Coming and Going

I have been blessed over the past few weeks to have friends from home stop through Franz. I joined them on a glacier walk. (ahh the perks of working at the hotel) In this case the third time was not a charm and I still had rainy weather!

I played tour guide and did my best to show them around the mecca of Franz Josef. Of course, that means grabbing a bit to eat at my favs - Alice Maes and Cafe Franz. It makes me smile to be around for people's first impressions. "This is it?" I have grown so used to the size, I seem to forgot that it is abnormally small.

These are the type of visits that are always too quick (as they move on to check out the rest of the lovely New Zealand) and leave me with a frog in my throat. I have to admit I even cried a tear. Ok, you got me I really dropped a few. Anyway, it is odd to be reminded of home ~ especially the home that isn't tangible but is just that feeling I have hanging out with friends or family ~ then to have it taken away all over again.

Customers ask me at the hotel if I miss home and if I want to go back. Of course I miss home! I miss family, friends, my car, mexican food, big american breakfasts, sliced cheese at the deli, ketchup (they have it here but the ingredients are just not up to snuff), music that isn't at least 10 years old, more than two channels on the tv, not writing my name on all the food I have so that others won't eat it and a whole mess of other things. But the truth is that all that stuff will still be there when I get back and for now I'm enjoying the inquisitive people always asking "why New Zealand?", the language barrier, Pavlova, wacky hours held by the public bar allowing them to stay open till 'whenever' (same goes for restauarants which often advertise they are open 'till late'), only having two tv channels, Montheiths beer, a town the size of my graduating class, hokey pokey ice cream, flat whites, HONEY!, seeing (or not seeing) the brilliant Southern Alps on my way to work everyday, and all the other things that I don't even realize I love.

A salute to a season

Last night was our 'end of season' party and that meant free drinks and snacks from 9:30. It was a brilliant way to celebrate all the hard work that has been put in by all of us. Although the end of this crazy workload is in sight, there is still much to be done now. (I worked 66 hours last week.)

I am not sure if management was onto it or if it was just luck, but the end of daylight savings was last night. That meant that we got to turn our clocks back and get an extra hour of sleep (or drink, depending on how you look at it). Lucky for me I had the day off today. After a nice lay-in, I cooked up a beautiful breakie with pancakes and eggs and fruit. YUM! But the best part of the day has to be the massage (at staff rates).

B.T.W.

My brother has blogged about some of his experiences in New Zealand. Check it out for another look at life down under and read about what he was up to. There are also heaps of photos for your viewing pleasure.