Job Hunting And Paragliding

Hello again boys and girls! Last time I posted I think I mentioned that I was dying. That feeling has just started to go away in the past few days. I had a fever until Sunday and I am still coughing like a pack-a-day smoker but I’m finally starting to feel human again so I can’t complain too much.

This seems to be my thing, to get sick when I’m trying to settle into a new country and I am not a fan at all. I have spent far too much time resting when I should have been out exploring and job hunting but there was no point in running around and making myself sicker. Unfortunately our options for accommodation over the weekend were quite limited and we ended up staying in the party hostel, which was not ideal. The fact that the shoebox of a room, located over top of a nightclub, had 8 people crammed into it with only a small window for ventilation and no fans or air conditioning was also not an experience I would recommend, especially while running a fever.

We moved back to our original hostel on Monday with our lovely lake view, quiet nights, large windows, and only 6 people to a room so things are looking up. Some of our hostel-mates are complete wankers and I swear they pull out a handful of pubic hair and sprinkle it around the toilet seat every time they use the bathroom but hey things could be worse. Some how. At least the girl we were sharing with didn’t bring her boyfriend back to the room at midnight, turn on all the lights, talk loudly in German for half an hour, and then leave without turning off the lights. Oh wait no that happened too. Have I mentioned lately that I absolutely love staying in hostels?

Since I desperately want to get away from hostel living I have been applying for jobs like it’s my job. I saw a help wanted sign in the window at Subway over the weekend and convinced myself that was going to be my first job in New Zealand. I could totally do that job! I’m sick of dealing with drunks and I even have experience! I did work at Mr. Sub for like 6 months back in high school and that wasn’t all that long ago, besides how much can sandwich making have changed over the years? The manager however decided it would be more fun to squash all of my hopes and dreams and looked at me like I was a worthless piece of garbage when I handed him my resume. I cried all the way home. Okay that’s not true, not a single tear was shed, but I complained about what an ass the manager was.

Today I had an interview for a bar, or a series of bars? I’m not really sure what the exact position was I was interviewing for, or even what venue as the company manages 5 different venues in town. I haven’t had a proper interview for a job since I first got to the UK and none of them even landed me a job so I wasn’t feeling overly confident about the whole thing but I figured worst case scenario it would be good interview practice. I ended up being interviewed by two different people and I had a hard time splitting my attention between them. The whole thing only lasted about 5 minutes so I’m going to bet that I won’t be getting a job but I will find out for sure tomorrow. My only hope is if one of the guys who interviewed me calls my boss in the UK because apparently they used to work together. How crazy is that?! What a small world!

In completely unrelated news and on a more positive note yesterday was Jesse’s birthday and even though we had a small celebration with his parents before we left I did what I could to make the day special for him.

I started out by letting him sleep-in but woke him up just in time for McDonalds breakfast. Kind of lame I know but that’s what he requested. We lazed around the hostel for a few hours before I told him he needed to be dressed in warm clothes, and running shoes, and to grab his Gopro with wrist-mount because we were heading out. He knew I had a surprise activity for him but he had no idea what it was and I had oh so much fun torturing him about what it might be. Queenstown is pretty much the adventure capital of the world so the possibilities really were endless and even when I had him stood right in front of our transportation with the name of the activity clearly marked on the side he was still guessing other activities.

A few months ago we watched a documentary about a woman who almost died while paragliding and ever since then Jesse has wanted to try out the sport. I’m not quite as crazy as Jesse so I wasn’t super keen on the whole thing but I figured since it was his birthday I should be nice and go along with him.

I managed to keep the whole thing a surprise much longer than I had thought and didn’t end up telling him what we were doing until right before we hopped into the van that would drive us out of town and up into the mountains. He was pretty shocked when he found out what we were doing especially since I kept telling him how crazy he was for wanting to do something so silly but he was also very excited.

When we got to the base of the ski hill (our take off point) our experiences started to differ. Jesse had a rocky takeoff as some idiot ran underneath his pilots parachute as they were trying to take off and since he might have been tangled in the cords the had to abort and start over. I had a smooth takeoff but things went downhill from there. My pilot was trying to take me higher, which is done by spinning in large circles within the thermals. This made me feel very sick. The pilot stopped climbing/spinning when I asked him to but I still felt like I was going to toss my cookies for the rest of the flight. Jesse on the other-hand had a very exhilarating flight and not only did he go higher than anyone else in the group but he also got to take the controls himself, and when the pilot took over again they did some crazy stunts. We both got video footage so I will try to upload that over the next few days but for now I will just add some pictures.

Once we were back on solid ground the rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I had a nap, took Jesse out for dinner, and then went to bed. See my life isn’t really all that exciting, I'm like an 80 year old who occasionally runs off the side of mountains with a parachute strapped to her back. (Grandma if you’re reading this please don’t take offence I know you do more in a day than nap and eat!)

So yeah that’s pretty much what we have been up to since the last post. We will continue with our job hunt and I am hoping to go on a day trip to Milford Sound sometime in the near future so I’m sure I will have lots of happy things to tell you all about in the next few days :)