If you read the title of this post and thought, "What's a Conchord?" you would not be alone - I had similar questions when I first heard people talking about this comedy duo. Back in graduate school, I remember fellow colleagues and students alike raving about this funny/cool/new/hip television series called Flight of the Conchords. Since I found/find it difficult to keep up with pop culture, I dismissed the hype as a passing phase. I shouldn't have.

Turns out that the two guys that make up FOTC are from New Zealand! I have only recently found this out (I am embarrassed about this). It also turns out that they are returning to New Zealand for a nation wide tour - and they are making a stop in Queenstown on June 24. After hearing many Kiwis and internationals talk about the upcoming show, I thought it worth my time to investigate a little bit.


For those of you who don't already know, the two Kiwi comics who form the group are from Wellington, on the North Island. Their popularity in the States is mostly due to their two season television series on HBO. Apparently, the show is about moving to New York City and trying to become successful as a band. I hear that there are lots of songs and singing in the show - people here are always singing or quoting them.

After reading about them and talking to others about them, I thought it would be fun to try and get tickets. Turns out that everyone else here had the same idea - the tickets for the QT show sold out in about 4 minutes. Fortunately, Sean had the morning off and was able to score two! To celebrate we went to the big Target-like store in town and bought the first two seasons (it was cheaper than renting them!). I hope they are as funny as everyone says they are because now we own two of their DVDs and tickets to their concert!


"Get your best pair of jandals on because finally the rumours are confirmed - Flight of the Conchords will touch down in New Zealand for a nationwide tour, but you’ll have to be quick to nab a ticket!

This almost award-winning fourth-most-popular folk duo last performed in Aotearoa in 2009. But this June the wait is over. Bret and Jemaine are back on stage together – and what better place to do it than the country where it all began!"

One of the things that we had wanted to do ever since we got to Queenstown was visit the local ice bar called "Below Zero." I had never been to an ice bar before and was interested in having a look while the weather was still warm outside. I mean, what's the fun in going to an ice bar when the outdoors is all snowy and icy anyway?


Below Zero is made from over 30 tons of crystal-clear, hand-sculpted ice. Everything in the bar is pure ice - the furniture, the bar, the glasses and shot glasses as well as the walls. There's also a lot of fun sculptures around to pose for pictures by (and that's what most people do in the bar - shiver and take pictures).


As expected, Below Zero ice bar is very very cold (it's kept at a steady -5 C/23 F). They give you a huge coat, boots, gloves and a hat when you arrive (probably so that you will stay longer and thus buy more drinks?). Even though we were all bundled up, I was ready to leave after about 20 minutes because I was so cold. Sean and I each tried a different cocktail which was kept ridiculously frigid in the glasses made from ice.


It was fun to visit the ice bar, but it doesn't compare with the gigantic city made of ice and lights that we saw in Harbin, China. I'm not sure anything will ever be able to compare with that.

I was really really excited to find out yesterday that I was awarded one of the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships to Brazil beginning in March 2013. I had applied last September and the application process was quite a bit of work (thanks Kristin, Terrell and Rob for writing letters of recommendation!) I didn't think I would get one since I am married, not a current student and will be 31 when I do the program (which is aimed more at recent graduates and graduate students) but I am happy that these factors apparently didn't make a difference.

I will get to spend about 10 months working with Brazilian university teachers to improve their English language courses. I will also be able to study Portuguese and work on an additional independent volunteer project in the community. The grant covers round-trip transportation, health insurance and a monthly stipend for the academic school year. Sean gets to go too though none of his expenses are covered. We are still trying to figure out what he will want to do while he is there (any suggestions?). We are hoping to stay in New Zealand to work/travel until mid-December when we will return to the States for the holidays. We will have the months of January and February at home before leaving for South America (that's the tentative plan anyway).

Here's some of the specific information about the grant. If you are at all interested in cultural exchange and teaching English, I'd encourage you to apply. I can share some tips in the application process that were passed along to me from previous Fulbright fellows.

General Program Information:

A U.S. Student Fulbright Grant

• Allows for individually designed study/research projects or an English Teaching Assistantship You can propose a project and/or study plan that will take place during one academic year in a country outside the U.S.
  
