Hahaha...this makes me think of Jesse and I when we were younger...MOM...will you second that?? Lol

Everything's comin up Millhouse!!

II Well...it's New Years Eve in the future!

The sun is out and it's a beautiful day here in Nelson. It has been an interesting past few days, but I have definately been working with the positive thinking theory. :)

I worked Sunday and it was raining here, so we were SLAMMED! I mean slammed. We had no cutlery or water glasses at one point. People were all stressed, but I did my best to stay as calm as possible:)

It was a good lesson, and at a few points I wanted to throw a few plates around, but once the storm calmed it was cool that we all got through it. :)

That night Jo left with the French guy she is dating to head for a 2 day hike. I thought about her walking 15k in the pouring rain all day. Good thing I gave her my rain coat..haha. Poor girl.

So I stayed at the hostel and had thoughts of murder that night, as one of the guys in the 8 person dorm was snoring sooooooooo loud. SO loud! You could tell that everyone in the room was awake from it. At one point I got up and went to the computer room for a few hours...I couldn't take the insanity. The next morning everyone shared their stories of the horrible things they had thought about doing to this guy last night to make him stop snoring..haha.

Yesterday I moved to our new place. As of 9am yesterday I had NO idea where Joanna and I would be staying that night. Because it's Christmas time, all of the hostels in town are booked. We don't have a tent, so that wasn't an option, and it was pissing rain, so sleeping in a park or something was not an option (dint worry Mom....I wouldn't actually sleep in a park...:s) to be honest...I wasn't really worried. I kept telling myself that it will all work out....and of course it did;)

The owner of the hostel told me that there is a really nice older man who is a regular at the bar that lives a few doors up from the hostel. When Mikes hostel is full, he will help out and rent a few of his extra rooms. (He has 4 rooms in his house). Mike vouched that he is a good guy and many people have stayed there from time to time. Jo was still in the bush so my friend Christine helped me move all of our stuff up this house. 

OMG! We have a bed..a real bed. Our own bathroom! It's luxury! Kris is a really nice man and I think he enjoys having the company. There is another girl here from Finland..she is quite nice too.

My favorite part of staying here is the view!!! It has the perfect view of the mountains, and I can litterally watch the sunset from bed! Unreal,

Anyways, I work today 5-close. My boss is letting us get all dressed up which is nice. I'm going to head over to my friend Christine's later on and we will get ready together. We are having a black and white party for New Years. Should be a long, but fun shift:)

Anyways, all my positive thinking has done good:) happy with all my decisions and get to stay here until we head North, which is awesome! 

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Love you and miss you all. I'll let you know how 2014 is tomorrow :)

Xoxoxoxox

Our new room:)

Cozy..:)

View from my room!! Stunning!!

I almost dropped my iPad out the window taking this...whoopsie!

Here are some pics to go with the last few posts:)

Christmas morning sunrise..

I have left the Palace...!

Ok, so I can put up with a lot....but I reached my breaking point.

Christmas day....should have been awesome....the morning was AMAZING! About 20 of us from the hostel headed to the beach for the morning. I had woken up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise and it was fabulous! We all headed to the beach around 11:00 and had a great time in the sun. The weather was amazing and we all had lots of laughs.

As I have stated before, the owner of the hostel is mentally unstable. He can be nice when he wants to, but he is constantly yelling and belittling people. You can never gage his moods. He can be set off by the smallest thing. He is high or drunk...a lot. He will yell at staff in front of customers. he screams and shouts and anyone that he feels like.

I have been biting my tongue for a while now, just trying to keep the peace. I would walk away when he was being rude, and try to explain to the young German girls that he would rip a strip off that it's not their fault.

Christmas Day I could not do it anymore. He came down to Fritz around 10:00 pm. We were all in our room hanging out. He walked into the shower and then started yelling over and over "someone was at the beach, someone was at the beach". Then he came in said very rudely "is someone going to clean the sand from the shower"?" Jo said right away "I'll do it!". The conversation should have stopped there.......

Dave started going off on us "you know...there are PAYING CUSTOMERS HERE...it's not just YOU guys that stay here...blah blah blah!" That's when I just lost it. I told him that we all work 2-2.5 hours a day;...and that minimum wage is 14.25 an hour...and a night stay at the hostel is $27. Also, that his "paying customers" are the ones that left the kitchen an absolute write off in the morning...not staff.
I told him that is he wanted us to do something for him..that he can be an adult and just ask us directly...not just float around with rude comments.

