I’m getting paid $13 NZ per hour to be a waitress at Vangioni’s. I believe the exchange rate for the US dollar is about 0.53 right now, so that makes my hourly rate $6.90 US. I know you’re not supposed to talk about money, but I am trying to set the stage for you. I’m not making any money. People paid me more to care for their children when I was just 14 years old.
NZ restaurants do not operate like US ones, where you pay the staff a crap wage but the customers are, at least, obliged to tip a certain percentage of the bill. No, no. Tips are not expected in this country. It’s something that people will do only if they really feel they’ve had AMAZING service. At Vangioni’s, we keep a tip jar at the bar, and any tips we receive go into that jar, to be split by the whole staff (wait staff, kitchen staff) at the end of the week. This amounts to about $50 per week. In addition, I do get a meal and a drink every shift I work.
My parents taught me to be a responsible employee – don’t take too many days off, arrive early, dress appropriately, etc. – but somewhere along the way, being responsible turned into being pathetic. I have felt lately like I have some kind of chip installed in my brain that makes me a total pushover to my employers. Work comes first! Make the boss happy! Even if he’s not paying you anything!
I felt this way, to some extent, at my old job in New York. I found it impossible to say no to my boss, even if it meant canceling trips home for work. If he said he needed me, I HAD to be there. No questions asked. Of course, that was a different situation than I’m in now. I was getting paid well over a living wage, and had a beautiful office to work in, and a large amount of responsibility to call my own.
When my family (finally) informed me about a month ago that they had bought their plane tickets to NZ for Christmas, I was thrilled. But that little pathetic employee inside me said, I’m going to have to work, so I won’t be able to travel with you all, but I’ll put together a lovely itinerary for you of places to visit.
And so I busied myself for the next couple of weeks with researching and booking. The final plan was this: My family was to arrive in Akaroa, spend three nights here, then go on to Queenstown for three nights. My brother would then leave to go back to the States, and my parents would have a few more days on the road, touring the West coast of the South Island, and then spend their last three nights in Christchurch, where I would come spend a day or two with them.
So…my parents were going to come for TWO weeks, and I was going to get to see them for four days? Hm. Something’s not right here.
The fact that it took me until about two weeks ago to realize that I was about to miss out on a once in a lifetime opportunity (because, really – when will the four of us Bucys be in NZ together again?) is absurd. And all for work! It didn’t even occur to me that I should just ditch the job (not making me any money anyhow) and go spend some QT with them family. That would just be asking too much of my boss, I thought to myself. I actually told myself this! I couldn’t do this to him, I said.
ELLEN! WAKE UP! My friends here started saying to me, as I described my family’s trip to them. If it was me, they said, I would take the whole two weeks, even if my boss fired me for it. There’s just no question about it. Family comes first.
So, I decided, I am going to just tell Steve. Just going to tell him that I at least need six days off – three for the time the family’s in Akaroa, and three for the days in Queenstown while my brother is still around. I at least need that. Well, by the time I’d resolved all of my doubts and found the courage to tell my boss that I would be taking a week starting the 23rd, I overheard my adorable French friends, Franky and Celine, telling Steve that they’re quitting. Their last day will be the 22nd.
ARGH!
So I put off MY conversation another week, mental deliberations starting all over again. How could I do this to Steve? He’s going to be screwed! Christmas week with no staff! Then again, he’s paying me $13. If he really wanted to keep his staff, perhaps he could, you know, give us an incentive to stay? I’m going to feel so sick to spend three days here with my family and then watch them all leave together for Queenstown.
I talked all of this over with Bjorn (who has been very upset with Steve’s employer skills all along), and he encouraged me to do whatever I felt was right. He said he was committed to work at the supply store at least til mid-January, but if the conversation with Steve didn’t go well, and I had to quit, he was totally behind me.
So last Thursday, I went to talk to Steve. I had in my head this whole scenario – how I was going to just lay it all on the line. I must travel with my parents, I’d say. I am taking six days off. I know I’m putting you in a hard spot, but this is just how it has to be.
I was not nearly that blunt about things, of course. So Steve, I said, I’ve been thinking, it’s going to really upset me to not spend more time with my parents while they’re here.
Well, I ought to be able to give you the 23rd and 24th, he said, and we’re closed Christmas Day.
Well, those days are really non-negotiable, I said. But I need a few more days, too. I know you can understand – you’re very close with your family. Wouldn’t you feel miserable if they came half-way across the world to see you, and you didn’t get to see them more than three days?
Sure, he said. I understand. And I wish I could just tell you to take two weeks off, but with Franky and Celine leaving, I have no staff. And I just noticed Jody put a for sale sign on her car – do you know anything about that? (I did know. Jody, one of the chefs, lives in our house, and she’s decided she wants to leave mid-January but has been too scared to tell Steve.)
Um, no, I lied. Didn’t she just buy that car?
Steve was growing more agitated by the minute. My approach in unpleasant situations is to try to just be as honest as possible. To admit wrongs, to explain myself as much as possible, to try to get the person to relate to me. So I said, It’s just hard, Steve. Because none of us have anything tying us to this place. (Which is true, you know. You employ travelers without making them sign a contract or offering them some kind of incentive to stay longer, and…what do you THINK is going to happen? They’re going to up and leave when their eyes are ready for new scenery.)
For whatever reason, that was just the wrong thing to say. Steve shot his eyes over at me, and I could sense a sort of rage building up inside his body.
Yeah, cool, he said. I get it. I’ll see you later. And he just walked out of the restaurant, forcing himself to shut, not slam, the door behind him.
