Learning a new town...again

The Downhill

After saying goodbye to my Auckland friends on Saturday night, I boarded the plane to Queenstown early Sunday morning. After checking in at the Qantas counter, they handed me my boarding pass and I glanced down at the seat assignment. Row 1, seat D. Hmmm…I’ve never sat in the front row before. That’s pretty cool. But isn’t the front of the plane usually reserved for first class passengers? I certainly hadn’t paid for a first class fare. Must be one of those planes where it’s just all coach. Shrug.

So you can imagine my surprise when, upon boarding the plane, I found out that the first four rows were indeed separate from the rest of the plane. Wide seats, lots of legroom, nicer pillows and blankets…I checked my ticket again and sure enough, I was assigned to the first row. Sweet! So I sat down and didn’t ask any questions. I took this as a good omen for my move to Queenstown. I had been a little sick so I slept for most of the flight. But after enjoying some nice service we touched down in the Queenstown airport. I didn’t wait long for my bags, and as soon as I walked outside a shuttle into town was getting ready to leave. Everything was flowing smoothly until I turned my phone back on.

I had made the decision to move quickly to Queenstown so that I could get an apartment that I wanted. The tenants had called me on Friday to gauge my interest and I told them that I would be back in town on Sunday to go over the final details of the rental with them. So you might imagine that I was less than enthralled to receive a text message from the tenant.

“Some1 else looked at the room and has decided 2move in straight away,sorry but we needed some1 asap.good luck finding a new home, ceire”

I guess it was too much to ask them to wait a few HOURS for me to arrive that afternoon. ugh.

So now I was homeless, sick, and it had started to rain. NOT the way I had wanted to start my stay in Queenstown. Fed up with living on a couch or in a hostel with 7 other people (which I think is where I got sick in the first place), I checked into a hotel for the night. Nothing fancy, just a room with a real bed where I could sleep without being woken 5 times during the night by people coming and going.

The Uphill

The next day I began my apartment search anew. This is a pretty big tourist town, so it’s fairly expensive to live here, and it was amazing what people were charging for some rooms. I saw one house…the whole thing probably fit on a 30’ x 30’ base. The house was in shambles, but I checked it out anyways. The owner brought me inside and said “here it is!” I was confused…one room, divided in two by a sheet. Kitchen on one side, living room with a decrepit couch on the other. Where’s the room? Over in the corner he pulled up a board, exposing a ladder that leads underground. Surprised and pretty much convinced I don’t want live there, I checked it out anyways. The room is smaller than my old single in alley 2, and COLD. I thank him for showing me the room and tell him we’ll be in touch.

But later that day I ran into Cairin, Andrea’s boyfriend. I met Andrea in Auckland about 6 weeks ago, and she’s been living in Queenstown for about a month now. I had met Cairin the week before and told him about my housing dilemma. “Well bro, if you need a place to stay for a couple weeks, my roommate is moving out tomorrow.” Bingo! But that wasn’t enough. He knew that I was looking for some bar work and took me over to a bar, introduced me to the manager, and got me a trial shift there. No problem.

The next day I brought my stuff over to Cairin’s place and continued to look for some full time work. Most of the fun, adventure, outdoors-type stuff around here requires experience, and those that don’t are super competitive. So that’s pretty much limited my options unless I want to go back to working in a kitchen (which wouldn’t be so bad I guess; there are ads for cooks all over town here). But there is one bright prospect.

Queenstown is one of the only places in the world where people do river surfing. I described it earlier, but the basic idea is to go down a river with whitewater rapids on a boogie board. It’s supposed to be absolutely crazy. But the cool thing is, since so few places in the world do it, the companies here assume that you have no experience. So I found a company that’s willing to train me to be a guide, but it takes at least 6 weeks, during which I won’t get paid. But it sounds like a super fun job, so I’m gonna go check it out within the next few days.

This apartment is real nice. The whole complex is only 6 months old, came fully furnished, and equipped with some awesome views. And since I’m sharing a room with Cairin, the rent is less than it would have been at the house with the underground room. It’s about 10 minutes from town – not the most fun walk to have when it’s raining. But worth it for this:



Sweet as.