• Provides support for study/research/teaching in a single country You can meet, work, live with and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences.
• Facilitates cultural exchange Through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in daily tasks, you can gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think.
• Promotes mutual understanding Through engagement in the community, you can interact with your hosts on a one-to-one basis in an atmosphere of openness, academic integrity, and intellectual freedom.

English Teaching Assistantships are offered in many countries worldwide. Each ETA Program is designed by the host country, and individual elements may vary by country.

In most cases, ETAs:

• Are placed in schools or universities outside of capital cities
• Are assigned various activities designed to improve their students' language abilities and knowledge of the United States
• Are fully integrated into the host community, increasing their own language skills and knowledge of the host country
• May pursue individual study/research plans in addition to ETA responsibilities

Specific ETA Brazil Program Information (There were 30 ETA grants given to Brazil):

Language Proficiency (the equivalent of two year's college- level study) in spoken and written components of any Romance language is required. In addition, basic knowledge of Portuguese is strongly recommended.

Grant period 9 months. Grant dates will correspond to the academic year in Brazil, February/early-March to November/early December 2013. The grant period starts with an orientation organized by the Fulbright Commission. Attendance at the orientation is mandatory.

Candidate profile Applications are welcome from recent graduates and graduate students with experience working in an educational environment and, specifically, classroom teaching. Candidates with degrees in English, applied linguistics or foreign languages, AND certification/significant coursework in teacher education or TESOL, are strongly preferred. Some full-time ESL teaching experience and TESOL certification may substitute for a relevant degree.

Nature of assignment In advance of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil, the U.S. Embassy and the Fulbright Commission are implementing a comprehensive plan to increase the quality and quantity of English teaching in Brazil. To this end, the majority of the grantees will be placed with Teacher's Colleges at public universities throughout Brazil, where in order to graduate as English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, students attend four-year undergraduate programs.

ETAs will be assigned as language-learning assistants working up to 20-25 hours per week, but they will not be responsible for teaching entire courses. They will develop and lead language learning activities and classes under the supervision of faculty, and promote U.S. culture through cultural and social programs. The Fulbright Commission will match the grantee with the appropriate host institution. Details of assignments will be subject to communication between the Fulbright Commission and the host institution and based on the profile of the selected candidate and the host institution's needs. Placement can be in any Brazilian city.

Supplementary project Because teaching assistant responsibilities will be up to 20-25 hours per week, grantees are expected to engage in other activities related to their personal, career, and/or educational interests. Applicants should consider a project that they intend to pursue if awarded the grant and, since they will not know where they will be placed, keep in mind that these activities should be flexible respective to geographic location. For example, grantees may pursue a course of study, conduct research into topics or issues relative to Brazil, engage in specific volunteer activities, or a combination of these. Grantees may not necessarily be placed at an institution or in a location where they can effectively carry out the goals of their supplementary project. In these cases, the Fulbright Commission will discuss project alternatives with the grantee when the placement is made.

I am hoping to take advantage of the large Brazilian population in Queenstown to help me get a jump start on Portuguese. After being around so many Latin Americans at work, it has made me miss South America a lot - It will be fun to go back and see a different part of the continent and this time with Sean along for the adventure.

Recently, my dad sent me a newspaper article about a West Michigan local who wrote a book called "Floating Gold" which is all about ambergris, also known as whale poop. Why would my dad send me news concerning marine mammal excrement you ask? It's because the floating dung sells for about $20/gram (compare this to gold at $28/gram) and is commonly found along the shores of New Zealand. Dad figured that if I could find even just a hunk of the stuff, maybe I could finance a family trip. Goodbye housekeeping, hello whale poop.

Ambergris comes from sperm whales which eat as much as 2,000 pounds of squid a day. The whales are unable to digest the tough squid beaks which are consequently excreted and left to float for days-years and sometimes thousands of miles until it's found by some lucky beachcomber. Consider this lucky Australian couple who picked up a chunk of the stuff just because it looked interesting. They happened to ask about its identity and found out that their little souvenir was worth about $300,000.


According to the newspaper article, whale poop is valuable because it is a "fixative that prolongs the scent of some perfumes and fragrances." It's also used in some select foods for flavor and has been known to be treasured as an aphrodisiac. Companies don't like to disclose whether their products contain whale poop or not, for obvious reasons and it's bought and sold in a relatively secret market.