I sat there at the bar of the restaurant, in the silence and dark, looking at the gorgeous day going on out the front windows, and wondering how I’d gotten myself into all of this drama?
Still unsure about what Steve and I had resolved, I left the restaurant and went back home. And I started to think about the situation and the way Steve had behaved (a grown man, my employer, walking out on our conversation!), and this light just flicked on in my head. This is ridiculous. I was going to stay here and work instead of spend time with my family for THIS man. No, thank you.
I waited two days for Steve to say something. Something like, sorry about walking out the other day. I was having a really bad day. If you have to take days off, I guess you will. Say SOMETHING! But he just sort of picked back up as usual, making pleasant conversation.
So I finally just wrote him a note, saying, Just so you have the dates in writing, I’m unavailable to work Dec. 23-29. Thanks.
And that is that, my friends. And I couldn’t be happier about it all!
I hate being involved (or even watching from the outside) these kinds of silly work dramas. And the restaurant has felt like that lately, because the whole staff has sort of collectively realized that they’re ready to move on…at the same time. And that is rough for Steve. But he needs to grow up and stop walking away from conversations. He’s the boss, so he needs to figure out how to make his staff stay if he doesn’t want this to keep happening. That’s his job!
Drama!
Okay. So, Brother John arrives on Sunday. Still not sure what his plan is but am hoping he’ll just pick up the rental car and come straight to Akaroa. Mums and Dads get in on Tuesday morning. We’ll have three days hanging out in Akaroa, and then we are off to Queenstown on Friday! Yipee! I am certain it will be worth any and all of the agony Steve endures next week. (But don’t tell him I said that.)
Day off today! Not sure what will happen, but it’s a rainy day so I imagine it will be a fairly lazy one. Love to you all.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Greatest Day in NZ So Far!
Today may have been the best day in NZ so far. It was a totally unplanned day, but unplanned days often turn out to be the most memorable, don’t they?
We both had the day off today, and usually, we’ve planned in advance (at least loosely) something fun to do for the day. That something often involves leaving Akaroa because, well, it’s a small place. One gets a bit stir crazy and aches for new scenery (which is pitiful when the scenery is as gorgeous as it is). But we had planned nothing other than sleeping in and maybe going for a walk somewhere.
So the best day in NZ so far started with sleeping in. Such a luxury, sleeping in! Just starts the day off right. Then we had a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and some super (if I do say so myself) chocolate chip banana bread that I made yesterday. We then messed around the house for a while, putting in a bit of laundry, taking the recyclables over to the depot, cleaning up, making phone calls home. Household chores under control, we threw a few munchies into a backpack and hopped into Betty, aiming for a spot of reserve land nearby. (There are little walking tracks all over NZ, so we often drive past little signs indicating trails and make mental notes to go back sometime.)
The whole bay area was covered with low clouds this morning, and as we drove up and out of Akaroa, we gradually found ourselves surrounded by white mist. We could see none of the mountains around us! But the mist made our walking track pleasantly cool and moist – it was like being in the rainforest a bit. We did a short loop around, and then got back into Betty. Well, that was fun. What’s next?
So we drove ourselves over to the other side of the harbor to a little village called Wainui. We drove and drove and looked at the birds and the sheep and the harbor. Such a lovely place we are living right now! We drove past Wainui, and kept going until the road turned to gravel. We had an amazing view of the mouth of the harbor, where it spills into the Pacific Ocean. Living in Akaroa, where you can’t see the mouth of the harbor, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a very cozy, enclosed space, with mountains all around you. But when you finally see the mouth, and see the enormous, endless Pacific beyond, you get a sense of how small you are and of how completely surrounded by WATER you really are!
By the time we were heading away from Wainui, the sky was revealing small bits of blue. Must be breaking up! (I should mention that the weather here is nothing to write home about. I thought I was being so smart heading to NZ for its summertime, but I hardly call this weather summery. It’s completely unpredictable. 80 degrees and sunny for two days, 50 degrees and cloudy for three days, hailing for one day, and then hot and sunny again the next. I had been told before I left that you experience four seasons in a day in NZ, and I filed that away in my “whatever” file, but it’s completely true. And forget the weather forecast. Nobody has a clue what’s going to happen from one hour to the next.)
Anyway, skies were clearing, and it was getting to be lunchtime. Why don’t we stop in Duvauchelle (small town nearby) and grab a sandwich at the store? Someone told me recently that they have great sandwiches. So we stopped, ordered two curried chicken sandwiches and two beers and had a seat on the outdoor patio. We watched the clouds break apart, cars whiz by, geese and black swans bobbing around out on the water. Just generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.
Know what we should do after lunch, I said? Let’s go out on the spit!
The spit is the Onawe Spit, a long, narrow piece of land that juts dramatically into the harbor on the northern end. We pass it every time we drive into Christchurch and wonder to each other if it’s possible to walk out there, but until today, we never have just stopped and tried to walk out there. And sure enough, there’s a walking track all the way!
I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe the spit with just my words, and it’s really hard! From the mainland, the track rises sharply up, and then back down again, right into the water. The track continues a few feet later on another patch of land, with a steep climb up some rocks, all the way up to a large grassy area on top. So it’s like two humpbacks jutting up from the water, the first one a bit smaller than the second.
The walking track climbs precariously over the narrow pieces of land. Both sides of the track spill straight down to the coastline, making the track a bit of a balance beam – if you step off of the track, you are going to take a very rocky fall. But once you get onto the second patch of land and climb up a ways, you finish with a nice gradual climb up some grassy fields, and you get an AMAZING view of the harbor. It was so lovely up there – we couldn’t believe we’d been here two months and never done this walk!