He did not like that I was talking back to him...as usually people take it from him and say nothing.

He called me a "psycho bitch" and then told me "fuck you". Keep in mind that this is a 60 year old man...and it's Christmas day.

I lost it. I was holding a water bottle and I threw it on the floor. I went into my room and started to pack. It was now 10:45pm on Christmas Day. I had no idea where I was going to go, but I knew that first thing in the morning I was gone. I will not allow anyone to talk to me like that. So rude.

5:00 am the next morning I got up, took my stuff and walked to McDonalds. I sat there for a while wondering what I was going to do next, as I had to work at 11:30 (it was Boxing Day) and most of the hostels were booked up because of the time of year. I knew that everything would work out....it always does if you believe it will :)

Around 10:30 my Jo texted me and walked down to meet me. She told me that she was going to come with me. wow. What a friend. I told her she should stay there, as we are heading North to Auckland January 12th, and it would be easier for her. Free rent. But she said no. She was going to pack her stuff and come with me.

I brought all my stuff with me to work and got ready in the bathroom. I was emotionally exhausted and looked like shit all day. I got through the day though :) We were referred to another backpackers on the other end of town and when I called her she said she had two beds left for us. Sweet!

We are now staying at the Prince Albert backpackers. The shitty thing is that we have to pay $25 a day (they don't do weekly rates here). But I don't care. To be out of the Palace is good. I think it is sad that Dave gets away with what he does. It is not ok to treat people the way that he does.

Could I have shut my mouth, and stayed there for free (kind...I work 2 hours a day). Would that have been easier? Yes..absolutely. But I refuse to not stay true to myself and allow someone to treat me like shit. I would rather take the harder road, but be happy and not have to walk on eggshells everyday. Honestly...he was a time bomb.
I am so lucky to have Joanna and we are both taking every day as it comes. We both work right up until we leave for Auckland. We are heading to Big Day Out for my birthday.

Oh the Adventure continues...:)

Miss you all soooooooooooooooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xoxoxoxo

Um.....this isn't your room....and you don't even stay at this hostel....GET OUT!!

So the day before the nasty White Tail spider was found in my bed I woke up to this:

It was about 5:30 a.m. My alarm would go off at 5:50 a.m  to get up to do reception. I was half asleep half awake when I heard someone come into our room. I didn't think much of it, as I thought maybe it was one of the girls coming back from partying. I could hear them breathing heavy and walking slowly around the room. I finally turned around and there was a frigging CREEPY GUY IN OUR ROOM!! Like a guy that doesn't even go to the hostel. He looked like he was cracked out on something and was kinda standing over Jo's bed. My heart jumped out of my body and I went into panic mode...but trying to be calm. I yelled "HELLO!" at him a few times, but he ignored me. He finally started to walk slowly toward the door and I yelled "GET OUT!" about 3 times. He looked SO out of it. I was so friggin scared but I knew I needed to get him out of our room (keep in mind there are 5 girls sleeping in this room). I yelled really loud "GET OUT" and he muttered a "Fuck you" at me and then slowly walked out of the room. I jumped up, slammed the door, turned on the light and started to scream for Jo. She got up, threw on pants and we went out to try and find him. He obviously heard me screaming for Jo and took off. We couldn't find him. Personally I think he was on drugs and wandered in looking for something to steal (someone had left the front door of Fritz house open). Anyways, I was pretty fucking shooken up that day, and it only added to the list of crazy shit that has happened at the Palace. Ugh.
 

Where do I even start with this one.....

Oh heya!

Yep..it's been a while. I am sure that some of you are annoyed with my sporatic posts..and that is fair :) Not to make any excuses, as there are many places that have wifi that I could have gone to, but the wifi at the Palace was shit! (yes..I said "was"....we will get there with that story shortly). Let's go over some of the craziness that has been taking place out here in Nelson NZ.

It was totally different in the room with Jess being gone. Jo and I had pushed our beds together to make a giant bed, but I kept getting bitten at night so Dave changed my bed (finally) and then our beds didn't line up properly anymore :( le sad face.

