Ricky was scheduled to come to town late the next morning on Monday, June 13th. However, his flight from Wellington to Auckland got cancelled due to the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Chile. I ended up spending the day chilling out with Daiana at the flat, did some laundry and some cleaning. At one point, my mobile phone rang; I answered it, entirely obvious to the fact that it would be the one call that would completely change my current situation! It was Tim from OCG Consulting, one of the temp agencies I had signed on with, calling to offer me a job!! It was just incredible because I had literally planned to book my tickets home the very next day, preparing myself to leave New Zealand the following week. The job was to begin almost immediately on June 15th, just two days from then. It involved doing data entry for a company called AMP, and it offered a fantastic pay rate—heaps more than what I was paid at Chambers Restaurant in Napier!!
The catch, however, was that the job assignment was only scheduled to last two weeks. Still, with such great pay, I decided that two weeks of full-time work there would at least help me re-build my bank account back up quickly. That way, even if another job didn’t come through after this one ended and I still had to go home early, I would at least be going home with money instead of completely broke. SUCH A RELIEF!!!!!!!!! I went over to John’s hostel to hang out and share the good news. Oh, something I should mention is the fact that John never purchased a New Zealand sim card or mobile phone, mainly because he never needed to while traveling with his friend Arash, as they just shared a phone. However, Arash had flown to Asia a few weeks prior, leaving John without a proper communication device. Plus, John’s laptop had recently broken, so he couldn’t even use the Wi-Fi spots around the city to send messages through email or facebook.
So, anytime plans changed a bit or I needed to get up with him, I had to go sneak into his hostel to try and track him down. I felt like such a stalker haha. We ended up walking around town a bit that afternoon and went into a few shops. While we were out, I received a phone call from a woman from another temp agency whom I had sent my resume; she asked me if I would be interested in a job at Auckland’s Serious Fraud Office—epic! She thought I would be perfect for the position due to my background at the law office back home in Tallahassee and my experience in handling legal documents. The job assignment was to be a two-month contract doing administrative work, with even higher pay than the other job I had been offered earlier that day, AND it was criminology-related! It is amazing how just how quickly things can change.
Just that morning, I was without any job prospects and potentially going home months earlier than planned. Then, by that afternoon, I had two potential jobs lined up! I told the woman on the phone my predicament with having the other job offer. She said it was up to me, but that she would try to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible on her end, with interviews and such, so that I could know for sure whether her client definitely wanted to offer me the job. Since John and I were scheduled to go on an all-day bus tour around the city the next day from 9:00 am until around 3:30 pm, she put me down for an 8:00 am interview to get officially signed up with their temp agency and go from there. Sweet! Anyway, after checking out some shops around town, it was close to dinner time. John and I went to my flat to grab the ingredients I had previously bought to make dinner, then went back to his hostel for the cooking to begin (we didn’t stay at the flat to eat because Daiana wasn’t really keen on having anyone over while she didn’t feel good).
The plan was to cook a pasta dish (of course) with seasoned mince beef and a tasty tomato mushroom sauce. I had already warned John not to expect greatness. However, maybe I should have warned him a bit more. By focusing all my attention on the mince and making sure it was seasoned just right, I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to the actual pasta and managed to completely overcook it haha. Oops! What can I say...it’s a good thing I’m not planning on being a housewife =). We ate the pasta just the same, and John had nothing but nice things to say haha. Too polite! After dinner, we enjoyed some more card games and I got a text from Ricky that he had finally landed in Auckland. He had somehow managed to get a later flight out of Wellington, which was great news since he was scheduled to fly from Auckland to Indonesia the next day to visit all of his family back home. John was keen on staying at the hostel, so I left to go meet Ricky and his friend at the Crowne Plaza bar.
I walked in and was greeted by a big hug from Ricky, then he introduced me to his friend Ken from India. Ken was so nice, and the three of us had a good time hanging out in the fancy Crowne Plaza lounge/bar area. The guys were hungry though, so we left there and went to one of the many Indian restaurants in town. They enjoyed what was apparently some really good Indian food, and over the course of dinner, both of them told me some crazzzzy stories about experiences they’d had in their home countries. Pheww…definitely a far cry from New Zealand! Regardless, I have no doubt that both countries have beautiful things to offer as well =). Also during dinner, Ricky received a text from JetStar (a popular airline on this side of the world) saying that his flight to Indonesia had been cancelled due to the ash cloud. Ricky was so upset and discouraged. We went to one of the closest internet cafes so he could check on the status of other potential flights going out, etc.
The news wasn’t good—when all was said and done, he had to spend an extra four days in Auckland before he could fly out. Day after day, flight after flight just kept getting cancelled due to the ash cloud. Ricky appropriately termed it “the most anticipated trip of his life.” I really hated it for him, but at the same time, I was glad to be able to spend some more time with him before he left. To take his mind off the frustration, we all went out for a night on the town. First place on the agenda was Danny Doolans, where we met up with another one of Ricky’s Auckland friends Danika and her boyfriend Ryan. The five of us had a ridiculously fun night having a few drinks, hanging out by the warm fire that was blazing behind our table, and listening to the music. Ricky and I made sure to do some dancing before we left too. Ken headed out early, but Ricky, Danika, Ryan and I stayed at Danny Doolans until at least 1:00 am, and then went to another bar that Danika knew. Interview? What interview? ;-)
Danika was hilarious because she insisted that we all take a cab to the next place, which I thought was rather odd since basically everything is within walking distance in central Auckland. When I asked her where the bar was, she told me the name of the road, which was literally one road over from Danny Doolans—probably a three-minute walk haha. According to her, she just couldn’t be bothered to walk that far =) The next bar was pretty cool—a small hole in the wall with a chill atmosphere. We all stayed there until the wee hours of the morning. When all was said and done, I didn’t end up going to sleep until 4:00 or 5:00 am! Yeahhhh…let me just take the time to express that promptly waking up two to three hours later in order to get ready for my 8:00 am interview was just as painful as you may think. As the phrase goes though, “If you’re going to be dumb, you gotta be tough.” Haha.
Cheers,
Ash
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