On the way back down, we were feeling very hot and sweaty, so we decided we ought to take a little dip in the water. We stripped down to our under-things and started to make our way in. The water was freezing. Ice cold. I had just my feet and ankles in, then Bjorn jumped in all the way. How bad is it? I asked. It’s COLD! He said. But you have to come in! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I screamed, and I jumped for it. When I came up for air, I was gasping. AAAAAA! SOOOO COOOOLD! I CAN’T TOUCH! BJORN, I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T. I thought I was going to get myself under control and it would warm up, but suddenly, I actually couldn’t breathe. I was gasping. We got back over to the shore and everything was completely fine, but yikes! I’ve never actually gotten in water so cold it literally took my breath away.
I put my clothes back on pretty quickly, and it’s a good thing, because probably thirty seconds after I finished dressing, a huge group of school children came bounding over the hill. Ha!
What a day it was! I don’t know if we were both in great moods and anything would’ve been great fun, but it was just such a nice, free, unplanned day. And while many people might find nothing to do in a place like Akaroa, Bjorn and I have been very good at exploring all the nooks and crannies around the bay area.
I like Bjorn because he brings out this part of me that I lost years and years ago. I remember myself as a fearless child, wanting to go out and get dirty, pick up frogs, have mud fights. But I went to college and life became a party, I went to New York and life became trendy, and I lost the part of me that loves to go out exploring and playing and not caring about getting dirty or being seen acting foolish. I love that part of me, and I’m glad to have found it again.
So! Time in Akaroa is running out, believe it or not. In less than two weeks, the family arrives, and by the time they leave on January 5th, we’ll only have three and a half weeks left here. And that’s fine with us, I think. The travel bug is itching both of us pretty badly. We can’t wait to get back out there!
We both had the day off today, and usually, we’ve planned in advance (at least loosely) something fun to do for the day. That something often involves leaving Akaroa because, well, it’s a small place. One gets a bit stir crazy and aches for new scenery (which is pitiful when the scenery is as gorgeous as it is). But we had planned nothing other than sleeping in and maybe going for a walk somewhere.
So the best day in NZ so far started with sleeping in. Such a luxury, sleeping in! Just starts the day off right. Then we had a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and some super (if I do say so myself) chocolate chip banana bread that I made yesterday. We then messed around the house for a while, putting in a bit of laundry, taking the recyclables over to the depot, cleaning up, making phone calls home. Household chores under control, we threw a few munchies into a backpack and hopped into Betty, aiming for a spot of reserve land nearby. (There are little walking tracks all over NZ, so we often drive past little signs indicating trails and make mental notes to go back sometime.)
The whole bay area was covered with low clouds this morning, and as we drove up and out of Akaroa, we gradually found ourselves surrounded by white mist. We could see none of the mountains around us! But the mist made our walking track pleasantly cool and moist – it was like being in the rainforest a bit. We did a short loop around, and then got back into Betty. Well, that was fun. What’s next?
So we drove ourselves over to the other side of the harbor to a little village called Wainui. We drove and drove and looked at the birds and the sheep and the harbor. Such a lovely place we are living right now! We drove past Wainui, and kept going until the road turned to gravel. We had an amazing view of the mouth of the harbor, where it spills into the Pacific Ocean. Living in Akaroa, where you can’t see the mouth of the harbor, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a very cozy, enclosed space, with mountains all around you. But when you finally see the mouth, and see the enormous, endless Pacific beyond, you get a sense of how small you are and of how completely surrounded by WATER you really are!
By the time we were heading away from Wainui, the sky was revealing small bits of blue. Must be breaking up! (I should mention that the weather here is nothing to write home about. I thought I was being so smart heading to NZ for its summertime, but I hardly call this weather summery. It’s completely unpredictable. 80 degrees and sunny for two days, 50 degrees and cloudy for three days, hailing for one day, and then hot and sunny again the next. I had been told before I left that you experience four seasons in a day in NZ, and I filed that away in my “whatever” file, but it’s completely true. And forget the weather forecast. Nobody has a clue what’s going to happen from one hour to the next.)
Anyway, skies were clearing, and it was getting to be lunchtime. Why don’t we stop in Duvauchelle (small town nearby) and grab a sandwich at the store? Someone told me recently that they have great sandwiches. So we stopped, ordered two curried chicken sandwiches and two beers and had a seat on the outdoor patio. We watched the clouds break apart, cars whiz by, geese and black swans bobbing around out on the water. Just generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.
Know what we should do after lunch, I said? Let’s go out on the spit!
The spit is the Onawe Spit, a long, narrow piece of land that juts dramatically into the harbor on the northern end. We pass it every time we drive into Christchurch and wonder to each other if it’s possible to walk out there, but until today, we never have just stopped and tried to walk out there. And sure enough, there’s a walking track all the way!
I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe the spit with just my words, and it’s really hard! From the mainland, the track rises sharply up, and then back down again, right into the water. The track continues a few feet later on another patch of land, with a steep climb up some rocks, all the way up to a large grassy area on top. So it’s like two humpbacks jutting up from the water, the first one a bit smaller than the second.
The walking track climbs precariously over the narrow pieces of land. Both sides of the track spill straight down to the coastline, making the track a bit of a balance beam – if you step off of the track, you are going to take a very rocky fall. But once you get onto the second patch of land and climb up a ways, you finish with a nice gradual climb up some grassy fields, and you get an AMAZING view of the harbor. It was so lovely up there – we couldn’t believe we’d been here two months and never done this walk!
