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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Working on the railroad....

So I had a great Christmas with friends here in the city. I got to experience a full English Brunch with my two favourite English girls in all of New Zealand, Nadia and Debs. They even cooked :) We also had two other friends over Daniel from Sweden and Elliot from England so it was a multi cultural Christmas! I really had a great time. I couldn't drink that much due to being alcohol tested at work the next day (today) for my first day working for the railroad. But that is totally ok because I drank my fair share on Christmas Eve haha. That was fun too ;)

So I got to work in one piece today and passed my breath test. From there I found out we are going to be working 6:30am-6:30pm everyday until 9 Jan, except we are not working 1 Jan. (Thank God lol) So I can enjoy New Years Eve!

The actual job is pretty straight forward but it is hard physical sweaty dirty work. At least the days go fast though. We are retrofitting the Auckland rail network to convert the trains from diesel to electricity. Basically my job is to help take out all the old fixtures and then to help pour the concrete slabs (foundations) for the new power poles.

We got shut down for a while today because while we have a clear track (no trains running due to it being a public holiday) there was one freight train operator who somehow managed to miss all the men working signs and everything else and come fairly close to us (Don't worry I wasn't even on that part of the line so I wasn't in any danger) so then they had a huge meeting trying to figure out how that could have even happened on our first day of actual work! Which meant lots of delays for us.

Anyway I am tired,hot,sweaty,dirty,filthy and gross. and I worked way hard today but I earned my wage and I will be back at it tomorrow. I wont be on here much til after the the 9th. Yall take care,Tyler

P.S. I hope all my readers had a great Christmas with family and friends. Oh ya, my birthday is in 4 days! :)

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Movie Night/Xmas Wishes

Last night I went on date night with two of my friends. It is funny because it is totally platonic and I could never date either of them because we are just too good of friends already ( Elliot if your reading this I don't want to date you either LOL)

Anyway they are great girls and we had a really good time together. We usually do dinner and a movie for our weekly date nights. Tuesday is cheap Tuesday at the movies and cheap Tuesday at Domino's Pizza so it is the perfect combination. Well yesterday we did it a little differently. We still had Domino's but, we found a new movie place.

For five bucks we went to one of those artsy indie theatre's and we saw The Disappearance of Alice Creed. I really don't want to give too much away but I really enjoyed it a lot. There is only three actors in the entire movie. The kidnapped girl and the two bad guys. There is no extra's no voice overs nothing. Just the three of them. Also, for the first ten minutes or so the only thing that is spoken is "ok".

Amazingly, it keeps you really entertained for an hour and half and it picks up speed well after the first ten minutes. I think by now it is out on DVD especially in North America I am sure. I would really recommend it. There is lots of plots twists and some really unexpected stuff for sure! It was worth my 5 bucks. I have never seen a movie with only 3 actors let alone one I actually liked. At least they could keep it on a cheap budget haha.

Now for my Christmas wishes! My job starts the day after Christmas so obviously I wish for that to go well :)  You know I was thinking the other day what do I really want/need for Christmas? really the more I think about it the more I realise that I need nothing. I am perfectly happy as is really. Sure I could use more money but soon that will not be a problem with this new job and even now I am doing ok money wise. I am not rich by any means but I am getting by without struggling super hard. Statistically speaking, I have more money AND belongings than over half of the people in Africa. and I am a backpacker. So think about that, all of you back home when you think you don't have enough.

The only other thing I wanted to mention is how small this world really is. I have mentioned Debs and Nadia in my previous blogs. They are two girls I met here and we have become fast friends. Well it turns out they were in Australia the same time I was. Not only that but they started their travels the exact same day I did! It gets crazier... Because it turns out that Nadia and I were in the same hostel (Wake up) for over seven weeks and we knew tons of the same people but never met until now!!!

Really the only things I want are things I can't have right now. Like a home cooked meal from my dear mother. But I will have a happy Christmas this year and I am really blessed in life so I can wait on that meal until I get home. It is going to be SO good too! I hope all of yall have a great Christmas and New Years and tell your loved ones you love them!

Yall take care,Tyler

Monday, December 20, 2010

Trying to get ready for work

So I have been running around like a chicken with his head cut off lately trying to get ready for this new job! I pretty much have zero information about the actual job or what I need and it seems everyone else I work with is in the same boat. I have re-bought all my safety gear (apparently everything I already own was the wrong colour) and got new boots,hard hat etc. So now I have all my stuff and I am hoping to God it is the right stuff.

I haven't taken the tags off anything so I can return it if it doesn't work out which is good. I even got some discounts on some stuff. I am just blindly hoping it is the right stuff though. Since I have no information from my bosses. Hopefully soon I will know where to show up for work though!  You had better believe I am going to get every penny back of the money I spent for all this stuff anyway!