How do you know if you have found real ambergris? According to this New Zealand website "Ambergris comes in many colours, shapes and textures. This makes identification difficult and ensures frustration for beachcombers on the hunt for this elusive substance. Ambergris is most often white, grey, black or brown in colour or even a mixture of these shades. In shape; ambergris can be flat or square but often rounded, oval shapes appear on the beaches, probably due to the rolling and smoothing action that the ocean waves would have over a period of time, even years. If black in colour, the texture may be soft and sticky like melting tar. Most often it is hard yet waxy and may have a powdery like white coating. It can also be described as having the texture of hard, dry clay."


So if you're headed to ocean beaches for your spring break, you might consider looking for more than just seashells and sand dollars. I know that once we make it to the coasts of New Zealand, I will DEFINITELY have my eyes open for the stuff. Sadly, there are no whales in the glacial Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown (though tourists always ask if there are), so I guess it's back to polishing porcelain thrones for me for the time being. For the rest of you, happy poo hunting!

When you're a housekeeper living in Queenstown, not every day is full of ice cream, unicorns, rainbows and lollipops. Actually, most days aren't full of any of those things. Some days I ride my bike home in the pouring rain and when I get off to walk in the mud (because the hills are too steep for me to ride or I'm too tired) I think, "What exactly am I doing here again?"

But other days I ride home and I see this:


Am I going to get all cliched and corny by saying that one rainbow makes all the bad days worth it? Definitely not. But it helped a little. It didn't improve Sean's day much, however. Since he's the one who organizes and labels the pictures, he was not exactly thrilled to label my 30+ pictures of rainbows that I over-enthusiastically took when I saw it. Overboard? Maybe. But what can I say - you can never have too many rainbow pictures.

You would have had to be living in a cave for the last month in New Zealand if you weren't aware that the road rules changed today (Sunday) at 5 a.m. These rules have been advertised, explained and cautioned about on the radio, television and in/around public places for weeks now. Today, the new changes were headline news and the topic of every conversation. As I listened to the news all day while cleaning, it seemed that Kiwi drivers are doing well with the rules so far even though "widespread confusion" was predicted.

I have been paying close attention to the new rules not only because I find them a little bit confusing (take the quiz and see how YOU do) and because I want to drive here in the future, but also because I make the daily commute to and from work by bike. Some of my commute involves the main road and a couple of intersections. In honor of the new rule changes, I bought a $10 neon yellow reflective vest and started wearing it today in hopes of being incredibly visible.

So why the change? According to the Dominion Post "The new give-way rules introduced today bring New Zealand in line with other countries and are designed to make intersections safer. Intersection crashes currently account for 20 per cent of the fatal and serious injury crashes on our roads. When the Australian state of Victoria changed its give-way rules in 1993 its crash rate dropped 7 per cent and experts expect a similar reduction here. That could mean one fewer death, 13 fewer serious injuries and 84 fewer minor injuries from crashes at intersections each year."

What are some of the new changes? a) "If you're turning right, give way." All traffic turning right must give way to vehicles coming from the opposite direction and turning left. This applies at crossroads, T-intersections and driveways where both vehicles are facing each other with no signs or signals, or the same signs or signals. It does not apply at intersections with roundabouts.

b) "Top of the T goes before me." At uncontrolled T-intersections all traffic from a terminating road (bottom of the T) must give way to all traffic on a continuing road (top of the T).

In other breaking NZ headline news, "Marmite shortage spurs 'Marmageddon' fears." Here's hoping that the Kiwis can live to see another week despite having to drive like the rest of the world and all without their morning Marmite.

During one of the weeks when we first got here, I was sitting in a big field at the base of one of the mountains watching Sean play ultimate frisbee. Though it was a beautiful night for frisbee, I was not watching the game but instead was focused on the paragliders floating down from the top of the peak and landing in the very field that was occupied by the ultimate players. When Sean was done with his game I told him, "I don't know what that is called or what exactly those people are doing, but I totally want to do it."



We found out that they were paragliding which is different than parasailing or hanggliding. Paragliding is when you run off of a mountain with your parachute already open and then you can ride the air currents all the way down. Since you have to know what you are doing, most people go paragliding in tandem with one person being the experienced guide. When a deal for paragliding appeared on GrabOne Queenstown, a coupon site, Sean and I bought one to go on our day off together this week.


