OK so it's definitely time for an update! Although not much is new :). I am still working at Degree in the Auckland Harbour. But everyone is quiting and there are so many new faces. The season is very slow...not many tourists so instead of having five to ten staff on like in the summer there is usually only one person and a manager. So it kinda sucks and I'm not getting many hours so its hard to save money to travel. In the summer I was getting around 8 to 12 hour shifts at least 5 days a week or more, so around 30 to 40 hours a week. Now I get around 3 to 6 hours a day, if I'm lucky, and it works out to only about 20 to 25 hours a week or less. I have been searching for other jobs for a while but no one is hiring travellers. It is the recession and they are only hiring Kiwi's.

On July 4th my work decided to have Fourth of July celebrations and went all out. We covered everything in red, white, and blue. There was a candy floss machine and slushy machine. We sold "American" hot dogs...they didn't taste American at all lol! There were flags and balloons everywhere. All the staff got to dress up and they even played "American" music. The boss kept asking me and Aimee (we are both from Canada not USA) for input on what was American or not, it was fun! Work even bought cowboy hats for all of us to wear. There were red, white, and blue jello shots even! And during the afternoon we had a live singer come in and sing some "American" songs...he wasn't so good but it was a good day to be at work!

In other news, we moved to the flat next door. Yep I never told anyone all the crazy stuff our old flatmate did. We thought he was normal when we first moved in...you will remember reading about Jeremy and how we all went to Bethels and Piha Beach when we first moved in, as well as a "family" BBQ. Well it all kinda started with our Flatmate Tanja. Jeremy and Tanja never got along....they always butted heads about everything, the cleaning list wasn't done the day Jeremy wanted Tanja to do it, or she didn't clean her mess in the kitchen. He would say things to her to aggravate her and get her to fight with him. We all thought they just didn't get along. Then it started getting worse. She left her light on...in HER room with the door shut and somehow the light went under the door and under his door and woke him up really early in the morning, so he shut the power off to the whole house to make a point?! Then when Guido (our Italian flatmate) moved out Jeremy withheld his bond (deposit money...they call it bond here). He made up a story that he never received the rent money even though Guido went to the bank twice to confirm the money was transferred. So Guido never got his money back. Then it started getting more and more heated with Tanja...Jeremy purposefully stole Tanja's shower time in the morning...she works at 8am and always showers when she gets up. Jeremy doesn't work till 11am at the earliest and he got up early...saw where she was headed and jumped right in front of her into the shower and shut the door in her face. Then he started asking us all for our keys to our rooms...he told Tanja that if she got locked out there was no spare key so we couldn't get back in. But then he was going in our other flatmate Matt's room (the Mexican). He actually left the spare key in the door one day! Matt confronted him and Jeremy's excuse was he could see the light from the heater and didn't want the place to burn down...but the light on the heater could not have been seen with a closed door....hmmmm?! It escalated to such a point that Tanja had to move out. She found a free room next door and was gone. We thought the tension was going to be over and breathed a sigh of relief...but it continued. Jeremy started doing to Matt what he had done with Tanja...getting mad about dishes not being done right after he was finished eating. One day he started slamming doors and stomping around everywhere trying to piss us all off. He would vacuum on Saturday mornings at 7am knowing everyone was asleep still and blare the t.v. And one day he came home and seemed very angry. he slammed the front door when he came in and started throwing his things around on the kitchen counter. Matt asked "What's wrong man?" and Jeremy totally lost it and ended up throwing a plastic bag at Matt and storming off??!!?! Who throws plastic bags at people when they are trying to make sure your OK. After this day Jeremy would do everything in his power to try to make Matt fight him. Matt is the most chill guy ever and never lifted a finger even when Jeremy was right in his face pointing fingers and saying you better watch your back! Well that was the breaking point. We all tried to sit down and talk with Jeremy and find out why he was so angry all the time. He would not let us talk and blamed all of us. anytime you tried to get a word in he would cut us off. We finally came to an understanding and thought Jeremy was going to be better but a few days later it all continued. Matt could not stay there any longer. We were all avoiding Jeremy...hiding in our rooms all the time, it was not healthy. So Matt was basically forced out and we decided we were not gonna be able to stay either. I was afraid to be in the house alone with him. So we gave him 1 week notice and said we could not stay under the circumstances. We found a room next door with Matt and it has been so peaceful here. But Jeremy has withheld our bond now. He said we needed to give two weeks notice not one even though the room is in better shape then when we got it. We tried to fight for it and even got the landlord involved but so far Jeremy has kept our $400 and Matt's $300 so $700 in total!!! We are still gonna try and get the money back but not sure how. Kiwi laws are much different than home's.

