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News just in from Wellington:
CREDIT CRUNCH HITS HARD
Laura and Brian are feeling the pinch as pennies are counted and sofas searched
JOB SHOCKER
Brian aka 'Brian the Unemployable' has found a job so Laura will no longer have to earn the corn.
And in Sports:
GAA DEFEAT
Laura's team have lost their first game in the inaugural GAA 7's championship while Brian's get off to a flyer!
As you can tell it has been all go here in Wellington. We arrived over 2 weeks ago (the 6th November to be precise) and were kindly greeted at the ferry terminal by Laura's mammys cousin. We were told in no uncertain terms that until we got settled i.e got jobs and an apartment, we would have to stay with them!!! Unfortunately this meant we would be fed watered and generally pampered....how terrible So that is how we spent the first weekend here. We made a few brief trips into town and after making contact with a Cork fella, we made it to Gaelic training (more about that later). As I said, we did as little as possible and probably put on about 5kg due to Margaret's brilliant cooking. We had a feast (well what seemed to us like a feast) every night. After pasta and sauce every night, roast dinners and curries were a treat to say the least. Margaret makes mean creamed potatoes...even the thought of them is making me drool....mmmmm.....creamed potatoes....
Anyway, after a weekend of doing nothing (we were tired after so much travelling...it is tough I tell thee) we decided that Monday would be the start...the day we would get up early and go job and apartment hunting. Unfortunately we didn't get up until 12ish but we still made our way to town and distributed a few CV's around various shops, bars and restaurants....
Continued.....
We had initially planned to do a bit of junior/nursery teaching with a crowd called Select Education but after a bit of thought we decided to plump for ordinary jobs which required no thought after 6pm!! After a few days of distributing CV's and looking on Internet sites for apartments, Laura got a phone call from a restaurant called the White House. She duly got interviewed and got the job...easy peasy!!! We later found out that the White House is the most expensive and exclusive restaurant in Wellington...yikes!! Ha ha. Meanwhile my efforts to get a job were in vain. I tried pubs, bookshops, clothes shops..you name it, I gave them my CV. It's hard being this bloody overqualified!! Anyway, towards the end of one of the Cv distribution days, I saw a sports store and just walked in and enquired about a job. Luckily a Geordie lad called Ian was working and informed me that they were just finished recruiting. It must have been the sad face (or perhaps the trickle of a tear) that made him phone the boss and ask him would he consider one more person..."an Irish lad". Luckily for me the boss had been to Ireland and loved the place so he called me up and after an interview (which consisted of talking about hurling and Gaelic) he told me he would get back to me in a few days. A week and several nervous phone calls later I managed to bag a Christmas job in Rebel Sports, the biggest sports chain in New Zealand.
As for the GAA scene, after arriving on the Thursday, we made our way to GAA training on Sunday afternoon. I had made contact with a Cork fella so he told us where to go. It consisted of a few drills and a wee game. Just what the doctor ordered after 9 weeks of travelling and little exercise. It was good craic and the Irish crew were brilliant....typically welcoming. We were informed that the bif tournaments were already finished (the Australasian Games and the NZ championship against Auckland) but that a 7's tournament would be starting up involving a lot of Kiwis and other nationalities to help promote the game over here. We also managed to wangle an invite to a few house parties the following weekend!!
- comments
Matt Hey sounds like u enjoyed. Me and g.f are going soon. Did it take u long to get a job, and are u still there now (have noticedit was 5 years ago but stumbled across this lol.