, I have a bit less money than he does), and Steve told me to show up at the restaurant at 3 PM the next day. And that was that! Within an hour of our arrival, we were all set. Incredible.
We went out for a celebratory lunch, and had our first beer in 9 days. (Our first night in Wellington, we had made a pact not to spend any money on alcohol until we had jobs. We found a little loophole in this pact, though. A movie theater in Wellington had a super offer where you could get a movie ticket and a glass of wine for $12.50 – and tickets are normally $15. We decided it was NOT cheating to save ourselves $2.50 by having a glass of wine.) It was a very happy day.
The following day, while purchasing a hair dryer at the local supply store (girl’s gotta be able to make herself presentable if she’s going to wait tables), I saw a sign mentioning that they were looking to hire a sales assistant. I chitty chatted with the woman for a few minutes and told her my boyfriend would be very interested in the position. Send him down, she said. So I went out on the street, found Bjorn wandering around, feeling a bit rejected from a couple of other places he’d tried, and sent him up the street.
And presto change-o, ten minutes later, Bjorn walked out with a job. I like this hiring system here.
So we have this new life here. Just like that. Isn’t it amazing how easily you can start a new life? We have jobs, a car, and a house. It’s nothing permanent of course, but it’s EXACTLY what we were both looking for, in the end. A bit of normalcy in an amazing location.
I’ve worked two nights at the restaurant now, and I think it’s going to work out very well. It’s a small place – just ten tables inside and six outside – but it has a warm, cozy feeling. At the moment, I am working with Selene and Frankie, best friends from France who are living in another flat above the restaurant; Viv (a guy), the chef from NZ; Tomas, the dish guy from Chile; and Steve. Every night after we wrap things up, the six of us sit down and share a meal together, and I look around and think, this is just too cool. The six of us sitting together, from all different places. It’s hard to find that.
Now I’m sitting here in our living room, drinking hot tea, and wondering what I am going to do with this day. Bjorn has gone off to work, and I don’t have to go to work til 4:30 PM, so I have my whole day free! But with the beach thirty seconds from my door and all of the little hiking trails around Akaroa, I am sure I will think of something!
Hope everyone is well. Much love.
Wellington wasn’t feeling so right. It’s a perfectly nice town. I COULD live there. It’s very green, with lots of cute, old, brightly painted Victorian houses lining the hilly streets. And there’s plenty to do. It has all of the things a city has to offer – movies, restaurants, bars, shopping, with the bonus of easy access to outdoor activities.
But, well, we just weren’t getting anywhere in Wellington. Jobs weren’t popping out at us, and the more we thought things over, the more we admitted to each other that living in a city wasn’t exactly what we wanted to get out of this trip.
On top of this, it is insanely windy in Wellington. And my bangs do not like windy. Did I just write that?
Anyway, we widened our search. We started poring over online job listings for all of New Zealand, and we found that a vast majority of the seasonal jobs for people like us were down in the South Island. We found one posting that was particularly interesting – a farm hostel in Akaroa, a small town just south of Christchurch, was looking to hire two people to work for accommodation, one to work the reception desk and one to do light cleaning. Work for accommodation sounds good, we said! Think of all the money we will save!
We spoke with the guy at this hostel, and he encouraged us to come down and check out the place. See if it suited us. He did advise us that these jobs left us enough time to get second jobs, so we could actually MAKE some money, too. And so we kept looking, and we found yet another posting for this very same tiny town, this one for wait staff at a little restaurant. We called this guy up, too, and he also encouraged us to come on down.
And so we did. Akaroa or bust! Well, we decided that we’d just go have a look, and if it didn’t work, no big deal. There was plenty of work in Christchurch, too.
We pulled into Akaroa around 11 AM on Tuesday morning, and as we drove through the hills around the town, you could just feel the tension building in the car. Oh dear Lord, I thought. This is the most incredibly beautiful place I have ever seen. I MUST live here. This MUST work out. PLEASE let this work out. We were both immediately in love with the town, and the prospect of not getting to stay was, well, not happy.
Akaroa is about 85 kilometers southeast of Christchurch, on the eastern coast of the South Island. It is one of several itty bitty towns across the Banks Peninsula, and sits on the edge of a gorgeous turquoise bay, closed in on three sides by tall, green hills. Historically, it is the first French settlement in New Zealand, and they’ve tried to preserve the “frenchness” of the place – all of the streets are named Rue this and Rue that.