So the bites. After the bed bug incident I was so confused on how I was still getting bitten at night. And I mean BITTEN! There were bites ALL over me. Bites on my face, my neck...then my back and my hands....then on the third morning I woke up they were on my toes! Also, sidebar: I had been feeling really icky at work for those few days. I almost felt hungover...but I had gotten lots of sleep, ate well, and no booze. I was really confused, but sorta sluffed it off.
So the third day of bites I went to Dave...again....and said that something was biting me. He called the lady that had fumigated the room for the bed bugs and she said that there was no way in hell that it would be the bed bugs again. We were very confused. So Dave came down to our room and started to check the bed. I was standing behind him when he pulled the sheet back and in my absolute horror there before us was a huge...massive....spider. Dave's first words out of his mouth were "well that's a white tail spider....they are poisonous".  So you can only imagine how I felt after this. Basically I had been bitten and was being poisoned for those 3 days. That's why I felt so sick at work.

I went into work for my shift and was not feeling well at all. I showed my duty manager my bites and told her what had happened. She was pretty concerned for me and sent me to the pharmacy (or chemist as they call them out here). They gave me some anti histamines and cream and I went home to rest. Sweet...Jesus....

So our room has now had Bed bugs....and a White Tail Spider.....great.

Even though the spider was gone (Crazy Dave put it in a jar and walked around the hostel showing everyone....I am surprised he didn't name it and try and take it to the movies) I didn't sleep well.

So much more had happened...I will keep updating.


Oh...and here is the spider that I was sharing a bed with for 3 days. FML!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_spider

Aw man....I think the Bugs are Back in Town...

Heyyyyy Allll!!!
Morning!

It's 7:46 am on Thursday (in the future) so I have a few minutes to do a quick post. I just finished all of my duties (hehe...duties is a funny word) for my new reception gig. I have to be up at 5:50, which actually doesn't bother me as I am kind of a morning person. I have to go around and turn off all the outside lights, clean out the smoking shed (yes, there is a shed...for smoking...it stinks!). Then I come in and see what kind of mess the hostel was left like from the night before, clean it all, set everything out for breakfast, stock the fridge, etc. Basically I put the hostel back together so when guests get up it doesn't look like a bomb went off. lol

Every Wednesday is BBQ night. Everyone brings something and then they do a big BBQ for everyone outside. :Yesterday I worked 11:00-9:00, so I was BEAT when I got home. I was not feeling like going and hanging out after the BBQ so I went back to Fritz house and had a shower. Joanne and Frenchie (his actual name is Germain, but he's from Paris...so naturally we call him Frenchie) were hanging out in our room. Then Kerri came over and joined us for some chat's about the day and obviously some venting about the Twilight Zone that we are all living in. We all say every day that if we didn't have each other we would be GONE! It's a nut house here, but makes it very entertaining when you can vent to your friends about it. :)

So I am pretty sure that we still have bugs in our room. Ughhh. I am COVERED in bites! Like everywhere! Even on my neck. Last night I slept in one of the spare rooms (I am not supposed to do that) but there was NO way that I was going to sleep in that bed again. I have no idea what we are going to do, as Dave (the owner) will probably do nothing except say that we brought them in from somewhere. To be honest, I think the whole hostel needs to be sprayed...there is carpet EVERYWHERE and I am sure that this place is infested. What a pleasant thought about where I live..hahaha!

Anyways, I am leaving here at 8:00am when Kerri is up and going to have coffee with Joanne. It's a beautiful day and I don't work till 11:30 today. (god I am so itchy!!!...sidebar!)

So a few things about yesterday:

My work is insane, There is horrible communication with the kitchen and the servers (and managers) so it makes it interesting when it get's really busy and shit starts going sideways. The weird thing is I don't get stressed (Jesse is going "yeah right") but honestly I don't. Maybe it"s because I know I am only there 4 more weeks, or maybe I am learning to deal with it better: I am not too sure. My biggest motto at work is "Don't take anything personally". I am sure that my 3 years working in Sales helped with that, but I just don't. I totally used to, so it's a weird change for me. When someone is rude I just think to myself  "they must be pretty unhappy" and I fire them some positive energy. (John- I think of "but-of-course" a lot :)) Thanks for that :)

I got a 5$ tip from a really nice woman even though her food was really late. I just kept communicating with her an apologizing and it was sooo sweet when she tipped me! (Seriously..they do NOT tip here...like at ALL). SO this was HUGE for me :) Made my day!