When we met up with the paragliding company at 3pm on Friday, I was a little nervous, but when the guides said that they had just taken up an 80-year-old woman that morning, I felt slightly better. Our guides were a Mexican who had been doing this for over 14 years and a Romanian who had also been working in the business for awhile. We drove up to the top of Coronet Peak (one of the ski mountains in town) and began to suit up.


While the guides got the parachutes stretched out, Sean and I put on our Top Gun-ish jumpsuits, helmets and gloves. This was all moving a little to fast for me and I was like, shouldn't we be practicing moves or having a little class or something? Nope. "Abe," my guide, told me that once we were all hooked up I should just start running straight down the mountain as fast as I could without stopping, jumping, falling or sitting down or anything foolish like that. Since we were really really high up and the terrain was a little steep, I was skeptical - wearing the jumpsuit hadn't made me feel as hard core as I was hoping.


Abe strapped himself to the back of me and to the chute in back of him and off we went, running down the mountain. In about 4 seconds we were miraculously airborne - a truly crazy feeling - and we re-adjusted in our nylon seat harnesses to enjoy the ride and the view. We moved faster than I thought we would but it was also incredibly calm and peaceful up there. To be fair, looking down was terrifying and I was white-knuckled gripping the sides of the harness, but Abe didn't seem to be worried so I tried not to be either. If a granny can do it, so can I.


In many ways, paragliding was like riding in a hot air balloon except that I felt way more exposed, alone and scared. It was really fun to be flying around like a bird and Abe took many opportunities to take pictures while I was hanging on for dear life. We were only up in the air for about 15 minutes but during that time we skimmed across the tips of trees, I got a chance to 'drive' and we did some crazy spins which made us feel some zero gravity for a second. I wasn't too crazy about the spins - they kind of made me want to throw up, but it definitely got the adrenaline pumping.


Coming in for the landing was a little frightening because we approached the ground so quickly. Abe told me to keep my legs up and then when we hit the ground I was supposed to start running again as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I was nervous and forgot this last bit of information. When I got two feet on the ground, I just stopped because I was so happy to be safe and standing up. Oops! Turns out they like you to keep running so the chute can fall nicely behind you instead of on top or in front of you.


Overall we had a really fun time and even though Sean is a bit scared of heights, he managed to enjoy himself. I wish the time in the air would have lasted longer and I totally want to go again!

I have written before about how when Sean and I travel together things aren't always sunshine, unicorns and rainbows. We get on each other's nerves, know how to push the right buttons and are getting quite practiced at bickering like a married couple. When things get stressful and if we're tired, lost and hungry, the tension is magnified exponentially.

Consider the usual scenario of a husband and wife driving together on a vacation. They might get lost and have to stop and ask for directions which could spark an argument. Now consider a situation when a husband and wife are driving on the opposite side of the road in a city that is under construction due to devastating earthquakes in a vehicle that they are not familiar with. This was what we experienced in Christchurch; the day after we bought our car we took off on a 6-hour drive to Queenstown. It was TERRIFYING to drive on the other side of the road, we had no idea where exactly we were going and got lost a lot, we weren't 100% on all of the road rules (they have some strange ones), and we were traveling in an unfamiliar car. It was a bad idea.

Sean did all of the driving while I attempted to navigate. I can't even begin to explain how stressful this was and we had to pull over a few times to calm down, look at the map and repeat over and over to 'stay on the left.' It was insane. We had to totally change the way we thought about driving and everything seemed messed up and backwards. Even our car was arranged differently - the blinker and windshield wipers are on opposite sides and you have to shift with your left hand. For about a week straight, whenever we wanted to turn left our windshield wipers would go on.

Sean did great throughout the whole 'learning to drive' ordeal. He was farily tense and nervous the first couple of days but he got used to it pretty quickly. I am embarrassed to admit that I have yet to try driving on the left - I am too scared. I am not that great of a driver in the U.S. and I am afraid that I would space out and just drive like I would at home which could have devastating consequences here.