It is a small town, but a tourist town. Its population swells from 600 in the winter to 10,000 in the summer. Isn’t that incredible? There’s one main street that wraps around the bay, with cute little cafes and restaurants and B&Bs, and then the town sprawls up into the hills behind. The town is complete with sailboats in the bay, a lighthouse, a cemetery for the original French settlers, a vineyard – need I go on?
It is perhaps the most charming place I have ever visited. And guess what? I don’t have to be just a visitor! I get to LIVE here for three months!
Es correcto. I have a job. So does Bjorn.
About fifteen minutes after arriving in Akaroa, we decided to go ahead and call Steve Bradley, the owner of the restaurant. We had had some second thoughts about the hostel jobs, given that they wanted to the reception person to work 9AM to 9 PM three days in a row, in exchange for accommodation. It wasn’t the hours that sounded bad, but it just didn’t financially make much sense. The hostel guy was definitely getting more out of the situation than we would be.
Steve Bradley said he was at home (an apartment over the restaurant), so why don’t we just stop on by for a chat?
Steve is about the nicest guy on the planet. He’s probably in his early thirties, born and raised in Akaroa. After university, he went traveling around for about six years, then returned to Akaroa, to find that his parents were trying to decide what to do with this little piece of property they owned in town. We should put a shop in there, they said. I’ll open a restaurant there, Steve said.
And so Vangioni’s popped up two years ago.
Steve walked us around the restaurant, told us he could definitely start one of us waiting tables full-time as soon as the next day, and asked if we needed a place to live. Yep, we sure do. So he walked us over to a little house right next to the restaurant and said we could stay here if we liked, for just $440/month. (That’s about $290/month in American dollars, and split between two people that’s…$145.)
Steve asked us if we were interested, and we just stood there with our mouths open like, uhhhh, YES PLEASE!
Bjorn sweetly and graciously let me take this first job we found, as we had previously agreed (since, well, I have a bit less money than he does), and Steve told me to show up at the restaurant at 3 PM the next day. And that was that! Within an hour of our arrival, we were all set. Incredible.
We went out for a celebratory lunch, and had our first beer in 9 days. (Our first night in Wellington, we had made a pact not to spend any money on alcohol until we had jobs. We found a little loophole in this pact, though. A movie theater in Wellington had a super offer where you could get a movie ticket and a glass of wine for $12.50 – and tickets are normally $15. We decided it was NOT cheating to save ourselves $2.50 by having a glass of wine.) It was a very happy day.
The following day, while purchasing a hair dryer at the local supply store (girl’s gotta be able to make herself presentable if she’s going to wait tables), I saw a sign mentioning that they were looking to hire a sales assistant. I chitty chatted with the woman for a few minutes and told her my boyfriend would be very interested in the position. Send him down, she said. So I went out on the street, found Bjorn wandering around, feeling a bit rejected from a couple of other places he’d tried, and sent him up the street.
And presto change-o, ten minutes later, Bjorn walked out with a job. I like this hiring system here.
So we have this new life here. Just like that. Isn’t it amazing how easily you can start a new life? We have jobs, a car, and a house. It’s nothing permanent of course, but it’s EXACTLY what we were both looking for, in the end. A bit of normalcy in an amazing location.
I’ve worked two nights at the restaurant now, and I think it’s going to work out very well. It’s a small place – just ten tables inside and six outside – but it has a warm, cozy feeling. At the moment, I am working with Selene and Frankie, best friends from France who are living in another flat above the restaurant; Viv (a guy), the chef from NZ; Tomas, the dish guy from Chile; and Steve. Every night after we wrap things up, the six of us sit down and share a meal together, and I look around and think, this is just too cool. The six of us sitting together, from all different places. It’s hard to find that.
Now I’m sitting here in our living room, drinking hot tea, and wondering what I am going to do with this day. Bjorn has gone off to work, and I don’t have to go to work til 4:30 PM, so I have my whole day free! But with the beach thirty seconds from my door and all of the little hiking trails around Akaroa, I am sure I will think of something!
Hope everyone is well. Much love.
2 comments:
so happy everything is working out! sounds so lovely! please post pictures!
love you1
What wonderful news. Glad you changed your plans since things weren't feeling right in the big city. I'd love to see pictures too. What kind of food does the restaurant have?
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