I was so happy to not have to scrub toilets at the hostel yesterday :) I really don't mind the reception gig at all! I like being up early and getting to enjoy the day. I had been sleeping in quite a bit before.
Oh ya..today I found a drunk guy (guest of the hostel) passed out on the couch in his underwear (or as my UK friends call "pants"). I walked in and he sat up really fast and then ran up the stairs. hahah. It was pretty funny. 
 
 Anyways, this is short and  sweet but I am done my shift and I am going to eat some breaky and then hit the gym :)

Hope you all have an amazing day!

Do one nice thing for someone today. It will make you, and them feel great :)

Hugs!!!
xoxoxo
EM

"Don't let the bed bugs bite!"... No seriously..... Don't.

Hey girlllll, 

It's Jess, the girl whose identity Emily is stealing. Actually. Both jobs, bed, friends, onesie. 

Ok so, from the top I look like a lepher, tiny scabs, bumps, gross, all over my legs and arms, the few to the face really hit me hard though, a walking advertisement for the glamorous 'Palace'. So after harassment from everyone and the new girl seeing a tiny white creature crawling across her freshly made bed as she plants down her rucksack, Dave comes in to investigate. After a condescending and patronising national geographic run down on bed bugs in their natural habitat from a madman scurrying himself amongst the curtains, he found a live one! So as he showed off his catch, it ran erratically around. Realisation hit me, getten bitten is one thing, blah blah, stopped even noticing it, but seeing the fucking little critter that's been sucking your blood for the past month or so is something else. And some how it's our fault, like we brought them on ourselves, you because we chose to sleep in a room with 6 big enough for 4. Yep, class. 

And so the evacuation begins, Dave's solution to simply hang the duvets outside so the bigger insects to eat the bed bugs didn't fill us with much confidence. Kerri took control, ex military knows what to do, I'm scared, Emily's ginger, jos fucked again. Everything has to be washed clothes, bedding, beds, curtains. Resulting in, us all in our pants ( underwear you Canadians, pants are trousers, just sayin) and tshirts we later found out were given to us by mr bedbug himself/ I'm keeping my tye dye I really like it. So much so I wouldn't let Emily wear it when he own 'communist' tshirts wouldn't cover her gstring. I thank myself for Bridget jones lending me her underwear. So the military continued, single file down to the apartment in our 'undies', a few awkward aushwitz jokes made forgetting me shared a room with 3 Germans. Well ones Swedish but potato patato. Then we cured our pain with alcohol, Emily had her usual 3 chugs from the red wine and was fucked it's not her fault though, my mum gets drunk quickly too, must be age. 

So at this point I get up the next day and conveniently have to work all day, I know, honestly I wanted to help move 6 peoples shit and help wash all their clothes but I'm a working girl. So I'll go by stories now, the girls are driven up to the only laundrette in Nelson/ it's actually 20 mins outside of the city. Dave's pays for the dry cleanings, well some, as I understand it he still owes Jo $10. She'll be Emily's age before she ever sees that. Ems narrating to me now, 5 loads later we have shrunken clothes and missing pants, karma hits Jo hard, weeks of ridiculing Emily's floppy bunny, Fred, the beloved teddy bear comes out of the dryer, toasted, fried. Maybe if she didn't buy a teddy made of polyester it wouldn't have happened but it's an open wound so we won't rub salt in it. I just got a death glare.

But duty still called and onesies were donned to trap other unsuspecting people to stay at the bug palace, all while the extermination team are sterilising our room. You know you're in a mental house when the sanest people are sleeping with insects and wearing dinosaur costumes as their daily attire. And right now I'm doing Emily a favour so she doesn't have a mental breakdown over her last post deleting and she's rewarding me by tweaking and break dancing. I'm a writer at work guys. 

So alas, we were carted back into our bug nest, with promises of cleanliness, and to be fair to dave or the extermination team, we haven't had a bite since.

Oh except the main house, apparently it's spread. Suckers. 

 

Trying to explain to people what bed bugs are when English is there second language. 