On the way back down, we were feeling very hot and sweaty, so we decided we ought to take a little dip in the water. We stripped down to our under-things and started to make our way in. The water was freezing. Ice cold. I had just my feet and ankles in, then Bjorn jumped in all the way. How bad is it? I asked. It’s COLD! He said. But you have to come in! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I screamed, and I jumped for it. When I came up for air, I was gasping. AAAAAA! SOOOO COOOOLD! I CAN’T TOUCH! BJORN, I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T. I thought I was going to get myself under control and it would warm up, but suddenly, I actually couldn’t breathe. I was gasping. We got back over to the shore and everything was completely fine, but yikes! I’ve never actually gotten in water so cold it literally took my breath away.
I put my clothes back on pretty quickly, and it’s a good thing, because probably thirty seconds after I finished dressing, a huge group of school children came bounding over the hill. Ha!
What a day it was! I don’t know if we were both in great moods and anything would’ve been great fun, but it was just such a nice, free, unplanned day. And while many people might find nothing to do in a place like Akaroa, Bjorn and I have been very good at exploring all the nooks and crannies around the bay area.
I like Bjorn because he brings out this part of me that I lost years and years ago. I remember myself as a fearless child, wanting to go out and get dirty, pick up frogs, have mud fights. But I went to college and life became a party, I went to New York and life became trendy, and I lost the part of me that loves to go out exploring and playing and not caring about getting dirty or being seen acting foolish. I love that part of me, and I’m glad to have found it again.
So! Time in Akaroa is running out, believe it or not. In less than two weeks, the family arrives, and by the time they leave on January 5th, we’ll only have three and a half weeks left here. And that’s fine with us, I think. The travel bug is itching both of us pretty badly. We can’t wait to get back out there!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Photos from Bjorn's Camera
Here are a bunch of photos from Bjorn's camera, taken over the last couple of months. Some I took, some he took.
http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy
http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Overdue Photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy
I've got more where these came from...coming soon.
I've got more where these came from...coming soon.
Cleaning Lady
This entry is about three weeks old, FYI.
****
I’ve recently taken on a new job, my friends. I am now, a couple days a week, cleaning a nearby motel.
WHAT?!
Okay, let’s calm ourselves. I know it’s a bit unbelievable. But it’s true!
Here in Akaroa, one of the easiest ways to pick up a bit of extra cash is through cleaning. There are dozens of motels, hotels, hostels, bed and breakfasts, and serviced apartments, and, well, they all need to be cleaned.
My friend Celine (one of the Frenchies who works at the restaurant) has been cleaning part-time since here arrival in Akaroa two months ago. She has one regular job at a B&B, and then she picks up another few hours here and there at Mark and Wendy’s B&B (that’s Steve’s parents).
If you had asked me before if I would ever (EVER!) clean a motel out of need for money, I am sure I would have told you no. EW! But, Celine made this whole cleaning thing sound a bit nicer. A bit more dignified. The B&B, she said, is always spotless! The guests are so clean already, she said. I barely have to clean at all! Of course, she does clean it all over anyway. Because that’s what cleaning people do!
So. The newest schedule at Vangioni’s was leaving me with about 30 hours of work per week. Not terrible, but…when you are trying to save up money to go traveling in February, 30 hours per week feels pretty darn lazy, especially on those days when you’re off, your boyfriend’s diligently putting in his 40 hours, and you have, well, NOTHING to do.
I considered getting a “real” second job, like at a café or something. But that felt like a bit too much, considering that my hours at the restaurant will probably pick up significantly in December, as the tourist season here gets underway.
So I thought the cleaning thing over. How bad can it be? I thought. Even if it IS really bad, it’s only for a couple hours a day. What is so bad that I can’t do for TWO HOURS?
(Furthermore, as my dad pointed out with a rather mischievous snicker, I might learn some very valuable skills!)
And so, after seeing an ad for a cleaner in the local paper, I marched myself over to the hiring motel and inquired. Ten minutes later, I walked out a cleaning lady. I would return two days later at 10 AM to begin my first cleaning session.
And truthfully, this is not so bad.
I will go ahead and say that being a full-time cleaning lady could potentially be awful. It’s very physically exhausting work, and, depending on who you’re cleaning up after, it could be rather soul crushing work…and it could be gross.
But, La Rive Motel, MY motel, is a very nice establishment. Not SUPER nice, but nice enough. The kind of place I’d probably find myself staying if I were splurging on a motel. There are only ten rooms, and usually, only half of those need cleaning, since people are checking out of the rooms on different days.
I work with Fran, a New Zealander, probably around my age, who, well, to be honest, seems more like the cleaning type. (Don’t hate me for saying that, but…! What am I supposed to say?) She lives at the motel and cleans for them every morning. (probably in exchange for free accommodation, though I’m not sure.) In our “getting to know you” conversation, she asked me if I watched some local soap, to which I responded No, I don’t really watch any TV here. Our TV only picks up one channel, and it’s mostly crap.
You can’t get much TV?! she replied in horror. (REALLY, my friends, she was horrified.) How awful! she said.
So my cleaning partner and I don’t have much to talk about, I guess, since I can’t talk the soaps, and that is really probably the worst part of the job - having to work with someone that you don’t much feel like talking to but working so closely that you feel obligated to TALK about SOMETHING.
We make the beds. Bottom sheet, top sheet, fleece blanket, duvets, pillows. We fold the towels and washcloths into pretty shapes and leave them arranged on the bed with little travel soaps and shampoos. We clean the bathroom, which implies everything you think it does (toilets, showers, sinks). We clean the kitchen, do any dirty dishes guests have left behind, re-stock the coffees and teas. We empty the trash, we mop the floors, we polish the wood furniture.