The two most difficult things to master here are the roundabouts and an odd give way rule that only exists in New Zealand. Picture this: you are driving in the U.S. and you want to turn right on a side street. Now imagine that that there is also a car coming from the other direction waiting to turn left on that same side street. In NZ, the person turning LEFT has the right of way, not the way we do it where the person simply turning right gets to go. Now reverse this in your head and switch it to driving on the left. See what I mean? It's like impossible mental gymnastics. To make things even more interesting, NZ has decided that this rule is bad (due to all of the accidents caused by foreign tourists who don't follow this rule) and is changing it in 3 days. I figure maybe I'll start learning how to drive when all of this ruckus over the driving law change calms down.

At our hotel there are two signs that people can hang on their doors: "Do Not Disturb" and "Please Freshen Up My Room." Everyone in hospitality refers to a room with a "Do Not Disturb Sign" on it as a "DND." I absolutely love it when a room is a DND - it means that I don't have to clean it and that I can go home early. Yesterday I was lucky with 4 DNDs and got to leave at 4pm. I spent the rest of my afternoon at the beach as it was a perfect sunny day in the 70s.

Unfortunately, most people hang the other sign. For some reason, it actually kind of annoys me when I see the "Please Freshen Up My Room" sign. I mean, we are going to do it anyway so why all the redundancy? It's like they are making extra sure that we are going to clean it. What's usually the case is that when you see a "Please Freshen Up My Room" sign, it means that the room is trashed beyond belief and that the room is going to need a lot more than just 'freshening.'

There are some other irritating things that people do with the door signs (besides ripping them, throwing them away and spilling on them). The first one is hanging their DND sign all day until the time when they go to dinner at 6pm. At this point, when they leave their room, they flip their sign to the "Please Freshen Up My Room" side. For me, this is about 8-9 hours into my workday and all I want to do is go home. But if a supervisor sees that somebody has flipped their card, we have to go back and do it. This happens all the time and it is really, really annoying.

Another frustrating thing that people do with their signs is to hang the "Please Freshen Up My Room" sign but then when you knock on the door to clean their room, they act surprised and ask if you can come back later. This is aggravating because the hotel is huge, the trolleys are heavy and hard to push and it takes quite a bit of work and time to move between floors and rooms. Of course I always act like it's no problem and that I would love to come back and clean their room later, but all I really want to say is, "Then why did you hang the sign?"


The last thing people do with the signs is . . . the don't hang them. Every day I knock on doors and people answer who are really angry at being woken up from a nap, made to get out of the shower, interrupted from a phone call etc. They can be pretty rude and I have to apologize all over the place when all I really want to do is be like, "Dude, there's a sign for that, use it."

There are a few incredible souls who leave their DND sign up all the time and never require service. I love these people. I have talked with some of them about why they do this. Most of them (even though they are paying over $300/night for their room) are concerned about the environment and reason that it's not necessary to have fresh towels and a clean bathroom every day. Others don't use the DND sign, but when you go into their rooms, all of their towels are hanging which means they don't need them changed. I wish this 'green' attitude was more catching, but it's the exception rather than the norm.

You might be thinking, "Wow, she just wrote a whole post about door signs, are they really that important?" Well, when the simple act of flipping door signs stands between leaving work at 7pm (like tonight) or spending the better part of the day at the beach, you better believe they are important.

It seems wherever I go, I always find an animal friend to hang out with. Queenstown is no different and I have a new buddy named "Obie." Obie is a quirky cat who lives next door. Since he is extremely social, he is always looking for people to give him affection and attention. Obie is unlike any cat I have ever met before - not only is he overly outgoing with a purr like a lawnmower but he also looks weird. He has hair like wool and resembles a little black lamb. My flatmate (who also loves him) thinks that he is part Burmese. Fortunately for Sean, he is one of those crazy non-allergic kinds of cats (or so the neighbors tell us). So far Sean hasn't been bothered by him at all but we normally don't let him in our room.

Obie craves attention to the point where it gets a bit obnoxious. I tried to let him hang out on my lap and my desk on my last day off, but he wouldn't let me get any work done. Kathryn describes him as being very "smoochy" in that he loves snuggling and kisses as you can see in the photos.


