Hello,

We hope that you are all keeping well and enjoying the lovely weather we hear you have been having. It is the opposite here, getting colder and colder, with lots more snow on the mountains. We are both really enjoying Queenstown and can't wait for the ski season to start as there is a big festival and it gets really busy and hopefully we can get a few days of skiing in!

Sorry we have not blogged for a while, we thought we would let you know how we are and how the jobs are going!

Stephanie as you know is currently working at Max the clothing store; she is doing very well there, especially as they are letting her do the visual merchandising and windows for the store. She is working very hard as usual; her managers love her and don't want her to leave! She is also working at a restaurant called Britannia where she has the best boss called Brian. Although Stephanie has two jobs and works over 50 hours a week (it makes my 40 look pathetic!) there are some great perks to her jobs! At the restaurnats as well as tips, lifts home, doggy bags she also gets, wait for it......FREE FOOD, beefore she starts her shift!

The food at Britannia is amazing, Brian gives us a good discount when we go there so we have been a couple of times! Stephanie loves working at the restaurant as she gets on really well with the staff and they all have a laugh. Brian always plays jokes on her and has her believing anything! Brian really upped his game the other week when Stephanie couldn’t work in the restaurant one night as she was closing at Max on her own. She was already nervous as it was her first time to close. She was already to cash up after closing the doors at 7, when she recieved a phone call. Its an Irish man on the other end asking what time she closes, she very politely tells him that the store has closed, but opens at 9 the following day. The man carried on talking for ages and ages, Stephanie tried to get the man off the phone at different points but had no luck. This man then asked wether Max sells clothes for men as he thinks his wife is too big for women’s trousers and that she will need men’s! Stephanie tried not to laugh and explained nicely that if his wife came into the store, the girls could help her out and find a suitable pair of trousers. The man continued talking, Stephanie really wanted to just get on with cashing up and go home! She then quickly said bye and put the phone down before he has a chance to speak. She was just about to start counting when the phone rings again, she picks it up and its the Irish man saying he thinks there was something wrong with the line and that they got cut off. She then hears laughing in the background and starts to have her suspections on a prank caller, she is trying to think who it could be and then suspects its Brian. After 45 minutes of cahsing up and counting the till 4 times as it wouldn't add up, Stephanie finally leaves the shop and crosses the road opposite to the restaurant. Brian says hi to Stephanie with a straight face, after she tells him about the phone calls and asks if it was him, he said he doesn’t have a clue what she is talking about! She then goes in to the kitchen, where they are all laughing, apparently its was Brian. The funnist thing of it all was that he was meant to have put on his American accent not his Irish one!! Stephanie tells me all his funny stories and says he is great to work with. He is so lovely and once even let Stephanie borrow his car one afternoon when we had done our shopping and was about to walk home.

While also being a fabulous waitress at the restaurant, Stephanie also has to stand outside and try and get customers in. As its winter here she has to wear a hideous huge black puffer jacket, which looks awful but is very necessary! One cold night Stephanie was doing her duties of saying hello to every person passing. When two boys came up to her, getting their driving licences out from their wallets, handing it over to Stephanie. When she starts laughing and has to tell them she is not the bouncer and the club under the restaurant is not even open yet! They quickly put their wallets back looking very embarrassed! Needless to say Brian and the other staff all had a good laugh!

