I’ve been meaning to write in here for awhile, but there are just so many movies to watch!
We started our work in Fox Glacier at the Ivory Towers about a week and a half ago—almost fully trained! The morning shift consists of checking guests out, then running around and cleaning everything in the three hour time period we have before new guests arrive. The afternoon you mostly just finish up all the laundry, check guests in, and beg the hours to go by until you can count the till, lock up, and call it a day. I’m actually currently working an afternoon shift right now—I’ve already compiled a list of all the movies I want to watch out of the 300 here. And I still have four hours left to go. Hard times. Mostly, I like the work here, though. It is very much a routine, but I don’t mind routines, at least, not for a month only. I’d maybe get a little stir crazy if we were to be here for months on end. But, hey, at least we are making above minimum wage!
Kayla and I went out last night for the first time in awhile. Our manager, Radka, forced us to go to a ball. Let me explain, we are in the middle of nowhere glacier land. The town is maybe 350 people big, there is no bank, not even a real grocery store. So we are thinking this “ball” is going to be a bunch of old people drinking NZ’s watery beer. But Radka was really pushing us to meet some locals, literally built our schedules around this ball, called the bus (the party was 40 kilometers away) and found out all the information for us, so there was not really a way out. So then we went. And it turned out to be a lot of fun! It was mostly a younger crowd, the glacier guides and skydiving masters, and the bus was like a party bus. Everybody got on with their drinks in hands, and our driver gave us a two minute pee break half way there. Seeing as whenever Kayla saw me I had water in my hand, it makes little sense how I was so drunk with my new Scottish friend. I don’t really get hangovers generally, I just need lots of sleep, so, lucky for me, it was Kayla that was working the morning shift!
For some reason it reminds me a lot of Ecuador here in Fox Glacier. Trey suggested Mindo-esque, and that works (Mom, that is the little village we did the zip lining in). I went for a walk to the glacier viewpoint the other day, through the rain forest (hardly a rain forest with the extreme lack of animals, but apppaaarently you don’t need cute cool animals to have a rain forest, dumb). The part that probably made it seem the most like Ecuador: That one night, in the middle of the Amazon, when we had no power, and the four of us were in the bathroom?.. that was happening, except in a much less exotic rain forest, and I was alone. Even though I was alone and it was raining (in our week and a half here, we have had one sunny day. One.), I really enjoyed myself. I got caught dancing and singing to myself. Probably was a bit awkward and startling for that man, but I was amused. Also, it wasn’t as good as Ecua because there was not a hammock to end the adventure in. But on the flip side, Ecuador was amazing, awesome, but it was foreign; it was not home. I’m home here in New Zealand, so content. I’m so glad Kayla had planned this and that I was able to tag along. It all happened really quickly, from me finding out about Kayla’s plan to buying my own one-way ticket, but I wouldn't change a thing, this is what I’ve always wanted. When I called my dad to tell him of the idea I just imagine my dad rolling his eyes with a “I knew you’d pull something like this” sort of look.
Wish us nice weather! The next sunny day we plan on jumping out of an airplane at 12,000 feet. Apparently this is the place to do it, with the view of the glacier, ocean, rain forest, and Southern Alps, it has been voted best in the world by numerous things.
