Wellington - living our dream!

A flat, a place for christmas, a job, a good car, friends around you...that is our dream!

 

Staying at Jasons fancy house (Couchsurfing) with other Couchsurfers - amazing cooks! - we got a perfect welcome in the capital. The next morning Mira received a text from Jason that we can stay as long as we want and could also keep his house for the five weeks he's off for work (offshore park). That means we have a place until the end of January! Wuhuu what a good day! It means: no accommodation to pay, no annoying snorers in your room, free internet, saving all the money we earn and this amazing view!  I have a certain place to stay until leaving to Bali! Our dream came true! :)


 
Things were good again and I enjoyed beeing with the Girls. Didn't regret to stay with them - yeah, they're my lovely ladies! :)

Highly motivated I handed out 25 CV's in the city and applied for hospitality-jobs. After two days I already got an interview and two trials. Good occation to go and check out Wellington's Nightlife. Should be the best in the whole Country.
Short excursion: While we've been in Rotorua I was scared that things do not work out in Wellington and that I don't get a job. So I alredy applied online for something, received a text with an invitation for an interview and told my ladies. They stared at me as if I'm an alien and asked: 'Did you apply for the airport job? It is for 6 months.' I said 'No, there were two offers, one for 6 months and anotherone. I applied at the other one. It's called Mermaid Bar. Why are you looking so weird at me?' 'MARINA! No! You applied at a Strip Club! Didn't you read the text?' 'Yes I did, it was something with >you wanna make extra tip<'. So I applied in a strip club! :/ that is so embarrassing! They started laughing so bad and as you know, if something like this happens to your friend you tell the story to others and so my lovely friends did. I got teased every day :(

Back to the nightlife story: Jason led us through the street with all the clubs and said he want's to show me something...guess what: He showed me the Mermaid Bar and told me he can introduce me to it's manager (seriously Jason, are you a customer there?!? ;D), I took a very nice picture at the entrance but refused to enter.
 
 

After my two trials which went pretty well I had to wait: Melissa got the job in the Café and the others didn't reply. So we passed our days hanging 'round in sweat pants, drinking coffee or tea, baking christmas coockies, eating, watching movies and waiting for a call. Basically that was it. Sounds extremely boring but honestly, we enjoyed it so bad!



Unfortunately it is already 3 weeks before I leave to Bali (20.12.) and I still didn't get any reply. I would have lied to my bosses telling them after 2 weeks that I got my chrismas present from my mom and it is a flight to Bali over chrismas so I'm leaving in a week. I thought it isn't worth it to wait for another trial and have to wait for the final decision again, then there's the contract I had to sign and the cancellation period...
Additionally Jason sent Mira a text that things have changed and we have to move out, next tuesday - his family comes over for christmas and keeps the house.

Oh kay...that sucks! So only three more nights. Means: hardcore searching for couchsurfing places, sending CV's, etc. we just didn't want to pay for hostels.

In the end i decided to leave Wellington completely. I found a place in Waverley - a really really remote place in nowhere! I would have to help this guy cleaning up his old villa so that he can sell it. 4hrs work a day, no salary but accommodation and food for free. Actually I don't want that and prefer a paid job but not paying anything is still better than spending all for hostels. I took it and told my ladies about my plan: Ey, I leave you next monday. Mira is also thinking 'bout leaving Wellington and go for her own travels, Catherine wants to go to the South Island as soon as she got something there. But nothing of that was sure. Melissa felt so bad beeing the last one of our independent woman group who is left....

It seems that our plan and christmas toghether have failed -.-

While texting to our two friends Dario and Fabi who arrived at the bay of plenty and already got a job I decided to come up to Tauranga and forget about Wellington's jobs. Just go and adventure.
Plans don't work out here, I got it!
We are not mad about Jason kicking us out, the point is that we have to find something else in closer time. The girls cancelled all their house sitting offers because we already had Jasons house for sure. They also told our friends to come and celebrate chrismas with them. Cancelled...


For me the time travelling with the ladies is coming to an end. It's been 3 months and somehow is so sad. This time will be captured in my memories...experiences and all the amazing good stuff we've made! Thank you Girls I'm sure I will cry some tears when I get into the bus saying goodbye.
I have and want to do my own thing even if it's not easy leaving my 'home' (the girls) which has meant security for me. I'm gonna miss baking bread, Parsley, you laughing, the Independant Women Trip CD's with our songs...Little Numbers, Thriftshop, Dingue Dingue Dingue ,and a lot more. To summarize the time I can only say "and this was fucking awesome" ;)
<3


The Hunger Games - Catching Fire with Catherine, Mira, Sabrina and Melissa on November 26th :)

Auckland to Wellington

 
Travelling in our new car with our new member Mira is gonna be an adventure :)

We are ready to go down to Wellington, find a flat and a Job. But first of all we stopped in Rotorua - the stinky town. There are mud pools and geysirs that make Rotorua smelling like a mixture of rotton eggs, smelly feet and poo. Yummey...enjoy your meal^^ But well, to be honest it was not that bad. Rotorua's abundant geothermal activity (hot springs, mud pools...) results in large amounts of sulphur compounds and hydrogen sulphide released in the atmosphere which is responsible for the acrimonious smell.