He is also extremely curious and fearless. I have found him closed in cupboards, trapped in baskets and on top of anything he can jump to. On St. Patrick's Day, I took the night bus and got home at around midnight. I was all alone in the house and was brushing my teeth when all of a sudden a black form flew through the window and jumped on me. I screamed and thought I was a goner, for sure. We live on the second floor and the bathroom window is quite high up. Turns out it was Obie looking for some love. Somehow he had shimmied up the side of the house onto the first roof and then managed to get into the window. That will be the last time that I'll leave the window open at night.


PS Those of you who noticed all of the wine bottles on the desk - they are just some examples of a few of the 'perks' that go along with being a housekeeper. If people have checked out, then it's finders-keepers (except for valuable property, of course). We have quite a nice little wine cellar started. . .

"It's going to be one hell of a day" said my supervisor as she addressed the motley, bed-headed crew that sleepily formed a semicircle around her. It's never a good thing to hear that statement coming from a boss who normally doesn't use such language. She was saying this because 1) We were really, really busy 2) Everyone was hungover and tired from St. Patrick's day the night before 3) Several workers had called in 'sick' 4) Many rooms required extensive clean-up because of the holiday festivities. And she was right. It was a rough day. Nobody finished what they needed to do but they sent us all home at 7pm anyway so we could rest up for tomorrow. To cheer everybody up and to keep the motivation and 'blue energy' alive, we were given a pizza party for lunch.

When I'm not polishing toilets or making beds at the hotel, I have been teaching some classes at night. I can only teach private classes since I don't have the necessary NZ certification to teach at a school, but so far it's going fine. I am tutoring a Brit in Spanish and a Czech couple in English once a week for an hour. Dan wants to learn Spanish as he is in a serious relationship with a Chilean. They just had a child together and want to raise him to be bilingual. Dan was getting frustrated with not knowing any Spanish and put an ad in the classifieds for a teacher and I answered it. It's been interesting teaching Dan since he is not an academic kind of guy - he is a baker and a carpenter and doesn't like anything to do with school at all. He also speaks with a think British accent which makes his Spanish pronunciation all sorts of interesting. I'm trying to make the lessons fun, entertaining and very communicative but it's been a bit of a challenge so far.

Michal and Pavla are a young couple from the Czech Republic. They also have a year-long work visa for New Zealand and are working as housekeepers in another hotel. Before Queenstown, they worked in vineyards and avocado farms on the North Island for six months. They are frustrated in that they have been in New Zealand for over half a year but haven't practiced English much at all since they have only been hanging out with other Czechs (there is a large population of Czechs here on working holiday visas). They heard about me by word of mouth from other housekeepers and are trying to study and practice English as much as they can before they head back. Teaching Michal and Pavla is a lot of fun since we form a group of three and their English level is already pretty good. In many ways it's like teaching in China so I am using a lot of activities and material that I have already taught and prepared in the past.

I'm really enjoying teaching some private lessons not only because I like to teach, but also because it's fun to meet other people from different places and really get to know them. I would consider taking on some more students and advertising in the classified or something, but two nights a week already feels like a lot especially when I am really tired from working all day. We'll see how it goes, but for now I'm happy with one English and one Spanish class.

Turns out that repetitive manual labor makes you very sore and more prone to injuries. Because so many people in housekeeping have been out due to injury (and I'm guessing that the hotel is getting tired of paying worker's comp.) we had a visit from the "physio" at work.

A physiotherapist is what we would call a physical therapist in the states, but everyone just calls them "physios" here. A physio is basically a person who helps you recover from illness or injury. We had a physio from Remarkables Physios come and give a class on preventing muscle soreness and injury in the workplace. It was awesome! Melissa gave us a really informative and interactive talk about how not to hurt yourself doing manual labor. She had us practicing lifting things, doing the actions of making beds and vacuuming as well as doing lots of stretches. Sean was also able to attend, even though in-room dining isn't really known to be that strenuous.


We were both so intrigued by the physio that we made an appointment to see them on our day off. Sean wanted to go to see if they could help him with his running form - his leg has been hurting a lot, and I went because I am a sucker for personal attention and wanted extra tips on not getting hurt at work. During my appointment, she checked my alignment and then went through a lot of stretches with me on and off a foam roller. She told me to get in the hot tub at the gym as much as possible, do some swimming and try and fit in some yoga or pilates to relax my muscles. She also gave me a poster of some stretches for manual workers that is now taped to our closet door. Too bad the male model is not that attractive.