And we vacuum. And if you don’t know from personal experience, VACUUMING IS THE WORST THING EVER. Please, please, let me do the bathrooms! Just don’t make me vacuum!!
And then we’re done. And we move on to the next room.
It’s mindless, really. And it’s cash in hand. It gives me something to do, makes me feel purposeful. It’s cleaning. Boring, boring cleaning. But, dad may have been right. I am probably learning some very useful skills.
You know, I am all about feminism. I think it’s great stuff. We all should have equal rights and whatnot. But, I have realized that one thing that is getting lost in everyone’s (both men’s and women’s) working so hard away from home is homemaking. At the ole Harpeth Hall, no way in hell were they going to offer us home economics! That’s not what our parents were spending gobs of money for us to grow up to do! The whole point of going to schools like Harpeth Hall is to educate yourself out of the nitty gritty work. But I think I am not alone as a young person when I say, I wish I had JUST SOME homemaking skills.
But still, cleaning is cleaning. Nobody WANTS to do it for themselves. And if I could pay someone else to do my cleaning, I probably would. And yet! There is something nice about cleaning. Working hard and seeing the results of that work.
I have decided that this trip might just be about trying all of these things. Just to be able to say that I have cleaned, I have waitressed. Just to be able to feel CERTAIN when I am moaning about how miserable it is to be sitting at a desk in a lovely-smelling, air-conditioned office, that life isn’t much better on the other side. I just need to figure these things out for myself. That’s just who I am, I guess.
Okay, must run now. All’s well here, otherwise. Bjorn is well, and I am well, and WE are well. Hope you are, too. Much love.
****
I’ve recently taken on a new job, my friends. I am now, a couple days a week, cleaning a nearby motel.
WHAT?!
Okay, let’s calm ourselves. I know it’s a bit unbelievable. But it’s true!
Here in Akaroa, one of the easiest ways to pick up a bit of extra cash is through cleaning. There are dozens of motels, hotels, hostels, bed and breakfasts, and serviced apartments, and, well, they all need to be cleaned.
My friend Celine (one of the Frenchies who works at the restaurant) has been cleaning part-time since here arrival in Akaroa two months ago. She has one regular job at a B&B, and then she picks up another few hours here and there at Mark and Wendy’s B&B (that’s Steve’s parents).
If you had asked me before if I would ever (EVER!) clean a motel out of need for money, I am sure I would have told you no. EW! But, Celine made this whole cleaning thing sound a bit nicer. A bit more dignified. The B&B, she said, is always spotless! The guests are so clean already, she said. I barely have to clean at all! Of course, she does clean it all over anyway. Because that’s what cleaning people do!
So. The newest schedule at Vangioni’s was leaving me with about 30 hours of work per week. Not terrible, but…when you are trying to save up money to go traveling in February, 30 hours per week feels pretty darn lazy, especially on those days when you’re off, your boyfriend’s diligently putting in his 40 hours, and you have, well, NOTHING to do.
I considered getting a “real” second job, like at a café or something. But that felt like a bit too much, considering that my hours at the restaurant will probably pick up significantly in December, as the tourist season here gets underway.
So I thought the cleaning thing over. How bad can it be? I thought. Even if it IS really bad, it’s only for a couple hours a day. What is so bad that I can’t do for TWO HOURS?
(Furthermore, as my dad pointed out with a rather mischievous snicker, I might learn some very valuable skills!)
And so, after seeing an ad for a cleaner in the local paper, I marched myself over to the hiring motel and inquired. Ten minutes later, I walked out a cleaning lady. I would return two days later at 10 AM to begin my first cleaning session.
And truthfully, this is not so bad.
I will go ahead and say that being a full-time cleaning lady could potentially be awful. It’s very physically exhausting work, and, depending on who you’re cleaning up after, it could be rather soul crushing work…and it could be gross.
But, La Rive Motel, MY motel, is a very nice establishment. Not SUPER nice, but nice enough. The kind of place I’d probably find myself staying if I were splurging on a motel. There are only ten rooms, and usually, only half of those need cleaning, since people are checking out of the rooms on different days.
I work with Fran, a New Zealander, probably around my age, who, well, to be honest, seems more like the cleaning type. (Don’t hate me for saying that, but…! What am I supposed to say?) She lives at the motel and cleans for them every morning. (probably in exchange for free accommodation, though I’m not sure.) In our “getting to know you” conversation, she asked me if I watched some local soap, to which I responded No, I don’t really watch any TV here. Our TV only picks up one channel, and it’s mostly crap.
You can’t get much TV?! she replied in horror. (REALLY, my friends, she was horrified.) How awful! she said.
So my cleaning partner and I don’t have much to talk about, I guess, since I can’t talk the soaps, and that is really probably the worst part of the job - having to work with someone that you don’t much feel like talking to but working so closely that you feel obligated to TALK about SOMETHING.
We make the beds. Bottom sheet, top sheet, fleece blanket, duvets, pillows. We fold the towels and washcloths into pretty shapes and leave them arranged on the bed with little travel soaps and shampoos. We clean the bathroom, which implies everything you think it does (toilets, showers, sinks). We clean the kitchen, do any dirty dishes guests have left behind, re-stock the coffees and teas. We empty the trash, we mop the floors, we polish the wood furniture.
And we vacuum. And if you don’t know from personal experience, VACUUMING IS THE WORST THING EVER. Please, please, let me do the bathrooms! Just don’t make me vacuum!!