I just wrote a blog for 45 minutes, and lost it. I want to cry.

I just spent 45 minutes writing a blog and closed it without saving it and lost it.

Here are a few bullet points, as it can't bring myself to re-write it again right now. I actually want to cry right now.

-I got throw onto bar last night. It was insane...we had a band and my boss Debbie just said "go on the  bar" I was like...um?? Really? Ok...I guess this is one of those "sink or swim moments". I actually had a point where it was so busy and people we fearing that I just started laughing. I was the crazy redhead at the bar laughing to myself. It's all I could to not freak out.

-I start on reception on Tuesday,p. I will work 6-8 am. I am sitting with Jess tomorrow to learn her schedule of what she does each morning. I am happy to not have to clean anymore. Good thing I am a morning person.

- next week I am scheduled to work 32 hours. 

- Jess leaves Tuesday for Asia. We are all sad and going to miss her a lot. She is so much fun, and even though it's only been a few weeks we are all a little family together. I am excited for her travels though.

- last night we had to listen to the people beside us have drunk sex all night.....gross! It sounded like they were in the room it was so loud. I put a movie on so I didn't have to listen. I think the young German girls in our room are scarred...haha.

- the owner of the hostel is bat shit crazy. The girls will elaborate more tonight, (they are going to write a post tonight about a huge event that transpired a few days ago in the fritz house.) stay tuned....hehe

- the wifi at the hostel is crap. Right now I am in a coffee shop with Jess

- yesterday a seagull pooped on me at work......that's just rude. Good luck my ass! 

-it's a beautiful day right now and Jess and I are headed to the beach. (Sorry to rub it in..I know you guys have snow and cold)

-today is my first day off from cleaning and work in 6 days. It feels nice:) life has gotten very busy out here, but I love it! 

Missing you all at home. I think about each and every one if you often and send my love back home. I wouldn't be who I am today without each and every one of you:)

Love you and miss you. Again, I can't believe I list my post...:( merp.

Ya....I worked at a bar before *coughwheniwas16*....um....operation "winging it" in full force

So those that know me know that most have my jobs have been administrative, office jobs, or sales. Ok, yes I have worked at a few random places like the hair list clinic..LOL.

So when I went in for my interview at the restaurant 623 and she asked me "so you have serving experience right?" of course I had to say yes. (Technically that's not a lie. I did work at a golf course as a server when I was 16..but it was a very small place and I mostly just brought sandwiches to the golfers.) But I definately hadn't worked at a huge restaurant like 623. Gulp. Um...............

My first trial shift I nearly passed out I was so nervous. My shifts was at 3 so I showed up at 2:45 so I was early. Apparently you don't do that in NZ. All my friends that work in bars or restaurants litterally head out ther door 10 min before their shift. You just need to be there right when your shift starts. Hmmm..interesting.

Debbie ( my boss) came down and started to go over a serving training manual. It seemed quite overwhelming on paper, but I just kept thinking of Jesse and some of the stuff she told me." I can do this...I can do this" Seems so dumb that I was as nervous as I was, as I have made big presentations before in front of groups, and walked into businesses to try and sell them something they probably didn't was at. Why did this scare me so much? I realized I was afraid of screwing up in front of a big group of people and them judging me, I though about it a lot and decided that I need to throw that idea out the window. Who cares, if I make a mistake, smile and fix it. If they aren't happy with that, that is their problem not mine. I think a lot of time we don't do things, or hold back on certain things Because we are scared to screw up, or not be good at it. By not trying at all we are a totally missing out. Turns out I'm actually not too bad at this serving thing. I could tell because that night I was supposed to work 3-6, and she kept me on till close :) I tried to use common sense as much as I could, not ask her questions if I hadn't tried to figure it out myself first, and channel my sister as much as I could:) my saying was "WWJD". No, not What Would Jesus Do, but What Would Jesse Do".. Haha. I tried to channel her as much as I could, and I think it helped :)

 All you girls that hVe served, or do serve you will die when I tell you that there are NO TIPS in New Zealand. Like NO ONE tips! It's insane. You can works table with 20 people, by the End of it you are sweating, and they pay their huge bill and that's all. It still boggles my friggin mind. You work for your 14$ And hour, and that's it thats all...*sigh. When I tell t

My co workers about what it's like at home they honestly can't believe it.

