What is worse than cabin fever? The answer is van fever. We had spent the past week watching our money dwindle since rain put pretty much everyone out of work. Instead of making money we were using every resource possible looking for a place to live including online listings, real estate leasing agents, talking to strangers, checking grocery store community ads, emailing vacation rentals, and even looking into a few room mate options. Tony and I both agreed that sharing a kitchen and bathroom with strangers is just not something that we were excited about, but after 7 straight days of rain we were done with the van and had to be open minded. During this week of miserable weather I managed to lose my pair of Vibram 5 Fingers shoes. The shoes smelled so bad and refused to dry so I had to place them under the van nightly, and apparently one day we just rolled over them and left them for some unsuspecting backpacker to claim. We also had a visit from the Jehovah Witnesses. Surprisingly their range exceeds their door to door reputation in America and includes frequenting vans in the New Zealand rain. I have to admit I was slightly impressed they found me all the way over here, but it still wasn’t enough for me to take their educational pamphlets. To top it all off a combination of van life and rainy weather had prevented us from being able to dry our towels or wet jackets and things were getting down right soggy. I woke up Tuesday morning and noticed a small piece of mold growing next to the window and let’s face it, I am not going to live in a moldy van. Luckily there was a brand new posting at the community board at the Countdown grocery store for a sleepout. This sleepout is a two car garage (separate from the house) that has been converted into a little studio unit. It is furnished with a queen size bed, TV, 2 chairs, a bistro table, and a tiny kitchenette including a fridge, toaster oven, microwave, tea kettle (naturally), and several crockpots. However my dreams of indoor plumbing did not come true since we have to share the bathroom inside and wash our dishes in the house kitchen, as there is no running water in our unit. The owners of this house are extremely friendly kiwis and have other rooms rented out to seasonal workers, so it feels more like a bunch of people sharing a space rather than me invading on one persons property. At $200 a week for the both of us, we were sold. That is right, $800 a month for a studio apartment in the backyard of a house in a town of 26,000 people in rural New Zealand, but since minimum wage is $13.75 we just have to get over the prices. It includes wifi, Sky TV (satellite), and electricity, so all we have to pay for is the propane in the heater. We moved in that day and ironically it has not rained since then. After 4 days I am still not sure how many people live here, but there is the nice Kiwi landlords, the Italian guy who made us all some delicious pizza before he moved out, 2 Irish guys, a guy from Scotland, and there is a girl from England but I am not sure if she actually lives here or is just here a lot. The house is cute and decorated with antique floral dishes, quilts, the owners own floral watercolors, and there is a friendly cat named Carter.
Tony starts his new job Monday at Whitehaven Vineyard near Blenheim, where he will be assisting the vineyard manager in all aspects of winter vineyard work. I will continue to work for the same vineyard contractors,JNZ, unless I find something else, which is highly unlikely as my rejection letters continue to grow. I swear I really can use a cash register, make a cup of coffee, use a computer, and do a variety of basic tasks that New Zealand does not seem confident in. I keep telling myself that it is because of my time constraints, but I secretly know Tony is going to each and every one of those people and saying bad things about me just so I have to continue doing manual labor. Today JNZ had some work available so Tony and I went out to pick up some hours. Today’s task was clipping moldy grapes since this week of rain had caused many of them to grow spores, which spreads very fast. They needed the moldy grapes cut off and thrown on the grounds and who better to do it than two migrant Americans. It was a long moldy day, but at least we had a crockpot full of fresh vegetable soup waiting for us when we got home.