And then we’re done. And we move on to the next room.
It’s mindless, really. And it’s cash in hand. It gives me something to do, makes me feel purposeful. It’s cleaning. Boring, boring cleaning. But, dad may have been right. I am probably learning some very useful skills.
You know, I am all about feminism. I think it’s great stuff. We all should have equal rights and whatnot. But, I have realized that one thing that is getting lost in everyone’s (both men’s and women’s) working so hard away from home is homemaking. At the ole Harpeth Hall, no way in hell were they going to offer us home economics! That’s not what our parents were spending gobs of money for us to grow up to do! The whole point of going to schools like Harpeth Hall is to educate yourself out of the nitty gritty work. But I think I am not alone as a young person when I say, I wish I had JUST SOME homemaking skills.
But still, cleaning is cleaning. Nobody WANTS to do it for themselves. And if I could pay someone else to do my cleaning, I probably would. And yet! There is something nice about cleaning. Working hard and seeing the results of that work.
I have decided that this trip might just be about trying all of these things. Just to be able to say that I have cleaned, I have waitressed. Just to be able to feel CERTAIN when I am moaning about how miserable it is to be sitting at a desk in a lovely-smelling, air-conditioned office, that life isn’t much better on the other side. I just need to figure these things out for myself. That’s just who I am, I guess.
Okay, must run now. All’s well here, otherwise. Bjorn is well, and I am well, and WE are well. Hope you are, too. Much love.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Turkeys and Technical Difficulties
Yes, yes, yes! I know it has been too long. But I have been drowning in computer non-functioning nonsense for the last few weeks, and the blog has suffered.
My poor computer (yes, brought from home) picked up a virus in Auckland, I believe, the very first week we arrived. We tried to transfer a word document from our hostel's computer to my computer, using Bjorn's memory stick, and somewhere in the process that dirty hostel computer sneezed on my computer, spraying it with lots of nasty (and potentially fatal!) germs. Ugh.
All of this is to say that now, when we try to open word documents, we find that the contents of those documents have been replaced with a message that says "Hack by debugger!!!!!" Creepy, right?
As the weeks have passed, computer has grown sicker and sicker, and basically all the files we have on there (which includes our personal entertainment - downloaded seasons of TV shows) have been infected, corrupted, whatever.
So blogging became a bit of an adventure. Because we can only pick up wireless internet standing at our kitchen counter, it's a bit more comfortable, going into a long writing session, to sit down on the couch, put the blog into a word document, then transfer it onto the blog-site later, when you can get onto the internet. Of course, with our Word completely corrupted, you must make sure NOT to save the document or close it, because once you have, your work will be sure to be replaced by that irritating debugger message.
So what happens when, amidst all of this complicated mess, your internet goes down? Well, that's what happened to me the last time I tried to write my blog. I had written a lovely entry about life as a cleaning lady (which you'll just have to wait and wonder about for now), only to find that when I was ready to post it onto the site, the internet was completely gone.
And so, because any computer messes like this REALLY drive me bananas, I just decided to wash my hands of it and haven't been bothered with trying to get that entry posted for some weeks now.
Mr. Computer has at this point been left at a service shop in Christchurch. Please pray for healing. Hopefully we'll get it back next week.
And another excuse! Internet here is $6 an hour, and they've like completely blocked you from connecting your camera and doing fun things like downloading pictures for your friends, which is what I was attempting to do when I came to the internet today. It is FASCINATING to me that internet access was so much better (and faster and cheaper) in South America than here.
So...pulease bear with me until I have my computer situation smoothed over. I have not given up on the blog!
Meanwhile, it is Thanksgiving day in America today (though it's Friday afternoon right now here). I imagine all of my friends and family sitting around their warm homes, shoes off, glass of wine in hand, full of food, watching TV, working a puzzle, perhaps already heading back into the kitchen to pick at leftovers, depending on what time you've eaten.
It's hard to be here for Thanksgiving. Well, no, actually. It's almost too weird for it to be hard. I feel so very far away that it's hard for me to imagine that it's Thanksgiving on the other side of the world. They obviously don't celebrate this holiday here (when, as my boss says, the Americans give thanks to the Indians for letting them take over), and furthermore, they don't really eat turkey over here! Ever!
Bjorn and I went into Christchurch on Wednesday night to have a big dinner out to celebrate A) Thanksgiving, B) our 8 month anniversary, C) my half-birthday, and D) my father's early birthday. We had yummy Thai food, and then went to a restaurant that specializes in desserts for a stomach-sickening pig out. It was fun - GREAT fun - but it wasn't really Thanksgiving, was it? We didn't even talk about what we're thankful for!
So I've been making myself go through my annual what am I thankful for list, even though I have no turkey to eat and no Frazier family party to attend. And I won't write out the whole list (though one of these years I AM GOING TO DO THAT!), but my family, my friends, Bjorn, and this amazing year are in the top five. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Know what I am REALLY thankful for? Mumsy and dadsy and brother John are coming to see me...for Christmas!! I cannot wait! EEEEE! It will be such fun.
Okay, my hour at the internet is about to be up, and I am not about to spend more than $6. So sorry.
Hope everyone has had a fabulous Thanksgiving! More soon...perhaps I'll even be able to rescue my cleaning lady entry one of those days:)
Much love to you all.
My poor computer (yes, brought from home) picked up a virus in Auckland, I believe, the very first week we arrived. We tried to transfer a word document from our hostel's computer to my computer, using Bjorn's memory stick, and somewhere in the process that dirty hostel computer sneezed on my computer, spraying it with lots of nasty (and potentially fatal!) germs. Ugh.
