another goodbye...

so tuesday was my last day fruit picking and since then ive been chilling a bit, did some shoping and had to let the headache ease out... which, of course, is now back, since im only a liiiiiiiittle bit hung over... =)anyways, this place and its people have been so bloody great, that i really dont want to leave! im off tomorrow, but still dont know where to... today i still have to pack which is quite a challenge! you should see our dorm - chaos! the longer you stay in one place the bigger the mess gets, nice. anyways, since its too depressing i dont wanna go on about how much fun it is here... ill let the pics speak for themselves... =)

no more apples for me!

pictures: too many apples?! cos thats EXACTLY how it feels like to us fruit pickers!!! and im tellin you this: ill never look at fruit in the super market the same way - those poor bloody bastards who had to pick them!!!

anyways... as you can probably see, the past two days have been rrreeeaaalllyyy shitty - in terms of picking anyway... two bins in two days - thats like 45 bucks!!! true, we were off sooner than 5 pm, but still, that aint worth it!!! the thing is, i had such a bloody bad headache yesterday that i just lay on the ground for like half an hour, hoping it would get better... it didnt, so i left early (like 2 pm) and spent the whole afternoon in bed... at least im staying somewhere i feel at home and comfortable... =) apart from my state of health everythings awesome! having even more fun than before, cos now we (people inour dorm) have become really close and were having a small party on friday cos 5 of us will be leaving napier at the end of the week... the picking today has been even shittier!!! i still felt really dizzy and sick and thats why i fell from the ladder in the first place... felt really dizzy, lost my balance, slipped and in the end fell from the second to the highest step... and hit my head on my bucket - so that was no good!!! didnt exactly improve my headache either!!! so after that i was pretty pissed off and just wanted to finish my one and only bin and get back to the hostel to have a nice rest in bed...

i am sooooo glad that this was my last day doing fruit picking... though i must say, ill still miss all the random 'tractoooooooooor!' shouts, the sunrises in the mornings (though we havent had those anymore since the daylight savings...) and of course all the people from work!!! its been a wicked experience and im glad i did it!!! =)hmmm, thats about it... still got 5 days left in napier - to chill for a change! will miss the people! =(
hope switzerland (or wherever you might be)isnt tooo bloody freezing?!
cheers

random stuff...

and another week has flown by... gosh, thats so horrible! this week hasnt been too good in terms of picking... i started out on monday, when i picked 3 bins - for the first time... so at least that day i had my own little triumph... on tuesday i started out so well, and kept pushing myself - even kinda forgot to make a lunch break - that i actually managed to make 4 bins!!! nice. but then on wednesday moral was really low with all of us, since the owner of the orchard and the QCs (quality control) told all of us pickers off, because apparently heaps of them had picked all the sh** we should leave on the trees... like bruised apples, too small, not red enough - the list goes on and on... thats why this week has been pretty shitty, cos it was mostly first picks, and most of the apples arent ready yet, and since we dont get payed hourly but per bin, we hardly got anything out of it... nice. but thursday and friday were actually even worse, cos i did 3 bins in 2 days - and for the pacific queens we get payed even less than with the other apples, which made it about 60 bucks for 2 days!!! because the picks have been so shitty and the apples arent ready for picking yet, we got the weekend off... thats why im gonna work monday and tuesday as well... i just really need the money for australia - even if its hard labour work!!! =)ive been so tired the whole week through that i always went to sleep at like 7 pm - just for a little nap, though - but could hardly get up after that... so i missed out on heaps of stuff this week, cos my room mates working for another contracter have had almost the whole week off and were doing stuff till late and left me sleeping safe and sound...
apart from work, this place is awesome!!! the people are absolutely great... i still have to see if i can push the dates a little further so i could stay till next sunday... last wednesday i went lazer striking (basically like paintball - just with lazers) and got my ass kicked by the boys... didnt stand a chance which, of course, hurt my sports ego. =)on thursday night i was sooooooo siked, that i could finally watch greys again, and i enjoyed it sooooooooo much!!! nothing better than some nice drama. =) on friday night i had another bbq with the french couple from work, whom i actually hadnt seen the whole week through cos they were always working in another block... and just last night we had a small celebration going on in our dorm, cos one of the girls in the hostel - a cool japanese girl - had her 30th birthday...
thats basically it from my part... could probably go on for ages, but i wouldnt really know where to start anyways, so i hope this is alright... =)
cheers

even in my dreams i just see apples!!!

ok, what can i say?! just came home early from a really crappy day (friday). the first two hours from 7 till 9 we were just driving around, going to different orchards, waiting, looking for a good pick... and only after 9 we could start picking... and the pick was really shitty!!! even for a second pick... hardly any apples, not the right colour, not big enough, bruised or whatever...nice!

but still, all in all this week has been great, and thats why ive decided to stay one more week. the people are soooooo great, and thats all that matters anyways! theres a french couple at work which is so much fun! julie and andy. weve already had a barbie (bbq) together und spent our free day (last sunday) at the beach, just chilling and after that got ourselves a nice portion of fish'n'chips... then theres charles, hes the big maori guy i learnt the haka from and hes really great too... its not only them, though... it really is just the whole atmosphere at work: from traktor drivers to bosses - all of them are pretty layed back and take the piss (sorry for the expression =) out of each other...
the people at the hostel are just as great! the owners are awesome and especially my room mates are bloody hilarious!!! were 2 girls and 7 guys (all but one fruit pickers). two of them are japanese - hardly ever talked to them - a guy from argentina (hes really random and we dont really like him!) and the other guys are from the uk, canada nad italy. carla, the other girl, is from canada as well and she rocks. anyways, all of us hanging out together, were having so much bloody fun - even if its just chillin on our beds all evening joking around...