 

Melissa, Mira and I found a cheap offer for rafting and one morning...we did it! :) It is so amazing and paddling down the waterfalls was great fun, we went down the largest oneyou can get for rafting: 7meters high (at least, that is what they told us).
We didn't see any geysirs and didn't take a bath in the hot springs/ mud pools what Rotorua is famous for, was just not affordable in the moment. We've all spent our money for travelling since we arrived. So it was time to earn some money.

After Rotorua was Taupo, the great lake of Taupo in the middle of the North Island. It's a great place and I would definitely come back. There's so much to do, especially a Tongariro Alpine Crossing and all kind of action sports. We saw the volcanic valley with the steaming rocks, a bad smelling mud pool and the largest hot spring with 80°C. So no swimming :(


 


The Huka Falls are super amazing! I love waterfalls and I'm pretty sure, these are my favourite:


 

Taupo - yeah pretty embarassing but this was where we sat at Mc Donald's for hours to get free Wifi with a real bad connection.
We just wished we get free Wifi at the Couchsurfing place in Napier, our next destination. That was actually quite funny: while walking in at the lake Rotorua we stopped to enjoy the few and two People started talking to us. After we explained them what Couchsurfing is about, the guy invited us to come and stay at his place :) Perfect!

So Napier and Hastings - the Artdeco Cities. Well we were all a bit dissappointed of the Artdeco City 'cause there was not a lot of impressive art to see. So we enjoyed sitting at the Hawkes Bay, eating ice cream on a strawberry field and driving up the Te Mata Peak in Hastings for a 360° view.



Somehow I didn't feel that good travelling with the ladies anymore and was a bit annoyed of them. They are always there for me when I don't feel good and I appreciate that. I'm never alone but that's it...you're never alone and sitting on each other doesn't improve it. Everyone had her own problem, I was worried of finding a Job and a flat. Furthermore I was thinking of leaving them already before flying to Bali (where I meet Kevin and my Family for a couple of weeks :) ) and so I was scared of being alone, still stuck with the shared car... We didn't find a flat and it seems not to work out so it was bothering me even more :( Catherine and Melissa were sticking together 'cause they were the last two people from our group, who stay the longest in Wellington and had to find a certain home. But anyway I said to myself to give it a try in Wellington, I am free and not forced to stay with them.It could also just be just a feeling because everyone is bothered by their own issues and a little grumpy.

So after almost a week of travelling we said: Wellingtoooooon!
We made a stop at the place with the longest place name in the world that had even not it's name on the signs:
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu

 
 

 

Auckland Citylife

Back to the City! Auckland for a Saturday night! Wuhuu :)

Our to do list for Auckland:

- Go out on a Saturday night
- Sell Marina's Car
- Buy a new car
- Pick Mira up
- LEAVE!

We made it all! So after cleaning my car and setting the add everywhere we stayed at a carmarket for a few hours. That was weird! It was full of car dealers and it were only  30 cars. So in the end it was not really worth it to go there. Except of meeting a german girl searching for a car. She was actually not interested in my car but we told her what to care about when buying one and offered her to try driving on the left side, etc.
So after this senseless car market we prepared ourselfes to go out and sat in Bamber with our friends :)
Going out at 10.30 and starting in a gay karoke bar followed by a really good club in ford street
 and ending up in Code for a bit. At around 5.00 we said we need to go back and get at least an hour of sleep to be ready for the big carmarket on Sunday.



We started the day with a big breakfast and hurried to show the car to friends of that german Girl from yesterday who texted me she might be interested now. We hoped she's gonna take it but it didn't seem like that so we took her to the carmarket with us.
I bought my car for 1700$ and tried to sell it for 2500$ on Saturday. Some started laughing so I've set it down to 2.200$. I had to change tires and paid for carmarkets and adds in the Internet so in the end, I had to pay 200$ extra. I got a few interested people in my car who were quite fine with the price but needed a few days to think about it. Damn it, that doesn't work for me. We had to leave Auckland on the following Tuesday!! So in the end I sold it for 1900$ to the girl. WOW! SOLD IT!
So....that means finding a new car in an hour. Well 10 minutes before closing we made the deal for our new car - a Subaru Legacy from 1997, big trunk, perfect :)


Fu** that was actually a pretty exhausting day. In the evening Mira arrived - the german friend of Melissa who wants to travel with us - the reason to buy a bigger car! She is lovely and we thought straight from the beginning that she fitts perfectly in the group! (never regret to take her with us!)

So Monday, the day we fixed the deals. We transfered my lovely old Nissan Pulsar to the girl and she brought us to the place for our car. We paid for the car but had to change the cam belt (Zahnriemen). Therefore we had to wait 6hours. While waiting in the mall Catherine told us she's afraid that the car dissapeared because the cardealer and the mechanic were friends and probably they've made a deal to fool us. So we all started to be frightened to lose our money. It were 2200$. :/ 5hours later was the point we couldn't wait anymore...so we went back. Pff it was still there! Luckily :)



Tuesday: Bye Bye Auckland - again!