All of this is to say that now, when we try to open word documents, we find that the contents of those documents have been replaced with a message that says "Hack by debugger!!!!!" Creepy, right?
As the weeks have passed, computer has grown sicker and sicker, and basically all the files we have on there (which includes our personal entertainment - downloaded seasons of TV shows) have been infected, corrupted, whatever.
So blogging became a bit of an adventure. Because we can only pick up wireless internet standing at our kitchen counter, it's a bit more comfortable, going into a long writing session, to sit down on the couch, put the blog into a word document, then transfer it onto the blog-site later, when you can get onto the internet. Of course, with our Word completely corrupted, you must make sure NOT to save the document or close it, because once you have, your work will be sure to be replaced by that irritating debugger message.
So what happens when, amidst all of this complicated mess, your internet goes down? Well, that's what happened to me the last time I tried to write my blog. I had written a lovely entry about life as a cleaning lady (which you'll just have to wait and wonder about for now), only to find that when I was ready to post it onto the site, the internet was completely gone.
And so, because any computer messes like this REALLY drive me bananas, I just decided to wash my hands of it and haven't been bothered with trying to get that entry posted for some weeks now.
Mr. Computer has at this point been left at a service shop in Christchurch. Please pray for healing. Hopefully we'll get it back next week.
And another excuse! Internet here is $6 an hour, and they've like completely blocked you from connecting your camera and doing fun things like downloading pictures for your friends, which is what I was attempting to do when I came to the internet today. It is FASCINATING to me that internet access was so much better (and faster and cheaper) in South America than here.
So...pulease bear with me until I have my computer situation smoothed over. I have not given up on the blog!
Meanwhile, it is Thanksgiving day in America today (though it's Friday afternoon right now here). I imagine all of my friends and family sitting around their warm homes, shoes off, glass of wine in hand, full of food, watching TV, working a puzzle, perhaps already heading back into the kitchen to pick at leftovers, depending on what time you've eaten.
It's hard to be here for Thanksgiving. Well, no, actually. It's almost too weird for it to be hard. I feel so very far away that it's hard for me to imagine that it's Thanksgiving on the other side of the world. They obviously don't celebrate this holiday here (when, as my boss says, the Americans give thanks to the Indians for letting them take over), and furthermore, they don't really eat turkey over here! Ever!
Bjorn and I went into Christchurch on Wednesday night to have a big dinner out to celebrate A) Thanksgiving, B) our 8 month anniversary, C) my half-birthday, and D) my father's early birthday. We had yummy Thai food, and then went to a restaurant that specializes in desserts for a stomach-sickening pig out. It was fun - GREAT fun - but it wasn't really Thanksgiving, was it? We didn't even talk about what we're thankful for!
So I've been making myself go through my annual what am I thankful for list, even though I have no turkey to eat and no Frazier family party to attend. And I won't write out the whole list (though one of these years I AM GOING TO DO THAT!), but my family, my friends, Bjorn, and this amazing year are in the top five. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Know what I am REALLY thankful for? Mumsy and dadsy and brother John are coming to see me...for Christmas!! I cannot wait! EEEEE! It will be such fun.
Okay, my hour at the internet is about to be up, and I am not about to spend more than $6. So sorry.
Hope everyone has had a fabulous Thanksgiving! More soon...perhaps I'll even be able to rescue my cleaning lady entry one of those days:)
Much love to you all.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Half Flush or Full?
When I arrived at the Auckland airport seven weeks ago (seven weeks! though it actually feels longer), the first thing I did when I finished with customs was hit the ATM. It was the usual stuff – enter your password, select withdrawal, key in the amount, etc. As I was wrapping things up, a message came up asking me if I wanted my receipt. Again, typical stuff. But, glancing over the message, my eyes stuck on something unusual. “Would you like your receipt? Please be mindful of the environment when making your decision.”
I am not a super environmentally conscious person. I mean, I try to recycle when I can, but environmental causes are pretty far back in my mind. Pulease, I’ve got like, Bjorn and what am I going to have for lunch today and should I have another cup of coffee and why can’t my bottom be less jiggly and all other manner of important things on my brain instead.
But in all seriousness, I was struck that day by how something so seemingly simple – just an extra sentence on an ATM machine – could make me (and millions of other ATM users) immediately aware of the environment. Do I really need my receipt? Well, no, I guess not. I’d probably just take a quick glance at it, wad it up, and throw it in the nearest trash can.
New Zealand is a very familiar place. The people speak English, they look like me, they dress like me, have similar backgrounds. But I have learned that NZ is also an extremely different place from the US, and the differences come across in very subtle ways.
The toilets here are fairly standard, but wherever you go, be it a restaurant, a gas station, a shopping mall, the toilets are spotlessly clean. The first few weeks I kept approaching public bathrooms with dread, breathing through my mouth, prepared for the worst, and finding…clean! They have these little sanitation boxes in each stall, which are full of disinfectant that you can spray out onto a bit of paper and wipe the toilet clean. A great idea, to be sure, but even greater, people ACTUALLY DO THIS! Can you imagine Americans EVER stooping so low as to clean up after themselves in public restrooms? I love us, I promise you, but we wouldn’t do it. It wouldn’t catch. I can’t figure out why.
While we are on the subject of toilets, let me also tell you how puzzled I was at first when it was time to flush. Instead of one little flusher, there are two little buttons – one plain and another with a little half-moon symbol on it. After about a week of just randomly selecting a button to push, I brought this up to Bjorn. Oh, he said, that tells the toilet how much water it needs to pump through. If it’s just a number one, it just needs a half flush. If it’s something more, it needs a whole flush.