saturday:
todays saturday and weve got the whole weekend off because there are no more fruit to pick at the moment and when we start again on monday there wont be a single day off for the next 4 weeks... but since ill be gone in 1,5 weeks that doensnt really bother me that much... =)
anyways... tonight all of us (our dorm) are going out big time! its st patricks day (irish national day), and since napier is full of irish pubs itll be great fun! =)we decided to go to a 2-dollar-shop and get ourselves some leprechaun hats for the night out... thatll be wicked!!! =)

the guys and me are also hoping to go and play paintball this weekend - would be absolutely wicked!!!

a few more random things (lost track of what i wrote yesterday and cant be bothered reading that again...):
the most beautiful thing about getting up at 5.30 every morning really is the drive: driving along the marine parade here in napier you see the sun slowly rising - every morning. beautiful!!! then youre just like 'ok, this is really worth it!' with the sea, the brightly lit clouds and sometimes even the moon its breathtaking. and then you remember that youre driving to work and suddenly it doesnt seem all that beautiful anymore... =)

the other night, as i think i already mentioned before, we had a nice bbq with some people from work. had a nice, juicy steak, (unfortunatley everyone had a few drinks and i couldnt cos i was driving), some great company and lots of fun, but since we all had to get up at 5.30 it was still a pretty early night and i left at 10 pm... now that is pretty good, aye???!!!

on thursday night two guys from my dorm and i went to the movies and went to see 'hot fuzz'. its the same guys as in shaun of the dead... so we all expected it to be funnier than it was, though it was a good laugh anyways... (isa, mi, cyru & erin: had to think of you guys =)

hmmm, thats about it... pretty much...
so to summarise: im working REALLY REALLY hard every day and am still having the time of my life! =)
cheers

i hate pears!!!

photos of the huka falls and the craters of the moon in taupo...





ok, so, its been a while... havent been able to write cos i have been working preety hard this week. before i left taupo on monday i went to see the craters of the moon. quite beautiful: you see heaps of mist coming out of the ground, smell the brimstone (less nice=)and see all the beautiful colours of the vegetaion and more... then i drove to the huka falls with two people from the hostel... they were really nice - especially their colour: a vivid, christal-like blue... beautiful!
anyways, left taupo and once again came here to napier... where i immediately arranged everything so i could start working the next day (tuesday). fruit picking. bloody hard work! as much for the mind as for the body! its 10 hours a day (from 7.00 am till 5.00 pm). since we get payed by how much we pick and not per hour we get to take as many breaks as we want, but usually we work through the dray with only minor breaks... the bins we get payed by are huge - bout 3 cubic metres or more... and it takes ages to fill one... on my worst day i earned 40 bucks (after tax) at the end of the day and on my best one 80... so it really isnt that much. ive picked pears and peaches so far... at the beginning i was so pissed off about the pears that i wish we did something else, but when we did peaches i wasnt sure if it was better of worse... =) the pears are just annoying to pick: you have to look for the right sizes, ste tree is really spiky (i look like i own a vivious cat!!!) and the stem still has to be on the fruit so you have to be careful picking them... nice. thats why i hate pears. =) peaches arent really any better, though... they are so much smaller, so it takes even longer to fill a bin (you also get more money, but it still is worth less), the trees weve had to pick were really shitty and the fluff is really ichy on your skin... sorry guys, only got one minute left on the internet.. so just wanted to say the people im working with are all awesome and i even learnt the haka from this maori guy (charles)... kaessenen: am gonna show you one day at the petrol station... =)
cheers

p.s. how do you reckons the touch of pink?! =)

not that much to tell...

well, so since livia and i separated on tuesday morning i drove straight off to egmont village (taranaki national park) and enjoyed a chill evening, cooking a nice meal... the next day i got up round 5.30 am to start the walk up mt. taranaki. the thing is, our visibility was about 10 metres all day long - nice. had to do everything in tevas as well, since my boots were giving me some bloody aweful blisters. going steep uphill and then downhill for some solid 8 hours isnt a picknick!!! especially if half of it is scree (sand and stones mixed together... itll take you 5 steps to actually get on 1 metre...). with the fogg, the clouds the endless slope everything we really felt like sam and frodo... at times even more like smeagol - when we were crawling on the ground to get any further... in the end we made it to the top: started at the car park at 1000 m and stood on the summit which has an altitude of 2518 m!!! good on me, aye?! =) at the top we only had glimpses of how the sun would look like, and then the clouds would come in again... though in these few moments where we kinda had a view, i really thought it was worth the climb... with a sea of clouds beneath us and everything... i wsa sow surprised, though, when there were heaps of sand flies on the top... you wouldnt think they got that far up... and they gave us a hell of a time!!! probably ate heaps of them cos they attcked our food - nice.
i was glad to get back to the hostel after 8 hours and i have to say my legs are a bit soar... =) no pain, no gain, right?!
since climbing taranaki (wow, i cna actually say 'i climbed a mountain!!! =) i had a lazy day in between and then (yesterday) i drove over here to taupo again, where im staying just for two nights. this morning i got up at 5.30 again (isnt that lovely?!) to see the start and the opening ceremony of the nz ironman. gosh, that water looked cold - wouldnt have fancied going in there at like 6.45 in the morning! the ceremony was pretty cool, though, cos they had a maori 'dance' and everything... when all athletes (more than 1000) started swimming it looked like heaps of fish jumping in the water... really weird... anyways, dont want to bore you any longer, so, cheers... =)