One evening Sabine and I went and saw Sirocco Kakapo at the ecosanctuary. They finally have him there! This was a birthday present from Dad, as the ticket prices were kinda expensive at $50 each. He's a big birdie parrot, about the size of a large cat, or two footballs.
On Wednesday 19th we visited Glenfalloch’s Night Garden. It was really magical with good weather. It was like walking around an Animal Crossing garden at night. The weather was perfect, the lights were spectacular and the artwork was incredibly unique. Even the creepy stuff had a place with its creepiness.
21 Fri-
Work 1st anniversary.
I had a meeting with my managers this morning. They told me that they will be ending my contract early. They don't think I'm good enough for LIMs training so they are bringing in a new temp to replace me. This new temp will be working for 6 weeks. 6 weeks. Matt, the guy whose job I'm filling in for, is coming back in 6 weeks. The kick in the teeth is that they want ME to train this new temp. They will ditch me once they feel the temp has been trained. This is utter utter bullshit. Evil. They said its nothing personal, but I don't believe them. After the meeting, they let me have a few hours walking around town and clearing my head. I phoned Sabine who calmed me down and also found out today that her manger and lab will close because he's decided to work in the UK. So Sabines job is absolutely ending in August. She's applying for jobs all over the world again. I went to Select but Liz was busy, but she phoned me as I was walking to Campus Temps. Liz calmed me down, but I still don't have any job prospects from her. Finding Campus Temps took me on a journey. I was going round and round from building to building. I even ended up in the main uni library which looked amazing. Sigh. If only jobs would turn up here. I found campus temps, though they only moved there last week, with no signage. No wonder I was bloody confused. They said to just email through my request. I ended up eating at Re:Burger, drowning my sorrows on loaded chips. Back at work I wasn't interested. I still did my work but used every opportunity to disappear for long periods. After work Sabine picked me up directly from work. The cats are in the cattery, and we are off to Christchurch for the weekend. We stopped off at Oamaru's McDonald's. I was impressed at their organised chaos, yet Sabines chicken burger looked flat.
22 Sat-
This morning we woke up to the birdsong of song thrushes. It's a sunny day! We drove to Akaroa, the very big mountain range just south of Christchurch. Not sure, but I don't think I've ever visited (yes i have!). The village of Akaroa is in the heart of the mountain range, which has a harbour. This area is known for having a french presence. We had a nice salmon and cream savory muffin type things, with flaky pastry. With had these with a hot chocolate, sitting outside in the sun. In fact it was so nice we ordered two more. So tasty and different! The village had many gift shops, all worthy of visiting. Sabine booked a boat trip for us to see the Hector's dolphins. This was a pretty awesome trip to me, even though she was kinda disappointed. The dolphins were shyer than the Duskys. I think we had the better deal just staying put on the boat. Everyone else was swimming with them. After that, we had Akaroa salmon for lunch. The waitress forgot about us, when returning she insisted on a free drink on the house. I ordered a wine. It was very nice. We sat outside near the waterfront. It was very relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable. On the way home we stopped off in a few places. One was an estuary with 9 heron's, next was an area with blossom trees around, and lastly was Lake Ellesmere, where we went for a walk and saw 11 Royal Spoonbills around. 11!! Walking back to the car we even saw a white heron. The insects were immense here. They were everywhere. Once back home we had to both phone our parents and tell them what's going on with our jobs. We were going to watch a DVD using the BD player we got from Smith City, but the disk isn't recognised. This means that the guy that was supposed to turn it into a multi region player didn't do so. Instead we watched Sky High which was on TV.
23 Sun-
Just before 6am we were awoken to a knocking at the door. A guy was there, asking if 'there were any available girls he could take for a job', with his wallet wide open. We managed to have him repeat what he said, but after he realised we have no idea what he's on about, he skedaddled back into a taxi. Is this some type of prostitution thing? We contacted the owners and they came over. They were a couple our age. They couldn't understand why something like this would happen. They showed us the history of the AirBNB to prove they don't have repeated bookings here, and were shocked at what happened to us. They let us use their driveway for the day, so just after they left, we packed the car and walked to town. It was a straight walk into the town centre. About a 45min walk to the botanical gardens. The scenery was a mix of the old and new buildings, with ruins in between. We had brunch at the botanics cafe, then looked in the tropical indoor plant house which opened at 10am. The outside gardens was just as boring as I last remembered them, but I'm pleased the trees were all still there none the less. The cathedral is almost completely dilapidated. There is a new shopping district, complete with a brand new H&M, one of the most basic of clothes store worldwide, and yet not in Dunedin. Its a very nice big store too. I joked with Sabine the other day saying that Christchurch could possibly have one. Dunedin is a shit city which is too isolated even for the most basic of clothes store such as H&M. We asked someone for a Vodaphone store, and a guy said we could check out a shopping mall down the road. Turns out NZ also has the system of topping up your phone from within a newsagents. We saw a Ramen restaurant and decided to give it a try. My god it was good. They had really good Takoyaki and Karaage. The Ramen was okay but at least better than Dunedins. After that we went back to the car and drove home. Sabine drove an hour, I drove the next 2 or 3 hours until Oamaru, and then we swapped.