This morning at work we started doing stretches as a group during our morning briefing. Since I was already warmed up from biking in to work, they felt pretty good. I think they are trying to keep us especially healthy as both hotels are fully booked next weekend since we are hosting a big PGA tournament. We'll see if all this stretching really makes a difference - I hope it does!

Buying your "Early Bird" season ski pass has been the talk about town this week as today is the last day to purchase them before the prices skyrocket. Fortunately, the NZ ski association lets you pay your pass off in three installments which is crucial for people like housekeepers and in-room-dining servers making close to minimum wage. Also helpful was the fact that yesterday was payday.

Residents of Queenstown have a few options for skiing. The two closest ski lodges are The Remarkables (40 min. away) and Coronet Peak (20 min. away). Another option which is a couple hours away is Mount Hutt. Here are the pass options (all early bird prices):

NZ Ski pass: Unlimited skiing on all three mountains ($999)
Queenstown pass: Unlimited skiing on The Remarkables and Coronet Peak ($889)
Remarkables pass: Unlimited skiing on The Remarkables ($499)
Coronet Peak night pass: Unlimited skiing during Friday and Saturday nights ($99)
Mount Hutt pass: Unlimited skiing at Mount Hutt ($699)


Yikes! Expensive, right?! I knew skiing was a lot of money but I was blown away by how pricey everything was. Sean and I decided to follow our flatmates' leads. Both Kathryn and Andrew bought a Remarkables pass and added on weekend night skiing at Coronet Peak for an extra $99. There was also an option to purchase some group lessons for a huge discount when buying the early bird season pass. I opted for this since I don't really know what I am doing but Sean is just going to go for it.

The mountains open up mid-June. It's quite easy to see where my money from teaching classes will go in the next couple months: ski lessons, very used and affordable skis, boots and poles and some kind of used jacket. Back to the classified ads we go. I have no idea what I'm getting into, but I hope it will be fun and worth it!

When I was teaching about New Zealand in my Western Culture class in China, one of the activities I did with my students was a translation of some Kiwi English. I found the following paragraph on the internet, put it up on a Powerpoint and then let the students work in pairs to see if they could guess the meaning of the words they didn't know using context. I thought the activity would be kind of fun, but I also wanted to emphasize the fact that English can be quite different from one country to the next in both vocabulary and pronunciation just like Chinese varies from province to province (no matter how much the government requires and drills the required 'standard' Chinese in all schools). If you have a minute, give it a try and see what you think:

"Kia ora! I'm off to New Zealand to meet my rellies. I've been absolutely knackered! So I can't wait to be kicking around in my togs and jandals. And I'll get to wear choice new sunnies. And when I get back from New Zealand everything's going to be hunky dory."

"Hi! I'm going to New Zealand to meet with my family. I've been absolutely exhausted. So I can't wait to be relaxing in my swimsuit and flip-flops. And I'll get to wear my awesome new sunglasses. And when I get back from New Zealand, everything's going to be just great."

Here's the Powerpoint that I showed in class (the format got a little strange when I put it on the blog, but you get the picture):






I received two emails from former Chinese students this week. The emails were filled with lots of Chinglish - another entertaining form of English. One of my favorite phrases used in an email I got yesterday was one used in closing. It reads, "Wish you guys laugh like you slept with a hanger in your mouth!" My best guess at translating this is something like, "Hope your days are filled with lots of laughter and huge smiles (?)." Language is fun.

Recently things have been a little overwhelming in the world of housekeeping. This is probably due to three main things: there are not enough housekeepers, our hotel's worldwide QA (Quality Analyst) stayed for 3 days for a hotel-wide inspection, and we are exceptionally busy for this time of year (at least that's what everyone has been saying).

For me, this means that I work from 8 in the morning until about 7 at night which is very tiring but I am happy to have the extra hours as it means a bigger paycheck. However, the cumulative effect of working so much is beginning to take its toll on the cleaning staff. Each morning we are issued a master key and a clipboard containing all of our Arrivals (rooms to deep-clean before people arrive that day), Check-outs (rooms to clean after people leave) and Services (rooms to clean/tidy up while guests are still there). Lately, the list of rooms to clean has been growing longer and longer.

