Well, I've now lived in National Park, New Zealand, for 12 days.  I've been working for 7 days.  It's fantastic being back in a kitchen and cooking again.  Granted, we don't do that much cooking - it's more like throwing stuff in the microwave and then throwing it in the deep fryer or the grill.  But we do cook a lunch for the workers building the new cafe at the top of the mountain.  We cook up a big serving of something (stew, lasagna, etc) and give it to them with some bread.

I'm number 3 in the kitchen behind the Head and Sous chef.  Primarily because I speak English!  The other two people in the kitchen are from Chile.  But so far I've had a great time working and unfortunately it's still kind of slow and I'm still working on learning the menu and how to make everything on it so I don't have much to report other than that.

The weather has continued to be kind of shitty so most of my time is spent either in my room or the lounge.  I have been enjoying the World Cup and hope to see the US beat Algeria and I've been REALLY enjoying teasing all the English folks here whenever they try to make a crack at me or any other American I can just say "Draw!" and they all just slink down without another word.

And because I don't have too much to report I'll just share some pictures of where I'm living and working!

Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom) in the morning.

The lovely location where I live.

The lovely location where I work, Mt Ruapehu.

A view of the resort from the parking lot.

Looking back down the mountain from the parking lot.

Another shot up the mountain when the road crew just brought up a food truck.

The icicles at the kitchen windows.  The wind does one hell of a job on them.

The main lodge, rentals on the left, cafe on the right.

Another cafe down on the right looking out to the horizon from the mountain.

Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Ruapehu at dusk.

Another cool shot of Ruapehu at dusk.

More updates later!  Once I get another sunny day when I don't work I'll take pictures of where I actually live and some more of the goings on down in New Zealand!