Water saving brilliance. This is so simple it’s just silly.
I'm not trying to put America down for not operating this way, for not having these kind of systems set into place. But, when you see these simple things working so easily in a country, functioning successful, actually succeeding in making citizens more mindful about things like the environment, this light sort of dings on, like - Oh! These things ARE possible. It CAN work.
And, in light of our most recent election, I am feeling rather hopeful about things like this. Hopeful about my country. Proud of my country! We CAN change.
And that is all I am going to say about that. Because I don't like to talk politics:)
Now then. Everything is super here. This morning at 8 AM I began a five week exercise class led by my friend Erin. It's twice a week, for an hour and fifteen minutes, and we meet on the recreation field, just across the street from my house. There are about eight of us in the class, and we just do an assortment of cardio, strenth training, that sort of thing. I was doing lunges across the rec field today, the sun shining, the bay looking like its beautiful self, the mountains doing the same, and I just had an eek moment. I do love this place.
And this afternoon, I got invited to go out for a FREE sailing lesson, taught by a friend of a friend who is trying to start up a sailing instruction business. It was such fun. I got to be the jib trimmer. I got to trim the jibs. (I just sort of moved the front sail from side to side when we needed to turn.)
Sailing lessons, outdoor exercise - it's all making me very excited about the quickly approaching summer season here. (December is like our June.)
At the same time, though, I am really feeling homesick for fall. I talked to my parents the other day, and they were cozied down by the fire, eating chili - spending a November day the way it's supposed to be spent! And I thought about the fall leaves, and the way the air smells and feels, and I felt a little sad to be away from it all. But I won't complain too much. Skipping from summer to summer to summer isn't half bad!
Okay. Wrap it up, wrap it up. This blog has taken me bits and pieces of all day to write because I cannot focus! I am all over the place!
Love you all lots. Hope everyone is well and enjoying November.
I am not a super environmentally conscious person. I mean, I try to recycle when I can, but environmental causes are pretty far back in my mind. Pulease, I’ve got like, Bjorn and what am I going to have for lunch today and should I have another cup of coffee and why can’t my bottom be less jiggly and all other manner of important things on my brain instead.
But in all seriousness, I was struck that day by how something so seemingly simple – just an extra sentence on an ATM machine – could make me (and millions of other ATM users) immediately aware of the environment. Do I really need my receipt? Well, no, I guess not. I’d probably just take a quick glance at it, wad it up, and throw it in the nearest trash can.
New Zealand is a very familiar place. The people speak English, they look like me, they dress like me, have similar backgrounds. But I have learned that NZ is also an extremely different place from the US, and the differences come across in very subtle ways.
The toilets here are fairly standard, but wherever you go, be it a restaurant, a gas station, a shopping mall, the toilets are spotlessly clean. The first few weeks I kept approaching public bathrooms with dread, breathing through my mouth, prepared for the worst, and finding…clean! They have these little sanitation boxes in each stall, which are full of disinfectant that you can spray out onto a bit of paper and wipe the toilet clean. A great idea, to be sure, but even greater, people ACTUALLY DO THIS! Can you imagine Americans EVER stooping so low as to clean up after themselves in public restrooms? I love us, I promise you, but we wouldn’t do it. It wouldn’t catch. I can’t figure out why.
While we are on the subject of toilets, let me also tell you how puzzled I was at first when it was time to flush. Instead of one little flusher, there are two little buttons – one plain and another with a little half-moon symbol on it. After about a week of just randomly selecting a button to push, I brought this up to Bjorn. Oh, he said, that tells the toilet how much water it needs to pump through. If it’s just a number one, it just needs a half flush. If it’s something more, it needs a whole flush.
Water saving brilliance. This is so simple it’s just silly.
I'm not trying to put America down for not operating this way, for not having these kind of systems set into place. But, when you see these simple things working so easily in a country, functioning successful, actually succeeding in making citizens more mindful about things like the environment, this light sort of dings on, like - Oh! These things ARE possible. It CAN work.
And, in light of our most recent election, I am feeling rather hopeful about things like this. Hopeful about my country. Proud of my country! We CAN change.
And that is all I am going to say about that. Because I don't like to talk politics:)
Now then. Everything is super here. This morning at 8 AM I began a five week exercise class led by my friend Erin. It's twice a week, for an hour and fifteen minutes, and we meet on the recreation field, just across the street from my house. There are about eight of us in the class, and we just do an assortment of cardio, strenth training, that sort of thing. I was doing lunges across the rec field today, the sun shining, the bay looking like its beautiful self, the mountains doing the same, and I just had an eek moment. I do love this place.
And this afternoon, I got invited to go out for a FREE sailing lesson, taught by a friend of a friend who is trying to start up a sailing instruction business. It was such fun. I got to be the jib trimmer. I got to trim the jibs. (I just sort of moved the front sail from side to side when we needed to turn.)
Sailing lessons, outdoor exercise - it's all making me very excited about the quickly approaching summer season here. (December is like our June.)
At the same time, though, I am really feeling homesick for fall. I talked to my parents the other day, and they were cozied down by the fire, eating chili - spending a November day the way it's supposed to be spent! And I thought about the fall leaves, and the way the air smells and feels, and I felt a little sad to be away from it all. But I won't complain too much. Skipping from summer to summer to summer isn't half bad!
Okay. Wrap it up, wrap it up. This blog has taken me bits and pieces of all day to write because I cannot focus! I am all over the place!
Love you all lots. Hope everyone is well and enjoying November.
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