As you all know im working at Koha the souvenir shop (Koha means special gift in Maori language). My shop is well known in Queenstown as we have a huge Kiwi bird outside - its taller then me! Recently I have been wandering whether if going from selling school uniform to souvenirs is a step up or down, (your comments and feedback welcome!) Everything is going well in the shop, I now know how to open and close the shop on my own. They seem to trust me although I am not sure why as im known for giving the stock away. When I don’t know the price I make it up, my estimate is usually a lot lower then the actual price! The shop is quite small with just one manager and 4 shop assistants including me. I don’t really like my manager as most of the time he hasn't got a clue what he is doing. He doesn’t even like talking to us when he has something to say he writes it in the diary - that is how we communicate! Although my opinion changed of him the other day when he gave me a promotion I am officially the 'Kiwi Stylist' (my colleagues were very jealous its a very sort after job!) I get to dress the Kiwi up in different outfits relating to themes in Queenstown. The other week we were on flood warning (more on that later) so I dressed him up in swimming goggles and armbands - which I think was very creative of me! When it got sunny I put a sun hat and a pair of heart over sized sunglasses on him, my manager thought he looked like Elton John and was then questioning his decision in making me the Kiwi stylist! Working in the shop is very boring so this has turned out to be the highlight of my working week! The big kiwi is on wheels to make it easier to move in and out of the shop, some people (mainly drunk) are not content with just having a picture with the Kiwi Bird they like to steal it. Although this has never happened on my watch, it has to my friends a couple of times, when she found it in the next street. Drunk people think its funny to steal the big bird, but after a while it becomes a nuisance as its huge! The Kiwi often gets stolen when one friend in particular is on duty, so my manager advised her to say to these people and I quote "step away from the kiwi" if that doesn’t work I can't imagine why it wouldn’t, however if it doesn’t then we have to say " if you touch the kiwi again im calling the police"! I think my manager has been watching too many out of date crime shows! Needless to say we all got a good laugh out of this one! When the manager isn’t working we like to have tea parties we have a cup of tea on the shop floor (" it is strictly water only on the shop floor") and biscuits! Sometimes it gets really exciting when one of us brings in cake and we have hot chocolate! One Manager free day at work, during the usual tea party a letter arrives telling us that the building which our shop is in will be having a fire drill that day. We are to take it seriously and to follow the appropriate steps to see whether we pass! There was only two of us working that day, luckily she knew what we had to do, as I have never been told! One of us was to escort the customers out while the other has to put on a huge florescent yellow vest marked FIRE WARDEN luckily she drew the short straw and that was her job! All day we were both a bag of nerves waiting for the alarm to go off, after a couple of hours and still no alarm we decided it would be ok for each other to be left alone while the other went on their breaks. I could have predicted what happened next, my friend left the shop to go on her break and while I was busy folding the t-shirts like I do everyday, the alarm went off! I was all in a fluster and started to panic, I put on the vest and started to shout 'fire' the customers looked shocked. I then had to "calmly but quickly" as the letter instructed to escort them out of the shop. Once I had closed the doors and reported to the chief fire warden I stood on the opposite side of the road, (please don’t forget im still wearing the humiliating bright yellow vest) It was then at that point some dippy girl was trying to get in to the shop she clearly didn’t take any notice of groups of people on the other side of the road and the very loud alarm going off! I then had to run over and stop her, people were staring at me, I was so embarrassed. Then the old lady who works next door took great delight in telling me that fire wardens had to stand outside the shop and I was doing my job wrong! - She clearly takes her fire warden duties very seriously, apparently these drills are done like twice a year and that’s her main job role, when the fire drills go off its her time to shine!

My manager is also very big on sales targets, if we go above our personal sales target we get a black dot next to our name, if we are below we get a red dot. The truth of the matter is that most of us do not care what colour the dot next to our name is, we are all there to earn money to keep travelling. My manger can’t seem to understand why we are not as passionate about souvenirs as he is! However I am grateful to have a job and I have met some lovely people.

After working hard each day Stephanie and I look forward to our usual night out, its called Tight Ass Tuesday at a pub called the boiler room! Drinks are $5.00, which is very cheap for Queenstown. The night starts off with a few civilised drinks listening to the live music and then it ends with jagerbombs and us dancing on the bar. Many nights have started and ended like this!

Our friends have been to Australia for a month so when they came back we decided to have a night out. We were crazy dancing in a club when some guy was busting out the moves thinking he was it, let me tell you I showed him! While I was wacking out my moves doing the usual routinehe came up to meand said "Iv seen those moves before, are you the one who won the dance competition at the Neighbours Night?" My first thought was oh dear Iv got to get some new moves! My second was that im now famous!

The other week Queenstown had 7 days rain straight which meant the lake in town kept rising and we were on flood alert. The last time it flooded was ten years ago, after that many of the businesses were unable to get insurance. This meant many places closed while they took the stock out of the shops and built up sandbag walls around the buildings. Everyone pulled together helping to fill the bags with sand, it was really lovely to see! The only shame was that my shop is at the top end of the road, which has a slight incline so there was no chance of my shop closing. If my shop did have to close it would have devastated the managers, as we never shut not even for holiday’s 9.30am - 11pm EVERYDAY!!

We have been having a great time here and are really excited as we have tickets to watch the rugby match the All Blacks V Wales. Its in Dunedin which is a few hours away so there is a big group of us getting a mini bus there! We are going to stay the night and then come back the next day. We cant wait as we are going to see the Haka live!!

We are also very excited as for those of you who dont know our little sister Danielle is coming out to visit us in NZ. She will be staying with us in Queenstown for the week and then we will set off travelling in a campervan round the south island and then up to the north island!! I feel a lot of blog material could be created!!

We will not leave the blog so long next time!

Love to you all, keep safe, say no - talk to frank and use sun cream!

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