We are supposed to start Boxing Day (December 26th) so provided everything works out as planned and all goes well then I will be making a good wage with a good job so that is exciting for me. Luckily, I also have a backup plan for the Christmas plans I  canceled so that is good too. The weather has been great today for the first time in like a week with no rain! I hope it stays this way at least until after Christmas..... fingers crossed.

Yall have a great Christmas and A Happy  New Year with your love ones if I dont talk to you by then. Love,Tyler

(My Christmas wish if I could have anything would be a home cooked meal from my dear mother) :) -Tyler

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Frustrations!

I have had a frustrating few days... So apparently my new job is still confirmed but is pushed back to the 26th of this month. Not a huge deal but, I did cancel my Christmas plan because I thought I would be working on Christmas so now I will have to re-plan stuff all over. Not only that but, my safety induction was supposed to be today and I was promised to be picked up by the boss and taken there. Well I got a call from him telling me he couldn't make it and he asked me to reschedule for Saturday morning.

So I took a day off of work and lost all that money for nothing. Now I have to burn through a Saturday morning as well. I just hope it is worth it.  I went to look at an apartment last night and I really liked it and was ready to take it and finally have my own space! I said I would take it and the landlord verbally agreed with me. Then he said he had to go and get the contract for me to sign. I got a call from him later saying he had given it to someone else so that was pretty crappy and I was disappointed because I really liked the place.

Now for the positives. I am still making enough money to survive ok and a good friend of mine just offered me her place to live in until the beginning of Jan while she is away on holidays so that takes a big stress off me! I have also been having fun with friends and the holidays are almost upon us! So I guess not all is bad in the world :) Oh ya, I might go see another comedy show tonight!

Late edit: I have now spent 145 dollars but I am inducted finally. I lost 100 bucks waiting for my new boss to pick me up for the safety induction and he never did (I took a day off of work) I got re scheduled for Saturday and I took a taxi there (didn't trust the bus) so it cost me 45 bucks. I found out when I got there that there was a guy who offered to give me a ride but, my new boss didn't pass on my mobile number to him! :(  On top  of all that he didn't even register me for the safety class but they let me stay thank God. I found out I have all the wrong safety gear,

My boots don't lace up, my hard hat is the wrong colour as are my shirts. So now I have to re buy everything but I had no idea they were so strict on the colours and stuff. You had better believe I am keeping every single damn receipt and I am going to write off all of that stuff on my taxes! I know the start date (the 26th) but they didn't even tell us where to meet so hopefully before we actually start I will get a little more information! Because I dont even know what I am going to be doing for sure. But, I am all inducted and such at least.... finally.

Another late edit: It is STILL raining and crappy and this is SO NOT Christmas weather! I am sick of it! I canceled my Christmas plans due to thinking we were starting our job earlier so now I am going to have to see if I can get back in on it because I don't want to be all alone for Christmas. I also wanted to add another frustration of mine. I have already discussed the public transport here in Auckland so I wont go there again lol But, one of my biggest frustrations lately is EFT-POS machines (debit card scanners/swipers for my American readers) every store has a different one! Every place you have to turn your card this way or that way or swipe it different! It should seriously just be standardized... frick! Don't even get me started on how all measurements all over the world should be standardized ( I am actually fairly good with metric now :)  )

I also wanted to comment on frustrated I am with Maccas (Macdonald's here in NZ)  they charge you 50 cents for BBQ Sauce which I think is just as much a condiment as ketchup! It should be free. It is outrageous they will give you ketchup for free and charge you for BBQ Sauce. If they tried that crap in America there would be riots! 
ok that is all.

Its rainy and crappy today so I will end this now but yall take care,Tyler

Saturday, December 11, 2010

My new job! :)

So I wanted to give you a few more details on my new job. I will be working 72 hours a week until 14th of Jan. 12 hours a day 6 days a week. So needless to say the hours are going to be insane. Also, I have to work all the holidays, Christmas,New Years,New Years Eve, My birthday, Jan 1,Christmas Eve,Boxing Day etc. But, I get "holiday pay" on those days which means I will be making a huge amount of money! Even on the days that aren't "holiday pay" days I will still be making great money!

I am going to be helping to put up electrification lines for the rail network here in Auckland. I wont be doing anything specialized just general labour but because it is over the holiday period and so time consuming they are willing to pay a huge amount of money. I will have to work night shift and day shifts. Also I will have to be Breathalyzed everyday at work before I start. I wont have a life for over a month.

But none of that matters because I will be banking it! :) I am really lucky to be offered this job and I look forward to starting next week. I have been doing construction on a car park/office complex and it has gotten me by but it isn't great so I am looking forward to a change. The contract for the car park and the office complex is run by the same company but working on interiors (the office complex) is SO much better. The people are MUCH nicer they actually seem to care about me and its just overall better. So strange considering it is supposedly the same company!