The maximum number of rooms that each housekeepr is supposed to get per day is 14 where each deep-clean is supposed to take 45 minutes and a service should take you 15 minutes. Depending on the combination of services/arrivals/checkouts that you receive, sometimes this math works out to an 8 hour day and sometimes it doesn't. Considering we are maintaining about 300 rooms, that is a LOT of cleaning and a need for a large number of housekeepers.

The increased amount of work for the housekeepers has caused quite a few negative effects such as: people calling in sick, injuries, quitting, quick/sloppy work and rooms not getting done on time. To combat this, our supervisors have tried to improve things and keep us happy in a number of ways. First, instead of working five days in a row, we have started working four days on, two days off. They have also started hiring many workers from temporary agencies to help out with the work (which is appreciated, but means that a lot of training has to be done). Today, to show their appreciation for our efforts, they bought us ice cream.

The past few days I have been given a helper from a temp. agency. I love having a helper not only for the company but also because I can make them do the things that I don't want to do which are, namely, making the bed (it is killer on your back), dusting (dusting is lame but it has to be done) and vacuuming (I hate vacuuming - esp. the rooms with stairs). I concentrate on the bathroom and with the two of us working together we can knock out a room in no time.

During this morning's briefing, we were warned about Thursday and Friday of this week and cautioned to get plenty of rest, eat healthy food and mentally prepare as those days were going to be particularly hard since the hotel will reach about 80% occupancy. Luckily, those just happen to be my two days off. Win.

I spent my day off this week doing a 7 hour horse trek in Glenorchy, a small town (pop. 250) about an hour outside of Queenstown. I had been saving up for this excursion using money from teaching classes so when Sean saw it listed for half price on an online coupon site, I was all in.


Spending all day riding around the scenic mountains and rivers of the South Island New Zealand back country was pure bliss. I rode with a German girl who was very experienced at horseback riding and a girl from Hong Kong who had signed up for the all-day ride and had never been on a horse before. A bold move. Because of this, we had two guides; one guide (Casey) stuck with the newbie and the other guide (Annabelle) rode with us and let us do all the running that we wanted to.


We arrived at High Country Horses at 9 in the morning after being picked up in Queenstown at 8. They talked to each of us about our experience and then assigned us one of their 45 horses. I was assigned a giant beast of a horse called "Tank" (hmm, maybe I haven't lost as much weight as I thought if they took one look at me and gave me a horse named Tank). Tank is a "Stationbred" which is a New Zealand way of saying that he is a workhorse mutt probably consisting of a lot of different kinds of draft horses. Tank was only just broken in last summer and he was still a little bit rusty on commands. He was also tremendously strong and it was all I could do at times to control him.


We ended up cantering and galloping a lot which was fun but also tiring since I hadn't used the muscles for riding in a looong time. Also, Tank's mane was shaved which made it a little difficult to stay on as there was nothing to grab onto. For instance, when we were tearing through a patch of trees, we spooked a cow which jumped out into the trail in front of us. Tank just about jumped out of his hooves and I almost flew off but managed to stay on by wrapping my arms around his neck like a monkey. It took awhile for the heart rate to come down after that one.


We rode until lunch time and then stopped for a picnic that was packed by the stables. We listened to our main guide, Casey, talk about life on the farm. She was about my age and was the daughter of the woman who had started the business in 2000. Before that, they had lived in near Christchurch and had a guiding business taking tourists out to swim with dolphins. Tough gig, right? First growing up swimming with dolphins and now riding horses every day in one of the most beautiful places on earth.


Casey talked a lot about the natural history of the area and pointed out a lot of plants, trees and birds that we saw along the way. She also showed us some of the places where they filmed some of the Narnia series, the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit and Wolverine. Some of the horses on their ranch were used in the making of the Lord of the Rings (Casey said they all had their own stylists and everything!)


We were blessed with perfect weather, good company and a pretty amazing backdrop for a great day of riding. When we got back to the farm, we got to meet the rest of the farm animals including a number of sheep, cows, pigs, ducks, geese, cats and dogs. I had such a good time that I can't wait to go back and do it again soon. Too bad that tomorrow I am going to be unbelievably sore. I love horses!