Well Folks, I've just crossed the 2 month mark of my travels. Ironically, I can hardly call it travels at the moment. Apart from the first week, I've lived in the same room for the last 7 weeks. It's a very expensive room but totally worth it as I have my own space, my own fridge, my own double bed, AND - my own bathroom.
Most of my time is spent at work, on the mountain. The mountain has an enormous amount of potential for incredible terrain and epic skiing. However, riding the lift up and watching the waterfalls on the mountain, as beautiful as it is, is a sad reminder of how shitty the weather is for snow on the central plateau of New Zealand. Today was my day off. If there was good weather I would have gone up to the mountain. However, it rained. It rained where I live and it rained on the mountain. Yea, where all the snow is. Where all the skiing takes place, it rained. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain. On the mountain. Where all the skiing is supposed to take place. Tomorrow is my day off too. On both of my days off this week I will not be able to board. Ugh.
But it has been fun living and working here. Many of my coworkers are awesome and everyone else I've met, save a few, have been either awesome or decently cool :) Below are two pictures taken from the Dodgeball tournament. The Lorenz Bar and Cafe Kitchen Crew (where I work) became the Lucky Bugger Club for a night and donned our Chef uniforms for a night of Dodging, Ducking, Dipping, Diving, and Dodging. From left to right is Sergio, Matias, Joyce(bottom), Matt(top), and Max.
We had an alright night. Out of about 30 teams we made it to the quarter finals. We won 3 and lost in the Quarters. There are usually things to do. But when there aren't we enjoy the quiet days as well. Too many and we get stir crazy though.
I think my favorite part about living here so far is the stories of past adventures and future endeavors of those I work with and I know. I've met Kiwis, Americans, Aussies, Czechs, Germans, Chileans, Argentinians, Canadians, Brazilians, and French. And probably more that I can't remember or have no idea what their nationality is. In the kitchen I work with 2 Kiwis, 2 Chileans, a Dutch, an Aussie, 2 Argentinians and occasionally a German, an Englishman, or an Estonian.
One of the German guys, I have worked with 2, plans to go home after the season. However, he doesn't have enough money to catch a plane ride and knows he won't make enough money to buy one by the end of the season. He plans to catch a boat home. He doesn't know how but he does know that it might be his only way home. He and the other german guy have been traveling around the world for the last few months. Last season he worked in Austria at a ski resort where he told me after each shift the employees got a shift beer. Except it wasn't just a shift beer, it was however many shift beers you wanted after your shift.
The Dutch girl, Joyce, is competing in a sky diving competition next week. She's been traveling for months already. She's been diving with sharks. Granted, she cheated as she was in a cage but still awesome.
My head chef, Matt, a Kiwi, is going to Queensland, Australia after the season ends to open up a cafe or restaurant that he and his sister are going to finance together.
My sous chef, Max, another Kiwi, is going to work in British Columbia with his girlfriend to work at another ski resort and he hopes to work in Fine Dining. He's worked in almost every other genre of food service and is ready to tackle fine dining. He's an awesome guy and a good chef as well.
Sergio, the Argentinian, has been working in New Zealand for a few months before the ski season started and has told me about an awesome place he worked before hand where he cooked and said the bar he worked at was the best place to party in that town. Gives me good hopes to travel around New Zealand myself.
Two Aussies from where I live, Shannon and Ashley, have been traveling around New Zealand for months before they arrived in National Park to work at Ruapehu. They've seen incredible sights around New Zealand and I hope my travels have some similar aspects to their journeys.
So many more descriptions of travels and ideas for the future make me wonder why I haven't done this earlier. It's not like life is any different here in certain respects but in many others it is vastly different. It's the same everywhere you go really. You start living somewhere new, you meet new friends, you fall into new habits or create new ones with the same effects, you eat the same way if you can, you sleep the same way and you do the same things you enjoy.
But when you live in a place so vastly different it makes you think more about what you've done and what you want to do. I've realized that I love snowboarding, but I love playing ultimate more. I've realized that working in a kitchen isn't such a bad thing but I don't want to make a career out of it. I've realized that traveling alone is as hard as I thought it might be but didn't realize that friends would come easier than I thought.
I look forward to the rest of the season, I look forward to better weather. I still want to hike to the crater atop the active volcano and have a picture of me snowboarding next to the volcanic lake. I want to hike one of the volcanoes that helped depict Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings because, well, because that is just an awesome bragging right to say you snowboarding down Mt Doom. I look forward to whatever happens next to me in New Zealand. Whether that is working at a golf course in a town dominated by incredible views and extreme sports or living and working in they city, I imagine I'll have a good time. But I will be thinking about what to do next. As should you.
Think about what you are doing now. Is it fun or exciting? Is it what you want? What do you want to do? Don't know? Even better! Get out and do something crazy! Go travel around in another country for a few weeks or days even. Get a visa and go work there for a few months. It might open up your eyes. It might give you a break from the normal and mundane. It might make you change your life. It might be nothing more than a vacation. But who complains about vacations? Get out there, do something fun.
Kevin
