Still in Christchurch...

After Facebook introduced new privacy laws and I couldn't log in for the past few weeks, there's finally something to report. I've been working for Post Haste or The Freight Hub for three weeks now and I'm already fed up. The job is incredibly boring and you can feel your brain cells dying... but I can now understand my colleagues (who all have a strong Kiwi accent). In the beginning, I had no idea what they were talking about) and can at least participate in the conversations. Moreover, more backpackers have joined the team and the three weeks have gone by quickly. At first, I wanted to spend the weekends in bed, but now that I'm used to the work and the new routine, I'm more active.

There's a gondola in Christchurch that takes you up a mountain. The ride takes about 5 minutes and costs $35-40. But you can also hike up, which I found to be a better alternative - until I was one-third of the way up. Then I quickly realized that just because the path looks like a walkway, it isn't and wearing skinny jeans was a pretty dumb idea anyway. But even from there, I had a nice view, but I went back and planned to do the whole way again on another day.

The weather in Christchurch is usually good enough for me to see the sunset from my workplace in the evening, but on the weekends when I can really watch it by the sea, the weather is bad. But one Saturday, I went to Sumner Beach - my favorite beach here in Christchurch - and although I couldn't see a proper sunset, I did see a pretty rainbow.

By the way, I quickly noticed at work that my skin is very prone to bruises - my legs looked terrible after the first week. Fortunately, that has improved significantly and the extreme shoulder pain (I worked with painkillers for two days) is gone. The boss here also knows how to keep his employees in a good mood. We have winter here (almost always 2-3 degrees at night, with luck 10 degrees during the day, but usually colder), and since we are surrounded by roller doors that are open all the time, it's correspondingly cold in the hall. I dress like I'm going for a winter walk and it's just warm enough even though I'm moving for 9 hours. Anyway, he bought us all fries, soft drinks, and chicken from KFC because we didn't call in sick despite the cold temperatures.

And because I wrote a nice little article about the Freight Hub, similar to a "Sendung mit der Maus" piece on the Pizza Factory, here it is. Basically, the trucks come to us that pick up all the letters and packages from the post offices. They are then unloaded into TCPs and manually placed on a conveyor belt, but they are sorted into "Belt" and "Non-Con." What cannot go on the conveyor belt (Belt) is brought to the center of the hall, where the Non-Con's (non-convertible) are manually sorted by location. Once on the conveyor belt, all packages go through a scanner that then takes the packages on further conveyors to the Southside or Northside department and from there to the respective city. Theoretically. The computer doesn't always get it. Essentially, we only collect the packages from the conveyor belt and pack them into containers, which are later closed and brought on dollies to be taken to the plane - the runway is right next to us. After 9 hours, there are definitely times when you wish you could get on the plane yourself...

Then there's DX Mail, which is basically already sorted mail that goes into a container and is then taken away. Sorting is done by Wellington/Lower Hutt; Lower Island; Lower Island Post Haste; Upper Island; Auckland Post Haste; Far North; and Auckland. Yeah, and I've been doing this for three weeks now and it looks like there will be another three weeks to go before I hopefully leave Christchurch with a filled bank account.

Also, I've started designing a photo book, but when Hannah made hers with the same provider, it all seemed easier and at the moment it's just driving me crazy. But I still have a few months to get it done. It's not like I don't have enough other memories of New Zealand. A nearly 15-minute video about my time with Hannah here (extremely entertaining), one in progress about my whole year abroad, countless photos on my hard drive, all the blog posts, and my travel diary. And then there's a New Zealand highlight story on Instagram. One would think I don't need a photo book anymore, but it would still be nice.

Last Sunday, I went on a day trip to Castle Hill. And it felt so good to be in the car for a longer time and drive around with a destination that wasn't work or the nearest supermarket! On the way there, I was already accompanied by snowy mountains that were more or less my destination. I thought that was great. I'm talking about snow here - not what they want to sell us as snow in NRW.

Castle Hill is basically just a meadow with a bunch of lime stones, but it just looks really beautiful. Moreover, the final battle scene of Narnia was filmed there, and some fights from Lord of the Rings, but since I still haven't watched the movies, I have no idea about them. Then I climbed a mountain there that made me say goodbye to life multiple times (is that a German sentence?!), and although I was glad to have made it to the top and see the pretty cool view (and stand in the snow, not much though), I was even happier to be back down. In a less dangerous area there, I found it much nicer.

On Monday, I was about to leave for work when I received an SMS from the temp agency saying that shifts were canceled this week and I shouldn't come. Which really sucks because I only get paid for the hours I'm there and so I've already lost about $150. On Tuesday, I wanted to know if I could come and now I can go again, but only for 4 hours from 3:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Which is $66 a day, approximately what I spend on camping, food, and gas in a week. Saving money will be a bit difficult now, but it's better to have a little income than no income at all. I'm also glad that I can shower in the evening again instead of in the morning, warm up before going to bed, cook more because I don't just bring cold food to work, and have somewhat normal sleep times. It's just the lack of money that bothers me. I hope that I can continue working there, even if it's only for 4 hours, until the end of June - I have to stay in Christchurch for at least that long before I continue my journey.

Otherwise, it's raining more than it's dry here (seems to be a normal NZ winter, but it's pretty uncomfortable), the campsite I'm on is completely deserted, and in a spontaneous move, I cut my hair... and immediately regretted it. But now I actually like it.