Well.... Well.... Wellington - a capital mess I'm guessing that when you've read the heading of this one you will have a vibe of what I felt about my stay here. Knowing that work would have to be done at some point during the year we figured what better place to get it than in the capital, especially around December time when people are looking for staff to do whatever, whenever and for not that great a wage. We arrived with work on the forefront of our minds. But let's start from the beginning. We arrived in Wellington at the end of November and stayed at one of the hostels, geeze it was a bit of a shock. The first night they had screwed up the booking so had to spend it in a dorm. It's not a huge crime, but after a bus journey it's nice to flop into bed and not have to worry about noisy room mates. Also the owner was a bit funny when we asked about long term accommodation (there was no way I could handle a couple of months in this hostel), he got moody like we were going to spending the entire stay in his busy, smelly hostel. Oh well, not a problem, that next day we hit the streets in search of a flat and boy did we walk some kms that day. The hardest part was hunting down people who actually let flats, it seemed all central renting places rented places out of the city, erm.... Logic?? Anyway, so we happened across a small place, "nightingale property" which had a tiny office, but owned by a guy with a big heart. He took us to a block of flats we had previously seen the outside of and dismissed, but not wanting to be rude went inside. As soon as we walked through the door we knew we had found a home for our stay. A couple of days later all the leases had been signed, all money transferred and we were the happy new tenants of 124 The Terrace. As it turned out we were two seconds away from Lambton Quay, one of the major shopping areas of Wellington, bonus! Now we could scour the shops for odd jobs and hit the agencies for work. These both turned out to be impossible tasks. Firstly it seemed all stores had filled their jobs two months prior to prepare for the Christmas rush (see NZ Xmas postcard for more info on this!) and I have never had so much trouble getting into an agency before. Ok, let me think this through a moment - agency = work, welcome all people through the door so that they may fill your office and earn you money, right? Wrong! No agencies listed their addresses and if you happened to find one and went in two things happened, firstly you mistook it as a penthouse apartment and second you were not allowed within 3 meters of the desk without an appointment, hello?! Job agency, where the hell are your jobs?? And so we smiled whilst trying to tug creases out of our clothes and agreed to make an appointment. Great, no... not one of the tens of agencies that we sent in CVs too wanted too even spit in our direction. I know I haven't done too much secretary wise, but I can type fast, am a quick learner and have bar experience, but nada, nothing. This lasted and lasted, even when people advertised in the paper saying they needed staff URGENTLY did you leave an answer phone message and then a couple of days later they rang back asking what on earth you rang for, you explain about the job ad and they vaguely remember the ad and then say "oh yeah, well, erm... well you fill in the 100 page application form, jump over the grand canyon and then we might look at what you can offer" excuse me?? Did you say urgent staff??? Damn, what a fight. Anyway, the flat was great and became a bit of a haven away from the madness that seemed to lie outside the front door. Tilly and I had bought a travel version of scrabble which was used to wile away the hours, waiting for the call that might prove to be a job. I guess that some of this came at an odd time anyway, Christmas in an entirely different hemisphere, time zone and climate proved to be a weird experience probably heightened by the s***ness of not having a job and therefore no real money to enjoy the city. Christmas to me isn't about the presents, it's about the time you spend with people so it didn't matter that I didn't have any Christmas presents. I think because I had so much time on my hands I had some real time to think about things with where I was at, what had happened over the last few years, what had happened for me to even be in NZ at that time anyway and where I was with my family. It turned out to a hard few weeks where I struggled with many emotions and feelings that I had managed to squeeze down and be too busy to deal with. This was the first time I'd really had time to think and it proved to be more difficult than expected, especially when my family didn't even want to really talk to me on Christmas day. Anyhow, I'm not gonna get bogged down in all that, as I found myself out the other end a much stronger, confident person. I know I've still got loads of things to sort out, but I've started an incredible journey and that's the most important thing I know. I'm sure Wellington is a great city; just don't ever go there in order to find work in December.