Spice Girls - Wannabe
Proclaimers - 500 Miles
Aerosmith - I don't wanna miss a thing

The Silence of Northland

Yeah! 2weeks vacation! :) Starting our trip from Raglan to Whangarei with a flat tire that we inflated at all the gasstations, we finally arrived in Bamber House for a stop-over.. On a Sunday afternoon with public holiday following we three clever^^ ladies started searching for a mechanic because Stefan told us we can not drive with that, is too dangerous. Yeees, but what to expect?! Nothing's open :/ Well then....Safety Tire!! While Stefan tried to remove the flat tire we put out the doghnut until he started laughing so bad: "It's a fucking joke! :D Ladies it's even more dangerous to drive with that! No you can't do that. :D Just go and inflate it on every petrolstation. Haha that is so bad"
Being pissed, grumpy and hungry we got ready to go up north, drove to inflate our 'lovely tire' and grabbed a pizza. Surprisingly Andrew - the hostelmanager - found a mechanic! It was an Indian guy sitting in his Garage waiting for something to happen... somehow strange BUT he was our hero! In the end it took us 9hrs to arrive at Kim's Couchsurfing place. A lovely girl with lovely friends! We enjoyed being there chatting with them, sleeping at Whale- and Sandy bay and coming home to EAT! :)

 
Paihia was our next destination: Bay of Islands. Lee should be our next host but nice was something else. He called us boring, we had to drive and pick him up from his pup at night, he woke us everytime, insulted us -especially me and I was afraid of him touching us. Days were nice 'cause we weren't there and enjoyed Bay of Islands. Well...I had enough after two nights and told my mates to escape earlier. So we did That was the first time I didn't have any place to stay for the night.Happy Halloween! Luckily we got a bed ad Lakshay's house, an Indian dentist from Kerikeri who turned out to be amazing. He was so gentle, sitting 'round with us talking, taking us to Mangouni to eat New Zealand's best Fish and Chips, organising a sailing trip for us and making a Bollywood night :D  No open wishes! :)


 
 
 

Two níghts later: bye Lakshay, hello Kaitaia and Cape Reinga, the northerest Part of NZ. Ahh I have to add: We were so dissappointed about these towns up there! All the stores and Cafés shut down at 4:30 pm! WTF!
8:30 pm in the Hostel in Kaitaia, we are hungry; driving to the supermarket. CLOSED! :/ Good so let's drive to the petrolstation and get the most expensive toast ever.. Yeii. The Police followed me suddenly :O AAAAAH "What should I do!? Do they follow ME? What NO, I've never been stopped by a Police! Fuck where's my WOF (=TÜV) Ah, Oh no, they mean me, what is wrong? I am not too fast!?!"... So this young, hot officer knocked on my window telling my that my backlights are not working. (What else can be wrong with this shitty old car?!?) We had luck and didn't get anything apart from the feeling to be sooo dumb!
Next day in Cape Reinga was a huge friends-meeting and we felt so good to see them all again. We had to leave them the same day which made us pretty sad...



 

Well next: Kohukohu Wwoofing. Alec the owner was a nice old man who showed us how to Smash macadamia, gave us good fruit to try and shared his knowledge about birds and history. Sound's pretty nice, yeah. If there weren't These awful campervans we had to sleep in, the outside toilet, the Spiders we are afraid of and this old dirty house coverd in spiderwebs and fungy which reminded of an old shed. Ssscary!  There was nothing in Kohukohu, no signal, to wifi-connection no town no nothing. We left earlier as well but eyy: we stayed at least 3 nights.




Escape to Kim in Whangarei, meet Fabi and Dario and enjoy beeing back to civilisation! After two weeks we said that Northland is awesome and beautiful but one way or another it's just too lonely. Closing all at 4:30 and having no people around you is not our thing... at least we had each other and an experience that showed us what we like and what not.
 



                                                    3 tourists in Kawakawa - the Hundertwasser Village
 

Hobbiton Movieset, wahuii :)

Starting with the Hobbit Movienight on Friday we wanted to get into the Hobbit - Mood. Somehow we all made it so fall asleep while watching it. So I have never seen the whole Hobbit. (quite sad..)


26/10/2013:  finish work get a one-minute-shower, grab a few carrotts and the roadtrip starts. Dario, Fabi, Catherine, Melissa and I sat in the scary old boy's campervan listening to thrift shop and were very excited to see the set! It was an amazingly beautiful day AND it was.the last workday on the farm. It was perfect and our mood was on the top!

Matamata – Shires Rest Café – Welcome to Hobbiton! :)




We got a guided tour through the Shire, made some nice pictures, saw the fake tree above Bilbo's house (Wow, they made such a big thing out of a tree - only a tree - and in the end it cost them a few million dollar! Crazy people), having a funny party at the partyfield and finally got a pint in the 'green dragon' where we dressed up and Fabi looked like a real hobbit. :D