So since all moving out life has been better. We did have to say goodbye to Tanja on Sunday. She was done her work term and had to go back to Germany. We all went out on Friday night and then had pizza and rented movies on Saturday. Matt, Nate and I took her to the airport and said our goodbye's. It was sad to see her go...it seems we had been through so much and we were like family sticking together. I shed a few tears and told her to come visit Canada next and then we will come to Europe :) Then on Tuesday Matt left to go travel Asia. We made him dinner Monday night and said goodbye again with promises to visit Mexico to visit him. It's sad to see all our close friends leaving but very cool to know when we travel anywhere we will probably know someone there and can stay with them and they can show us all the sights. Plus we are never really that far with Facebook and Skype at our fingertips!

So enough with all the negative! Nate and I have tickets to the next All Blacks game on Saturday the 18th! They play the Australia team and it should be a really good game! I still have really no idea whats going on and don't understand the rules ha ha. And before the game I booked another boat trip for us. This time on the Whale and Dolphin tour boat. It should be really cool and I am very excited! Hopefully it doesn't rain that day.

Also thought I would mention its winter here. It rains almost every day! and not just drizzle it flat out pours cats and dogs! It rains so hard here that when you wake up in the middle of the night to the rain on the roof it sounds more like you left the t.v. on a snowy station and it's on full blast! If it rained like this at home I think the streets would be flooded! But when it rains it seems to get warmer. And everything is so lush...except for some of the trees lost their leaves. Its strange to see palm trees all full and green and then the bare branches of a tree right next to it! And the Kiwi's are so funny. They bundle up with big winter jackets and boots and shiver. I wear only my spring jacket and whenever I feel its cold I think back to -40 winters and smile. I would take this winter over any back home. Coldest it gets is around 12 in the day so definitely can't complain! And when I tell everyone here what winter is like in Canada their eyes pop outta their heads! Ha ha ha I would like to see a Kiwi survive a Canadian winter and then tell me its soooo cold here lol!

For Canada day we were supposed to go to a haunted house called Spookers. It's normally $80 but Nate got it half price with his work. There ended up not being enough people to go so it was cancelled which was disappointing. I heard it was really cool. Instead we decided to try and do something more "Canadian" :) So since there is no snow here and we wanted to go snowboarding we decided to head over to a place just outside of Auckland called Snowplanet. Its an indoor ski hill! We talked Matt (the Mexican) into going....he was very skeptical. Said he tried it once and hated it. He is a surfer and prefers the waves but we dragged him anyway. Patrick and Matt's friend joined us. We went night boarding since it was on sale. Only $26 for lift passes and $16 for board and boot rentals. We got to board from 7pm till 10pm. It was actually pretty fun. We weren't sure it was going to be that great since it isn't a real ski hill. Obviously it wouldn't be that big. But I was impressed by the quality of the snow and how much energy it must take to keep it cold in there. I think having lowered expectations really made it better. There were two t-bar lifts on either side, a little bunny hill for the learners and even some jumps and rails. And Matt ended up having an awesome time. It was only his second time and he was already taking jumps by the end of the night. We were proud to have talked him into going. And it turned out to be an Awesome Canada Day!