So here is a list of a few funny/embarrassing things I have done:

1) poured beer all down my leg trying to pour a tap beer for the first time. My boss was beside me and I told her I just wasn't used to the taps...haha

2) served a lady a glass of water in her wine glass, instead of wine ( had a glass of water at the bar I was using as a measuring tool for pouring) The woman did not think it was as funny as I did.

3) apparently I don't have my hospitality feet yet, as my first shift my feet hurt so bad I wanted to cut them off, or crawl home. Sweet lord baby jesus. Apparently it will get better....I actually had thought thought "crocs" go through my head. Ahhhhhh

4)thought about kicking a small child....ok a few times. Mostly because I was trying to walk with a tray and they almost tripped me. Payback is a bitch little ones.

5) I just realized that #4 makes me sound like a psycho. I'm sorry I'm not sorry? Haha

Ok, I have so much more to tell you, but I have to go clean the hostel. 

I will leave you with a photo shoot that my friend jess and I did after we walked around town in our dinasour onesies (yes, they have buttflaps) and then Joanne and I one night after work. 

Hehehe...

Miss you alllllll!!!!!

Xoxoxoxox

Pics of our room...

No words needed....

Mine is the bed with the bag that puked everywhere

I now live in Fritz's House....just found out who Fritz is....a cat that died a few years ago. hmm..

Good Morning!

It's Tuesday and I just work up.  After those traumatizing few days that I had with Rebecca, we hitched a ride with a really nice Canadian Couple Nicole and Doug back to the Palace..the hostel in Nelson. On our way back we told all about our frightening time at "Happy Acres" (yes....yes...that is what it was called. LOL) They could not believe that we stayed there the one night (to be honest neither can I). 

They were supposed to drive on to Picton (a small town about an hour from here) that night but I convinced them that they shoukd stay at the Palace. We all ended up sharing a room, sitting on the floor eating chocolate and talking life for a few hours. It was really great.

The next morning we woke up and went to have some coffee. Doug and Nicole were packed and ready to hit the road. They gave us their contact info and said that if we ever wanted to visit San Francisco (that's where they live now, but she is from Calgary and Doug has family in Toronto and Sudbury). I think I would LOVE to take them up on that offer someday! They were so much fun!

So I was offered a job of cleaning at the hostel a few hours a day for my accomadation. This is awesome, As much as I am not a huge fan of cleaning random pubes off the shower floor, if it means that I dont have to shell out money for my stay I"LL DO IT! hahah (so much enthusiasm!)

Basically how it works is I clean from 10-12:30 each day, and I get a bed in the "cleaners dorm". haha. It just sounds so neat. There are 6 of us in there now. Jo (my crazy Irish friend) and Jess (from the UK) are both my favorite. We have this little possee and we hang out quite a bit. Yesterday we were going to walk to the beach, but then Jo reaized that she had her bike abd was wearing a Turtle Skirt (a really small skirt that would flash all of Nelson if she biked it) so we went back to the hostel and hung out of the roof in the sun. Then Jess and I took all of the random foor we had left abd made a "Shmorg" of sweet potato fries, vegies, eggs, salad....yum! We ate outside and then spent the rest of our night watching Louis CK videos...haha! It was sweet.

Also..guess what..I got a job!! Yay!! It's at a Bar/Restaurant called 623. Jess works there and I had my trial shift on Sunday. The whole walk there I was sooo nervous! I have barely done any serving and totally was psyching myself out. I kept saying in my head "who cares...it's just 2 months...you can do this...you have made presentations to huge groups of business people..you can totally walk up to a table and get their order....wait...take their order..crap...what if I drop something..what if they hate me..oh god..i'm sweating....wait...is that a duck? (there was a duck on he sidewalk, and NO Britt I did not try to kick it, I like ducks..haha) When I got in I tried to just be in the moment and only think about what Debbie was saying to me, and what I was doing. It helped a LOT!

So I totally rocked my shift and at the end of the 3 hours Debbie (the owner) offered me a job! YAYY!! Money coming in and not just going out!!

So my plan is to work a few months at the hostel and restaurant and then head North to do the North Island prolly in February. I like Nelson. It's nice and so close to the beach which I love! It will be a good way to save up a but of money so I don"t just have to eat cans of tuna for weeks when I head to the North.

