My first day of work was interesting. No one had any time to train me, so I spent a lot of the afternoon just trying to stay out of the way. Melissa is the Fijian manager who is super sweet and helpful and encouraging. She and I went out "flyering" across from the mall, trying to reel in the frumpy mall-goers with our announcement of a "summer special," which is really just the regular rate dolled up a bit. The other women there that day were Maddy, a trainer, and Pip, also a trainer. Then, of course, the owner and director of the business was there - Tracy. They're all fantastic, and I can't wait to get to know them better. It's interesting being in such an estrogen-heavy workplace. I'm already getting a sense for the sources of potential office drama, but everyone really cares about the business and I think there's a healthy amount of respect in all directions, so it should be a good experience. The best thing about that day was the announcement that I would get to teach a yoga class on Friday night.
Brandon and I came home on the bus, and then walked the very rainy quarter mile or so to our apartment, which is warm and cozy and a fabulous little American outpost in the middle of all the befuddling kiwi terminology and unintelligible accents. We've accrued a collection of Mexican-ish spices, which we've been using to flavor our food, and on our shelves we've lined up the array of cards that we received at our various goodbye and birthday parties. Our home is lovely, if sparsely furnished.
On Tuesday Brandon accompanied me on the bus again, promising himself that he'd be picking me up in a car at 7:30, which he did. Also, I got to teach a yoga class on Tuesday night! Luckily, I'd brought my yoga cards with me, so I had a way to refresh my memory. After all, between all of the partying, packing, and moving I hadn't done yoga in months. I brought the cards with me because I'd already begun to got a feeling about Tracy. She has a way of changing her mind about things at the last minute that makes one feel that they ought to be prepared for anything and everything. It's an effective way to run a business, when I think about it. It keeps people on their toes.
The class went really well. I had about seven women doing all sorts of awkward poses, and at the end they asked me when I was teaching another class. I heard from Tracy that one lady even stopped her in the mall and said that my class was really good. For having absolutely no yoga-teaching experience, I feel pretty good about the whole thing.
At that point Brandon and I still didn't have any chairs, so we ate our dinner on the floor, which was more comfortable than eating on the couch since we didn't have a coffee table. We've been getting back into the groove of cooking good meals. A salad, a carb, a veggie dish, and a type of meat is a typical dinner for us. Fish is by far the cheapest source of protein, so we've been eating that at least three times a week. New Zealand grocery stores really don't have the variety that we're used to. There are so many things that we used to take for granted that we just can't get here. Like... pickles. And yellow squash. They don't have pudding mixes here, so we've been experimenting with custard in our Friendship Bread. Oh, and they DON'T HAVE NON-FAT MILK. There's "trim" and "extra-trim," but even "extra trim" is what we would call 1%. And they REALLY don't have lactose free milk. And my super-fancy lactose-free, non-fat, organic milk is really just a distant memory at this point. Oh, and they don't have turkey. Anywhere. They just don't do deli meat. And the spinach here is HUGE, but delicious. And ketchup is totally NOT ketchup. All of those U.S. brands we used to know and love just aren't available, or can be found in the "International Aisle" at the supermarket, which is usually either "Countdown" or "Foodtown," but they're all the same company.
Tuesday after work B and I went grocery shopping at the Foodtown in the mall close to where I work (there are grocery stores in malls here... and birds), so we didn't eat dinner until about 10PM. At least we got to drive home in our spiffy little Mark II, which has an air purifier and a digital speedometer. And it's an automatic, which is key.
Wednesday Brandon drove me to work, where I was supposed to be making calls to basically every company in the yellow pages, offering them a special group-sign-up deal, but I was having such a miserable day on the telemarketing end of the job that I ended up crying in the staff room. I've never in my life cried at a job before, and this is probably the best job I've ever had. Maddy came in and asked what was wrong. She gave me a hug and said that people are bastards, which I appreciated. Then Tracy came in and told me I didn't have to make any more calls that day. I ended up being pretty useless on Wednesday, but no one seemed to mind. They're all really nice, and I resolved to be more helpful when I got back on Friday. You see, I'd gotten Thursday off for Brandon's Birthday.
Happy note: on Wednesday Brandon got us some chairs! We'd won them on Trademe the night before, and he drove out to the pickup point while I was at work. Turns out that the pickup point was at the local trash dump, where they have a whole little warehouse dedicated to their Trademe business. I wonder which entrepreneurial trashman thought of that. The man working there asked Brandon if he needed any more chairs, and Brandon said "maybe," so he got a tour of the whole little shop. Random crap was heaped together in minor mountains of up-scale garbage. The chairs are actually really nice. I can't believe that someone just threw them away. And, knowing that someone just threw them away, I can't believe that we paid $30 for them.
Thursday was fantastic. Brandon and I planned on going to the beach and to the zoo and maybe back to One Tree Hill, but we ended up sleeping until 10 or 11, making ourselves a gorgeous brunch, fiddling around with our mountain of postcards, and considering what to do first until about 4PM, at which point we headed toward the west coast and their famous black sand beaches. Any road out of Auckland Central ends up being an itsy bitsy, winding road that is 60% blindspots and 40% steep hills. When all's said and done I'm glad B and I have a newer car now. The beach was totally deserted, and, what's more, we had to CROSS A RIVER to get to it. Apparently at high tide they expect people to wade through a stream to get to the actual beach. Now, it was probably about 50 degrees (Farenheit), and windy-with-a-chance-of-rain, so Brandon and I weren't about to get our feet wet. The only other people in the vicinity were wearing shorts, so I quietly hated them and their acclimated blood-density. But the beach was beautiful. Brandon and I only stayed for about 15 minutes - it was getting dark and starting to sprinkle, but all of the remote little pieces of New Zealand that Brandon and I have explored have been positively enchanting.
Side note: Old people here are fearless when crossing the street. No one here seems to know who has the right of way, but old people definitely think it's them.
We went home and made a nice steak dinner and snuggled in for the night. I'd intended to make some super-awesome birthday cake, but between work and not having wheels of my own I hadn't managed to get anything together, so the cake was Friendship Bread with candles on it. But, really, it's hard to beat our Friendship Bread with some vanilla ice cream.
Today I taught another yoga class while Brandon was dealing with our spastic washing machine and job-hunting. I tried calling him a few times today, and his phone wasn't working, and as the day came to a close and I hadn't heard back I began to worry. After all, those phones are our only lifeline to one another when we're not within hand-holding range. I finished my class at 7:30 and went outside, but there was no Brandon in sight. I tried calling a few more times, but it kept cutting out or going straight to voicemail. Visions of Brandon in a gutter, clobbered and unconscious in some dark, New Zealand alley began to fill my head. I began to wonder whether to call the police (whose number here is NOT 911) or start out on foot, when who should round the corner but Brandon, holding a bouquet of flowers, who said, "Sorry it took me so long to buy you flowers in New Zealand."
His phone had bizarrely failed to ring all day, and everything, as usual, was just fine. Though, we're going to go have a serious talking-to with our phone service provider one of these days. And as I was walking through the mall on my break I had bought a bag of sour gummies for Brandon, so I had a present for him, too.
So, Brandon and I are taking care of each other here, and all's well that ends well. Though, of course, this adventure is definitely just beginning.
All of our love,
Gigi and B
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