Christchurch!

Been awhile since I updated so I figured I'd get it in now while watching the Pats-Colts game. I got to Christchurch about two and a half weeks ago and I have been a busy boy. Basically I needed to accomplish three things when I got here. 1-get a place to live. 2- Find a job. 3-Find a mode of transportation.
1. Get a place to live- I was most concerned with finding a place to live because the hostels here can be expensive. You have to figure you're going to pay at least 150 a week to stay in a hostel and you'll be in a dorm room with at least 5 other people. While the hostel I stayed at for the first two nights I was in ChCh was nice, I like my privacy. I had been scouting different places on the internet while I was still in Auckland so I had already set up a viewing of a place before I ever got into Christchurch. The house was in a suburb close to the center of the city. The suburb is called Opawa. It was only 125 a week for a room, all bills included. After doing a quick exchange rate calculation I figured that comes out to about $375 a month US. I took the room in the back of the house because it was the cheapest and the quietest. It is a bit of an interesting living situation. I had figured I would be living with mostly people my age but as it turns out of the 13 rooms in the house only 6 are occupied, 1 by myself, 2 by a girl and a guy around my age and the other 3 by women with ages ranging from 40 to 70. We did have one other girl around my age living with us as well but she just moved out, I'll talk about her a little bit more in a second. Living with the older ladies has its ups and downs. The place stays clean, the dishes don't pile up and I don't have to worry about anyone stealing my stuff. On the other hand its not exactly a very happening place around home. The girl who just moved out, her name was Michelle (pronounced Mee-shell) was by far the most happening and cool person in the house. I think Michelle took pity on me or something, or maybe she just could relate to being alone in a new city or possibly she just wanted someone her own age to hang out with in the house, but for whatever reason she always wanted to hang out. Probably the second or third night in the house I was making dinner around the same time as Michelle and the other girl my age who lives in the house, Kaitlyn. They were talking about going to see these fireworks and Kaitlyn was all in a rush and left with some friends but Michelle said she was waiting for her friends to come get her so she was going to be leaving later. I didn't really say much to her, just made my dinner, went to my room and decided to watch some tv (NZ tv is poor at best but usually plays movies during the nighttime). Shortly after going to my room there was a knock at the door. Michelle asked if I wanted to come with her to see some fireworks and I of course agreed (when a hot blonde swiss girl asks you to do anything you say yes). This led to the night of four wheeling and getting stuck in the mud and the bottle rockets hitting peoples roofs. Through Michelle I met these guys Dan and Hayden who are really cool guys, I especially like Dan, just a good spirited guy (I'm finding that most kiwis are very cool chill people). Michelle, Dan and I ended up hanging out quite often over the past week. We frequented an Irish pub called Mickey Finns which plays live music and has a good atmosphere. I also met Michelle's cousin Kathryn who is a native New Zealander from Auckland. Sadly, Michelle moved out a few days ago and will be headed back to Switzerland. I didn't really get to see her much (in fact I'm not sure if she is still here or not, she had issues getting my correct cell phone number) in this past week because of my work (more on that in a bit) nor did I ever manage to grab Dan's phone number, so as life as a backpacker would have it once again I met some really cool fun people and now once again they are gone. It can be very trying believe me.
2. Find a job- I was all about finding a job as soon as I got here, in the end it took me about a week but really only took about 2 hours of hard job searching. I had applied at a few places through the internet and hadn't heard anything back. Michelle told me to get a job at the same place she was working...Mcdonalds. Needless to say, I was not keen on the idea of working at Maccers. So on a Friday I headed out around downtown with really no idea of where the best place to look for a job was. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was destiny or maybe it was coincidence but I ended up wandering around by the river which runs through town and I happened to be right on the busiest stretch for bars in downtown Christchurch. I kind of looked at the Strip, as they call it down here, and thought to myself wow there are like 10 places right there I can apply. I went to an internet cafe, printed out 10 resumes and just walked up the strip handing one off at every bar. I literally had handed in the last one and walked a block away before I got the first call. That was just about a week and a half ago and I have had a total of four different places call me (40% success rate is not bad if you ask me). In the end I wound up working at a bar called Liquidity as a bartender. Liquidity is a nice restaurant by day and a hopping nightclub by night. I generally work somewhere from 5 at night to 2-4 the next morning. So far I've learned a ton of stuff about bartending. Everything from bourbon dry means they what ginger ale in their whiskey to several different shots and cocktails to the proper way to pour baileys so it sits on top of whatever liquer is under it. I really like it so far because I am learning something new everyday about bartending and as many of you know its my dream to open a bar so this learning experience is invaluable. I also work with and serve many beautiful women so that helps.
3. Find transportation- This became more essential once I got the job at liquidity because its an hour long walk home from the bar and you end up walking past some very intoxicated dodgy bums (I learned this after my first night which, not coincidentally, was the only night I walked home). For the first week I have taken taxi's home from work but that was costing me around $15 NZ a night. So I resolved I had three options-move closer to work, buy a bicycle or buy a scooter. Moving wasn't really an option I wanted to take because I would lose my deposit if I left before one month in the house and, despite the old ladies, I like my setup here and its cheap living. So it was either bike or scooter. It was the choice of money vs. functionality. A bike would be cheaper but would be slower and wouldn't be an option for grocery shopping or anything like that. I chose functionality and after about a weeks worth of searching I bought myself a blue scooter for around $550 US. I have yet to master the U-turn on it (found that out the hard way today) and also still struggle to figure out what side of the road I'm supposed to be on, but I enjoy riding it and it is making my life much easier.

Thats all for now, love and miss you all!