(sorry for this) but the weather is A-MA-ZING!! It is like a hot summer day, but with no humidity! They have really nice spots to chill outside at the hostel. Lots of hammocks and comfy chairs and couches to hang on. 

Hmm, what else. My good friend Rebecca is gone now. She left early yesterday morning to head to Franz Joseph. I will miss her and now have a place to stay when I go visit Scotland someday :)

Well, I better get ready to clean...aka put on an old pair of shorts and shirt and walk over in my bare feet..hehe

Love and miss you all sooooo much!!!!

Big Hugs!!!

XOXOXO

Myself, Jess & Jo (Taken on Jo's Polaroid camera)

and I thought MY armpit hair was long at times........

Oh....My.....God!

hahahaha!

So I am currently at a backpackers called Barefoot right now with my friend Rebecca that I have been travelling with for almost a week. We are supposed to be at a wwoofing place right now, but we left early this morning... Ok, so here is what went down...

So we left Nelson on Friday morning. My buddy Dave picked us up from the hostel we had been staying at all week called the Palace. Jess (a girl from the hostel) and Jackie (one of Daves friends that used to live in Nelson) came along too,. as they were going to hit up a beach around Abel Tassman.

We all piled in the car and it was a beautifulllll day! Dave was going to drive us as far as Moteaka, and then we were going to try and get one of the people Rebecca knew from the wwoofing place to Riverside, the hippie colony we were going to wwoof at for the week. The drive was pretty and there were lots of chats and laughs going on.

We got to Monteaka and Dave dropped us at the Supermarket. We apparently had to bring our own food, which I thought was odd- as wwoofing is usually you work for your food and stay. But whatevs..we picked up some food and then carried (or tried to carry it) over to the park to wait for our ride to come ande get us. We litterally had 7 bags and looked ridiculous. I am used to that now though,,haha. Crazy bag lady...check!

We sat in the park and ate some of the food that we bought. It was soo nice out and we chatted and listened to the music. Rebecca is pretty amazing, We have a lot in common, and both never shut up, so there is always stuff to talk about, haha

Our ride finally came and we realized that we needed to perform a sloppy game of Tetris in order to get all of our bags, and us in the car. We finally got in and one of the guys slammed my ass in the door trying to shut it. (insert fat joke here..haha)

The drive was about 15 minutes to where we were wwoofing and when we got there we were told that there werent enough rooms so we had to sleep in a tent for the week.  hmmm...so no food, and now we have to sleep in a tent? Rebecca and I both just decided to go wih it and asked for a tent.  Well 4 tents later we FINALLY found a tent that wasnt missing all of the fucking peices, or had a broken zipper, etc. The tent was made for small people though so we had to store our bags inside the kitchen, as they wouldnt fit in out midget tent. That was a but annoying but whatever.

We walked around a bit and got to know the area. There were abouyt 15 other people there and everyone was quite...um.....earthy. Yes..earthy. There was a lingering smell of B.O, but in my mind I just kept telling myself it was the compost (even though it wasnt)

We were pretty tired so after dinner we went to bed pretty early. That night was kinda neat because you could see the stars looking up inside the tent.

Here are a few pics of where we stayed:

In the park with our 675 bags

bags, bags, bags!

one of the paths leading to the garden

Common building (bathrooms and kitchen)

The hangout area

Anyways, so Saturday morning we got up, had coffee and then went to the garden to start work. We were weeding and then putting soil piles down for them to plant a row of cucumbers. The day was very hot, but it was nice to work in the sun. I dug up a few bones that were creepy, so I threw them away as soon as they came up on my shovel. haha. Then I dug up a few baby potatoes...so I ate one...when in rome? I tried to tell myself it tasted good, because I was so hungry, but truthfully it tasted like shit..well dirt..ok dirty shit. hehe.

Once we were done our four hours we went back and had a shower. We just lounged around that day and had a picnic a few hours later. My main food these days is tuna, veggies, tuna, soup, tuna,coffee, haha. and yes..a bit of tuna in there. It's cheap and fills me up, so it has been my go to food.