I moved to a new place recently (only for a bit) but, I am living with a guy named Daniel who is pretty cool and two girls from England. Nadia and Debs and they are two of the coolest girls I have ever met. We have alot of fun together and just last night we went to "Christmas in the Park" here in Auckland. It was music festival/Christmas thing. It doesn't feel like Christmas considering that it is summer but, it was a lot of fun. There was 10,000 people there!  So it was SO packed but it was BYOB so everyone was drinking and eating and having a good time. We enjoyed ourselves :)

I have been here just over a month but due to Couch Surfing I have met A LOT of people and really made some great life long friends here already. I have loved every minute and it has been great. Just recently my friend Jon left Auckland. I only got to know him for a month or so but it was one of those really strong intense friendships and I was sad when he left. He was a good guy and I know we will stay in touch for sure.

Last thing I want to mention is I was coming home from work last week and they had closed Queen St (the main street here in Auckland) and apparently there was a bomb scare at the American Embassy here. I guess nothing ended up happening because they re-opened the street eventually but it is better safe than sorry!

Well yall enjoy your weekend and this very well might be my last few days of freedom for a month or so. If you dont hear from me via blogging just know that I am working like a crazy man but I will try and stay in touch as much as possible! -Ty

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Busy busy busy

Well I still haven't found a long term job or a long term place to stay but, I am doing just enough work to pay the bills and I am staying with a mate of mine for the moment so I am not living on the street or anything crazy like that. Now that it is nearing Christmas/My birthday/New Years I am just getting busy!

I have been working more construction lately which means I don't really have to use my brain at work but I do have to use my muscles everyday and I am using muscles I haven't used in a long time haha. Everyday I come home battered,bruised and dirty (you should see how many blisters I have!) But, I am getting back into shape which is good.

Tonight I am going to my friend Johnathan's birthday party which should be fun so I am excited for that for sure and this weekend I will be doing something with CS I am sure. Last night was drink night with CS so I got to meet new people and see old friend's as well. It is amazing how many people I have met in just one month!

Honestly so far thats all I have for you today. I know I haven't blogged in a while and I should have more to say than that but I am just out of it today. Oh, did I mention I went to an ice bar and I got to eat the glass. it was -6 degrees in there! I have a jam packed Christmas/New Years this year so while I wont be with family I will have my "CS Family" so I definitely wont be alone which is good!

One last thing I wanted to mention was about stereotypes. The best example I can give is the French. Generally speaking most people think that French people are rude,obnoxious and so on blah blah blah. well I can personally say that every French person I have ever met traveling has been awesome. I have not met a single bad Frenchie. People also have stereotypes about Texas. You know gun slinging cowboys etc etc. I get asked all the time if I wear cowboy boots and a hat and where my accent is lol.

Basically what I am trying to say is dont prejudge people by what you hear. I never buy into any stereotypes I meet the people then judge from there. late edit., I just got offered an amazing job with Kiwi Rail and if I take this job I will have to work everyday thru the holiday season (even Xmas) but I will be making a lot of money!!

Yall take care,Tyler

Saturday, December 04, 2010

The Party Weekend

Well not much happened between the last time I blogged and the weekend except for the fact that I got called into work on Friday and I worked some more construction. It wasn't great but it was better than the first place I worked construction at. This place at least gave me a safety induction and also all the proper safety gear I needed not to mention that my direct supervisor was super cool! But, unfortunately for me I only got called in to work because someone is sick. But, I spoke with my supervisor and he said if there is any way he can fit me in he will!

Saturday afternoon I went to a farewell/early birthday party for one of my good mates here, Johnathan. We haven't known each other long ( I have been here just over a month now) but, he is a great guy and we get on really well. Everyone involved in CS has been awesome but I will really miss him! His party was great because we did silly kids games like twister and wheel barrow races and all that kind of fun stuff. It was just a great afternoon with great weather and food and beer and friends. I couldn't have asked for a better day and I didn't even mind making an idiot of myself because everyone else was too haha.

Saturday night I went out with some friends to an Ice Bar. Everything in the whole bar was made out of ice and we had to wear gloves and boots and coats etc. It was expensive to get in (like 30 bucks) but that included one drink and I got to eat the glass haha so just once for a novelty it was a fun time!

So all in all I had a great weekend and if I am real lucky I will get to work tomorrow :) oh ya, I did manage to sell my old backpack as I said for $6.50 due to my mistake/stupidity of not putting a minimum bid on my Ebay auction and being unable to cancel it. But, this was a Christmas gift for the guy's grandson so I will make someone real happy I hope and I have enough for a bite to eat. Good Karma will go a long way I hope.

Well thats all I got for now,Ty