Long story short Rebecca and I didn't really enjoy sleeping in the midget tent so we decided to find another place to wwoof in Takaka (about an hour and a bit from where we were) that would have less people and we would get food and accommodation. This is where shit goes downhill...haha

So we packed pour bags and headed to the road around 10:00 am on Monday to start hitching to Takaka. We had found a "really great wwoofing place" to go to and talked to the guy the day before. We got picked up by a nice man named Dave that drove us into town. From town we had this little ghetto sign that we held until we got lazy and then we sat like lazy hitchers. haha. Some brittish traveller came up to us about an hour and a bit in and said that he would be able to take us. He was really cool and we chatted him up a bit to make sure that he didnt smell of creepy vibes. We got into his van (it was a travelling van, don't worry! not a "I have candy and chainsaws in the backseat" kinda van...I checked first) I was probably creepier than he was, let's be serious.

So the drive was really nice, He was from the UK and was a banker. He was 32 and just broke up with his g.f He decided that he wasn't as happy as he should be so he sold his house, quit his job and went travelling. He had been in NZ for 3 months now. We had some pretty cool life chats. 

He dropped us in Takaka and we went into a cafe. We were EXHAUSTED! We sat and used the wifi and had a coffee. About an hour later we headed to the road for our last hitch to the place we were going. Luckily we only had to stand for about 10 minutes and a really nice older woman picked us up. She was very sweet and was telling us all of the great places to see in the Golden Bay Area.

Once she dropped us at the house we walked up. This is where my Spidey sense went off. Oh.....sweet...jesus.

Ths house was a mess. It was gross. It was full of stuff and just looked ick. "Ok Emily...don't be judgy...just go with this". so he shows us around, and then shows us the Caravan that we will be staying in. I am not too sure what I thought a Caravan was in my mind, but it was NOT what we walked into. Ok, these pics do NOT even come close to explaining how gross it was. I swear no one had been in it in ages. It stunk. It stunk like old, moldy, yucky pee. It was SOOO dirty. (oh ya..as we were walking up he told us that he had just cleaned it for us) The beds had stained sheets and the windows were covered in grass and had no screens. Bugs......bugs bugs bugs (Shelly you would have fucking DIED!!)

So we put our stuff on the bed...look at each other..and just start laughing, What the fuck are we doing here?? hahaha. 

Sweet mother of god...

Ummm......you want us to sleep in that?

The living room of the house

aw, they decorated the dirty trailor for us...cute

Such girls...still managed to trash the trashy trailor..

Rebecca going..WTF??

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Ok, so long story short. We went to bed early. It was raining..hard. The ceiling leaked all over Rebecca all night. I had to pee on the front step of the trailor, as the toillet was 8 miles away. I slept terrified of eaing a spider all night. I swear I woke up to the sound of drumming 3 times. Water leaked in all over my purse. I woke up freezing my ass of 6 times.

Sweet mother of god.

So in the morning we went inside to get coffee. On our way through the bushes (I felt like the man tracker trying to get to the house each time) they told us that the toilet wasn't working..and there was no water. ummm...excuse me?

Yep...no water. No toilet. ummmmmm

ok, back to the trailor. We decided that we cannot stay here. We felt so awkward having to tell him, but we had to. The conversation was very awkward, and I am so bad at those types of conversations. Luckily Rebecca is good at them so she started it off. He was very defensive and we could tell he was mad. We offered him 20$ for the supper that he had made us the night before (which was rice..and Dal) he totally took it from us. haha. We we paid for our night of wwoofing..LOL. That's a first.

So we packed up, laughing the whole time. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone! LOL. We got to the rod and decided that we would go to a backpackers in Takaka. It's a cute town, and we needed a hot shower, laundry, and to NOT be at that house. haha!

The third car by picked us up (thank god as it was raining hard..yick). He drove us to the backpackers and we checked in. First thing we did was shower, and then started some laundry. It felt soooooo nice!!! Now we are just relaxing and I am totally appreciating all of the little things. I guess you need a few shitty experiences in order to appreciate the good ones :) 

So yes, there are more spelling errors than usual...and yes I am overtired from the last few days of not much sleep. 

Here are a few random pics for you :)

 

Oh ya, and the woman's armpit hair was soooooooooooooooooo long!! Like so long. Like so so long!!!! 

ya so I fell at the beach....and OW! This was added to the festivities of these past few days..haha

go big or go home?